NeoNotes — IQ is culture dependent
❝Well, you're right with a couple of provisos. Intelligence is vaguely defined, and IQ is very culture dependent. Bottom line, it takes a certain type of culture to teach people how to use their brains. It's not that they don't have the raw ability, most just don't have the skills.
The terms evolutionist and Creationist don't have much meaning to me.
Environment certainly has much to do with it, if for no other reason than basic nutrition.
IQ is very culture dependent. Just as an example here in America, the Diné (Navajo) don't perceive time or distance in a linear way. That makes geometry difficult. Also in America, it's hard to discuss classic literature when some very vocal groups dismiss it as the product of Dead White Males. As another example, Marxism and socialism derive from collectivism, which in turn gives completely different definitions of words like "liberty" and "responsibility."
It's not just pattern recognition. Symbols and tools are very dependent on culture. Problem solving strategies can be very cultural dependent. From what I have read, the "bias-free" intelligence tests have turned out to be very culturally biased.
That doesn't even allow for things like multiple intelligences. I know that Gardner's theory is disputed. But there was something about a people in Kenya who had four different forms of intelligence and only one roughly corresponded with the most common Western model.
That may be the key point here. Intelligence is an abstract model that (sort of) fits our culture, but doesn't necessarily fit others.❞
NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.
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