Do IQ tests measure your fixed intellect, or is there more to the equation? Despite their dark history, Michael Regilio bears good news on Skeptical Sunday!Welcome to Skeptical Sunday, a special edition of The Jordan Harbinger Show where Jordan and a guest break down a topic that you may have never thought about, open things up, and debunk common misconceptions. This time around, we’re joined by skeptic, comedian, and podcaster Michael Regilio!Jordan's must reads (including books from this episode): AcceleratEdFull show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1159On This Week's Skeptical Sunday:In 1927, the US Supreme Court supported forced sterilization of "feeble-minded" people based on IQ scores. Over 7,000 were sterilized in North Carolina alone. Nazi war criminals later cited American eugenics programs as inspiration.Early IQ tests asked about Edgar Allan Poe and bowling terminology. These measured cultural knowledge, not intelligence, disadvantaging anyone without specific educational or social backgrounds. This could mean the difference between becoming an officer or cannon fodder in WWI.Researcher James Robert Flynn determined that IQ scores have risen three points per decade throughout the 20th century. But contrary to claims made in the 1994 book The Bell Curve, this "Flynn effect" isn't due to evolution or genetics, but factors like better nutrition, cleaner water, smaller families, and more cognitively demanding environments.ChatGPT scores 99.9th percentile verbally but fails simple logic puzzles humans solve instantly. This demonstrates how intelligence isn't a single number — it's more like a jazz ensemble where mathematical reasoning, emotional intelligence, creativity, and street smarts all play different instruments. Trying to capture that symphony with one test is like describing a rainbow using only numbers.IQ tests aren't worthless — they're just misunderstood. Use them as diagnostic tools, not destiny predictors. Low pattern recognition score? Practice puzzles. Weak verbal reasoning? Read more complex texts. Identify specific cognitive areas to strengthen rather than accepting a single number as your limit. Your IQ isn't your written-in-stone fate — it's your starting coordinates on an infinitely expandable map of human potential.Connect with Jordan on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. If you have something you'd like us to tackle here on Skeptical Sunday, drop Jordan a line at [email protected] and let him know!Connect with Michael Regilio at Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube, and make sure to check out the Michael Regilio Plagues Well With Others podcast here or wherever you enjoy listening to fine podcasts!And if you're still game to support us, please leave a review here — even one sentence helps! Sign up for Six-Minute Networking — our free networking and relationship development mini course — at jordanharbinger.com/course!Subscribe to our once-a-week Wee Bit Wiser newsletter today and start filling your Wednesdays with wisdom!Do you even Reddit, bro? Join us at r/JordanHarbinger!This Episode Is Brought To You By Our Fine Sponsors:FlyKitt: 15% off: flykitt.com, code JORDANCaldera Lab: 20% off: calderalab.com/jordan, code JORDANHiya: 50% off first order: hiyahealth.com/jordanSimpliSafe: 50% off + 1st month free: simplisafe.com/jordanProgressive: Free online quote: progressive.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Chapter 1: What are the origins of IQ tests?
And basic, of course, now has already been co-opted. Okay, so tell me about the other sections of the test. I suppose it gets harder from unwrap the candy before you eat it.
Yeah, you nailed it. It gets progressively more complicated. But remember, the highest level of the test was normality, so it's not exactly rocket science. For example, one of the later tasks had the tester fold a piece of paper in half twice before cutting out a triangle. Then the child would have to guess what the piece of paper would look like when he unfolded it.
Wow, I can feel my brain trying to work that one out, and I'm not sure how good I would do at something like that either.
Yeah, actually, that's a good one. The Binet-Simon test was very limited, as Binet himself pointed out. So work continued on trying to develop more robust IQ tests. A psychologist from Stanford named Lewis Terman took the Binet-Simon test and he adapted it, later publishing what became known as the Stanford-Binet test in 1916.
So this is where we get the IQ scores we've come to know today?
yeah and basically what they did was you took the mental age of someone divided it by their actual age their chronological age and then multiplied that by a hundred and bingo that's what an iq score is okay so if you're 40 chronologically and mentally the test says you're 40 you divide 40 by 40 you get one and you multiply that by 100 so your iq is 100
Check out the IQ on Jordan.
So what's the average IQ then? It's actually between 85 and 115. So using the bell curve, that's about 100.
So the tests, they hypothetically work, which I guess is good because people use these to determine so much about someone. So it sounds like it works to give you a score that makes some sense. I don't know.
