this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2023
334 points (94.2% liked)

Today I Learned

17770 readers
795 users here now

What did you learn today? Share it with us!

We learn something new every day. This is a community dedicated to informing each other and helping to spread knowledge.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must begin with TIL. Linking to a source of info is optional, but highly recommended as it helps to spark discussion.

** Posts must be about an actual fact that you have learned, but it doesn't matter if you learned it today. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.**



Rule 2- Your post subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your post subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Posts and comments which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding non-TIL posts.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-TIL posts using the [META] tag on your post title.



Rule 7- You can't harass or disturb other members.

If you vocally harass or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.

For further explanation, clarification and feedback about this rule, you may follow this link.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.

Unless included in our Whitelist for Bots, your bot will not be allowed to participate in this community. To have your bot whitelisted, please contact the moderators for a short review.



Partnered Communities

You can view our partnered communities list by following this link. To partner with our community and be included, you are free to message the moderators or comment on a pinned post.

Community Moderation

For inquiry on becoming a moderator of this community, you may comment on the pinned post of the time, or simply shoot a message to the current moderators.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

(a)The number of persons originally enlisted or inducted to serve on active duty (other than active duty for training) in any armed force during any fiscal year whose score on the Armed Forces Qualification Test is at or above the tenth percentile and below the thirty-first percentile may not exceed 20 percent of the total number of persons originally enlisted or inducted to serve on active duty (other than active duty for training) in such armed force during such fiscal year.

(b)A person who is not a high school graduate may not be accepted for enlistment in the armed forces unless the score of that person on the Armed Forces Qualification Test is at or above the thirty-first percentile; however, a person may not be denied enlistment in the armed forces solely because of his not having a high school diploma if his enlistment is needed to meet established strength requirements.

An AFQT score is derived from the ASVAB(essentially the militaries' IQ test). IQ scores are based on a normal distribution of scores from the general population with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15. So the 30th percentile represents an IQ score of 92 while the 10th percentile would correlate with an IQ of 81.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] ExecutiveStapler@kbin.social -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The way I see it, IQ is a proxy for this concept of generalized intelligence with the test also measuring more specific measures of intelligence like working memory and visual processing. It's certainly fine, even good, to practice the underlying mechanisms of intelligence, such as learning memorization techniques and practicing to improve your working memory and thus become more intelligent. It's not good for the validity of the test to practice the specific questions and sections they put on the test to artificially inflate your score while leaving your underlying intelligence unchanged. Veritasium did the latter, not the former in his video.

[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

But if you get more generally intelligent from practicing... Then what? Because education makes you score higher. Do you believe it is 100% genetics?

[–] ExecutiveStapler@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

To some extent you probably get more generally intelligent from practicing IQ tests in the same way you might get more generally intelligent from stretching your mind in any way. However, the increase in IQ score you achieve after practicing for the IQ test is (just guesstimating because there's obviously no studies on this) >90% due to learning the patterns of IQ tests and <10% due to increased general intelligence as a result of studying.

To answer as to why IQ is helpful, it's useful for making conclusions about how different factors influence intelligence. It's more difficult to prevent lead from poisoning people's brains when you can't conclusively say how much it's poisoning. Supposing all the people with low IQ scores due to lead poisoning practiced for the test to make themselves feel better with a higher score, their studying would muddy the stats and make for weaker arguments on the side of those wishing to ban excessive lead. IQ is also relevant to certain diagnoses, such as for the diagnosis of ADHD where a deficiency in working memory and processing speed but not elsewhere supports a diagnosis.

In terms of whether IQ / intelligence is 100% genetic, obviously not, I don't think I said anything that could even suggest that. I'm not an expert so I'd appeal to this link for specific answers. Just skimming it seems to suggest anywhere from 50% to 80% heritability of IQ, although heritability as a concept is kinda unintuitive and hard to apply to everyday things.