Great article. I experienced a similar frustration with the Stanford-Binet, and even more so in high school with the good ol' SAT (which Mensa also considers an admissable 'IQ' test).
It seems to me that a true "intelligence" test would also throw some generative problems at you: i.e., test you for as many correct answers to a pattern or sequence problem as you could come up with. I wouldn't advocate for generative problems to the absolute exclusion of deductive problems -- but the reverse is currently the case on most IQ tests, and it shouldn't be.
As for the broader point: there's been a scientific debate, for about as long as IQ tests have existed, over exactly what IQ tests are measuring, and exactly what IQ means. Most standard IQ tests are now regarded as measuring "g" ("general factor," sometimes called "general intelligence"). It may indeed be the most highly significant factor in intelligence, but even if it is (which, again, is debatable), it is just one factor of many. There are other factors, some of which are statistically significant. So simply isolating for the strongest factor is dumbing down the entire equation.
At any rate, "g" ends up being highly correlated with our concept of intelligence, but it is by no means a perfect or complete metric. And it does tend to favor a very specific type of intelligence, given that it is a narrow band on a broader spectrum. And vice versa: it excludes many whose minds we would probably consider genius caliber.
It seems to me that a true "intelligence" test would also throw some generative problems at you: i.e., test you for as many correct answers to a pattern or sequence problem as you could come up with. I wouldn't advocate for generative problems to the absolute exclusion of deductive problems -- but the reverse is currently the case on most IQ tests, and it shouldn't be.
As for the broader point: there's been a scientific debate, for about as long as IQ tests have existed, over exactly what IQ tests are measuring, and exactly what IQ means. Most standard IQ tests are now regarded as measuring "g" ("general factor," sometimes called "general intelligence"). It may indeed be the most highly significant factor in intelligence, but even if it is (which, again, is debatable), it is just one factor of many. There are other factors, some of which are statistically significant. So simply isolating for the strongest factor is dumbing down the entire equation.
At any rate, "g" ends up being highly correlated with our concept of intelligence, but it is by no means a perfect or complete metric. And it does tend to favor a very specific type of intelligence, given that it is a narrow band on a broader spectrum. And vice versa: it excludes many whose minds we would probably consider genius caliber.