IQ

Today when we were talking about the problems with the Social Darwinism model of failure, we talked a lot about IQ and IQ tests. I think IQ tests are pretty ridiculous and I'm happy that we don't have to write any sort of test like that in order to get into university. We talked about how being book smart doesn't mean you are necessary smart in every situation. An IQ test might be and probably would be a test you would study for if you had to do it in school. Therefore you are memorizing a bunch of information that perhaps you haven't actually learnt or are not going to remember 10 minutes after writing the test. A written test can only test so much and doesn't test all areas of knowledge. Therefore an IQ score is a glimpse at a piece of someone's intelligence at that given moment in time. Some people aren't good at writing tests but are extremely smart. As already mentioned some are smarter in other areas that they test might not include. Some people might have a talent for memorization therefore can regergitate a bunch of information for the test but might not really know what they're talking about. There are so many factors that go into this that really don't make an IQ test reliable or valid.

We also discussed how you are then given a number which can decide your future or what classes you are able to take or not able to take. Based on everything I just said it most definitely not right to deny people the access to certain things because of one lousy test that most likely isn't even measuring properly a person's knowledge and intelligence. As noted in class with the problems of this model, what skills are defined as intelligence? Who gets to say what is most important? A scientist might think knowing how to conduct an experiment and getting results is intelligence, however a basketball player might think knowing how to get by an opponent and scoring a basket is intelligence. There are all sorts of different intelligences that people possess and an IQ test should not be able to tell someone they are stupid because they didn't do well enough on some test.

I think that is enough ranting about this topic! I obviously don't think very highly of IQ tests!