Obsession with IQ: A reliable sign of low intelligence?

There's a growing obsession with IQ in 'some parts' of the internet, but the way it's used clearly reveals that those who cite it have little to no clue what it really is, and don't care to learn

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I’ve had requests to do something about IQ scores, because there’s apparently a growing trend in certain communities online (naming no names, but they skew white, male, loud, and angry) to focus on, and boast about, IQ scores.

I haven’t been paying much attention to this phenomenon, because:

a) honestly, why would I? And-

b) I’ve learned, over 20+ years of brain investigations, that obsessing over IQ scores is a reliable indicator that you don’t know how intelligence works, and probably lack it yourself.

Imagine listening to a self-described expert music critic, lecturing people on the 1960s music scene, and they say “Freddy Mercury, lead singer of the Beatles, would go on to…”

This may be the only wrong thing they say in their entire lecture, but it’s too late. Anyone who claimed to be an expert would never make such an error. So everything else they say is now suspect.

That’s how I feel when someone who presents themselves as highly intelligent starts referencing IQ as a reliable, cast-iron measure of intelligence.

If you knew the minimum about how intelligence actually works, you wouldn’t do that.

What is IQ, exactly?

Image by Deepak Gautam

IQ stands for Intelligence Quotient. As the name suggests, an IQ score has been subjected to quite a few mathematical manipulations. It’s not just the raw score on a test; modern IQ is a calculated measurement of how your IQ compares to the rest of the population, the average of which is always 100¹.

But don’t let this neutral summary fool you; the history of IQ tests is long, murky, and controversial.

IQ tests are designed to measure intelligence, but a substantial number of qualified experts don’t believe they do that. Not effectively, or comprehensively. Because there’s no robust agreement on what intelligence actually is. It’s not something tangible and easily observed, like weight or height. It’s far more abstract, and hard to pin down.

Take me, for example. At the risk of being immodest, people often say I’m intelligent, but (and this is probably a risky thing to say on a blog where I share my insights and hope people subscribe to them) I often disagree.

With many ‘traditional’ demonstrations of intelligence, I’m basically useless. I’m no good in a pub quiz or anything relying on general knowledge. I can get lost in a bathroom. Take me to an Escape Room, it quickly becomes a ‘room’.

I’d say I have specialised knowledge. I’ve spent 20+ years studying and developing my understanding of the brain, unlike most people. So, I can say and understand things that most people would struggle to.

Some equate this with intelligence, and maybe they’re right to. But if I somehow wound up in a parallel universe where neuroscience was as popular as, say, football, so every third person in the typical pub could reel of stats and data and theories about the brain at the drop of a hat, would I still seem ‘intelligent’? Unlikely.

This isn’t to say someone with an encyclopaedic knowledge of football isn’t intelligent. I’d argue they absolutely are. But because it’s more common, society has apparently decided it isn’t ‘proper’ intelligence.

Which is sort of the issue with IQ tests. They were developed (over a hundred years ago, in the first instance) with a view to assessing the intellectual abilities/levels of school children. So even with the best intentions, they originated with specific individuals having to say “I think intelligence looks like this”, and basing their assessments around such assumptions.

But intelligence varies wildly from person to person, ability to ability, and has thus far proved elusive to any reliable, robust metric or definition.

There’s a reason that a lot of people say “IQ is what IQ tests measure”. Because they’re clearly measuring something. And that something may be very closely linked to intelligence. But it’s by no means certain. Intelligence is just too nonspecific and abstract a construct to be reliably, and comprehensively, measured on straightforward test.

Unfortunately, it seems many online types see IQ tests as a measurement of intelligence just like how standing on a scale measures weight. But it’s more like trying to determine someone’s weight by measuring the dimensions of someone’s shadow, in a room where we don’t know where the bulbs are.

True, this measurement could be correct. It’s just impossible to be 100% sure.

Basically, insisting that an IQ score is a cast-iron guaranteed measure of intelligence? An actually intelligent who was interested in intelligence wouldn’t do that.

The twisted obsession with IQ

Image by KATRIN BOLOVTSOVA

All the belligerent guys online who insist they have a high IQ? I suspect many of them haven’t actually taken an IQ test at all.

Not a proper one, anyway. Official IQ tests, whatever their limitations, are highly-refined scientific tools. They take a lot of time, and cost a fair amount of money.

