Talk:Intelligence

Urgh... I will try and work on something here when I get the time. If anyone else wants to jump in though, feel free. This page will cause conflict. I should put that into the 'predictions' part of the wiki.Tielec01 (talk) 09:29, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Are these "kinds of intelligence" the conclusions of scientific principles and research, or are they the sort of thing self-help types invent to sell books to people who score poorly on IQ tests?

Flynn Effect
My hunch as an actuary is that the Flynn Effect (where later generations score higher on IQ tests than the prior generations) has to do with things like the FDA and vaccination. Diseases like measles cause physical and mental retardation, so it stands to reason that the generation that didn't suffer all those easily preventable diseases would would be 'smarter' than the ones that did. Iodine deficiency caused something like a 15 IQ point deficiency in rural areas, and fortifying salt with potassium iodide (chemicals!) was a huge benefit. I think it's important to mention this because 1) it means the Flynn Effect levels out once we have no more deficiencies, and 2) the Flynn Effect would reverse if people like Jenny McCarthy have their way. Thoughts? Maybe I should make a Flynn Effect page? CorruptUser (talk) 19:00, 10 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Holy moly. Can-o-worms.  The Flynn effect is complicated and not correlated with any one thing to that degree.  Suffice to say almost any developmental road bump can have negative effects on intelligence, and many have been cleared up in first world nations over the past hundred years.  Ikanreed (talk) 19:56, 10 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Oh, I know it has dozens or more causes, but my initial hunch is the bulk are vaccines and nutrition, followed by education. Well, welfare too but I consider vaccines and nutritions as being a very big chunk of welfare.  Looking on wikipedia, yeah, vaccines and nutrition account for 2/5 of possible explanations.  Keep in mind that hookworm infections were VERY commonplace up until fairly recently, and, well, the old timey stereotype of Hispanics being lazy?  That's why. CorruptUser (talk) 21:01, 10 February 2015 (UTC)
 * The less I think about hookworm for the rest of forever, the happier I'll be. Ikanreed (talk) 21:05, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Intelligence and achievement
''First, a person with an IQ of 180 doesn't necessarily have a better chance at a Nobel Prize than someone with an IQ of 115. Higher IQ doesn't always equal high achievement.'' No. High IQ (or better say, high intelligence) is an indicator that your mental abilities are greater than rest of population as seen from the numerous references from the text. That means, for example, if you start doing academic work and gaining knowledge (all with other factors such as good surrounding, stimulation and good nurture and family relations, good will etc) you will have better chances to have academic success (e.g. Nobel Prize winning). Probably not pretty big when you take other factors, but your chances will increase for sure, as you have greater mental ability for problem solving, etc. So, if you take two people, one with IQ of 125, another with IQ of 180, and get all other conditions to be the same (which is probably in reality almost impossible, as every person is different, so, different internal conditions like will, interest in specific area in science and problems, etc, but this is thought experiment), the one with IQ of 180 will do better (there is a higher probability for that). This is not criticism of the meaning of that paragraph but it was pretty poorly explained and could be easily misunderstood. So, yes, intelligence is a good indicator for academic success but not the only one and yes, it is increasing your chances for academic success, but it doesn't necessarily mean that you will succeed.--95.180.82.17 (talk) 18:40, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

Intelligence DOES decline with age
I have removed "Intelligence Declines with Age" from the section "Ten Bullshit Myths About Intelligence", because: McLaghing (talk) 16:36, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
 * 1) The paragraph contradicts itself, by saying first that "the average 70-year old person [...] has a type of intelligence that can't be measured by any IQ test: wisdom." and then that "Wisdom and knowledge are considered independent of intelligence by many researchers."
 * 2) Studies show that intelligence, both "crystalized" and "fluid", does decrease with age, see the graph from

Smarter older siblings
I have removed the point Older Siblings are Smarter from the section Myths about intelligence for two reasons:
 * 1) It is really confusing. First it states "many have concluded that older siblings of the family tend to be more intelligent", then "a person with an IQ of 180" but IQ is not equal to intelligence; then "doesn't necessarily have a better chance at a Nobel Prize" but, again, winning a Nobel Prize is not the same as being smart; finally, "Furthermore, the reason for many older sibling's higher IQ levels may be more environmental than innate. Older siblings are given more responsibilities by the parents and greater attention than their younger siblings" and this does not contradict the idea that older siblings are smarter, it just says that their intelligence could be due to environment instead than biology.
 * 2) According to a study on 20.000 people, it seems that first-born sibling are indeed a little smarter on average, although the difference is small..

McLaghing (talk) 16:07, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

Is this truly a stub article?
More good info here would be great, but it seems awful long to be called a stub, doesn't it? Glitch (talk) 05:54, 30 July 2020 (UTC)
 * You're right. It's not a stub. I've removed the template. Spud (talk) 05:59, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

Didn't Spearman propose S factors?
I don't think Spearman thought intelligence was a monolithic entity since he proposed s-factors of intelligence that was a component was specific to a certain aspect of intelligence.