I’ve never really heard much about it in Japan, but in Korea people are obsessed with the IQ test. They’re also into EQ (Emotional Intelligence Quotient), but that’s a whole different beast to tangle with.
Whenever talking with someone who wholeheartedly believes in IQ results, I try to explain that the IQ test is largely ignored in Western academia these days, because it isn’t a valid system. In fact, the IQ test had been criticized immediately following its creation as an unreliable test of intelligence, even by the test’s progenitor, Alfred Binet.
The scale, properly speaking, does not permit the measure of intelligence, because intellectual qualities are not superposable, and therefore cannot be measured as linear surfaces are measured. (Binet 1905)
You’d be surprised at how many IQ proponents are unswayed by these kinds of arguments, though. That’s why I made this print-out to give to them; so they have tangible evidence right there in their hands.
3 Comments
January 30, 2008 at 2:34 pm
fishx3=ate it all up
did someone say EQ?
http://surrealu.blogspot.com/2004/09/test-your-eq-clay-way.html
/spam
January 30, 2008 at 8:28 pm
I took your EQ test. I see you subscribe to the Freudian school of thought.
No, actually you might be a branch off of Freud. If it was Freud, it would inevitably come back to penis envy.
February 12, 2008 at 1:59 am
seconding claytonian. EQ not IQ
If you haven’t read it yet and have the time to burn Emotional Intellegence by Daniel Goleman has a lot to say on the subject.
I tried Clay’s quiz and went with Gary on both questions (hey, it was a pattern). Apparently I am “one sick puppy”
btw,
If you want to add comment notification to your blog (so people know when you reply to their comments) I have a post explaining it.
http://nipponster.com/dailyj_copy/2007/12/19/friends-dont-let-friends-blog-without-comment-notification/
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