Talk:Intelligence quotient

I will be adding numerous references and bibliography entries.

Last year I began a major revision of a working paper project (begun in 2006, based on shorter research notes I began compiling as early as 1993) largely on this Wikipedia topic. As the talk page templates note, "This is a controversial topic that may be under dispute." As a courtesy to the editors who have long been here, I will note that I will begin adding the dozens of books and articles I have at hand for my non-Wikipedia project (a literature review for popular audiences interested in the primary source literature on IQ testing) to this Wikipedia article. At first I will add books and articles from various points of view to the bibliography. Then I will add more references to verify the statements that have already long stood in the article. (I hope to add specific page numbers to both the references I add and the existing references that I am able to look up here.) At some length, I expect to expand sections with additional facts, perhaps add a few subsections, and from time to time do substantive edits under the NPOV principle, as the sources report various points of view. Thanks to all of you who have already worked on this very detailed article. I am lucky to have access to a very comprehensive academic library at which I have circulating privileges, so I am delighted to add some V and NPOV to various Wikipedia projects. WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 03:42, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

That sounds like a great job. I'm looking forward to reading your additions. Good luck to you! :) Lova Falk talk 08:19, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Here is an update on that project. You may find it helpful while reading or editing articles to look at a bibliography of Intelligence Citations, posted for the use of all Wikipedians who have occasion to edit articles on human intelligence and related issues. I happen to have circulating access to a huge academic research library at a university with an active research program in these issues (and to another library that is one of the ten largest public library systems in the United States) and have been researching these issues since 1989. You are welcome to use these citations for your own research. You can help other Wikipedians by suggesting new sources through comments on that page. It will be extremely helpful for articles on human intelligence to edit them according to the Wikipedia standards for reliable sources for medicine-related articles, as it is important to get these issues as well verified as possible. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 17:22, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

I have begun substantive edits to this article based on sources that other Wikipedians can check in the Intelligence Citations list. All of you are encouraged to suggest new sources for that list, which will be useful for editing quite a few articles on Wikipedia. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 15:48, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Race

An editor is putting a table into the race section which doesn't summarize anything in the race and intelligence article which is the main article about that. This article should not have a whole load about a subtopic which is not in the main article about the subtopic. In fact it should not have a whole load about the subtopic in the first place and especially not tables, it should just summarize what the subtopic says - the relevant points in the subtopics lead. Dmcq (talk) 14:37, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Well I've reverted it twice but the editor seems to think I'm on some ideological mission. Amazing the way people attribute to others what's most probably true of themselves. So over to somebody else to assess. Dmcq (talk) 14:55, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Hello

How accurate are IQ online tests? Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.198.207.155 (talk) 03:25, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Stanford or Emory?

Next to Lewis Terman's name there's a redlink - [[Emory University School of Education|Stanford University]] . Emory University is in Georgia, there's no mention of Emory on Terman's page but there is Stanford_University_School_of_Education - is that what should be linked here? --24.23.193.132 (talk) 11:58, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Brain size and weight

There is a small but significant link between brain weiht and intelligence, see Height and intelligence. The following is wrong plus anyway a citation would be needed for the following which was inserted:

"Brain size is not correlated to intelligence: Anatole France (1017 gr), Einstein (1209 gr), Gauss (1490 gr), etc... being the main value 1300-1400gr. (It seems someone erase this sentence, but it is true, so i'll continue to put it here). People that correlates brain size and intelligence are doing pseudoscience, called: phrenology. Specifically: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology#Method and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology#Pseudoscience"

The ip has been warned about the threat to edit war and directed here. Dmcq (talk) 20:15, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

g and Cattell-Horn-Carroll theory not modern theories?

