I don’t believe in the concept of IQ

I thought of this in the light of my interest in expanding my English vocabulary (due to my curiosity). I’ve always looked up to amazing writers and many who use many words that I don’t know the meaning of. As I’m learning words that I don’t hear very often and go through their meanings and usage in my head, some of the words no longer feel out of reach but rather ordinary as though I’ve used them to describe things in fewer words (and mainly these descriptions are in my thoughts). This experience so far has opened a new perception in my mind, the idea that an ordinary person like me can train himself or herself to be well-versed in things that they are very interested in (when I say “ordinary” I mean people who never scored as a genius on an official IQ test).

I also think people might be perceived as very intelligent from engaging in intellectual activities on a regular basis. This happens because whatever goes into the brain comes out. If someone watches a science program for a half hour every day, they will know more than if they watched a reality TV show in that same amount of time.

What do you all think?

Sorry, I meant to post this in a different group. lol

The g-factor exists: it's a scientific fact. There is an observable property of people which can be measured with a reasonable accuracy and which is associated with a variety of basic, general intellectual abilities.

IQ is a bit like a chess rating. It gives an indication of how good you are at a class of things. It gives a clue of your potential but not in a definite way - some people improve, others do not and a rating does not actually tell you whether you will improve or not.

You are absolutely right about vocabulary for example. Many or most people have the capability to greatly improve their language skills. Some do, some don't. Measuring your language skills at a point in time don't say whether you will do this or not.

The same is surely true of many other things. Of course, some people have an easier time than others. If you are naturally good at maths, it is much easier to learn it than if you are not. But one example springs to mind: when I was still at school (and had got a place to Cambridge to study maths - I was lucky this came naturally to me), my next door neighbour asked me to tutor their son who was not doing well at school. They reckoned that getting a maths 'O' level was important to his future. So I gave him an hour or two a week of tutoring for several months. He found it hard, some of it just didn't make sense to him, but his understanding definitely improved as time went by. In the end, he did rather badly in his exams as a whole, but he did well in maths, and it helped him get get a good job afterwards.

"If you jugde a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will think it is stupid for the rest of its life." Albert Einstein when asked about his IQ.

IQ doesnt really matter. One will get neutralised on how life treats him.

Great quote. As is so often the case, there is not the slightest evidence that Einstein ever said or wrote this: there is no example of it until it is misattributed long after his death. There are other likely inspirations for the nice version of the aphorism that you stated. (People love to attribute things to Einstein because he is viewed as about as smart as it is possible to be, so if something comes from him, it is definitely smart).

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/04/06/fish-climb/