Has the measurement of IQ done more good than harm, if so what are the pros and cons of these measurements.

-- yvonne obeng (yo031@mdx.ac.uk), May 07, 2003

Answers

This is much too complex a question to answer here. Spend a little time on the internet using the phrase "IQ controversy" which will turn up a lot of literature. Whole books have been written about the IQ issues, especially as it relates to class, race, and related issues.

-- Hendrika Vande Kemp (hendrika@earthlink.net), May 07, 2003.

What Hendrika said is true. One thing you might consider, however, when poring through the material available: the question is not just whether IQ tests are prefect or imperfect, but rather whether they are better of worse than what we had before. They are often criticized for being culturally biased toward "white, western" ways of thinking. This may well be true. On the other hand, what happened before was teachers were asked which of the children in their class were "bright" and "dim" and, according to their own personal idiosyncracies, they pointed a few out. IQ tests, whatever their drawbacks, have got to be better than that.

-- Christopher Green (cgreen@chass.utoronto.ca), May 07, 2003.

Have you read or heard of author 'Tony Buzan'. His belief is that we have many individual intelligences {social,numerical,emotional etc}. I don't believe our 'IQ' is not limited solely to acedemic intelligence which is what I bekieve most 'IQ' tests are based on. Unfortunately the results of these tests have an effect on the individual subconciously rating them of having high average or low intelligence. Have a look at Tony Buzan's book Head First,published by Thorsons.

-- (olivia_is_now@hotmail.com), May 17, 2003.

I wouldn't take Tony Buzan all that seriously. He's a self-promoted former editor of "MENSA journal," BBC producer, and rowing and chess coach, not a serious researcher of intelligence. The idea that we have different, relatively independent kinds of intelligence hardly began with him. The idea was put forward (with strong statistical evidence) long ago by Louis Thrustone in the 1930s (see e.g., http://psychclassics.asu.edu/Thurstone/). It has been re-introduced intermittently over the past seven decades by people like Howard Gardner and Robert Sterberg (now President of the APA). And there is the vast "Emotional Intelligence" literature (which, note, is of HIGHLY variable quality itself).

-- Christopher Green (cgreen@chass.utoronto.ca), May 17, 2003.