They are the mainstream theories in IQ research and Cattell-Horn-Carroll theory is a new as any of the others mentioned. I propose correcting this. Acadēmica Orientālis (talk) 16:56, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

"Spearman's g theory was the dominant theory of intelligence." It still is. Acadēmica Orientālis (talk) 17:10, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Real-life accomplishments

I tried to find some of the contents of the 'Real-life accomplishments' section in the references provided. Not helped by that no page numbers are given as I have not been able to find any of them in the cites given. Are they actually there does anyone know who has better access than google preview? Dmcq (talk) 14:13, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

I have the book by Kaufman. The page numbers are pages 126 and 132.Acadēmica Orientālis (talk) 14:33, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, wanted to check a recent edit and I couldn't. Dmcq (talk) 15:33, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Removed material

"Heritability" is defined as the proportion of variance in a trait which is attributable to genotype within a defined population in a specific environment. A heritability of 1 indicates that all variation is genetic in origin and a heritability of 0 indicates that none of the variation is genetic. There are a number of points to consider when interpreting heritability. Some examples:

• Heritability measures the proportion of variation in a trait that can be attributed to genes, and not the proportion of a trait caused by genes. Thus, if the environment relevant to a given trait changes in a way that affects all members of the population equally, the mean value of the trait will change without any change in its heritability (because the variation or differences among individuals in the population will stay the same). This has evidently happened for height: the heritability of stature is high, but average heights continue to increase. Thus, even in developed nations, a high heritability of a trait does not necessarily mean that average group differences are due to genes. Some have gone further, and used height as an example in order to argue that "even highly heritable traits can be strongly manipulated by the environment, so heritability has little if anything to do with controllability." However, others argue that IQ is highly stable during life and has been largely resistant to interventions aimed to change it long-term and substantially.
• A common error is to assume that a heritability figure is necessarily unchangeable. The value of heritability can change if the impact of environment (or of genes) in the population is substantially altered. If the environmental variation encountered by different individuals increases, then the heritability figure would decrease. On the other hand, if everyone had the same environment, then heritability would be 100%. The population in developing nations often have more diverse environments than in developed nations. This would mean that heritability figures would be lower in developing nations. Another example is phenylketonuria which previously caused mental retardation for everyone who had this genetic disorder and thus had a heritability of 100%. Today, this can be prevented by following a modified diet which has lowered heritability.
• A high heritability of a trait does not mean that environmental effects such as learning are not involved. Vocabulary size, for example, is very substantially heritable (and highly correlated with general intelligence) although every word in an individual's vocabulary is learned. In a society in which plenty of words are available in everyone's environment, especially for individuals who are motivated to seek them out, the number of words that individuals actually learn depends to a considerable extent on their genetic predispositions and thus heritability is high.
• Since heritability increases during childhood and adolescence, and even increases greatly between 16–20 years of age and adulthood, one should be cautious drawing conclusions regarding the role of genetics and environment from studies where the participants are not followed until they are adults. Furthermore, there may be differences regarding the effects on g and on non-g factors, with g possibly being harder to affect and environmental interventions disproportionately affecting non-g factors.

See no good reason for removing this material so I propose restoring it. Acadēmica Orientālis (talk) 10:38, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Regression towards the mean is a statistical phenomenon that occurs when an outcome is determined by many independent factors. If an outcome is extreme, then this occurred because most of the independent factors agreed by chance. This is unlikely to occur again so to the next outcome is likely to be less extreme. If IQ is determined by many factors, genetic and/or environmental, then they must mostly agree in the same direction in order to produce an extreme IQ. The child of a person with an extreme IQ is unlikely to have all the factors agree so similarly so the child is on average likely to have a less extreme IQ.

People in professional occupations have on average 25 points higher IQ than unskilled workers. For their children the difference is 21 points. This is in itself not evidence for genetics or environment since the environment for the children likely differs greatly with it on average being more stimulating for the children of professionals.

See no good reason for removing this either. Acadēmica Orientālis (talk) 10:42, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

"Criticism" by Binet

The test created by Binet is very different from today. He only looked at children, the test was more of a knowledge or skill test, it produced a mental age instead of normalized scores, and so on. An enormous amount of development and research have been done since. As such this "criticism" is only of historical interest and should be removed. Acadēmica Orientālis (talk) 11:33, 6 February 2012 (UTC)