Talk:G factor (psychometrics)

message: :I think the preceding information (with appropriate citations) needs to be fleshed out and added to the article as a part of Challenges to g, perhaps with a subheading Factor indeterminacy. I have removed the neutrality template pending addition of this information to the article, or further discussion here. Ward3001 21:33, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Neutrality

message: The material on channel capacity seems distinctly out of place, or at least a disproportionate part of the article.  It is not even technically g theory.
The article in general has little to recommend it.  I propose the following structure to both point out shortcomings and recommend how they may be filled:
* Introduction (what is g)
* History (discovery of g by Spearman, development of the field, present-day understanding)
* Mental testing and g (cognitive tests all reflect g and derive most of their validity from g)
* Biological correlates of g
* Challenges to g
By necessity, much of this material will overlap with Intelligence (trait).  My point of view is that g-specific material should be located here (definition of g loading; crystallized and fluid g; importance of g in explaining cognitive ability test results), while intelligence-related findings (not restricted to g, though perhaps best explained by g) should be located at Intelligence (trait).
Thoughts?
--DAD 00:52, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Channel capacity

message: Spearman found, or discovered, or noted, or identified, the influence of a general factor.  He then proposed his model.  The continued insistence by some editors that Spearman simply hypothesized or proposed the existence of a factor alters history: while he may have hypothesized it, he also found that it was true, and that was his major contribution.  The article must reflect this.  --DAD T 18:38, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: This entire article needs a major NPOV revision. Spearman and others believed that it was true, but that does not mean it necessarily is. This article fails to note the controversy inherent in these claims. Jokestress 18:51, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The article now notes the controversy.  The claim that belief, rather than empirical reality, can somehow insert a general factor into correlation matrices has no support of which I am aware; Cite your sources.  Spearman's data showed a general factor regardless of what he believed, and he was the first to note (and develop a quantitative test, vanishing tetrad differences, for) a general factor.  The g-based factor hierarchy is, as the article notes based on the APA's consensus statement, the most widely accepted model for cognitive abilities.  Claims of NPOV must be accompanied by citations.  --DAD T 01:24, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: From the same source you cite: "Some theorists regard it as misleading (Ceci, 1990). Moreover, as noted in Section 1, a wide range of human abilities, including many that seem to have intellectual components, are outside the domain of standard psychometric tests." . And remember that we are talking only about consensus within a field of study, and one that has been known to be wrong once or twice before... When I have time, I will write up the various authors like Chris Brand, who exemplify the unvarnished sentiment behind this worldview. Jokestress 05:55, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I (and the article) acknowledge the controversy; "some theorists" are outside the mainstream, as the quoted sentence says.  Chris Brand (who I've just Googled) is an abuser of the science, not a scientist, and even the most hated actual scientists (Jensen, who I respect, and Rushton, who I'm still fairly ambivalent on) don't partake of Brand & ilk's venom.  Even guilt by association should require someone to snuggle up to Brand, not the other way around.  --DAD T 06:15, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: When I have some time, I will lay out the reasons why Brand's de-published "G Factor" book sums up the problems with the concept nicely (he is the most egregious abuser of the science; other "g factor" proponents are just more cagey), and I will add various criticisms of factor analysis by Goodall, etc. and more on Thurstone. Jokestress 07:06, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Great.  Incidentally, I've yet to see a critique of factor analysis that doesn't collapse before ever really getting off the ground.  In its stripped-down form, it's PCA; what could be simpler?  --DAD T 07:16, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Finding versus proposal 

message: "g correlates less strongly, but significantly, with overall body size."
That's an unfortunate choice of phrasing given the example earlier in the article about measurement of body size.  Is the assertion that g correlates with height?  With cubital length?  With body mass (are the obese more intelligent?)?  
--Nclean 25th of August 2006
I agree.  Obese people often have larger heads, and probably larger brains- does this mean people who are more obese are more intelligent?  I've never found that at all
: Cranium size is the important thing. Being fat does not increase the cranium size, does it? --Deleet (talk) 23:46, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Biological correlates of g - size 

message: Can someone please disambiguate "G factor" as it can also refer to the G-factor in physics. I don't know how to do disambiguation, sorry. See also Talk:G_factor.  Thanks! Rotiro 10:48, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Disambiguation Needed!