Basically, I would be beyond amazed if actual IQ tests, and all they involve, have become so widely accessible that @BigNutzz32998762 on Twitter/X and his countless peers who brag about their 178 IQ have been genuinely, properly assessed.

Also, given how IQ actually works, if countless random people were scoring ridiculously high on real IQ tests, wouldn’t they have to recalibrate the underlying assumptions, to keep the average as 100?

Point is, if so many people were scoring extremely high on official IQ tests, their scores would be reduced, to conform to the bell-curve. Because it’s mathematically impossible for everyone to be ‘above average’.

Of course, not every IQ test is ‘official’. You can get IQ tests online which brag about being free, quick and simple. But if it’s quick, simple, and free², it’s almost certainly not a ‘real’ IQ test. Something that genuinely explores the limits and range of your intelligence should be lengthy, and hard.

Otherwise, it’s tantamount to getting a stranger to lift a 1kg dumbbell (with both hands) and giving them a certificate saying “Really strong guy” when they succeed. If said stranger then went around bragging about how strong they are, that would be laughable.

I can’t prove that this is what the guys (and it’s invariably guys) who keep bleating on about their high IQ are doing. But it’s a more feasible explanation than there being countless inexplicably-undiscovered perpetually-angry geniuses, perpetually lurking online.

Why, though? What’s behind this obsession with IQ, even if it is a warped version of it?

The comparison with the strength test may be quite appropriate. Traditionally masculine indicators of status are tied to size and strength, but such things are meaningless online³. It’s often a purely abstract, intellectual realm.

So, an externally-assigned value indicating high intelligence? You can see why that could be seized upon as a reliable indicator of status. Particularly for the more insecure sort of individual.

A high IQ can also be used to reinforce one’s argument or conclusions in a disagreement. High IQ means high intelligence, and if you’ve greater intelligence than someone who disagrees with you, then you’re more likely to be correct, yeah?

Obviously, this isn’t how it works at all. As I’ve said.

But if your understanding of intelligence is limited, then saying “I’m smarter than you, and here’s a test score to prove it, so you logically must be wrong!” is much easier than actually arguing your case with reason and evidence.

Then it can become self-sustaining, self-reinforcing. If all the people who agree with your stance are ‘high-IQ’, then it makes it even more likely you’re right, yeah? Especially if that person is prominent and powerful. Objective success and they agree with you? They must be a high-IQ person, surely!

This is presumably part of why certain prominent billionaires are just assumed to have high IQs, i.e. are really smart. And also because the Just World Fallacy compels us to believe that the world is a fair place. So, a wildly wealthy person must have obtained their fortune by being smarter, surely?

Then again, a lack of emotional intelligence and empathy could make you more willing to screw over others for personal gain.

Reduced executive function may mean you’re unable to recognise when you’re financially secure, so keep accruing wealth you don’t need.

You’re probably a lot more willing to make self-serving decisions if you don’t have the insight to understand or appreciate the consequences of your decisions for the climate, community etc.

Basically, you could argue that, given how our system works, vast wealth indicates low intelligence, which would suggest low IQ. It’s a bit of a leap, sure, but it would explain the current state of the world, rather than ‘a bunch of billionaire super-geniuses keep making massive errors that affect countless people’.

Ultimately, there are many explanations why certain people and communities are so obsessed with IQ scores. But ‘because they’re all very smart and want to share their intellectual prowess’ is a very unlikely one.

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A smart person would buy one, or several, of my books. Just saying.

1. This also means it’s often easy to tell when someone is using IQ as a proxy for being a big old bigot. If someone says “The average IQ of [ethnicity I don’t like] is only 85”, that’s like saying “The average metre in [country I don’t like] is only 85cm”. I mean, it obviously isn’t. And if you think otherwise, you’ve clearly gone very wrong somewhere. Granted, it could be argued that a 100 IQ for Ethnicity X is based on lower raw scores than Ethnicity Y, so isn’t worth as much, but I’ve personally yet to see anyone bother making this argument.

2. A lot of the ‘IQ tests’ online seemingly exist to attract clicks to the site their found on, to generate money from ads and the like. While I’m no economics guru, one would assume that telling potential customers “You know that grim liquid that gathers in the bottom of the vegetable drawer of the fridge? You’re about as smart as that” is not a sustainable business model, so IQ tests from such sites are unlikely to be 100% fair and honest.

3. The matter of how many of perpetually-online guys are genuinely physically impressive specimens is a whole other issue.