If IQ & SAT data can no longer be correlated as measures of intelligence, then that is no bad thing. It is now recognised among quite few who have investigated the various methods attempting to quantify "intelligence", that traditional IQ tests are far from being a reliable or unbiased indication of true intelligence.

Many of the tests used were originally comissioned to test the "intelligence" of recruits for the US Army, early in the 20th Century, to classify them into potential Officer / NCO / "cannon fodder" categories. They have been shown to have been based on a number of misconceptions and prejudices, combining several culturally controlled factors, including there being a strong element of intentionally class/racist agenda in their original purpose (Gould, S.J. - ref. below). Not only in some of the fundamental concepts (e.g. including blatantly white=good/black=evil in some of the original tests) but also in the way the questions were formatted, and the way the actual testing was carried out.

In the first instance, the tests as given made assumptions that those taking them had completed at least basic education up to mid teenage years, and were familiar with various aspects of current technology - e.g. requiring the ability to read the written test instructions in a comprehending manner without assistance, and the ability to rapidly recognise visual symbols/images/objects which would be far more familiar to highly educated &/or midddle & upper income candidates, but obscure to poorer and less educated ones (obviously the latter group included disproportionate numbers of those from ethnic minorities, especially at that time.)

A couple of examples of the sort of cultural bias behind some of the tests:

Candidates might be required to indicate which was the odd one out among pictures of a trumpet, a guitar, a violin, and the top part of an old HMV-style gramophone (the turntable and the big sound horn.) Easy for those who have played a musical instrument &/or know the difference between those musical instruments and an old mechanical player of recorded music, but totally meaningless to those poorer rural folk who had never seen a record player, and whose only contact with music might have been sitting in a bar listenting to a local musician playing the harmonica, or singing in the local church choir. (And if they couldn't read, they might never even have picked up a book with the relevant pictures in it!) Assuming they recognised that the images all had music in common, how would they choose the odd one out among what looked like two stringed instruments and two wind instruments?

Another "odd one out" test might consist of a crucifix, a star of David, a crescent moon with star, and a snowflake. No problem for those aware of the religious symbolism of each of the first three, and the fact that number 4 represents an ice crystal, but if you had only ever been in a Christian church, and never had the remotest contact with any of the other religions, you might (assuming you could read the question in the first place!) either choose the Crucifix because you recognised it and thought none of the others were religious symbols, or the crescent moon & star, either because that contained two objects and the others only one each, or because that was the only one with any curved lines in it.

Just two examples, but the original tests were riddled with such biased questions; some obviously so, some much more subtly, and their deliberate bias has been well-demonstrated (Gould, op. cit). Even in later years, those formatting revised IQ tests to try and make them more objective, have struggled (unsucessfully, I think) to come up with a format which gives some sort of true quantification of general intelligence, whilst totally avoiding any element of cultural bias.

Pete N.

Ref: Stephen Jay Gould, "The Mismeasure of Man" (I can't quote the publication date because I gave the book to a charity shop a few weeks ago, just after I finished reading it!)

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