message: In the lead, it is stated that the g-factor is "widely accepted but controversial". Honestly, I haven't read the rest of the article yet, but that seems to contradict itself.--Niels Ø (noe) 11:06, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Widely accepted but controversial? 

message: "Brain size has long been known to be correlated with g (Jensen, 1998). Recently, an MRI study on twins (Thompson et al., 2001) showed that frontal gray matter volume was highly significantly correlated with g and highly heritable. A related study has reported that the correlation between brain size (reported to have a heritability of 0.85) and g is 0.4, and that correlation is mediated entirely by genetic factors (Posthuma et al., 2002). g has been observed in mice as well as humans (Matzel et al., 2003)."
The references to these studies should be listed, and I'd like to comment on them- did anyone ever notice how the Thompson study, which found grey matter to be so "heavily determined by genetic factors" examined TWINS RAISED TOGETHER?
I'm sorry, but that's a disgusting, profound amount of intellectual dishonesty and ignorance. To measure the heritability of a trait, you have to have the twins SEPERATED- NOT RAISED TOGETHER. Yet this study took twins that lived their entire lives together, exposed to the same environmental influences, causing thier intellect and personality to develop along the same patterns... yet, they just grabbed some random twins, saw "how similar they were", completely ignoring the dynamics of heritability studies, and, in some huge media blitz, where the study was spread and reported in countries across and the globe and even put on the cover of Nature- fucking disgusting. How could a study with such inane criteria EVER make it through peer-review?
:Um, dizygotic twins share 50% of their genetic code, while monozygotic twins share 100%. Thus, if certain sections of the brain are shared more strongly by monozygotic than dizygotic twins, that indicates those sections of the brain have some underlying heritable component to them. I'll grant that I haven't seen the Thomson study, but the fact that it has made it through peer review suggests that its authors know what they're doing; conversely, writing angry posts in all caps and punctuating them with profanity does little to help your case. Harkenbane (talk) 04:59, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Some of these studies 

message: Yet no single measurement of a human body is obviously preferred to measure its "size" (although obviously the volume is).
This statement uses "obviously" twice, contradicting itself. This is unfortunate because the entire analogy/paragraph only makes sense if the parenthetical is false. I would just delete the paragraph outright, but perhaps someone has a better solution (or a better analogy). I'll change it to "(excluding the volume, admittedly)" so it isn't quite so blatantly idiotic. Thehotelambush 06:31, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Flawed Reasoning 

message: This page fails to acknowledge that the Flynn effect is seen by many as causing significant damage to the value of "g", because it effects individual skills on IQ tests disproportionately.  For example, there are huge IQ gains in Raven's and Similarities tests, but relatively small gains in learned skills such as Arithmetic.  Someone please update the page to reflect that the Flynn effect serves to challenge the meaningfulness of "g."  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 156.56.154.85 (talk) 22:54, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I really don't think the Flynn Effect provides any challenge to the existence of g. Yes, the Flynn Effect has affected some tests more than others, but scores on any one subtest are still positively correlated with scores on all other subtests. Now, James Flynn may argue that the Flynn Effect somehow disproves g, and that might be worth adding to the controversy section, but only because he made that claim; I don't think that the claim itself has any weight. Harkenbane (talk) 04:46, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  anonymous comment 

message: It might be useful to decide if you want to talk about the "General factor of psychometric intelligence," which has been exhaustively discussed in the technical literature, or a "General Intelligence factor" which I don't really know anything about. Most of this article is about the general factor of psychometric intelligence. The general factor is derived by performing hierarchical factor analyses on a correlation matrix of performance on mental ability tests. The process for determining it has been exhaustively described by Jensen (The g Factor). John B. Carroll (Structure of Cognitive Abilities) describes a complete algorithm for determining the common factor in such a matrix. Spearman called it g. By this, he meant that it was a general factor. He did not mean it was a factor of general intelligence. He used g, and contrasted it to s, which he described as a specific factor. This was his two factor theory. The modern understanding of g, typified by Jensen’s and Carroll’s description, is in terms of factor analysis. It is sometimes called the "g factor," or "Spearman's g" (in deference to Spearman). In other words, it is the "general factor" of cognitive ability - not a "General Intelligence Factor."  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.60.239.250 (talk) 01:34, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Page Title

message: I believe that something in the challenges section should be added concerning savants and people in the ASD, because savants only excel highly in one thing, and people on the Autistic Spectrum Disorder have a very uneven profile of abilities on an IQ test. Also, If one part of the brain gets damaged, then the other parts don't necessarily become defunct (neurological isolation).
superyuval10 (talk) 21:24, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: You have the wrong article. I believe you need to address this on the talk page for the general article on Intelligence. General intelligence factor is a psychometic and statistical concept and does not directly pertain to the general issues in intelligence. Ward3001 (talk) 00:49, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Savants and people on the ASD and brain damage. 

