[HPFGU-OTChatter] Intelligence (was feeling sad)

[Shaun Hately]

> Shaun wrote:
> 
> > IQ tests are the same. They have flaws. They do miss some kids 
> whose abilities are 
> > outside the areas that IQ tests measure (generally logic and 
> reasoning ability). 
> 
> Yeah, I guess that's the kind of thing that makes me think they miss 
> the boat.  From teaching, taking care of children, being a student, 
> and just generally being a living human being, I think of 
> intelligence as a multidimensional (infinite-dimensional) phenomenon 
> that includes not only logic and reasoning but other things such as:

The problem is that if you  include too many things, you can wind up making the 
term virtually meaningless. Educationally speaking, it is very important to be able 
to identify specifically where issues are - by using a tight definition of intelligence 
(as is done in IQ testing), it allows us to look for problems revealed by the testing. 
Other things are important as well - some of them can be significantly more 
important - but if you cast the net too wide, there is a real risk that if a problem is 
noted, you won't know where to look.

Intelligence is generally defined for psychological purposes as the ability to 
comprehend cognitive complexity - a very tight definition. While this isn't the same
as logic or reasoning ability, it correlates very highly with them (estimated 
correlation is better than 0.9) - you don't often get correlations that high in 
psychologicial tests. It still means it's not perfect - but it's very close, and extremely 
useful.

To give an idea of how these tests are useful - studies have shown that teachers 
can, if trained properly, identify around 60% of gifted kids.

Proper clinical IQ tests identify about 80%.

Significantly though - IQ tests will catch over 90% of the kids teachers miss - and 
teachers will catch over 70% of the kids testing misses.

Use one method - and at most you get 80% of the kids. Use both, and you get 
around 95%.

Most gifted programs today use both methods for this reason.

The other things you mention - some are related to intelligence. Some are very 
different, though very important, and I think need to be considered separately.

> I am aware that these are as much emotional or moral qualities as 
> intellectual, but that just goes to show that "intelligence" is not a 
> category of the brain separable from the rest of the package.

Well, to me, I have had to treat it that way. I am in the business of helping people 
deal with their gifts in a very specific area - the realm of intellectual giftedness. I'm 
an expert in that area. But I am not an expert in dealing with their creative skills, 
and especially not with their empathic skills. If they need help in those areas, they're 
better off with someone else.

These things need to be viewed separately so that problems can be dealt with 
separately. There are, of course, occasions where a person may need help with 
multiple areas or issues, and the best way to deal with those may be as a whole. But 
it's easier to bring together separate areas if that's needed, than to have to try and 
break down things into components on the run.

It might have been better if some other term rather than intelligence had been used 
for what these tests measure - but the inertia of a century is now behind the use of 
that term, and having had to face the problems of people denying the existence of 
gifted kids, and of ideologically motivated attacks on their needs, personally I have 
become very resistant to the idea of using a different term - any changes are 
exploited by people as 'proof' that the tests are invalid, or shouldn't be used. And 
that harms people.

It's not that I think 'my' definition is the best one - but it's a tool I need to keep kids 
learning, to keep kids happy, and in some cases, to keep kids alive. So I'll use it. 

> It makes me think of Binet, I think it was, who when asked, very 
> reasonably, what intelligence is, replied, "It is what my test 
> measures."  Now that was a man who knew the definition of a valid 
> test--which few parents or teachers do.  I.Q. tests 
> measure "intelligence as defined by I.Q."--but that is not what most 
> of us think of when we say "Person X is so intelligent!" or "Person Y 
> is so stupid!"

It is my experience (-8. Better than 99% of the high IQ people - and that's hundreds 
of them - I know would be described as very intelligent by those who've met them. 
Most people do seem to equate the ability to think logically and to reason well with 
intelligence, in my experience.  
 
> You are absolutely right, though--I have never seen an I.Q. test 
> (aside from taking one when I was 5 or whatnot), just "improve your 
> I.Q." books and such.  They may well measure more than I fear they 
> do.  This leads to another problem, of course, which is that kids get 
> a label put on them that only a few experts understand.  But that 
> could be addressed by people explaining to parents what they are all 
> about.

That's generally done now - though it's still not universal. A lot of mistakes have 
been 
made with the way these tests and definitions have been handled. But we have 
learned 
from those mistakes - and we try not to make new ones (-8


Yours Without Wax, Dreadnought
Shaun Hately |webpage: http://www.alphalink.com.au/~drednort/thelab.html
(ISTJ)       |email: drednort at alphalink.com.au | ICQ: 6898200
"You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in
common. They don't alter their views to fit the facts. They alter
the facts to fit the views. Which can be uncomfortable if you happen
to be one of the facts that need altering." The Doctor - Doctor Who:
The Face of Evil | Where am I: Frankston, Victoria, Australia