How can you believe in IQ as a quantitative measure of intelligence when it is not an interval scale? At most, you can say one is "more" intelligent than other, but "how much more"? We all know that the difference between 101 IQ and 100 IQ, and 0 and 1 IQ is not the same, therefore the scale is merely ordinal and a relatively useless measure for quantitative analysis. in fact you cannot even take the average of ordinal numbers so to speak of an average IQ is incorrect. this is basic statistics.
it also does not take IQ to become a doctor, it takes the ability to memorize textbooks to go through medical school but no critical thinking or hands on work that public administration, physical science, computers and engineering needs. I'd definitely trust the lower IQ doctor because he will go by the book and won't think outside the box, you don't want doctors thinking outside the box and diagnosing you with some rare disease that requires immediate open heart surgery when its a cold.
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Mods,
I promise that the following would be my last "off-topic" post here. Please do not delete it. I thank you. )
Dear below_freezing,
While I can easily refute your detailed remarks on IQ sentence by sentence to the extent of word by word since they represent some of the very basic misunderstandings on the subject, I choose not to do so, as being a Chinese you deserve a much better response.
Due to my heavy schedule, I usually spend very little time here (minutes or so ever other day) to mainly have a gauge on what’s new in China’s defence tech. Therefore, I hope you understand that I don’t usually dive into some unrelated topics like this one, or the significance of Freedom of Speech of Liu and his wife for example, any deeper than the surface. Being a Ph.D, although I still don’t know many things, I do know one thing well that I rarely indulge myself in any unscientifically proven concepts, and IQ is not one of them.
IQ is the borderline key area of interests and inter- disciplinary link of multiple modern sciences such as microbiology, molecular biology, child development, sociology, forensic psychology, gender studies, educational psychology, personality psychology, psychometrics , anthropology and genetics to name a few, many of them being strictly quantitative in nature. While there are still many questions left to be explored, the very existence of IQ
is beyond dispute proven by aforementioned science disciplines through rigorous researches, both qualitative and quantitative, by generations of renounced scientists in every part of the world. Some of these people are Nobel Laureates in the related fields, or in the Nobel winning research labs, with many honourablely listed in Academy of Sciences of their corresponding countries.
I firstly thought you were trying to be PC here, now as a friend I am obliged to recommend you a simple reading list if you are interested in further discussions along the line:
1. Prof. Richard Lynn and Dr.Vanhanen’s research work, starting from IQ and the Wealth of Nations.
2. Prof. J.P. Rushton’s research work, starting from Race, Evolution and Behaviour.
These two will provide you some basic building blocks on IQ and related matters, and would answer some of the basic questions/doubts you and No-Name raised on the subject.
3. then you can go on to start reading some scholarly journals related to IQ research such as Harvard Educational Review , the Science Creative Quarterly, Brain Research Reviews, Oxford University Press, American Journal of Psychology, Nature Genetics, Behavior Genetics Quartetly, Journal of Molecular Biology, American Journal of Psychiatry, and American Journal of Medical Genetics, to name a few. Pay attention to research papers (yes, many of them are quatitative) of Jensen (1969), Herrnstein and Murray (1994), Kimberling, Pennington & DeFries (1994). Finkel D, Pedersen, McGue, & McClearn (1995), Wahlsten D. (1995), Hill, Chorney, & Plomin(2002), Winterer and Goldman D. (2003), Plomin R and Spinath FM. (2004), to name a few.
4. Then as an intermediary level amateur, you might want to blog a bit, may I recommed Dr. Steven Saylor who maintains a comprehensive related online database and a popular blog on IQ.
If you are a hardcore quant guy, I can PM you at a proper time if you like of a pre-moderated quantitative IQ blog maintained by a professor as his hobby. The professor holds Harvard Ph.D in Theoretical Physics and has been a scientific advisor for several high profile projects funded by the US government and China. By the way, several ongoing projects of Chinese Academy of Sciences would further exhibit the Chinese interests and their pivotal role on the IQ related researches.
Unfortunately, the Western liberal establishment and their mainstream media, pampered by human rights movement since 70s, have systemically discredited and even censored IQ –related scientific researches and findings, for the sake of being politically correct. Their brainwashed propaganda ilk go even further of insanely discrediting some of the most renouned scientists of our time for their measured remarks, as if they were automatically racists or Nazis whenever IQ is mentioned. Dr. J. D. Watson, the discoverer of DNA and the "founding father" of modern Molecular Biology, was amongst the most recent high profile cases. Prof Lynn and Prof Rushton mentioned previously also endured heavy liberal media bias and censorship for their research. A shame indeed!
I hope this would help.
Regards.
