Well, that 88.68% higher than 13391 stat could still put you in the first decile if a few hundred thousand people have taken the test.

To map the raw score out of 60 to a population (normalize) you would need to control for biases like free time. For example, with the cooperation of institutions, it could officially replace an hour of school or work. You can look up such normalization tables for this test.

No, not in any way. Ability to be present for a test does not have any bearing whatsoever on cognitive ability, nor does any test on the planet account for whether or not the taker is present.

Though the sample tests there are behind a login page.

>i feel like a website like this goes against that

what do you mean "a website like this", HN? or the destination of the link at the top of this discussion?

The link for this discussion goes to the test on the same site that you link to.

Are you saying people need to make their way to that test from the front page of the site following particular breadcrumbs? that people from HN shouldn't go there till they're ready to participate in a scientific manner? i just don't understand your point...

>IQ has a lot of flaws, not the least of which is its usage outside of academic research, as a measure of job aptitude and hiring potential

Isn't IQ one of the best predictors of job training success, across both civilian and military, blue collar and white collar?

It's also one of, if not the single most generalizable predictors that we know of right now, even more so than nationality, race, gender, SES (socioeconomic status), parental SES, you name it. It predicts just about everything - from hard biological measures like reaction time and brain mass to lifetime odds of being in a car accident (distinct from causing a car accident - higher IQ people are statistically less likely to be hit by another driver), divorce rates, lifetime income, longevity, the list goes on and on. IQ is not the strongest predictor for every one of these, but every stronger predictor for any one of those fails to predict as many things as IQ does. Parental SES, controlling for IQ, provides no predictive power for your reaction time, for instance, despite predicting educational attainment better than IQ does.

The critique that IQ is an imperfect proxy for g is totally valid.

The self-assuaging fantasy that g itself doesn't exist is a classic example of a psychological defensive mechanism of rejection, one rooted in a need to defend a worldview that holds all people as inherently equal, when we're measurably, biologically not.

IQ is limited because it only looks at one facet and it generalizes a lot. Tests that look both into ability and aptitude, and especially those who split them by domain are much more relevant and applicable to real world scenarios.

The self-selection bias is definitely something to consider. I’d guess people who feel relatively confident in their intelligence are more likely to take the test.

Or is that message the first challenge of the test...

> I’m now 43 and other day I was looking up test papers for the 11+ (school entrance exams for 11 year olds) and thinking - damn this is HARD!

Are you me? I've been helping my daughter study for the 11+, and some of the questions I really struggle with (I'm 44). However if you look up the answers and see how the answer is calculated/resolved, it does seem like it's a case of just learning the method.

This does make me think that to pass the 11+ you basically need to pay for private tuition. We'll see how well my daughter does in a few weeks time (when the 11+ test is conducted).

Likewise with a lot of these cognitive IQ tests, if you know the method or tricks you can basically pass no problem... but I'm not 100% sure it means you're "smarter" than everyone else.

IQ is age-adjusted. Without the adjustment, it drops quite a bit.

Some cognitive abilities diminish more slowly with age (so-called crystallized intelligence), but unfortunately, fluid intelligence drops noticeably much earlier in life than most people would care to realize.

You just need to lean into what you know instead of solving novel problems. Or be comfortable knowing that it'll take longer than it used to. Typically, you can still arrive at a solution if you could have before, but you'll need to put more work into it. Sometimes, a lot more work.

- A homeschooling father helping with SAT prep

FWIW, after I started treating sleep apnea my mental sharpness increased a lot over the course of about a year. (I’m 39)

100% - used to be so much sharper with math and abstract math concepts in my 20s and 30s. Could be just a use it or lose it thing though?

Do you think it’s really the fact that you were younger or just that you have a lot more responsibilities now?

I’m in my early 30s and I definitely feel less sharp than in my 20s, but I also feel like my priorities have changed and I have more responsibilities at work and at home, so I have much less ability to just be able to do very long periods of focused studying/thinking like I used to in my 20s

I asked my parents about this as they are both accomplished people and work in STEM/academia.

They both mentioned feeling less sharp when they hit their mid-to-late 30s, which corresponds to… when they had kids. I know correlation isn’t causation, but seeing all of my coworkers who have young children now all mention they’ve had a marked decrease in mental acuity for work due to sleep deprivation (and having to prioritize their kids), I’m going to guess this is it.

I also wonder if you just had a month to focus on refreshing what you learned in school how quickly it would all come back.

Not me. More than half of my 20s were mostly defined by working service industry jobs, hanging around with party kids, staying awake until the sun came up, and basically getting by doing the bare minimum for everything. It was probably the lowest point of my life cognitively. It wasn't really until sometime around my mid-30s that I started feeling pretty sharp and performing well on cognitive tests. I didn't grow up in an environment where there were any cultural expectations of achievement in anything. I had to find all of that on my own through a lot of trial and error. That being said, who knows where I would be today if a nice chunk of my 20s had been less dumb? I ruminate about it fairly often.

