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?

On scientific front, it's very useful. Its use outside of academia is has however been very problematic.

There are studies that empirically measure drop change cognitive ability from lead poising, oxygen deprivation, sleep deprecation, post-burnout, environment distraction, noise pollution, temperature, aging, drug and alcohol use during puberty, smoking, school teaching style, etc. etc.

Notable is that these are either population metrics or compare each individual with themselves. This is what IQ and other similar tests were meant for. Comparing one person with another is nonsensical and a flawed use of these metrics.

This is where where IQ has fallen and become a rather bad metric. People are familiar with the problems scewing results. IQ test performance and education level is highly correlated, which is supposed to be compensated for in the final score. But poor education quality in certain regions make the statistics easily used to argue quite unsavory ideas.

> Comparing one person with another is nonsensical and a flawed use of these metrics.

Isn't this what IQ tests literally do, given that they transform raw scores to a normal distribution for comparability?

Let's say you had a caliper that added a random number between zero and one inch to every measurement. If you measured a trillion small peas and a trillion big peas, you would be able to conclude that one set was smaller than the other. If you compared two peas, it'd be a 50-50 guess driven by that random number.

You seem to be suggesting that IQ tests simply don't work, not that their point isn't to compare people.