message: "In addition, there is recent evidence that the tendency for intelligence scores to rise has ended in some first world countries."
There are three citations for this. Two of them are dead. The last links to an article that doesn't mention it. Does anyone have a cite? --Deleet (talk) 23:49, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Flynn effect? 

message: I see that this article discussion page has been quiet for a while. You may find it helpful while reading or editing articles to look at a bibliography of  Intelligence Citations, posted for the use of all Wikipedians who have occasion to edit articles on human intelligence and related issues. I happen to have circulating access to a huge academic research library at a university with an active research program in these issues (and to another library that is one of the ten largest public library systems in the United States) and have been researching these issues since 1989. You are welcome to use these citations for your own research. You can help other Wikipedians by  suggesting new sources through comments on that page. It will be extremely helpful for articles on human intelligence to edit them according to the  Wikipedia standards for reliable sources for medicine-related articles, as it is important to get these issues as well verified as possible. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 17:33, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: There are still books directly related to the topic of this article that aren't mentioned in the article at all. You are all encouraged to check the  source list and to  suggest new sources for it as editing of this article continues. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 14:30, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Intelligence Citations Bibliography for Articles Related to IQ Testing 

message: I particularly like the new edit to article text referring to "g" as a "statistic," which is a correct use of the word "statistic" and a good picture of what g is in current psychometrics. I see from the edit summaries on the recent edits that there is still a call for more reliable secondary sourcing of this article. I hope to further update the  Intelligence Citations source list linked to from this talk page over the weekend, and I welcome other editors who are familiar with the literature to  suggest new sources for the source list, which you, other editors, and I can use for further updates of article text. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 17:18, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Good recent edits. 

message: There are many statistical terms used in this article without definition or reference.  It appears that there are multiple models used to define g, yet none of them are discussed in the article.  Terms like g-loading are vague and imprecise, and there appears to be no discussion of secondary or tertiary factors and how they relate to intelligence.  Without a discussion of how factor analysis is applied to intelligence test (like WAIS), this article makes g sound like touchy feely woo, instead of what it really is an application of a statistical method. aprock (talk) 17:41, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  ''g'' undefined in article, better sourcing needed 

