Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 11
Measures of Intelligence
He gave man speech, and speech created thought, which is the
measure of the universe.
P. B. Shelley
,
(1820, Prometheus Unbound)
11.1
IQ as a Measure of Intelligence
We will now describe a program, devised and constructed by Dr. Mohamad S. Za-
karia (See Zakaria
1994
). This program uses the models of only the three forms of
inference, 'abduction', 'deduction' and 'induction' as described in Chap. 4. Abstrac-
tion will be done manually and is therefore pre-defined. The roles of the three forms
of inference in creating and validating a hypothesis will be tested using a simple IQ
test. This test requires the inferring of a hypothesis that is the generator of a sequence
of numbers. The origin of these hypotheses was taken from Eysenck's numerical se-
quence IQ tests (Eysenck
1974a
,
b
). The IQ test sequences and the extensions of the
sequences generated by applying the inferred hypothesis are used as a testing ground
for the implementation.
First, I will attempt to explain the rationale of using IQ as a measure of intelligence.
Using the IQ tests to measure intelligence has always been controversial, largely
because there is a great deal of disagreement between experts about the nature of
intelligence. We have already looked at the inadequacy of both Turing's and Simon
and Newell's definition in Chaps. 1 and 5.
Eysenck notes that 'there is no satisfactory criterion that exists to measure intel-
ligence'. He adds that if there really were a satisfactory criterion, then intelligence
tests, in their current form, would probably be superfluous. However, we might be
prepared to agree that people of high intelligence are more likely to succeed at in-
tellectual tasks involving solving problems by applying existing principles to new
facts, the discovery or invention of relations between existing facts, learning the new
interconnected facts and principles, and other similar activities.
Training in schools and universities attempts to introduce students to areas of
knowledge requiring the use of such abilities. The success of the student is mea-
sured by examinations. In part at least, these examinations are to measure individual
student's intellectual abilities. As the late Professor Edwin G. Boring pointed out,
intelligence, by definition, is what intelligence tests measure (Jensen
1969
).
