University of Cambridge Cognitive Ability Test

I still do not understand why we are wasting scientific resources trying to stack rank humans on arbitrarily defined concepts like cognitive ability or intelligence.

After over a century of psychometric research in cognitive abilities and intelligence, what do we have to show for it? Whose life has actually improved for the better? Have the benefits from such research, if any, outweighed the amount of harm that has already been caused?

>resources trying to stack rank humans on arbitrarily defined concepts like cognitive ability or intelligence.

"arbitrarily defined concepts like cognitive ability or intelligence" correlate very well with objective metrics like educational attainment and income.

>the amount of harm that has already been caused?

Like what?

So is the goal to predict someone’s future income? Or to inform someone of how much money they supposedly should be making based on their test results and the supposed correlation between test results and income? Surely the test results aren’t being used anywhere to actually determine people’s income.

The goal is to predict if, for example, someone is better suited to sweeping the floors vs working with complex systems. Both are useful and respectable jobs but you both want an individual who can actually do it, not someone who just thinks they can, and someone whose capabilities won't be wasted on too simple tasks. These tests are great tools to help you figure out future performances of said individuals, as well as their satisfaction on the job/task. A mismatch will cause impact both for the individual and the company/military unit/etc.

The US Army requires a minimum AFQT percentile of 31 for enlistment which, based on standard IQ norms (mean = 100, SD = 15), maps to roughly an IQ of 85 (one standard deviation below mean).

I.e. if you have an IQ below 85 you can't even sweep up the floor for the army

And it’s because they found that using people below that threshold for _any purpose, including canon fodder_ has disastrously bad outcomes.