Why the IQ test does not measure intelligence

"The scale, properly speaking, does not permit the measure of intelligence, beca
use intellectual qualities are not superposable, and therefore cannot be measure
d as linear surfaces are measured."
Alfred Binet (Creator of the IQ Tests), 1905
For many, many years now, psychologists and other IQ supporters have been taking
IQ tests, distributing IQ tests, and comparing their IQ scores with their peers
, thinking that it meant that they were smarter than others. But that's wrong. T
he IQ test does not measure intelligence, it is a socially constructed concept t
hat attempted a method of measuring intelligence. The thing is, it cannot be don
e. Everyone is smart in their own way, no one is completely over-superiorly smar
ter than another.
Take a person with 200 IQ and put him in a room. So let's say this person with 2
00 IQ does not know how to play the piano, do you expect him to be able to play
Bach's Toccatta and Fugue in D minor instanly, by just looking at the music shee
t? I think not. Do you expect him to learn any faster than a person with 100 IQ?
A lot of people would say yes to this questio, but it really depends on whichev
er one knows the strategy to improve. The person with 100 IQ might be able to pl
ay 20 other instruments excellently, and is considered a prodigy since he's only
15, but, given the IQ test, he doesn't know much about words or math or history
, and therefore got a low score on it. This 15 year old kid isn't considered an
idiot or average, he would be a lot faster in picking up the notes, since he can
most likely play by ear, while the 200 IQ man does nothing with his life.
Tahe the 200 IQ man again and give him some painting tools. Would he be able to
paint anything artistically well at his first try paitning? Probably not. If the
people with the highest IQs are so smart, why do they suck at so many things? T
hey might be good at taking their IQ tests, but you might already be able to tel
l, they suck at a lot of other things people with a lower IQ are way better at.
The main problem is, creativity isn't considered the same as intelligence. That
is wrong, creativity is also intelligence. School kills so much of our kid's cre
ativitiy these days that most adults completely separate the two categories. Get
ting the highest IQ in the world will lieterally gain you no useful skills in li
fe. IQ scores can be improved, with study and practce, but that certainly doesn'
t mean you are any smarter than anyone else. You might know how to do some math
problems, but if you don't even know how to socialize with your peers, then what
's the point?
Some people actually think that everyone is born with an IQ. I say that is wrong
. Einstein, and I am not saying he is dumb, he is a genius of course, couldn't e
ven remember his phone number, address, how to tie his shoes, and a lot of other
things. But he still discovered that energy is convertible to mass. How did he
figure that out? There were thousands of other physicists working in their labs,
doing their experiments, while Einstein was working at a patent office. The thi
ng is, Newton had a law back then, or something that was considered one of Newto
n's Fundamental laws of physics, and it was that time is always the same, no mat
ter what. The physicists back then would not defy any of Newton's laws. Einstein
however, he was never exposed to this law, and therefore was the possibly the o
nly person in the world that thought time could change depending on a person's s
peed. That's how he came up with the theory of relativity, it was his creative t
hinking that lead him to that. But, if you took Einstein, or any of the other sm
artest people you know, and put them in a place with little education, like some
where in Africa, that person would almost 100% not turn out to be the genius he
originally became, because his environment now became different.
Written by: PeonHero on 3/21/11