It begs the question: what is the purpose of these tests?
If we look a they are used for, it is often part of an admission process to institutions and thereafter jobs that have high economic and social value. Academic institutions favour skills that are a very narrow definition of intelligence. They concentrate on the traditional Three R’s - reading, 'riting and 'rithmetic. For that they owe much to classical education that goes back to the traditions of Ancient Greece.
Students of our foremost academic institutions are famously unprepared for life outside the delivery of essays in a timely fashion. What skills they learn in analysis and criticism is countered by what they lack in other important sklls. Fighting a war, caring for children, building a home, fixing an engine, growing food, having a relationship, dealing with a bully. There are so many skills that could be associated with intelligence. Why pick such as small subset?
I would suggest IQ tests are, like many other tests. Narrow in focus and constructed in an arbitrary manner. Moreover, the structure of the tests are simplistic paper and pen exercises that can be gamed by repetition and practice.
Why?
I would suggest that the reason is economic. They serve as filter to ration access to expensive academic institutions and the endorsements that lead to - big money jobs, power and influence. In their defence, they are at least provide some consistency. On the other hand they are also something of fig-leaf. They disguise the fact that those with the right training know how to game the system. Those from influential families, who have friends in high places get prefferential access to the pathways to power and wealth. The IQ test is pseudo science, they are convenient for institutions as part of their admissions process because they give the appearance of being fair and rational, but in fact they do not bear up to examination. An academic institution that based its science by the standards of IQ test would have little credibility.
Intelligence is a very broad subject and definitions are often ambiguous and subjective. Little wonder that tests that purport to measure intelligence are themselves as questionable as their underlying assumptions.
All tests are based on an assumption that they are a meaningful and useful measurement of some ability. Some are well constructed and there is a good correlation with that ability, if it can be exactly defined. There are problems with many tests, but intelligence tests are the ‘joker in the pack’ because how can you measure something that cannot be defined?
There is a great deal of pseudo scientific nonesense concerned with measuring human beings and it is at its worst in disciplines like psychology, that make grand claims based on questionable statistical evidence. IQ test arose out of questions regarding the lowest tier of a human ability and attempts to distinguish between the rather unenlighted medical categories of the 19th century that sought to distinguish between Imbeciles, Cretins and Morons. Like Darwinism, it was a idea that was hijacked for political purposes. As the professional and technical class grew in industrialised economies, it needed a way to control access to education and training. The IQ test worked well to to keep out the unwashed and unconnected whilst pretending to be a meritocratic measurement.
The idea of measuring intelligence is an interesting one, it deserves some proper research than all this Victorian IQ test nonesense that carries so much dubious baggage.:dubious: