Talk:Intelligence

False dichotomy

The current lede glaringly contrasts g with the trendy "multiple intelligences". G is not a "unilinear construct" which the noveau multiple intelligences transcends. Rather, g was from the beginning the abstract correlate of these disparate concrete factors identified by regression. 72.228.177.92 (talk) 12:18, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Considering that this article is the general (ahem) article on intelligence, rather than the psychometrically oriented article Intelligence quotient, my problem with the current lede is that it focuses much, much too much on the psychometric approach to intelligence and not enough on approaches to intelligence found in the disciplines of philosophy or computer science or animal behavior. The lede here should be considerably broadened, and that might cure the emphasis issue that you mention (although perhaps not entirely to your personal satisfaction). -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 13:23, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

G (the parameter) and IQ (a particular statistical measure) are not the same thing, though of course they are related. G is the thing which would be the proper reference of general intelligence, at least in humans. If this article had a larger scope than that then that would be a different story. 72.228.177.92 (talk) 19:43, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

So only problem is with that current first sentence of the second ¶. Suggest it just be removed. For this article to in fact be a general article about intelligence, not just human, would be great but it probably wouldn't work with existing wiki policies. 72.228.177.92 (talk) 20:34, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

There isn't any Wikipedia policy problem at all in having broad articles—at least as broad as those found in other encyclopedias. There is always, in an all-volunteer project, the difficulty of finding editors who can devote time and effort to finding reliable sources and writing new article text to fill out neglected sections of articles. I'll try to do what I can when I can. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 23:12, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

BTW, Stupidity is tagged for deletion. If it were handled like ugliness it would be moved as a section here. 72.228.177.92 (talk) 19:58, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Split page: Human intelligence

This page should be about intelligence, not human intelligence. More than 50% of the page addresses just human intelligence. While it's true that the vast majority of people are completely anthropocentric and might never agree with it, intelligence is just a property of a machine or an algorithm. My suggestion is: move the human-related sections to Human intelligence, keep the definitions of intelligence in this page, and add a universal definition of intelligence.

There are plenty of universal definitions of intelligence (don't call them "mathematical", it scares people):[1][2][3][4]. Most of them are similar. Don't be scared by the maths, it's really easy to understand: intelligence basically means the ability to predict the next terms in a sequence "1,3,5,7...". This is equivalent to data compression. When we do science, we are trying to predict the output of the experiments.

Meanwhile I'm going to move human intelligence to a section of the article. --81.38.208.25 (talk) 12:24, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Agreed that this article, by its existing contrast with other articles (and by expressed editor interest) needs to be broader and to take in more encyclopedic information about nonhuman intelligence. One place to look for such information is the Further reading section already in this article. Another place to look is in the source list on my user space, which I am continually updating. I plan to edit this article along those lines (expanding the treatment of intelligence in the animal intelligence and artificial intelligence fields, and contracting the treatment of the human psychometric tradition) as I begin more edits of article text. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 14:29, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Noting the suggestion of split tag on this article, I would say, no, there is already a bunch of articles on human intelligence. This article merely needs to be rewritten to give more more prominence to animal intelligence and machine intelligence, and summary style here and wikilinks to the existing articles will do the rest. Condensation of content is needed here, yes, but I think not a split. I'm delighted to hear from other editors what they think. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 15:06, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Reminder of source list for articles on intelligence.

A huge portion of the talk page here was just archived, so this is a friendly reminder of sources we can all share as we edit this and related articles. 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 all aspects of 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) 15:09, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Actual distribution is χ² not Gaussian

Have looked over space of articles on this topic and don't see this fact expressed anywhere. It's fairly well know that the actual distribution of g/IQ deviates significantly from a normal curve with more in the tails than would fit a normal curve and the probability peak density skewed very significantly to the right. 72.228.177.92 (talk) 23:50, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Source, please? WP:V. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 03:25, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Britannica for one, recounts the basic fact mentioned, someone will need to do more research for the math stats specifics, quick googling when I started this thread didn't turn up anything readily. Trivially, all empirically sampled PDFs tend to the Gaussian limit, the actual PDF that best fits the observation is what's at issue and its parameters are what is missing (the basic function, degrees of freedom, etc.). The difference between a chimp and the average citoyen is the same as that between the same mean gaussian normal individual and the some 50K+ Americans over 4 σ so the mathematical details of this speciation has considerable import. 72.228.177.92 (talk) 11:07, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

What's the full citation to that page of that print edition of Encyclopedia Britannica? I rather suspect that some author is outrunning the data in reaching that conclusion. Check the source list for other possible sources. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 14:53, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

EB 15th Edition, Macropædia Vol. 9 p. 675, as is clear from the image. 1980 printing. The author is H. Carl Haywood. Haywood's expertise lies more on the left hand tail, but see no reason to doubt what he put in EB about the right. Likely the information is in the sources in your list or can gotten thru references in them or at the end of the Haywood Macropedia article, can't spend more time on the wp content myself. 72.228.177.92 (talk) 19:04, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

That's exceedingly old for a general statement about IQ distributions. All the major brands of IQ tests have been renormed more than once since then. Only the Wechsler tests had minimally adequate norming samples back in those days--the norming samples for the Stanford-Binet in that era were very bad, and I have sources in the source list to back up the statement that the Stanford-Binet norms were inadequate. We would need more recent, and better replicated, information to change article text to make any unusual point about IQ score distributions. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 20:15, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

LOL. Did do a second search on "actual distribution of iq" and did yield some results but not going to follow up. In general if you look at the empirical plots, including those of Lynn and Vanhannen(?) you see the spikes on either side of the mean. It's not a changing thing (over the last 4 or 5 decades in North America anyway) except that Flynn effect shifts the central peak. 72.228.177.92 (talk) 21:49, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

My rerun of the search you mention doesn't inspire confidence that there is anything that comes from a Wikipedia reliable source to back up changing article text on that point. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 02:50, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Your perspective appears to be narrow, parochial, shallow and excessively personal. In time no doubt the facts I relate will make it into main space if they remain as persisting conditions. 72.228.177.92 (talk) 10:24, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

In Our Time

The BBC programme In Our Time presented by Melvyn Bragg has an episode which may be about this subject (if not moving this note to the appropriate talk page earns cookies). You can add it to "External links" by pasting * {{In Our Time|Intelligence|p00545l3}}. Rich Farmbrough, 03:16, 16 September 2010 (UTC).

Encyclopedia articles on intelligence or intellect for wikipedians

While browsing in academic libraries to search for sources to update this and other articles on Wikipedia, I have discovered that there are numerous multi-volume specialty encyclopedias in English and in some other languages with articles on intelligence or on intellect. For example, there is more than one published encyclopedia of psychology, more than one encyclopedia of philosophy, more than one encyclopedia of social science, more than one medical encyclopedia, and various other encyclopedias that have one or more articles about intelligence. One of the best ways to improve this article here, which I intend to implement after this notice on the talk page, is to read all of those articles generally, taking note of what reliable secondary sources they cite, and then to rewrite this article from beginning to end, aiming at encyclopedic treatment and sourcing. We can do that in our own Wikipedian words, after the example of existing published encyclopedia articles on intelligence. It would be great to hear from you about what encyclopedia articles on intelligence you can find in libraries in your community. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 01:07, 20 October 2010 (UTC)