From: Michael S. Lorrey (retroman@turbont.net)
Date: Thu May 18 2000 - 06:44:05 MDT
Anders Sandberg wrote:
>
> "Emlyn" <pentacle@enternet.com.au> writes:
> >
> > Funny thing about these "culturally neutral" tests, is that you get better
> > at them the more of them you do. It gets easier to spot patterns in the way
> > the questions are formulated.
> >
> > Also, powers of 2, pascal and fibbonacci sequences, come on. That's got to
> > be heavily culturally biased. Or maybe people who don't know the powers of 2
> > by sight are thickies?
>
> At least among us nerds those sequences are not culturally neutral at
> all. Which suggests that the originators of the tests were not
> math/science people and did not think about the possibility that some
> people regard powers of 2 as natural.
>
> Also, I wonder if these "neutral" tests doesn't contain a strong
> cultural assumption about symbolic manipulation as being somehow
> natural and neutral. Which is not obvious at all when you think about
> the variety of cultures on Earth.
Yes, there is a distinct cultural difference between families of
geniuses and families of idiots. So its quite impossible that an IQ test
can be culturally neutral. For example, here is a question that would
not be understood by the family of geniuses, but could easily be
answered by the family of idiots:
If you have two teams of tag team wrestlers fighting a grudge match for
the World Heavyweight Tag Team Wrestling title, how many people can be
in the ring at any given time?
a) Diamond Dallas Paige, Mankind, and the referee
b) Diamond Dallas Paige, Mankind, Michael Hart, and the referee
c) Diamond Dallas Paige, Mankind, Paige's girlfreind, the entire
syndicates of the New World Order Red, White, and Black, two tables, a
boa constrictor and no referee.
d) Indeterminate, as this is a matter of quantum wrestlemechanics, and
is described by the theory of the Goldberg Uncertainty Principle.
Mike Lorrey
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