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Val comments on Article on IQ: The Inappropriately Excluded - Less Wrong
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First of all, IQ tests aren't designed for high IQ, so there's a lot of noise there and this would mainly be noise, if he correctly reported the results, which he doesn't.
Second, there are some careful studies of high IQ (SMPY etc) by taking the well designed SAT test, which doesn't have a very high ceiling for adults and giving it to children below the age of 13. By giving the test to representative samples, they can well characterize the threshold for the top 3%. Using self-selected samples, they think that they can characterize up to 1/10,000. In any event, within the 3% they find increasing SAT score predicts increasing probability of accomplishments of all kinds, in direct contradiction of these claims.
Indeed. If an IQ test claims to provide accurate scores outside of the 70 to 130 range, you should be suspicious.
There are so many misunderstandings about IQ in the general population, ranging from claims like "the average IQ is now x" (where x is different from 100), to claims of a famous scientist having had an IQ score over 200, and claims of "some scientists estimating" the IQ of a computer, an animal, or a fictional alien species. Or things as simple as claiming to calculate an IQ score based on a low number (usually less than 10) of trivia questions about basic geography and names of celebrities.
I think you are just being pedantic. When people say something like "the flynn effect has raised the average IQ has increased by 10 points over the last 50 years", they mean that the average person would score 10 points higher on a 1950's IQ test. See also the value of money, which also changes over time due to inflation. When people say "a dollar was worth more 50 years ago", you don't reply "nuh uh, a dollar has always been worth exactly one dollar."
I mean it's impossible to do any kind of serious estimate. But I don't think the idea of a linear scale of intelligence is inherently meaningless. So you could give a very rough estimate where nonhuman intelligences would fall on it, and where that would put them relative to humans with such and such IQ.
Yes, but "a dollar is now worth $x" where x is different from 1 is still meaningless unless you specify you're talking about today's dollar vs some other year's dollar specifically.
That's correct, but usually I don't see that mistake made about IQ. On a handful of occasions I've seen someone say "we could raise the average IQ by 10 points" or something like that, and some pedant responds that "the average IQ must always be 100". Which is technically correct, but misses the point. It makes it difficult to have discussions about IQ over time.