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Chapter 2: How did eugenics influence IQ testing?
I've heard of that guy.
In fact, all over Mein Kampf, there are references to American eugenics and the praise for what was going on in this country with sterilization of the feeble minded. Yikes.
And this was all legal in America at the time. That's crazy. How did this not make it to the Supreme Court or whatever?
Oh, it did. In fact, the Supreme Court of the United States in Buck versus Bell 1927 full on supported the practice of sterilization of people they deemed to be feeble minded. Justice Holmes delivering the opinion of the court wrote, quote,
It is better for all the world if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. Oof. He later added, three generations of imbeciles are enough. Wow. What's the three generations of imbeciles? That was the family that their case made it up to the Supreme Court.
I can't remember who's the bucks or the bells, but.
Oh, my God.
Wow.
That aged like milk. Yeah. Oh, man. Yeah. That's rough.
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Chapter 3: What is the Flynn effect and its significance?
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You can find the course at sixminutenetworking.com. All right, now back to Skeptical Sunday. It is crazy to think that intelligent, educated people could come to these conclusions without acknowledging that a lack of education, lack of being healthy and access to food, access to education, whatever, is a big contributing factor.
Yeah, it's crazy to think that you could be on the Supreme Court of the United States and be that imbecilic, I believe would be the correct term. Yeah, I guess IQ isn't everything. Also, the test questions themselves were deeply flawed. Some of the questions on the Yerkes test, for example, are pretty subjective, arguably more about knowledge of culture rather than intelligence.
Here's an example straight from the Army Alpha. Test 8, Form 7, Question 31. The author of The Raven is Stevenson, Kipling, Hawthorne, or Poe?
Are you asking me?
Sure. Why not? Aren't you curious if you'd been an officer or a private? Poe? I don't know, man. Actually, you got it.
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Chapter 4: How do cultural biases affect IQ test results?
I can't say I saw that particular movie, but you're absolutely right. This is a tricky idea. On the one hand, maybe you can test people for a certain level of intelligence, and maybe some people are better suited for certain jobs than others. On the other hand, how is one test made up of a series of questions going to accurately give you that information?
I doubt any test would tell me that you should host a podcast. We did these tests when I was in high school, I think, and the questions were so dumb. It would be like, do you enjoy organizing different kinds of paper? Do you enjoy stamping images or words into metal? It's like, how would I know? And then they're like, oh, just answer to the best of your ability.
And I remember the teachers telling us that. And I just filled it out fast because, I don't know, maybe stamping things into metal would be interesting. I don't know. Next question. And then we get this report back that's like, jobs you might be cut out for. Machine metal stamper. Machine press. And it just made no sense.
How is a kid who's never done something going to say, yeah, stamping something into metal might be cool. And they're like, aha, career idea for you. Stamping things into metal. It was the absolute dumbest thing I've ever seen in my life. So these tests can't be that far from that.
Yeah. I mean, as far as determining what somebody is going to do with the rest of their life. When I was in high school, I think they did take the test and I skipped that day. And that tells you all you need to know. Yeah. They were like, don't worry about it. You missed the test like every other test. But we didn't need to give you the test. We have an idea anyway.
Yeah. We know where you're going to end up, Regina. Yeah. They didn't need a test. Yeah.
I like to joke that, hey, my life might not have turned out the way I thought it would, but it is a little bit comforting to know that my life did turn out the way everybody else thought it would.
Fair. Yeah, I guess they did not need a test to know where you were going, and the test couldn't tell me where I was going. Yeah.
So anyway, after World War One, the U.S. government got into these IQ tests and what they purported to mean. They started using the dubious results in all kinds of shady ways. One can even argue that the Immigration Restriction Act of 1924 was influenced by these tests. The Immigration Restriction Act severely limited immigration into this country for people from Asia while favoring Europeans.
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Chapter 5: What are the implications of IQ scores in society?
Yeah. 2025 me says, duh. But I'm guessing that was maybe even also controversial back then.
No, I mean, it struck at people's emotional core that there was something terribly wrong with that, and it didn't go well for Jensen at the time either. I mean, colleagues tried to formally censure him. He had protesters storming into his lectures.
So it was more than a bit shocking that after all that happened with Jensen, that in 1994, Charles Murray and Richard Herenstein published a book called The Bell Curve, which claimed that genetics was a part of what contributed to IQ and, again... When we say genetics, Murray and Herrnstein broke that down by race. Predictably, a massive backlash followed the publication of the book.
