Seemingly no one wants a low IQ. People with self-reported low intelligence quotients describe struggling with self-esteem issues and romantic hardships. The Environmental Protection Agency is reevaluating its support for fluoridation because of reported drops in IQ scores, while the Supreme Court is reconsidering death row cases on the basis that certain inmates’ low IQs might be mitigating factors in their sentences. “Low IQ” is a common insult from online forums to mainstream political debates.
All of these news stories are linked by one assumption: The idea that IQ is synonymous with a person’s intelligence. This is a widespread belief, but is it based on scientific evidence? Like an emperor has no clothes situation, do we fearfully accept IQ tests as the primary means of measuring intelligence so we will not have our own intelligence challenged?
