Found in 2 comments on Hacker News
tokenadult · 2010-05-31
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in my opinion, the standard IQ tests of today are moreso a test of how quickly you can learn or adapt and solve, rather than of what knowledge you have.
Your opinion is mistaken in part. Most IQ tests include items that are explicitly based on learned knowledge, and all are embedded in a cultural context. See IQ testing 101 by Alan S. Kaufman (the author of several IQ tests)
http://www.springerpub.com/product/9780826106292
http://www.amazon.com/IQ-Testing-101-Psych/dp/0826106293
for more information on item content of IQ tests and corrections of many common misconceptions about IQ testing.
The article doesn't give much information
so maybe some readers here will appreciate more information. A recent book that goes into great detail about what the subtest scores of IQ tests show about what happens to people as they age is Are We Getting Smarter?: Rising IQ in the Twenty-First Century by James R. Flynn,
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1107609178/learninfreed
a scholar who has been researching IQ test raw score trends and what they mean for more than thirty years. Flynn has discovered that people who were the brightest (highest in IQ) at younger ages grow old with a pattern of decline that is more steep for their strongest abilities than people who are nearer the average in IQ, a phenomenon he calls the "bright tax." Commentary on that observation
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/sep/28/are-we-getting-s...
http://www.jasoncollins.org/2012/12/the-bright-tax/
will get you started in thinking about the issue, but I think any Hacker News reader interested in research on human intelligence really owes it to himself or herself to read Flynn's latest book in full, as I finished doing last weekend.
All of James R. Flynn's books are readable and thought-provoking, full of information you can't find anywhere else. Here is what the late Arthur Jensen said about Flynn back in the 1980s: "Now and then I am asked . . . who, in my opinion, are the most respectable critics of my position on the race-IQ issue? The name James R. Flynn is by far the first that comes to mind." Modgil, Sohan & Modgil, Celia (Eds.) (1987) Arthur Jensen: Concensus and Controversy New York: Falmer. Here's what Charles Murray says in his back cover blurb for Flynn's book What Is Intelligence?: "This book is a gold mine of pointers to interesting work, much of which was new to me. All of us who wrestle with the extraordinarily difficult questions about intelligence that Flynn discusses are in his debt." As N. J. Mackintosh (IQ and Human Intelligence 1998, p. 104) writes about the data Flynn found: "the data are surprising, demolish some long-cherished beliefs, and raise a number of other interesting issues along the way." Flynn has earned the respect and praise of any honest researcher who takes time to read the scholarly literature on human intelligence. Robert Sternberg, Ian Deary, Stephen Pinker, Stephen Ceci, Sir Michael Rutter, and plenty of other eminent psychologists recommend Flynn's research.
Another comment I can make about this blog post is that right now the Baby Boom has aged fully into middle age, and is beginning to age into old age, so the largest population cohort in American history until recently will increasingly demand attention to the issues of aging. The Baby Boom, because it is a numerous population cohort, has much influence on United States society, and that's why "classic rock" has never ceased to have radio airplay since that genre of music was first released as top 40 hits. Since millions of Americans are aging, but still think of themselves as young people belonging to a generation of young people, we can expect more blog posts and other popular writings on the topic of changes in individual intelligence in the aging process, and we may as well read sound research on the topic. Another good popular book with a lot of information on human intelligence over the course of the lifespan is IQ Testing 101 by Alan S. Kaufman.
http://www.amazon.com/IQ-Testing-101-Psych/dp/0826106293/lea...