[kj] Wikipedia entry on Jaz Coleman

[B. Oliver Sheppard]

Well, IQ tests are flawed for a number of reasons. The definitive book 
on the subject is Stephen Jay Gould's _The Mismeasure of Man_, which 
details the test's sordid history as well as well how, sordid history or 
not, it's impossible to accurately scientifically measure, much less 
represent in a unilinear numerical format, the thing people call 
"intelligence."

About changing the Wikipedia entry, it shouldn't be changed if Jaz does 
indeed claim he has an IQ of 190. He can claim stuff that isn't true. 
But I would liek to see a citation maybe of an interview where he does, 
in fact, claim that.

I think the only way someone could get an IQ of 190 is if they took a 
dumb online quiz or got a hokey book from a bookstore that let you take 
tests and measure your own, um, "IQ." Real IQ tests take hours, are 
given in clinical conditions, administered by folks with either PhDs 
(psychologists) or MDs, and generally only when someone is a minor and 
is having school truancy/attendance/performance problems, or when one is 
having mental problems,e tc.

You don't just walk into a doctor's office and announce, "Hey! I'd like 
an IQ test! Someone give me one!" It doesn't work like that.

-Oliver


folk devil wrote:

> A flaw in IQ testing is that it is based in knowledge systems.  Social 

> and cultural conditions can in essence affect the experience needed to 

> gain certain knowledge.

>  

> "The /Bell Curve/ is a simple treatise of conservative ideology, like 

> Miller's review, and in its biased treatment of data its purpose is 

> revealed as simple advocacy of a particular position.  Nothing new 

> about that.  The problem is that Herrnstein and Murray and those who 

> blindly accept their data in the absence of scientific skepticism, 

> misuse or misunderstand science to further their agenda.  There may be 

> inherited group differences in intelligence. 

> However, Herrnstein and Murray have failed to provide adequate 

> refutation of the alternative hypotheses."

>  

>  http://goinside.com/98/3/postmod.html

>

>