Why arent the smartest people running our countries?

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The brain is a very adaptable organ, intelligence (in any form you wish to measure it as a result of brain processes) will be/is trainable. Also see the above post.

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Wow man. I look forward to your paper on how humans can improve IQ by 30 points.

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That actually isn't so hard if you are in the low or averages, train on IQ tests and you should be able to pull it off if you work hard. If you are higher on the scale it will get increasingly harder ofcourse.

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I mean it - if you believe this I seriously look forward to the paper. You'd either prove that IQ testing is largely bogus (it's still thought of as largely valid by most psychologists), or that actual intelligence can be massively improved by training. From my knowledge of current psychology I believe this would be a huge revelation.

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If you have seen a classic IQ test you would know they are all about pattern recognition on linguistics, geometrical figures and numbers. All these are trainable skills. Getting good at these tests is no more astounding than getting better at crosswords. The brain changes if you train it - it is a simple principle, and without that principle you couldn't learn stuff, get new skills or get better at things.

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So is the LSAT - it measures acquired verbal reasoning skills which are supposedly highly trainable, and has a section containing logic puzzles similar to IQ tests. Yet despite the fact that a good LSAT score is highly prized, you can't greatly improve your score no matter how much training is done. A 150 will never score a perfect 180. That may sound shocking, but it's fact. If you look at the test data of second test takers, you'll see less than 1 in 1000 144- score above 160 on their second attempt. And that includes people who were sick, distracted, extremely nervous, underprepared, or suffering from stereotype threat(lol) on the first go. Pretty shocking, no?

http://www.lsac.org/pdfs/2006-2007/i...tionbk2006.pdf

This is simple stuff - reading comprehension, understanding of language, pattern recognition, and general comprehension. To someone like me with less than a Mensa IQ, they're incredibly easy. Yet others struggle and improve little, even with substantial training.

I know you think that intelligence is trainable and that the brain's processing power is wonderfully malleable, but the data I can find indicates that it's nowhere near as trainable as you believe. Do you have any hard evidence that people can improve their IQ that much?

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Like I said, it will get harder the nearer the top you get. Also the brain is rather rigid later in life compared to younger years, so there is limit to what you can train it to.

No human being can make even bad scores on an intelligence test without some formal training though, which really is all the evidence you need.

That some may be closer to their potential than others doesn't detract from that, this isn't rigid science - people are different initially and will also have experienced and learned different things.