message: The lead section says that g is "a controversial statistic". But is that really true, or rather is it not POV-pushing to make such a claim in the lead? To denote something as "controversial" suggests that it is a fringe view or at least not a mainstream one. However, my reading suggests that just about no one thinks that g does not exist. In fact, I don't see how they could think that it does not exist, when its existence is an empirical question, and innumerable studies have replicated it.
The lead talks about g as a statistic, i.e. something that results from statistical analysis. It is an empirical fact that if we give a battery of mental tests to a (reasonably big and cognitively diverse) sample of people and then plug their intercorrelations into a matrix, all correlations will be positive, and one can extract g from the matrix using various methods. To say that this is not possible is a fringe view, and I don't see why we should privilege it by claiming that g is "controversial". If g is controversial, then just about everything in psychology is, and we would have to change all sorts of articles accordingly. If the lead was about some specific aspects of what may be called "g theory" (e.g. that g is "mental energy" or "mental speed", as Spearman and Jensen, respectively, have suggested) we could say that it's controversial, but it isn't about such.
So, I suggest we remove the claim that g is controversial. There's a separate section for Challenges to g.--Victor Chmara (talk) 22:36, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: There are two aspects here.  The computation of g is not at all controversial.  While it isn't spelled out clearly in the article, computing a g-factor for a given set of tests is rather straightforward (although there is a wide degree of variation and subjectivity in defining the various subtests).  However, the interpretation of that value has been quite controversial.  Some think it represents something fundamental, others note that it is a statistical construct.  So when it comes to whether controversy should be in the lead, I don't think it's required in any strict sense, as long as it's clear that there is no consensus on what a g-factor represent with respect to intelligence.  Computationally, the g-factor is analogous to the eigenface with the the highest eigenvalue. aprock (talk) 01:00, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yes, what Aprock said. The numerous sources I have read on the subject suggest no disagreement at all about the linear algebra involved in calculating a g factor, but whole books worth of disagreement (some of which are still not cited in this article, alas) about the import of that calculated result. There are a lot of ways to reflect that controversy in article text, and I am not insistent on any one approach to fairly reflecting the sources, as long as we discuss that collegially. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 02:00, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, Schonemann does criticize the g-factor as calculated by Arthur Jensen as being simply a principal component and not a true factor analysis ("Psychometrics of Intelligence" ). There are differences between these. Eric Kvaalen (talk) 13:24, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  Schönemann's papers are always a hoot due to his Tourette-ish inability to refrain from heaping abuse on Arthur Jensen. In The g Factor Jensen advises against using PCA (even though, according to him, the specific method used in extracting g is not a big issue) so I'm not sure what Schönemann talks about. Schönemann's repeated criticism that g as used by Jensen and others is invalid because it differs from Spearman's definition is a weird opinion. The inadequacy of Spearman's two-factor model was acknowledged a long time ago, even by Spearman himself, but this does not in any way undermine the fact of the positive manifold of correlations between all intelligence tests.--Victor Chmara (talk) 16:30, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  I'll hear out the editors who are more familiar with linear algebra than I am (that may be most editors here) on this specific issue. There are other sources that appear to agree with the substance of Schönemann's criticism, perhaps in different language, and the pure mathematics of linear algebra has certainly developed since Spearman's era a century ago. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 17:21, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

text: Here is a better criticism: Miradre (talk) 11:29, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

text: Another is here . See the reply to Rinderman's study titled "Little g: Prospects and Constraints" on page 716. Lots of other interesting replies also.Miradre (talk) 11:35, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

text: For more peer-reviewed criticisms of g see 
* Louis Guttman: The Irrelevance of Factor Analysis for the Study of Group Differences. Multivariate Behavioral Research 27(2), 175-204. 1992. 
* Two failures of Spearman’s hypothesis: The GATB in Holland and the JAT in South Africa. Conor V. Dolan, Willemijn Roorda, Jelte M. Wichert. Intelligence 32, 155-173. 2004. 
* Dolan, C.V. and Hamaker, E.L. (2001). Investigating black-white differences in psychometric IQ: Multi-group confirmatory factor
analyses of the WISC-R and K-ABC, and a critique of the method of correlated vectors. In: Frank Columbus, Editor, Advances in
Psychological Research vol. VI, pp. 31-60. Huntington, NY: Nova Science Publishers, Inc. 
See also Dolan and Lubke's critique of Schonneman (Viewing Spearman's hypothesis from the perspective of multigroup PCA: A comment on Schoenemann's criticism. Intelligence 29 (2001): 231-245) where they still conclude that g is a "suboptimal test" of b-w intelligence difference.   
Timjim7 (talk) 23:37, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

text: I don't know, but I removed it. I also got rid of the word "variation", because it's not a measure of variation (like a standard deviation) but of the intelligence itself (supposedly). Eric Kvaalen (talk) 13:24, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  I can't remember if I added the tag, but if I did, it was probably with the issue that Eric mentions in mind. The definition can be further refined by subsequent edits now that several editors are active here. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 16:13, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

text:  Reviewing the article history, I see the dated citation tag was added by a bot to an older citation tag in the abbreviated form (which I never use). I didn't trace far enough back to see who first added the tag, and with what edit summary (if any), but again I agree with Eric on what the most salient issue about that sentence was before his rewrite. I'll check the sources I have at hand to see what they say about definitions. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 16:24, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I added the citation needed tag because there is currently no properly sourced definition in the article for the definition of the concept.  The current definition is not the correct defintion, and should probably be changed to the mathematical definition, with a separate paragraph for interpretation. aprock (talk) 18:55, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Controversial" 

