I think IQ tests and all these maths/SAT scores are not a valid measure of intelligence because they does not take into account any of the complexities of the human mind. It is invalid to simply assign an arbitrary number to intelligence because there are many aspects of intelligence and that not all of these can be quantified. You will be label as mentally retarded if you simply has a hard time understanding the format of the test. African american have better IQ than African living in Africa simply because they have better economic conditions
Well, what we call "IQ testing" is the reflection of the astonishing finding that all cognitive abilities which are valuable in the context of a modern, industrialized society are positively correlated. Seemingly unrelated skills such a backward-digit span, pitch recognition, and the ability to understand a passage of written prose all tend to rise or fall together -- and these correlations are not trivial, but the highest ever documented in the social sciences. Statistically speaking, Sandra who scores high on physics is also likely to write better essays than Mindy who scores low. Occasional exceptions to this rule do
not disprove this overall trend. A narrow, one-dimensional measure of a "linear" sort of intelligence, IQ surely is not.
As for the notion that there are other definitions of intelligence that are just as valuable as our own, spare me your chicanery. In the 21st century, there is absolutely no alternative to industrial civilization. The fruits of modern science and engineering have produced a standard of living that is without parallel throughout the entire history of our species. We owe our long lifespans today to immunology, modern sanitation, physics, chemistry, and the fruits of modern medicine -- and it is just too bad that IQ tests do an excellent job measuring your ability to succeed in any and all of these fields. Emotional intelligence alone does not build skyscrapers or bridges; neither will it find the cure cancer or sanitize your water supply.
It is indeed that primitive cultures do honor alternative definitions of intelligence that are perhaps better suited to their environment. For example, the Waripari of Australia teach their children to search for water in the middle of the desert, otherwise they will die from thirst during the dry season. But we don't. We've got geologists and engineers for that. Third world immigrants from hellholes like Haiti and Guinea-Bissau are busy trying to emigrate here, and nobody ever tries to relocate themselves there -- so much for their native definitions of intelligence. Once you discount the three Rs (reading, 'riting, 'rithmetic), what's left?
Self-selection by immigrants doesn't explain away this phenomenon, either. Japanese Brazilians were imported to the sugar cane fields of Brazil as manual laborers. And yet mysteriously, they too face affirmative action "quotas" restricting their numbers at elite universities in Brazil. There isn't a single place on *earth* where East Asians do not constitute a model minority, and incidentally, these ethnic groups also tend to score higher than the White mean on IQ tests. It's true in Malaysia, where the Chinese are the descendants of illiterate tin miners. And in Canada, where they were hired to work the railroads.