Down with Intelligence!!
And that sort of thing!!(Father Ted, 1990’s)
Do you know when you get something in your head and it's just there, lurking, peeking out now and again, but never really going away!!! Well since the start of this current module I've been like that, and the mind worm is the language we use!! I've a gripe with it, well not all of it, it's great for explaining objects, theories, it's amazing in songs, but put it under pressure and it fails.It kinda started with this module, we were investigating IQ and Intelligence testing, so we do a series of tests, a score is produced, and from that you are intelligent or not so intelligent, but it struck me, is that really what's being measured? and if it's not, why call it intelligence. For instance, I know an animal who has been domesticated with four legs, two ears a button nose, paws a tail. Ok I'm describing a Dog but I'm also describing a Cat or a hamster or Rabbit, so it's could be either of these examples but I wouldn't call them all dogs for ease, but that's what seems to happen with intelligence tests, so society can easily put a number beside your name, and I think more frequently or not it isn't for the participants benefit. I think every single human has great intelligence, imagine you were stranded on an alien planet, you couldn't quite grasp your surroundings and couldn't understand the noises coming from the aliens, how long would it take you to start mobilising and start to understand the alien language? 6, 7, 8 years, yet every child born into this world, adapts to its environment and has a grasp of the language enough to communicate within 3 to 4 years, how amazing is that? Jump on a few years we start testing these peoples intelligence and give a score which has ramifications throughout their life. Are we even testing intelligence? We test how much they have learned to a specific point in their life, without taking into account their environment to that said point. We test their ability to memorise and recover data but we know not everyone has the same mind filing system. We test so many things, so why clump it all together as intelligence? Does this in fact show our lack of intelligence and imagination or is a cat actually a dog! Maybes and maybe it isn't language I have my gripe with at all, maybe its us as a society.
I could go on and on about this, I have no problem with testing, just let's accept every living thing displays intelligence rest the “I” word there, and let's start being precise about what tests are measuring
In other news I finished red dead redemption 2 . Yeeeeehaaaa
Ceya cowpokes
Comments
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Intelligence testing works as a very rough guide of one type of ability. They can be practised and one can quickly increase ones score. Even within IQ tests, there are language, numerical, 3D modelling, pattern matching and other types of test and different people rate well or badly on different scales.
Even worse are personality profile tests, a pet hate. Employers pay a lot of money to use noddy profile tests that are totally unreliable, they may as well only recruit Taurians or people born in September. The crappiness of one's journey to the test centre is often the greatest factor in the result obtained. The favourite, Myers Briggs, was even acknowledged by its creators that it cannot be used for recruitment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers%E2%80%93Briggs_Type_Indicator#Reliability
But it is cheap and easy to put people in boxes and call it 'science'.
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You are spot on Simon, it baffles me that something deemed important for calcifying people isnt more specific, when the ramifications can be life changing as you say in the employment market for instance. We have just started delving into personality and testing of it, that is really interesting subject,
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I did once trash a job interview process by pointing out the eight question long personality profile test was bogus. The HR numpty told me they are highly reliable and accurate. In the ensuing 'discussion' (during which I decided they could keep their job and they decided they definitely did not want me) she explained the company that had sold them the test assured them it was very accurate and reliable.
A couple or so years ago I used the Barnum statements to demonstrate the Forer Effect to my colleagues. We had covered it in a psychology module and my colleagues were talking about how uncanny it was the astrology bumf in the Metro was always so accurate. So I ran off a bunch of sheets of the statements with the different signs of the zodiac. I asked member of the team what their birth sign was and gave them the relevant sheet of statements (all sheets having the same statements). I then got them to mark the accuracy of the prediction on their sheet. They all agreed their predictions were either quite accurate or very accurate. I then explained what I had done, but, sadly, all I think I achieved was to reinforce their opinion about the accuracy of astrology.
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To be fair, employing Taureans seems a solid model to me
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"To be fair, employing Taureans seems a solid model to me
"
Now you're talking bull, too!