Understanding IQ: History and Implications

Every so often there’s a controversy related to IQ. The latest was caused by [checks notes] the new Vice President of the US attacking the IQ of a political podcaster on Twitter.

You could argue that the VP should have better things to be doing. But Tom and Stuart certainly don’t, because they’ve recorded a whole episode of The Studies Show on the science of IQ. Hasn’t IQ been debunked as a measure? Does anyone take it seriously in 2025? Doesn’t an IQ test only tell you how good you are at doing IQ tests? In this episode, find out the answers to all these questions and more.

The Studies Show is sponsored by Works in Progress magazine. It’s an online magazine associated with the broad “progress studies” movement, where you can find excellent, data-driven essays on what works to drive scientific and technological advances. You can find every issue of the magazine, for free, at worksinprogress.co.

Show notes

* JD Vance’s tweet about Rory Stewart’s IQ; Rory Stewart’s response

* Study on how standardised testing helps get more poor/minority kids into “gifted and talented” programmes

* 2023 meta-analysis on intelligence and lifespan

* 2018 study (n >2m) from the Israeli military on intelligence and early mortality

* Brief Nature article discussing why intelligence might relate to lifespan

* 2018 article on the psychological problems of high-IQ people

* Huge Swedish study on psychiatric hospitalisation and intelligence

* Can you ever be too smart for your own good?

* Meta-analysis on self-knowledge of IQ

* 2020 study showing that the Dunning-Kruger effect is a “statistical artefact”

* 2023 follow-up analysis

Credits

The Studies Show is produced by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada Productions.

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