What is IQ?

If one is given the data "When people took this IQ test, blacks averaged 90, whites averaged 100, and asians averaged 110," to simply dismiss the test as "biased" ignore deeper problems that need to be addressed. People probably fear that the data will be used to claim some genetic inferiority or superiority, but couldn't the data be interpreted to mean that the schools which blacks attend are not doing an adequate job? Or that the poverty rates, single-parent households, and discrimination have been holding them back?

The trouble is centered around the ideas "What is IQ?" and "What is intelligence?" I have taken some IQ tests, and it appears to me that IQ tests measure the speed one can solve partic-ular types of problems. It is true, then, that there are different kinds of intelligence, not all of which are measured by IQ tests. (From now on, I'll use the term IQ to mean "that quality, whatever it is, that's measured by IQ tests.") One major problem with the concept of IQ is that people used to believe that one was either born with a certain IQ, or that IQ was developed early in childhood, once developed, could not be improved. Hopefully, when the human genome project is completed, it will be shown whether or not there is any genetic compenent to either intelligence or IQ.

In the IQ tests I have taken, some contained an analogies section (like the old SATs), which would create a bias in favor of those with larger vocabularies. Having a large vocabulary doesn't make one more intelligent, but it would give one a higher IQ on such a test. There could also be a "cultural literacy" bias, as pointed out in Parillo, p. 369. Both of these factors would give people who read a lot an advantage in "IQ" over those who don't.

I take issue with the idea of timed IQ tests. Let's say two people take an IQ test. Person A gets 90 out of 100 correct, and finishes the test in 60 minutes. Person B, aware that the test is timed, hurries and only gets 85, in 60 minutes. But if the two took the same test with time removed as a factor, and if person A would have gotten a 92 and person B would have gotten 99, which is truly "smarter"?

The fact that IQ tests have been biased and misused in the past should not lead us to the conclusion that an unbiased, useful test could not be designed.