Comment by parsimo2010 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by parsimo2010 | Hacker News Reader

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I won't say that IQ is a perfect measure of intelligence. But there is something there that people can spot. I don't know if you're familiar with American (public school) gifted programs, but they are typically done by referral- someone identifies a student that they consider "gifted" and the school does an IQ test. If their IQ is above some threshold the student is admitted into the program and they get a different curriculum. While the benefit of gifted programs is sometimes called into doubt, teachers have an incredible hit rate in terms of IQ scores. Teacher referrals have a success rate (the student IQ beats the threshold) far higher than the ~5% that you would expect if there was no link between classroom performance and IQ scores. Source: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ746049.pdf

There's more to intelligence than just classroom performance, but there is definitely something being measured by IQ tests and it's related to intelligence. Just because it's not perfect doesn't mean we need to discount it completely.

The older I get, the more I think that social intelligence - the ability to know what other people are thinking, the ability to convince other people to your way of thinking - is as important, if not more important, than the analytical intelligence measured by IQ, because it's through social intelligence that things get done in this world. I am not aware of any test or measure which are widely used to judge how socially intelligent someone is.

This isn't quite what you're talking about, but a full-scale IQ test like the WAIS tests a lot more than just the "what is the next symbol in the sequence" kind of IQ test that is associated with Mensa and others.

It contains somewhat open-ended knowledge questions you'd likely have been exposed to in your culture, reaction time tests for finding particular symbols among many others, solving mechanical puzzles, definitions of words you will have encountered, mental arithmetic and others.

This isn't quite the same as measuring one's ability to communicate well, understand others' intentions or influence others. But it does test a much wider spectrum of cognitive skills than what many people believe about IQ.

It's also worth noting that success in the real world also depends on other traits than all the ones we've discussed. Some notable examples which probably aren't talked about so much, is the tendency to stubbornly work through a difficult problem (out of pleasure or innate drive), the capacity to routinely get a lot done or coming up with and thoroughly exploring new (particularly unconventional) ideas.

Beyond a certain point, I'm a bit skeptical that social skills in the absence of other intellectual strengths would generally lead to spectacular success. You won't lead a team to success if you don't know where you're going. Although I suppose you could to a certain degree deduce the right direction from the less eloquently communicated knowledge of others. But that does require the ability to distinguish good ideas from bad.

Yes, social intelligence absent analytical intelligence does not lead well to lasting success, just as vice versa, analytical intelligence absent social intelligence does not lead well to lasting success. In the situation where someone has some social intelligence, and a great deal of analytical intelligence, they might be able to convince someone that their ideas have merit, and might be able to lead others, but there might be difficulties. In the opposite case, where someone has some analytical intelligence, but a great deal of social intelligence, when they recognize good ideas, or recognize that someone is highly competent, then even if they couldn't have come up with those ideas or don't have the competency, they can gather large forces to get the ideas implemented.

Important for what though? Life success? If so there's probably some truth to this, that someone with high social intelligence but low analytical intelligence has a good chance at a successful career, whereas the reverse can be a rocky road.

However, in order to make good decisions and complete good work at an individual level, analytical intelligence is extremely important. Without analytically intelligent people, modern technological society would be impossible.

Of course when someone combines high social and analytical intelligence, their success can be magnified, and they are positioned to lead complex organizations.

It would appear that many of the current societal problems aren't simply technical issues that can be solved by analytical intelligence, but rather social ones that appeal to the emotions- Keynes' animal spirits, perhaps- of the masses.

It's rather shortsighted to downplay either component at any level.

Something as soft as the IQ you described was invented by psuedoscientists to perpetuate race-based classism. If you're on top then your kids are going to be scoring higher on those IQ tests. But yeah, it's nature, or whatever.

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