message: Hi - just to avoid accusation of drive-by tagging (I got called away after adding the tag), I think we need the statement "IQ tests that measure a wide range of abilities do not predict much better than g" to be sourced because it's clearly a report of research findings. I've had a quick look on google scholar ("g factor" "broader measures"), but not come up with much either way. Could someone more familiar with the literature turn something up? VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 06:52, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks to whomever added the ref. I've found another one that describes the important of general knowledge and crystallised g as opposed to biological g as age increases. As I'm not up to speed in this topic area and fear making a mistake in summarising it, could someone take a look? It summarises a fair bit of research as well as reporting on its own findings. Here it is cite formatted: VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 03:55, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  g versus broader measures of intelligence 

message: "Stephen Jay Gould, who was not a psychologist, statistician, or psychometrician, voiced his objections..."
Why does it matter what Gould was not? He was not an infinite number of things, including an astronaut, soybean breeder, and a spotted pig. This statement may constitute a subtle case of POV, as it implies that Gould was not a position to comment on the topic or that his opinion was less informed. Not so. Without commenting on the content of Gould's argument at all, I maintain that he is a legitimate contributor to the discussion as a renowned biologist. You may not like what he says, but denigrating him is a POV and thus should be erased.
TippTopp (talk) 01:49, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Gould's criticisms of g were silly, but I agree that there's no need to say what he was not (unless there a source directly arguing that).--Victor Chmara (talk) 09:46, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV in denigrating S. J. Gould's view on the topic 

message: The section "Biological and genetic correlates of g" is a mess.  It relies heavily on a primary sources, unverifiable sources, and synthesis.  I suggest that the section be rewritten to be a straightforward summary of the main article linked.  aprock (talk) 19:44, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Summarizing [[Heritability of IQ]] in "Biological and genetic correlates of g" 

message: It seems that Spearman indeed used partial correlations in his 1904 paper. However, he used the tetrad method in his later work, and considered the method central to his research on g. Most accounts of his work specifically discuss the tetrad method, which makes it misleading to state in the lead section that he used partial correlations. However, I don't think there's any reason to mention the particular method in the lead section (the topic is not even discussed elsewhere in the article, although it should).--Victor Chmara (talk) 15:12, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for checking up on that.  I agree that something more concrete about the various models should be in the article.  Unfortunately, there is a lot of conflation of g as general intelligence, and g as model parameter in a lot of secondary and tertiary sources.  It might be useful to have separate sections dealing with those separate uses of the term. aprock (talk) 16:37, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spearman and partial correlations 

message: While discussion of the mathematical models used to compute g are good to have in the article, they need to either be properly defined, or expressed in lay terms.  Repeatedly using "positive manifold" appears to be shorthand for positive correlation matrices, which is probably better shortened to positive correlation, as it is clearer and more correct. aprock (talk) 02:20, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Positive manifold is briefly defined in the section "Mental testing and g" (first paragraph). It's a term that is used constantly in the literature, and it's much shorter than "universally positive correlation matrices/correlations" or any other expression. "Positive correlation" is not exact enough. It's much easier to discuss various theories of g when you can use the short and unambiguous term positive manifold. If needed, the term can be defined more clearly in the article. A pic of a positive correlation matrix would be useful.--Victor Chmara (talk) 12:10, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: If used, the term should be more clearly defined.  While it's shorter than "universally positive correlation matrices/correlations", it's also less clear.  Introducing new jargon that looks to be unique to intelligence research without it being well defined confusing.  As best as I can tell, a positive manifold is a Riemannian manifold, but none of the sources I have define it mathematically.  Linking to Estimation of covariance matrices#Intrinsic covariance matrix estimation, may or may not make sense depending on what the actual definition is. aprock (talk) 16:04, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  The positive manifold is not a very difficult concept, so I don't think it's problematic here. I added a correlation matrix from Spearman's original study to the section "Mental testing and g".--Victor Chmara (talk) 13:34, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Positive manifold 

