What value is there in an IQ test?

People value a construct of intelligence in modern society and one of the measures is IQ. Its probably not a correct measure but its a well studied one and well regarded. It differs somewhat from social or informal measures of intelligence which can revolve around a person's ability to recall information they've read before.

To me that's not real intelligence but I'm not sure what is. The relevance is also little. This is because IQ can change and people can learn. A person may score low at a certain point in their life on a specific measure, for example Einstein failing the Maths component of his early education, yet go on to score highly in later life, for example the huge amount of complex mathematics he worked through to derive E=MC2 (though he may have stilled scored poorly on a measure designed for students).

There may be a genuine measure of intelligence but its irrelevant. Most people today have an exceptionally high probability of achieving a genius level of intelligence given suitable opportunity and support as well as perseverance, or perspiration as Edison put it (genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration).

There's a film from the early 1980's called Trading Places where a down and out homeless guy swaps jobs with a high flying corporate banker and vice versa. The evil boss bankers run this experiment to see if what I'm talking about is true. In the film it is. The black homeless guy is a better success than the white, well educated, socially conforming banker in the story. The banker ends up living with a hooker and lives the life of the down and out just as well as the black guy.

With mental health there are observed cognitive deficits for various diagnoses and these disadvantage many people going through the experience who don't discover ways to cope or get round it, for example schizophrenics who don't write stuff down to solve the working memory deficit problem. This disadvantage is rarely observed in the disability model.

To me this means that intelligence itself is not important or not as important as the capability to achieve intelligence. The latter is a function of the advancement of society rather than a quality that has value measuring in the individual.

There is also an element where people do have different intelligences (rather than higher or lower) so were Mozart to be stuck working as a computer programmer he'd fail miserably and were Bill Gates to be a farmer he might be a poor one.

Ultimately its the willingness of society to improve and utilise intelligence that's seriously lacking and while its great to know that people have an IQ its more important to use it. Opportunity for all is more important that measuring an individual's excellence or deficit.