[coderwolf]

Is IQ really that important?

I mean, if your goal is to get from point A to point B, having a fast car just means you go there faster.

I'm thinking of IQ in a similar way, as in - high IQ = faster car. But at the end of the day, it's still the same, isn't it? Please correct me if I'm wrong.

[The_Colonel]

If you have IQ 50, it's not just that you do things slower than other people, you can't do many things at all.

[peterfirefly]

Even worse: if you have an IQ of 100, there are lots of things you just can't do. And if you have an IQ of 120? Still lots of things you just can't do. Same with 140. And it doesn't even stop there.

[coderwolf]

Could you share some examples for what you mean?

There are two different form of understandability that comes to my mind,

1. Things that you don't understand because you don't have the necessary background knowledge, 2. And the things you'd fundamentally never understand because of the limitations of your own mind, which is, limited by the IQ.

I' assuming you're trying to mean the second version here.

[whatsupdog]

Yes it matters. Faster car can run more miles in a day. More IQ can do more work.

[siva7]

Unfortunately for that we have computers so we don't need high IQ to do more work like calculations but higher quality work (which also depends on what kind of work you're doing) and that is oftentimes not primarily related to high IQ (think of creative work)

[starspangled]

Is that really true? That IQ is often not related to capacity to do valuable intellectual work in the modern world?

[jjk166]

IQ measures reasoning capability, not speed of mental calculations.

[coderwolf]

I think you're right. (Did some ChatGPTing, and found this one holds).

But still, I don't believe IQ alone can improve your reasoning capability, could it? Like with proper education, and knowledge, a person with average IQ would more likely be able to see the correct patterns, and connections between ideas, than a high IQ person without the required education would.

It's like - having the proper education, trumps the meaning of having a high IQ. But, it's true, given the similar environment, I'd assume, the high IQ person would do better.

[jjk166]

IQ doesn't improve anything, it is a measurement. You don't have good reasoning capability because you have a high IQ, you have a high IQ because you have good reasoning capability. It's also not something fixed. Your IQ will naturally vary over time due to both controllable and environmental factors, including some aspects of education.

Education is no substitute for IQ any more than IQ could be substituted for education. A high IQ individual has the potential to better utilize an education, all else being equal. Whether education or reasoning ability is more critical is very situational. In a tour guide, you definitely would prefer someone knowledgeable, in a detective you really want someone clever. At least for the moment the preferred workload distribution is generally for computers to help us with information retrieval and low level analysis which education trains us for while a human performs high level reasoning tasks which are represented by IQ.