In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Mike Olsson
wrote:
> This is a bit off topic, but I am wondering if a person can play Go
> to increase their IQ or improve their intelligence.
If one is going to discuss the extremely slippy concept of
"intelligence" (or it's far, far slippier distant relative
"Intelligence Quotient"), then it's practically required to have read
Stephen Jay Gould's "Mismeasure of Man" (various editions from about
1980 to at least 1996, including ISBN-10: 0393314251 / ISBN-13:
978-0393314250). While it may not "blow out of the water" the whole
subject of "intelligence testing", it does make one very well aware
that the whole subject is a minefield of assumptions and prejudices
(both conscious and unconscious.
I read what was probably the original edition back in the
mid-80s, and loaned my copy to a university friend who was studying
psychology ; 15 year later she declined to return it because she was
still regularly using it to deflate novice opinionated staff working
under her with the "learning impaired". That would have been about the
time of the infamously neo-racist tract "The Bell Curve".
> From what I have read Kasparov's IQ is around 135 so playing Chess
> doesn't really increase a person's IQ.
>
About 2.3 standard deviations above the norm. That would imply
he's in the top 1½% or thereabouts of the population in performance on
IQ tests. Sounds like there's be 3 Kasparov-equivalents per couple of
full "Clapham Omnibuses". [Note 1] Or several per average chess club.
Or maybe IQ test results are not a terribly good predictor of chess
strength. I wouldn't really expect it to be much better a predictor of
Go strength either.
For what it's worth, the Aberdeen University Go Club was set up
in the early 1980s by ... a carpenter. Always a good memory for
deflating one's potential to self-aggrandisment.
[Note 1] Standard British English idiom refers many questions to the
opinion of the "man on the Clapham Omnibus", which seats about 75
people and stands another couple of dozen.
--
Aidan Karley,
Aberdeen, Scotland
Written at Mon, 15 Jan 2007 09:40 GMT, but posted later.
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