Disclaimer:I Do not have any kind of formal education in this particular area. In fact, I am yet to read any book, article, journal or thesis on cognitive science, or any other related area. So, the following is simply a layman's thoughts; please go easy. I also have a couple of questions as a result of these thoughts.

Would I be right in the assumption that we currently do not have any reliable way to measure intelligence?
I've heard many people say (I realise this is anecdotal, but...) that the IQ test is flawed and you can not quantify a person's intelligence this way.

I personally presumed the former to be true, in order to conclude the following: A person could be very knowledgeable in a multitude of areas, having a great wealth of general knowledge, but lack a deep understanding of any of them. Not because that person has failed to spend adequate time researching, but because of some sort of mental inability to grasp anything other than a surface understanding. On the contrary, another person could posses a deep understanding on one particular topic, but never be able to retain information on a variety of areas due to their memory being less than average. Then there are people who are highly creative, artistic, who think up amazing concepts, create within their own mind, and/or in reality things( I realise that is a horribly ambiguous word) that others wouldn't have dreamt up in a billion years, yet fail miserably at something such as mathematics, logic. I'm almost positive the list of different types of intelligences goes on.
It seems to me as if there are many different types of intelligences.
Taking my previous thoughts into consideration, I then ask, how do I know if I am intelligent or not?

I sometimes feel as if I am not at all intelligent, although, I have inferred that during these times of self-doubt, emotion plays its part. For example, I know when I lose a debate on a particular subject that I believe I have a strong understanding of, that loss will bring about negative emotions.
This brings me to my second question, I know that depression can affect a person's decisions, outlooks and thoughts, but can moderate emotion also be deceptive, or even toxic to the mind?

I am hoping the members of RationalSkepticism can help me to answer these questions. Sadly, I do not have the time to pick up a book at the moment, I am too busy with school.

Thanks in advance



*The colour red denotes uncertainty of whether the right word was used

-Sylvan wrote:Disclaimer:[i]I I've heard many people say (I realise this is anecdotal, but...) that the IQ test is flawed and you can not quantify a person's intelligence this way.

As for IQ tests and bias, you can read the APA's statement here. The following paper is a good point by point review of the evidence concerning the lack of bias, at least in the US: Sackett, et al., (2008) "High-Stakes Testing in Higher Education and Employment Appraising the Evidence for Validity and Fairness." Here is an excellent review of the research on intelligence to date. Let me quote a section:

THE PSYCHOMETRIC STRUCTURE OF INTELLIGENCE

Following Carroll’s (1993) synthetic account of the psychometric structure of intelligence, there has been a broad consensus that meaning- ful variance among people exists at three levels: third-level general cognitive ability ( g), second- level broad domains of cognitive functioning (group factors), and first-level test-specific variation. To explain these levels simply, consider the answer to the following question: Why are some people good at explaining the meanings of words in their first language? The answers are that people who are good at one mental task tend to be good at other types of men- tal task (third level; g); people who are good within one domain (e.g., verbal ability) tend to be good at other tasks in that domain; and peo- ple have strengths in specific, narrow mental skills. Thus, when a diverse battery of mental tests is applied to a sample of the population, some of the between-subject variation is shared by all tests, some is shared by tests that have family resemblances within a cognitive domain, and some is specific to the individual test. g often accounts for nearly half the variance when a broad battery of cognitive tests is applied to a representative sample of the adult population. Relatively little of the variance lies at the do- main level. Researchers do not always agree on the nature of the domains—they can vary in number, name and content between samples depending on the battery applied—and there have long been worries about whether the na- ture of g might vary between cognitive batteries.

Basically, there are numerous measures of cognitive ability. Take a look at table 1 to see how the different abilities are defined.. Now, people's performance across the measures positively correlate. This positive intercorrelation is called "g" for "general intelligence." General intelligence more or less approximates what many people refer to when they speak of "intelligence" (e.g. a general mental ability to understand and solve novel problems.) Some people, of course, use the term "intelligence" in atypic ways (e.g. Gardner speaks of "athletic intelligence") and these usages might not match with the scientific construct called "g". Regardless, there is a psychometric factor that can be reliably measured and that can reasonably be referred to as "intelligence." You are correct, though, that there are different mental abilities. And that one can be better in one area than other. It's just that these abilities correlate. And this positive correlation allows for the quantification intelligence in a single number.