Is there any real correlation between IQ and ones intellectual abilities?

Intelligence tests are not really a good indicator of ones IQ. For starters they are culturally based. They also focus a lot of mathematical ability. There is different types of intelligence, creative thinking, critical thinking, left brain and right brain dominance. If the test is focused mostly on spatial and right brain then the left brain persons would score lowest.

Fluid intelligence is the natural intelligence we are born with. This starts to decrease as crystalised or learning intelligence takes over. That means the older we get the less natural fluid intelligence we have. Instead we can still use critical thinking with the addition of learning.

Some tests are not biased in terms of the above. If I am correct I think MENSA’s test would fall under that approach.

The terms intellect and intellectual are also quite different in their meaning.

It would be fun to take some online IQ tests. Do you guys know of any?

One of my college professors once said that the aptitude tests that we take in elementary school are really IQ tests. If so, it would be nice to have those results. Unfortunately, for me, elementary school was in the 1970’s and if those records are even still around, they’re probably in boxes in some school records center or something.

@LornaLove you couldn’t have put it better!

IQ tests are primarily for rating one’s ability to make connections between individual concepts. They have little to do with virtues such as discipline, patience and perseverance.

A person’s IQ score measures neither that person’s knowledge nor experience. The abilities of a person, however, are based a lot on knowledge and experience.

IQ tests are an attempt to rate the raw processing power of one’s brain, rather like a dynamometer tests the horsepower of an automobile engine. Testing the raw horsepower of a car tells you something about how fast it can go. But it’s not so informative of who would win in a 500 mile race. As @RealEyesRealizeRealLies notes, the ”...discipline, patience and perseverance.” of the driver play a major role in determining who actually wins the race. Still, you stand a far better chance of winning the Daytona 500 with a Nascar style car developing 750 to 850 HP than driving a street style car with a small displacement 6 cylinder engine putting out 150 HP.

I think IQ tests test the ability of a person to see connections between things more than anything. This doesn’t require experience or pre-knowledge, except, in some cases, basic math ability.

One Child is one of the best, most heart breaking books I’ve ever read. It’s a true story about a 6 year old girl. She was horribly, horribly neglected and abused. Her mother had pushed her and her little brother out on the freeway and abandoned them. They were found clinging to a chain link fence that separated the lanes. Her father and uncle, whom she was sent to live with, were…unbelievably ignorant and the family was in constant, unbelievable poverty. The father didn’t even have enough money to get water to wash the child or the one set of clothes she owned. The uncle sexually molested her. She had some serious behavioral issues. Serious issues. You know there was nothing in her home life to stimulate her intellectually and she only had a few months of 1st grade to her credit. Yet…. there was something about her…..and eventually she tested out with an IQ of 184. You gotta read that book!

Sure, IQ value is not a perfect number but it is one of the best predictors we’ve got.

There are studies that show a strong correlation (R^2 = 0.9767) between annual salary and IQ. $665 per year per IQ point. (That is only one but you can easily search for others.)

There are very few brain surgeons with low IQs. There are very few ditch diggers with high IQs.
If you had no other info and had to bet, the smart money would go on the person with the higher IQ.

Many of the stupidest people I ever met had IQs of 140+. That right there should tell you something.

Well, how do you know what their IQ’s were Jerv?

@jerv gives an example of the tail ends. I’m guessing some of the smartest people I have ever met had high IQs.
That does not negate the strong statistical correlation between IQ and income/competence/SAT scores, etc.
Knowing nothing else if I were looking to hire someone I’ll take the 120 IQ person over the 80 IQ any day. Odds are they can handle life’s problems much better.

@Dutchess_III You mean that you never let anybody see your test scores when you were in school? Those who did well tended to be all too willing/eager to show their’s.

And for reasons that @LuckyGuy alludes to, even only looking at ASVAB scores instead of IQ scores, it’s safe to assume that anybody I went to Nuke School with (amongst whom were some of the dumbest bastards I ever met) had an IQ of at least 125 (and likely higher) given the steep academic requirements to even be considered to be allowed to take the entrance exam to see if you qualify to get in.

We never took IQ tests in school.

@Dutchess_III I guess they did thinks differently during the ‘80s, at least in New England.

Probably. I remember taking an aptitude test. I scored highest, 98% in engineering skills. However, I was, and still am, a girl so they probably trashed it. At any rate, I don’t know what the purpose of the test was. I never heard anything more about it.

Here’s a relatively recent reanalysis of intelligence and the forms it takes. It has a view of intelligence which is not included in the test you took. People may have multiple intelligences if you consider these skills.

HOWARD GARDNER’S NINE MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES:

1. Linguistic Intelligence: the capacity to use language to express what’s on your mind and to understand other people. Any kind of writer, orator, speaker, lawyer, or other person for whom language is an important stock in trade has great linguistic intelligence.

2. Logical/Mathematical Intelligence: the capacity to understand the underlying principles of some kind of causal system, the way a scientist or a logician does; or to manipulate numbers, quantities, and operations, the way a mathematician does.

3. Musical Rhythmic Intelligence: the capacity to think in music; to be able to hear patterns, recognize them, and perhaps manipulate them. People who have strong musical intelligence don’t just remember music easily, they can’t get it out of their minds, it’s so omnipresent.

4. Bodily/Kinesthetic Intelligence: the capacity to use your whole body or parts of your body (your hands, your fingers, your arms) to solve a problem, make something, or put on some kind of production. The most evident examples are people in athletics or the performing arts, particularly dancing or acting.

5. Spatial Intelligence: the ability to represent the spatial world internally in your mind—the way a sailor or airplane pilot navigates the large spatial world, or the way a chess player or sculptor represents a more circumscribed spatial world. Spatial intelligence can be used in the arts or in the sciences.

6. Naturalist Intelligence: the ability to discriminate among living things (plants, animals) and sensitivity to other features of the natural world (clouds, rock configurations). This ability was clearly of value in our evolutionary past as hunters, gatherers, and farmers; it continues to be central in such roles as botanist or chef.

7. Intrapersonal Intelligence: having an understanding of yourself; knowing who you are, what you can do, what you want to do, how you react to things, which things to avoid, and which things to gravitate toward. We are drawn to people who have a good understanding of themselves. They tend to know what they can and can’t do, and to know where to go if they need help.

8. Interpersonal Intelligence: the ability to understand other people. It’s an ability we all need, but is especially important for teachers, clinicians, salespersons, or politicians—anybody who deals with other people.

9. Existential Intelligence: the ability and proclivity to pose (and ponder) questions about life, death, and ultimate realities.

I think that Sunny brings up some good points about different types of intelligence. Working as an industrial technician with only an Associate’s Degree level education, I’ve had the opportunity to work with all types of people over the years, and I’ve worked with technicians who’ve had degrees in physics, engineering, programming, etc on various projects.

One thing that I’ve noticed over the years working with overly analytical people is they tend not to be very creative, and many times not very innovative either. There were many times where I was the one to come up with the better idea how to accomplish goals, such as getting a machine to run more efficiently, or how to make a modification on a piece of equipment work more effectively for example.

@Paradox25 I’ve done the same thing to others, and in turn I have occasionally been stumped and asked for advice from someone whom I knew knew even less about what I was doing than I did rather than more. Novices have a ton of surprisingly good ideas because, like children, they don’t “know” what can’t be done.