[geeks] Mensa

[der Mouse]

> That depends.  It used to be said that average IQ was 100.

I thought the mean IQ was 100 *by definition* - that if a test shows
some other mean, then its scores need postprocessing to become IQs.

> However, [...] so obviously the test wasn't so much a measure of IQ
> as it was literacy, language comprehension, and personal experience.

Rather, I would say that one's literacy, language comprehension, and
personal experience are factors that contribute to one's IQ.

> It's actually quite hard to know if IQ tests even mean anything.

Some early intelligence researcher - I think it was the Binet whose
name formed part of "Stanford-Binet" - was asked "what is
intelligence?" and rather cynically replied "it is what my test
measures".

> The problem I have with IQ tests is the same I have with things like
> SAT: they favor people who are good at taking tests, which isn't
> necessarily people who are smart.

No, but there is a distinct positive, if imperfect, correlation - the
details, of course, depend on what you define "smart" as.

> It's pretty much proven that people with a photo memory can "study"
> for IQ and other tests and do very well, so what does that mean?

Cynically, it means that a photographic memory is a significant
contributor to high intelligence.

I'm not even sure that's wrong (though I'm not sure it's right,
either).  It all depends on what "intelligence" means.  If you believe
Binet (or whoever it was), why, then, it's right.

> Intelligence is a measure of how much you can regurgitate?

Among other things.  A good memory is one of the pieces that can
contribute to the complex complex we call "intelligence".

> It's probably impossible to create a test that actually measures
> purely a particular skill.

I'm not sure of that.  But in the case of intelligence tests, the
challenge is to measure something that isn't even well-defined, which
is probably impossible.  So instead we measure something that seems
vaguely close, and then define IQ to be whatever it is such tests
measure - a complex of many things: memory, logical and mathematical
ability and knowledge, linguistic abilities of various sorts, some
societal knowledges, test-taking savvy, and probably assorted others.

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