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Comment by tomlin | Hacker News Reader

Sure, but what is the upper limit for peak performance for each individual? If you can't use IQ to compare to other people's IQ (because of innumerable variations imposing on peak performance) and you can't use it to compare to your own potential peak performance (because you don't know if you've attained it yet), then how or why is IQ relevant at all?

No one who does well on an IQ test likes to be told an IQ test means very little, keeping in mind that high IQ doesn't determine your success, or guarantee you any specific lifestyle.

IQ is more of a horoscope than it is a method of science.

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If one is not able to reach his peak potential, then his own problem and not an IQ measurement deficiency. I'll read the IQ value that you're able to reach, not the value that you might reach potentially if you make an effort.

Being able to reach your peak IQ potential consistently is part of the daily hygiene of eating well, sleeping well, exercising well. And it's also a question of making the effort. If I can't measure it, it means you don't reach it. Or at least not often enough.

On the other hand, I agree that it might be overstated. But having worked with people that don't have the best minds, you start to believe IQ is not just crap.

If you've suffered with a disorder of any kind that effects the brain, make an effort holds no meaning to you, other than possible ignorance.

If I use a measuring tape to record the length of a piece of wood - unless I cut the piece of wood, or damage it in some way - this measurement will always be the same. In the cold, it might shrink and in the heat it may expand - but I can measure those variations and account for them using the basic laws of math. Can you do the same with IQ?

> But having worked with people that don't have the best minds, you start to believe IQ is not just crap.

It's not that I don't believe intelligence varies, I just don't think we have the ability to measure it - yet.

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