Yeah, I'm guessing the criticisms were largely the same, that the study didn't take into account poverty, poor schools, health inequality. Some people might think, oh, those are weak, the poverty argument, but poor schools, health inequality. And when we say health inequality, we're talking about bad nutrition and like lead paint chips in the house, right?
Yeah. Absolutely. In reading some of the criticisms of the bell curve, I learned a few new things like that intelligence is what's called polygenetic. That is to say, it's influenced by a great many genes, each one contributing only a small amount and that there is no smart gene and that gene expression itself can be turned up or turned down by environmental factors.
Environmental factors. So I know some kids grow up with books and computers, and I know I'm harping on this, but other kids grow up with lead paint chips. That was a big thing in Detroit. When I was growing up, it was like all those old houses down there that had kids in them. All you need to do is eat a couple lead paint chips as a kid and you're in trouble or the dust from it.
And that's because it actually, apparently, lead paint chips are sweet and they taste good. Ooh, I didn't know that. Yeah. Gross. That's why kids eat lead paint chips. They taste like candy. At least the ones that I ate did.
So even in talking about the genetic aspects of intelligence, our environment also plays a part, which totally makes sense.
Exactly. Environmental factors that can influence gene expression are stuff like diet, which we talked about, nutrition, but also toxics and chemicals.
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Chapter 6: What are the limitations of IQ tests?
And by overwhelming number of racist organizations, I assume you mean all racist organizations agree with them.
Well, it seems like the more things change, the more they stay the same, I suppose. I want to jump back to the IQ stuff before we get too far off the reservation, which also sounds racist now that I say it out loud. Save me.
Yeah, okay, fine. Let's get back to IQ. IQ tests have been changing for a long time now and working towards getting rid of cultural biases. A test known as the Wexler Adult Intelligence Scale was published in 1955, and modern editions continue to be released, including a fifth edition that just came out in 2024. There's also Raven's Progressive Matrices and the Kauffman Brief Intelligence Test.
These tests have tried to reduce these cultural biases as much as possible.
So no more questions like, with which hand do you hold a caviar spoon? Or what does it mean for a dressage horse to piaffe?
Yeah, those questions are gone. These tests focus on logical reasoning, pattern recognition, things that anyone could be good or bad at, regardless of background. The goal being to measure general cognitive ability with as little bias as possible. And there's also the idea that there are multiple types of intelligence. There's mathematical intelligence, spatial, linguistic.
There's fluid intelligence and crystallized intelligence. Crystallized intelligence sounds pretty cool. It does sound cool.
Sounds Star Wars-y. Yeah, it's, oh yeah, this new Jedi has crystallized intelligence. Only Master Yoda has crystallized intelligence, Jordan. I would like to take the crystallized intelligence test. I feel like I might want to take all these tests, actually, just for shits and gigs.
I mean, if I take a bunch of different IQ tests and consistently get around the same score... Then that might, in fact, tell you something. Okay. Plus, if I score super high, then I'll be inducted into some kind of secret society, ostensibly.
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Chapter 7: How have IQ tests evolved over time?
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Chapter 8: What role do IQ tests play in modern contexts?
In Britain, scores started dropping around the year 2004. In the United States, it's a mixed bag.
Because you figured if anybody was getting dumber, it was Americans?
But there are hints that scores are dropping for people born after 1990.
Yeah, damn video games, eh?
Yeah, could be. That's the appeal of the IQ test in the first place. If we do have a reasonably accurate way of measuring intelligence, then we can use that data and try and determine variables or factors that can affect intelligence.
Yeah, like nutrition, cleaner food, smaller family sizes, yada, yada. This makes sense. I feel bad. I'm taking potshots at Americans, but the data showed the Scandinavians suck at Norway. But it makes sense. My dad was a one of eight kids and Ukrainian immigrant. The parenting was different. They lived in a small house. There wasn't a whole lot of let me focus on helping Don with his homework.
You know, it's like, no, I just I'm trying to make sure nobody dies in my watch the end.
Yeah. I'm from a family of six kids, Catholic, go figure. I like to say my mother had three ways of helping me with my homework. First, she tried yelling at me, then she tried screaming at me, and then she tried shrieking at me, and then she was totally out of ideas.
Jeez. Yeah. So the family size thing does matter. Okay. And like I said, cleaner food and blah, blah, blah. Exactly.
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