If you work with some piece of software everyday for 10+ years... I guarantee you the Jr programmers will have a look of terror as you bring them up to speed in a project. Speed is a function of practice, and not potential cognitive gifts.

One just becomes hyper-specialized with age if you aren't careful, and don't explore new technology or hobbies. One Phd physicist I knew often said he was only an expert in Spoons, and while that probably wasn't really true... it did allude to the irrational competitiveness of the insecure. =3

You describe it as if it’s a bad thing. It’s your brain working as intended.

Now, you can be strategic about staying sharp about topics that interest you.

I'm in my 50's and I feel smarter than I did in my 20's. I'm less energetic certainly, but I can focus better now. And I feel like my knowledge and understanding of mathematics, politics, economics, sciences, history, people, etc, is much better.

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In clinical contexts, cognitive tests are used for diagnostic purposes. They are important to determine exactly what sort of ongoing care and support the person needs in order to thrive. In these sorts of contexts, it's not hard to imagine the utility in knowing someone's cognitive ability. It's also not arbitrary—a good cognitive test will give insight into the ability to perform everyday cognitive tasks.

On scientific front, it's very useful. Its use outside of academia is has however been very problematic.

There are studies that empirically measure drop change cognitive ability from lead poising, oxygen deprivation, sleep deprecation, post-burnout, environment distraction, noise pollution, temperature, aging, drug and alcohol use during puberty, smoking, school teaching style, etc. etc.

Notable is that these are either population metrics or compare each individual with themselves. This is what IQ and other similar tests were meant for. Comparing one person with another is nonsensical and a flawed use of these metrics.

This is where where IQ has fallen and become a rather bad metric. People are familiar with the problems scewing results. IQ test performance and education level is highly correlated, which is supposed to be compensated for in the final score. But poor education quality in certain regions make the statistics easily used to argue quite unsavory ideas.

It’s not an arbitrary concept. It’s reliably measured and correlated with lots of factors we care about: https://www.vox.com/2016/5/25/11683192/iq-testing-intelligen...

The benefits have been huge. The Chinese realized this a thousand years ago when they invented civil service exams: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_examination.

There are plenty of benefits to studying it, and plenty of downsides to not studying it. I recommend “The Neuroscience of Intelligence” by Richard Haier from Cambridge Fundamentals of Neuroscience in Psychology for a comprehensive, accessible, and modern review.

> Whose life has actually improved for the better?

High-IQ children in low income families. In so far as they are targeted by social programs that give them better educational opportunities.

If you view academics through this kind of lens most of them should be disband. Like practically everything outside of STEM. Actually 90% of math and science too.

A great part of science breakthroughs is mostly made by people who just want to know more, for the sake of knowing more.

Because as a race, we’re curious. It’s a way to improve ourselves. Facing a challenge like this leads to learning, innovating new tools and techniques, greater understanding of how we are, how we work on the inside.

Long term programs such as Duke’s TIP have provided significant evidence that kids who score highly on the things they measure are correlated with high levels of professional achievement, such as patents. It makes sense to identify talented individuals and provide them with the resources they need to reach their potential

https://today.duke.edu/2016/06/whenlightningstrikestwice

>resources trying to stack rank humans on arbitrarily defined concepts like cognitive ability or intelligence.

"arbitrarily defined concepts like cognitive ability or intelligence" correlate very well with objective metrics like educational attainment and income.

>the amount of harm that has already been caused?

Like what?

It is generally good to have an understanding of how the world actually functions.

Psychometrics has clear value. Cognitive ability predicts academic/job performance (Schmidt & Hunter 1998, Psych Bull), and standardized tests reliably forecast college outcomes (Kuncel, Hezlett & Ones 2004, Science). Conscientiousness adds further predictive power (Poropat 2009, Psych Bull). The science is robust. The issue is the discomfort it causes, not lack of benefit or predictive power.

I just think they're neat.

It’s just a business, and it sells because institution leaders find it useful to have some convincing ideas to back up their positions, then the cottage industry it spawns defends it, and we all arrive in the world with established ideas like this in play. There are many little distortions like this in society that experience eventually puts the lie to. It’s the landscape to navigate, to play along with. A huge part of what makes a strong society is how many of us know what the game is, who can also put on a good performance of it. Imagine being in an improv group and people keep calling out that it’s pretend.

From your article, which claims that intelligence is reflected in how "foldy" your ears are:

>Imagine that you know that you aren’t so smart. It’s difficult to do well in class. Then you hear of this theory, go check your ears in the mirror, and find that your ears are not so foldy. Maybe they’d feel relief at understanding why things are the way they are. They could then endeavor to do better for their kids and the next generation armed with the knowledge of prenatal nutrition and its benefits

What kind of crackpottery is this?

>My personal opinion is that only people with these biologies are not Aristotle’s natural slaves, only able to live in the worlds of others.

This is the kind of fatalist intelligence eugenics that makes me recoil.

No, Cambridge Analytica and University of Cambridge are not the same Cambridge. Neither is Cambridge Chip Shop or the dozens of other businesses associated with Aleksandr Kogan with Cambridge in their name. It's a city in England.