Excellent Overview of what general intelligence is and why it matters by Linda Gottfredson

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I really liked this article so I thought I'd share it.

http://www.psych.utoronto.ca/users/reingold/courses/intelligence/cache/1198gottfred.html

"No subject in psychology has provoked more intense public controversy
than the study of human intelligence. From its beginning, research on
how and why people differ in overall mental ability has fallen prey to
political and social agendas that obscure or distort even the most
well-established scientific findings. Journalists, too, often present
a view of intelligence research that is exactly the opposite of what
most intelligence experts believe. For these and other reasons, public
understanding of intelligence falls far short of public concern about
it. The IQ experts discussing their work in the public arena can feel
as though they have fallen down the rabbit hole into Alice's
Wonderland.

The debate over intelligence and intelligence testing focuses on the
question of whether it is useful or meaningful to evaluate people
according to a single major dimension of cognitive competence. Is
there indeed a general mental ability we commonly call "intelligence,"
and is it important in the practical affairs of life? The answer,
based on decades of intelligence research, is an unequivocal yes. No
matter their form or content, tests of mental skills invariably point
to the existence of a global factor that permeates all aspects of
cognition. And this factor seems to have considerable influence on a
person's practical quality of life. Intelligence as measured by IQ
tests is the single most effective predictor known of individual
performance at school and on the job. It also predicts many other
aspects of well-being, including a person's chances of divorcing,
dropping out of high school, being unemployed or having illegitimate
children [see illustration]....."

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