wrote:

You're kidding. That doesn't sound right to me (about the IQ). I'm not
going to swear by it because I'm not sure, but that seems pretty low
to me. Mine is quite a bit above that and I am hardly a genius.

I don't actually know what the different range cut-offs are, though -
what is considered developmentally disabled, what's average, and what's
genius? And then, of course, the IQ only tells a little bit about a
person's intelligence - there's usually a lot more to it than just how
well a person performs on logic, computation and language tests. I'm
not saying it's completely invalid - it's the truth, but not the whole
truth.

There's also the "EQ" - the emotional intelligence. It certainly plays
an important role in a person's overall intelligence, as much if not more
than the IQ. Mine is rather low, I have to admit. :-O (I don't have a
number, but from how it's described, I can tell that I wouldn't do very
well.) And whatever skills I do have in that area, I've gotten *during
my adulthood* by consciously working at it. Lord knows I was let loose
on the world as a young adult with hardly any skills to navigate the
social universe!


IQ tests are designed to produce a normal distribution, which means IQ
tests are usually designed to have an average score of 100, with 68% of
the population scoring between 85-115. They were originally invented to
identify developmentally delayed children, and you can find lists of
exactly which scores were considered to represent which level of
disability (or ability, on the other end). I expect nowadays children
who don't seem to be doing well are tested in a variety of ways to try
to figure out just what their problems are.

As you point out, IQ tests don't cover all of what 'intelligence' is now
understood to include. It can predict school achievement - but so can so
many other characteristics that people often combine them in studies
instead of using just one. And even when much more weight was put on IQ
testing than is now, there were 'underachievers' who did worse in school
than predicted by their IQ score, and 'overachievers' who did better in
school than predicted by their IQ score. So IQ is definitely not the be
all and end all of intelligence testing - but people still seem
fascinated by it.

--
Cheryl