Hacker News Reader

> accuracy on Raven matrices

That's exactly how intelligence in measurement setting is defined. That's how the word is defined. What's interesting is that it correlates with so many unrelated real world outcomes. And other definitions and measurements do not.

View on HN

You're apparently alluding to "IQ" without saying it. But once you get above "low IQ" performance on these tests, their predictive value trends to zero. The correlation is very one sided (as explained by people like Nassim Taleb). Also, when I say "real world problem solving", that doesn't mean "income". A predictor can look powerful even if it's not measuring real-world skills, as long as institutions use it to distribute opportunities and labels that later show up as "job success".

I never heard of the institution that distributes opportunities based on the result of IQ test. I only heard about IQ test for police and for military.

I'm not sure if that's what you mean by "one sided", but while you can find high IQ people in all walks of life it's very easy to find them in high achievers. And it goes way beyond lack of low IQ people. Even average IQ people are rare there.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com