From: "Lurker" <lurker@mail.tcbi.com>
Date: Thu, 28 Nov 1996 04:38:22 -0800 (PST)
To: dthorn@gte.net (Dale Thorn)
Subject: Re: IQ and age
Message-ID: <3.0.32.19961128064857.006aec20@mail.tcbi.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 10:47 PM 11/27/96 -0600, Igor Chudov @ home wrote:
>Dale Thorn wrote:
>> The biggest influence on IQ are the so-called "engrams" (fears, super-
>> stitions, anxieties, etc.) planted in your brain early in life.
>> 
>> Some of this can be overcome with mental exercise, and awareness of what
>> negative influences are holding you back.  Much easier said than done!
>> 
>> IQ as they attempt to measure it can probably be most easily explained
>> as pattern matching skills. Unfortunately for testing, and although you
>> can be every bit as intelligent at 70 as at 10, your pattern-matching
>> skills change and evolve over time, so any given tests will only apply
>> (more or less) at the age group they are optimized for.
>> 
>
>Would you dismiss strong correlations between IQ and success in life 
>and academia as something irrelevant?
>

I would.  If you look at who has the oppertunities to go college you will
note that those who are good at taking tests (SAT, ACT, or IQ) are those
who get to go.  You will also note that money also breeds success, or can
someone give me an argument for the fact that there are more rich kids
going to Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and the like than poor kids. (These
schools almost gaurentee success.)

If you want to find a correlation look for it in money not tests.  And if
you are insistant on finding it in tests, ask why the scores are as they
are (was the test written to the advantage of one group over another or can
one group buy the "A" with special courses which teach the skills needed to
score high.)