Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Until/unless someone 
> finds a valid means to separate measures of mental development from the 
> social memes and mores of the culture they are being tested in, its not 
> a valid test of anything, other than general forms of conformity to 
> arbitrary definitions of "intelligence".

IQ tests do include sections such as repeating ever-lengthening strings 
of numbers which is pretty unrelated to conforming to social norms and 
measures nothing but short-term memory capacity, a bit like playing 
Simon.  And sections with pattern-based problem-solving with no 
additional data.  At some point, *all* definitions are arbitrary, and if 
(assuming that "if", there) the measures of mental development are used 
entirely within the culture of which the subject is a member, why does 
it need to be separated?

--
Tim Cook
http://empyrean.freesitespace.net

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