Comment by guylhem | Hacker News Reader

Comment by guylhem | Hacker News Reader

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FWI, I do not believe in IQ. The evolution of scores alone makes me think there is a confounding variable. Students should just study what they can get money from and they are interested in.

In France, there are 4 curriculum of approximately similar sizes - at least when I did my studies. There is no IQ selection.

There is no selection either based on being "gifted" or not - you just get a curriculum matching the job you said you were the most interested in, if you basic grades are enough (i.e. if you persistently had below average grades in math, you might not be enrolled in a scientific curriculum)

"scientific" students makes 25% of the students - I'm not sure it can be compared to the situation in the US unless 25% of the students go in AP classes.

[The other curricumulum also have decent math, only slightly less theoretical or more into specific domains, such as arithmetic or geometric progression mathematics (for economy and some BTS vocational studies)]

Edit : Enrollment trends are shown in http://quanti.hypotheses.org/631/

red is humanities

blue is economics

green is scientific

[apparently vocational studies are gaining ground, and humanities are declining, a good thing considering the job market]

> FWI, I do not believe in IQ.

As stated, this is a meaningless claim. Do you mean you don't believe in the accuracy or social value of of IQ testing, or don't believe that IQ exists as a measurable quantity, or don't believe in the practice of ranking people based on intelligence?

Sorry, I should be more precise.

First, I don't believe that IQ exist as a measurable quantity - IQ is too many things thrown together in a single bad. Tests group together various things which may be handled by different subsystems in the brain. If there is something called IQ, it's an aggregate.

Anyway, if there was such a unique quantity, actual data shows a progression of IQ scores in time - therefore if the tests are considered accurate and unbiased, it must be a "quantity" that can evolve based on the society a person lives it. It should then be considered not as a value, but as a function depending on a variable called society.

I do not know if studies have tried to measure the accuracy of repetitive measurement in low education adults enrolled in a learning program. If there are such studies and if they show inconsistent result (ie any change of IQ), then IQ should be considered as a function of 2 variables : f(society, personal experience).

Now, even if we consider that at a time t it could be accurately measured and that societal bias could be removed, considering how other qualities (such as determination, work ethic, consistency, creativity, competitiveness...) influence the outcome of any human activity, it seems foolish to rank people based on just one quality - especially if we don't know the other values, and their individual ponderation in the end result.

This ponderation could also be different depending on the activity, and IQ provide an absolute advantage in some activities (rhetoric?), but say determination would give an absolute advantage in other activities (startups?).

I prefer to say I "don't believe in IQ" because it's easier to say that way than giving this long version.

> I prefer to say I "don't believe in IQ" because it's easier to say that way than giving this long version.

Yes, but for this subject, saying it that way is completely uninformative, to the degree that it's misleading. It would be like saying Harry is not now beating his wife -- it leaves too many questions unanswered.

Whether IQ exists or not, students definitely self-select for their mathematical aptitude when choosing the "scientific" track.

Also you said there is a minimal math grades cutoff. Math grades have high correlation with IQ test results.

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