In
genius studies,
IQ test is []
Overview In 1899, French psychologist
Alfred Binet (1857-1911) was appointed to the Commission for the Retarded, a repercussion of a new French law that mandated school for children ages six to fourteen, whose aim was to develop a “
test” to differentiate between normal and abnormal children, so to be able assign each to different classrooms.
In c.1902, French psychologist
Theodore Simon (1872-1961), while an intern at the asylum in Perray-Vaucluse studying abnormal children, began to work with Binet to develop a test that could measure intellectual development of children ages 3-12.
In 1905, Binet and Simon published their test for “inferior states of intelligence”, so to diagnose and thus facilitate the
education of the subnormals, categorized as either:
idiot (lowest state),
imbecile (intermediate low state), and
moron (state nearest normality).
In 1912, German psychologist
William Stern (1871-1938) reviewed the work of Binet and others, developed the idea of expressing intelligence in the form of a single number, the "mental quotient", formulated as one’s “mental age” (age according to ability) divided by one’s “chronological age” (actual age):
In 1916,
Lewis Terman modified Stern’s mental quotient concept by multiplying it by 100, according to which a score of 140 or above is genius level, hence the elusive blurry concept of a “genius IQ test” was born.
In 1982,
Ronald Hoeflin developed the "Mega Test", comprised of 48 questions, which he claimed is the first IQ test designed to
test for
intelligence in the 145 of above
IQ range.
In 2018, on
Twitter, there was an “IQ test debate” (
Ѻ), of sorts, between
Nassim Taleb and social scientists such as Gregory Cochran and Steve Sailer, on something to the effect that IQ test stops working in the IQ:135+ range; the following is one take on the debate:
“IQ measures something specific, linear reasoning so to say, or first order reasoning. So you have a problem, which is well-defined, and you know there is an answer, and you find the answer on the test. But in real life, where things are ‘complex’, and there aren’t obvious answers, or maybe no answers, to a particular problem, and things are just multi-dimensional, the IQ stops working, really. It works if you’re just doing pure mathematics, for instance. But if you’re an entrepreneur, then things are much more complicated. So this is the problem with IQ.”
— Jaanus Vogelberg (2018), “The Great Twitter IQ debate: Taleb Won!” (Ѻ), Dec 24
(add)
QuotesThe following are related quotes:
“I point out that Ayaan Hirsi Ali was given an IQ test in the Netherlands and did very poorly. Yet, it’s hard to imagine someone brighter.”
— Jason Richwine (2008), panel, at the American Enterprise Group, discussing (Ѻ) new book by Mark Krikorian, director of Center for Immigration Studies
See also●
Mega test IQ●
Mislabeled geniuses and IQ tests
