IQ (and YouTube drama)

[written by chronomax who writes here]

A lot of the time, people measure "intelligence", "smart", and "knowledge" on something called an Intelligence Quotient, commonly initialed as IQ. It's a number where one-hundred is the average and any number above it is "brighter", while lower numbers are "stupid". However, while an average IQ by definition is one-hundred, there is, to my knowledge, no comity that creates a world-wide or even nation-wide census where people are tested, so for all we know an IQ that is 110 could be relatively low. After that quick refute, I'm going to explain how these test prove nothing in relation to intelligence and a certain YouTube video and theskepticalheretic's response.


Let me first say that I have had an official IQ test- I'm not arguing about internet quizzes that promise an IQ but by an actual psychologist giving standardized tests. Also, I would like to say that I don't have any kind of grudge: in fact, I scored a one-twenty-five which allowed me into the Gifted program and can allow me into Mensa.

Simply put, and sorry if I use this argument a lot, but IQ tests don't mean anything without defining the "I". Unless we have a stable definition of Intelligence then we're playing an opinion game. I am not one of the people who will say that the mentally challenged kid or the flunking student who plays football are completely, 100% equal. My philosophy is that yes, some people are better at some things, some people know more than others. However, finding out how much you know is extremely hard: in fact, I play around with the idea of brains using electricity to communicate and disks that, like magnetism, can read the electrical pathways.

You also have to determine whether knowledge is inherently equal. Einstein, perceived as the smartest man to ever live, knew how to design a part of the atomic bomb. Would you say that is equivalent to knowing who invented basketball? While it's ridiculous to define, objectively, what knowledge is, it's even more ridiculous to think that there's a system of units like 1 ! or 1 kilo ! because, well, it's subjective.

There are a multitude of IQ tests, but the one I took was a combination of tests in varying things. Reading and mathematics were tested, while the more interesting precognitive tests were also included (believe me, I have a lot that I can argue about with school systems favouring reading and math). These recognition tests were sometimes rotary and mechanical like assembling blocks to form a pattern. There also included a part testing processing speed (I'm proud to be part robot- 99 percentile) where you looked at a key of symbols, then translated them according to a test- it's hard to explain without showing you.

I don't disagree with processing speed because that seems to be definable. Things like pattern recognition is also off: I can say that the odd one out of a group of, say, a cat, the sun, and a rock is the rock because it doesn't contain hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon, but the test might say that it's the sun because it doesn't exist on Earth. I especially can't say that reading and math are objective either for "intelligence",

Really, IQ shouldn't matter. Standardized tests including multiple portions of your brain would better be suited, kind of like how the SAT is incorporating a right-brained section.

Now for drama. The two videos up there are about the belief that the different races have different IQ's. It is common to claim that there are three races (Caucasoid, Negroid, and Mongoloid) which are different according to genetics. Now while I would say that race also needs a definition, I wouldn't disagree to say that there is major difference in DNA and structure with an African, a Chinese man, and a person from England. But, to say that there is a large or even noticeable difference in what we classify as IQ is ridiculous. People from the Asian continent (Mongoloid) are strict in education, the whites (Caucasoid) have imperialist histories and imposed prejudice so that only whites had good education, and Africa (Negroid) is struck with poor environmental conditions. But, if you send a Irishman and a Somalian to South Korea, you'll get the same results as the people living there. I would link, but it already was in the response video I provided.