message: I decided to make an account since I may make some minor contributions.  I made the topic about the law of diminishing returns as well.
I think a good direction for this article would be to expand the citations to include more than just authors name and year of publication. This should make it much easier for users who would like to reference these articles. There are a few I am interested in and will adjust it accordingly.  ONoNotThisGuyAgain (talk) 10:07, 16 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I have improved two citations from "indifference of the indicator."  The one citing Jensen and on citing Wendy Johnson.  For Jensen, the only thing he seemed to publish in 1998 was a book, so I assume that is right though I haven't read it.  The odd thing is that I would expect that to be citation 41 not 42.  41, which supposedly quotes jensen, shows up as macintosh and then 42 was jensen.  Well, I haven't moved those citations around because I don't know what macintosh is referring to.  For citations 47 and 48, both refer to johnson et al, which I assume means wendy johnson from edinborough.  She doesn't have a paper listed on her page from 2008.  Are these two different johnsons?  I have emailed her about this and will update once I know.ONoNotThisGuyAgain (talk) 10:56, 16 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  Sorry about that.  I didn't realize you split it up.  I should have scrolled down a little bit.  Sorry, at least that was only a minor thing anyway.  I am somewhat new to wikipedia, I will try to be more careful next time.  Wendy got back to me and the second paper is from 2007, so I went ahead and fixed that in the references section ONoNotThisGuyAgain (talk) 08:00, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I am reading through the article and it asks to please cite the second Johnson paper for 2007, but I just noticed it also says "article in press."  She may have sent me an old version in this case.  I specifically asked her what the proper date was and she just emailed me this in response.   My guess is that it is from 2007 since what she sent is from June of that year.  Surely publication wouldn't be delayed until 2008?  If this paper she sent me is just old, then just revert the last two edits. ONoNotThisGuyAgain (talk) 08:19, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  The paper was published in the first issue of the 2008 volume of Intelligence. See here.--Victor Chmara (talk) 13:06, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Improve citations 

message: The editors show nothing in regards to the evidence of the poor correlation between IQ and real world outcomes. It takes the stance that IQ is the "single biggest predictor ...", but blatantly fails to acknowledge that the vague '.55' correlation between IQ and job performance, leaves a large percentage of the variation in job performance, unexplained.  Meaning that while IQ may be the 'single best predictor', it is not, by any means, a good predictor of real world performance.  Of course, there is sources to cite which support this view, but none of the editors have taken effort to include any reasonable objections against IQ.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.16.113.3 (talk) 16:54, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: What sources do you recommend for improving the article? Do you know of others besides those in the  source list linked to from many of the article talk pages of articles on related topics? I'm always glad to hear about new  reliable sources. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 01:23, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  The 'single most biased article' on all of Wiki 

message: Journal of Intelligence — Open Access Journal is a new, open-access, "peer-reviewed scientific journal that publishes original empirical and theoretical articles, state-of-the-art articles and critical reviews, case studies, original short notes,  commentaries" intended to be "an open access journal that moves forward the study of human intelligence: the basis and development of intelligence, its nature in terms of structure and processes, and its correlates and consequences, also including the measurement and modeling of intelligence." The content of the first issue is posted, and includes interesting review articles, one by Earl Hunt and Susanne M. Jaeggi and one by Wendy Johnson. The editorial board of this new journal should be able to draw in a steady stream of good article submissions. It looks like the journal aims to continue to publish review articles of the kind that would meet  Wikipedia guidelines for articles on medical topics, an appropriate source guideline to apply to Wikipedia articles about intelligence. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 21:11, 5 December 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: The Journal of Intelligence — Open Access Journal website has just been updated with the new articles for the latest edition of the journal, by eminent scholars on human intelligence. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 21:35, 16 February 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Journal of Intelligence — Open Access Journal 

