> Spearman was right that people differ in their ability to solve well-defined problems. But he was wrong that well-defined problems are the only kind of problems. “Why can’t I find someone to spend my life with?” “Should I be a dentist or a dancer?” and “How do I get my child to stop crying?” are all important but poorly defined problems. “How can we all get along?” is not a multiple-choice question. Neither is “What do I do when my parents get old?” And getting better at rotating shapes or remembering state capitols is not going to help you solve them.
Define 'better'. For example:
> “How do I get my child to stop crying?”
Lots of 'dumb' parents are very good at solving this question, they give the kid what they want and put them in front of the TV or give them a bunch of candy. Smart parents might overthink the question, read a book on parenting, try a naughty chair, fail and get stressed.
The smart parents answer might be the one that's best in the long term, but it might not and really doesn't solve the actual problem right now. So is it the better answer? That depends, because it's not a well-defined problem, which I think is the point.
The article has this paragraph that seems to contradict your position:
> This is exactly the situation we’re in with tests that claim to measure people’s “reasoning” and “problem-solving ability.” Christopher Langan, a guy who can score eye-popping numbers on IQ tests, believes that 9/11 was an inside job meant specifically to distract the public from his theories, and he claims that banks won’t give him a loan because he’s white. John Sununu supposedly has IQ of 176, but he still had to resign from being George H.W. Bush’s chief of staff because he flew to his dentist appointments using military jets. Bobby Fischer is one of the greatest chess players of all time, but he also claimed that Hitler was a good dude, the Holocaust didn’t happen, and "Jews murder Christian children for their blood and they’re doing it even today." Then there's the ever-lengthening list of professors at elite universities who have been disciplined or dismissed for doing things like sexually harassing colleagues and students or completely making up data or hanging out with a known pedophile. These are supposed to be some of the smartest people in the world, endowed with exceptional problem-solving abilities. And yet they’re still unable to solve basic but poorly defined problems like “maintain a basic grip on reality” and “be a good person” and “don't make any life-altering blunders.”
If "smarter people are better at answering" those sorts of questions, why do the allegedly smartest people in the world make such blatantly stupid decisions or hold such obviously wrong, easily proven wrong, beliefs?
> Cursory search on IQ vs marital status confirms that.
What does this mean? What was the result of your search? Did you find higher IQ people are more or often less married? Or more or less often divorced? Is it good to be married? Is it smart to get married? I don't understand.
Bobby Fischer was mentally ill - is not being schizophrenic a form of intelligence?
I read the article linked about 'Christopher Langan' - the guy lost out on a scholarship and got kicked out of college because of circumstances related to his poverty and uneducated single mom. Is having loaded parents also a form of intelligence?
> What does this mean?
The very first article I saw was claiming that couples had average IQ higher than singles, and that divorcees had lower.
The article listed.
> Cursory search on IQ vs marital status confirms that
The article is concerned with happiness and intelligence. I can’t speak to the strength of its evidence, but it does present a graph that shows a flat lined measure of happiness that spans 80 years despite an increase of 15 IQ points in that time.
> That's wish-washing the answer where none is needed.
I wasn’t answering a question I was just quoting the article
