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[Soulwynd]

Hah. Online IQ tests. :3

I at least assumed they gave people real tests in real life and then asked which browser they used.

[penguinofhonor]

The findings have been treated with scepticism by Professor David Spiegelhalter of Cambridge University's Statistical Laboratory: "They've got IE6 users with an IQ of around eighty. That's borderline deficient, marginally able to cope with the adult world.

"I believe these figures are implausibly low - and an insult to IE users."

I think we should listen to this.  It's not really a plausible result.

Am I the only person who thinks that using IE6 proves that you're marginally able to cope with the adult world?

[alway]

Ah, if it's an online IQ test the IE6 users probably scored lower because a bunch of them managed to get a crippling virus before they were able to complete the test. 

[Soulwynd]

Yes. I have an aunt that uses IE6 and she's totally immature and incapable otherwise.

I think that using IE proves that you use IE. Nothing else.

[Agdune]

But it was on the internet and then reported on the news! Are you all saying that the NEWS IS OVERLY SIMPLISTIC AND WRONG?! :p

My psych class did a fair bit on IQ tests last year, the general message was that any psychological theory or principle made before 1920 and for a specific purpose (that is, weeding out intellectually disabled children from French classrooms) probably should not be taken entirely seriously when it's applied to the general population. Traditional IQ tests are about as accurate as tarot cards for anything other than their original purpose (figuring out if kids will be able to understand their academic material), people just love them because they give a nice, simple little number they can be proud of.

Intelligence itself is still under a fair bit of debate, but I can't remember which one is the most popular model at the moment... in any case, the popular ones are extremely difficult to test properly using any form of test that takes under an hour to administer, and won't ever really give you a single number to brag about.

On the other hand, I use Chrome, so clearly I'm super smart. Take that IE users!

[alway]

Any psychological theory or principle made before 2050 probably should not be taken entirely seriously.

ftfy

[Soulwynd]

Any psychological theory or principle should not be taken entirely seriously.

ftfy

ftfy2

[Agdune]

Eh, depends which field and how much research has been done on the particular subject. Example, still gotta be pretty cautious around Cognitive psych, but neurological psych is fairly solid. Pretty easy to confirm the effects of the anterolateral system, 'cause we can physically see that working. Not so easy to see how memory processes occur, but we can at least see if our theories have massive holes in them or not.

Researchers from before the 40ies didn't worry about that last part too much, they just took cocaine and made their little theories about eating faeces being a result of subconcious childhood sexual longing for penises or whatever (I'm looking at you Freud, you asshole). Modern psychology is a liiiitle more rigorous than that.

[Criptfeind]

I am wondering what the test actually was. I am imaging a five question thing with the last question (and the one with the biggest impact on your score) being 'what browser are you using?'

[Soulwynd]

As far as I know, neurology and psychology are two separate things. Even the neuropsychologists are in a separate area from psychology. I could be wrong tho. *shrugs*

[G-Flex]

I'm not sure that "separate area" has a meaningful definition there. Neurology and psychology are inextricably linked for reasons that should be incredibly obvious to anyone.


Also, I'm not sure what's worse: The claims made in the article, or the OP's implication that belonging to a group means you will suddenly possess all things statistically correlated with that group.

[Criptfeind]

I'm not sure that "separate area" has a meaningful definition there. Neurology and psychology are inextricably linked for reasons that should be incredibly obvious to anyone.

Although true it is basically why and what of the same thing, and at some point they will link together, perhaps to the point where they are not separate areas, we are not quite there yet, so I think it is quite fair to call them separate things until they are linked closer together.

[Soulwynd]

There's a reason why they have distinct names and fields. Even Neuropsychologists have to specialize clinical psychology. I suppose I should have said Neuropsychologists are a more specialized field of psychology and neurology. Afaik the field tries to correlate behavior with brain functions.

[Agdune]

I don't quite follow your point though. How does neuropsychology being a specialised field of psychology prevent it from being a field of psychology? There is no pure 'psychology' afaik, it's a range of specialised fields that all investigate individual behaviours from particular perspectives. It's just reffered to as plain old 'psychology' in general use because it's easier than specifying the relevant field each time.

[Soulwynd]

We were playfully bashing psychology, that's why.