message: This page has big problems.  Proponents of the G theory have clearly locked down on its edits.  Terminology is strongly skewed towards supporting the validity of G, and criticism are muted.  For instance, in other theory pages (such as Multiple intelligence) there is a "criticism" section, here it is "challenges".  Proponents are more likely to have definitive wording in their accomplishments, ie, Jensen "proved", while critics have less definiteive wording, ie, Sternberg "argued".  I've noticed this trend on most of the human intelligence wiki articles, I highly recommend real editors come in and clean up the formatting and language to make it less patently biased.--162.226.6.148
: The coverage of the various viewpoints in this article reflects their prominence in reliable sources. The hierarchical g theory is the mainstream, consensus view of intelligence supported by leading researchers and used in test development. In contrast, non-g theories are mutually contradictory critiques of the mainstream theory, each supported by only a few people. Gardner's theory, for example, has no supporters among empirically oriented researchers and there are no tests of his multiple intelligences.
: As to your claim that there's a WP:SAY-related bias in the article, here are most of the instances where Jensen and like-minded researchers are mentioned in the article text along with the substitutes for 'say' used: 
:: Jensen maintained, according to Jensen, Jensen argued, Jensen pointed out, Wechsler contended, Jensen hypothesized, Jensen suggested, Jensen argued, according to Jensen's view, researchers have argued, critics have argued, researchers have suggested and argued, analyses have shown, has been much criticized by researchers, researchers have argued, critics have pointed out, researchers have criticized, researchers have rejected, researchers maintain, critics have suggested.
: And here's how the arguments of g critics are referenced in the article:
:: Thorndike and Thomsom proposed, researchers have argued, mutualism model proposes, Thurstone argued, Horn argued, Cattell rejected, Cattell and Horn maintained and argued, in Cattell's thinking, Guilford proposed, Guilford claimed, Guilford presented as evidence, Gardner posits, according to Gardner, Gardner contends, Gardner has argued, Sternberg and colleagues have claimed, Sternberg claims, Gould's critique is presented, Gould argued, according to Gould, Gould criticized, Gould argued.
: There is no great difference between how the views of the two camps are described, even though the "g men" represent the mainstream view, while the critics are a heterogeneous bunch supporting a wide range of mutually contradictory views, each of which have generally been espoused by only a few people, none of whom are alive in some cases. The fact that Brody is described as 'showing' rather than 'arguing' a point is not controversial because Sternberg admitted that point, although he gave it a different interpretation than Brody.--Victor Chmara (talk) 09:51, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Comment

message: The article's opening states: "The g factor typically accounts for 40 to 50 percent of the between-individual variance in IQ test performance, and IQ scores are frequently regarded as estimates of individuals' standing on the g factor". Explained variance is usually used synonymously with R^2.  However, later in the article, correlations seem to be much higher, such as  "the correlations between g factor scores and full-scale IQ scores from David Wechsler's tests have been found to be greater than .95." and "Raven's Progressive Matrices is among the tests with the highest g loadings, around .80."
How are these numbers consistent with one another?
: If you factor-analyze an IQ test battery, the subtests will have varying g loadings. The average loading may be around 0.6 or 0.7. This means that g's contribution to the total variance of the IQ battery is the square of that average loading, which is usually between 40 or 50 percent. In contrast, full-scale IQ scores are (weighted) averages of all subtest scores in a test battery. Such composite scores will mostly reflect what is common to all the subtests, that is, g. The g loadings of composite scores are higher than those of individual subtests, typically above 0.9, because they have been mostly "purged" of those sources of variance that are not common to all tests.
: Individual differences in full-scale/composite IQ scores are mostly on the g factor. But individual differences on a randomly chosen subtest may be mostly due to other sources of variance, depending on the subtest's g loading.
: I'll try to make this distinction clearer in the article.--Victor Chmara (talk) 07:52, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  What is the difference between correlation and explained variance between individuals? 

message: @Victor Chmara You reverted my edits to the article lead . I have not reverted, and want to resolve your concerns in a civil way and to resolve the issue here on the talk page. I completely disagree with your revert. Please explain further why you did it? Thank you.Charlotte135 (talk) 21:24, 30 January 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Looking at this again, and your brief comments, I should say I partly disagree as I can see *some* logic here. I made the edit to the lead and was going to revise the other redundant section I deleted by placing it in another section of the article. Let's talk about it.Charlotte135 (talk) 21:29, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

text: I think we are on the same page with a lot of this. The problem I see immediately with this article is that general intelligence redirects to this g factor article and general intelligence is discussed throughout. As you would be aware the concept of general intelligence is controversial and no consensus exists, as to what it is, and how it can be defined. The objective fact remains that the reliable sources do refer to g factor as general intelligence (and the other terms I introduced in the lead) and we need to reflect this from the get go, IMO at least. I'd like to approach this discussion here in small chunks if that's ok. What do you think?Charlotte135 (talk) 00:35, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Will restore the change to the lead I made and restore the other paragraph which is what I think your concern was.Charlotte135 (talk) 19:48, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Change to the lead 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Can we do that on this article ? Walidou47 (talk) 14:43, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Using preprints to make a claims