IQ Testing Was Designed to Help Struggling Children, Not to Rank or Sort People
Source: https://www.facebook.com/americanspectator/. "IQ Tests Were Meant to Help Children, Not Rank People | The American Spectator | USA News and Politics." August 15, 2026. spectator.org
The Gist
IQ tests were invented over a century ago to spot kids who were struggling in school so teachers could help them, not to create bragging rights for smart adults. The author argues that groups like Mensa and online score-flaunting have twisted this original purpose into a status game, and that we should refocus intelligence testing on finding and helping children who are overlooked, especially disadvantaged kids who get missed by systems that rely on teacher recommendations instead of universal testing.
Conclusion
IQ tests were originally created as diagnostic tools to identify and help struggling children, and modern culture (exemplified by Mensa and online score-flaunting) has corrupted this purpose into a status-ranking system; testing should be redirected toward finding and helping overlooked children rather than sorting people hierarchically.
Premises
- Binet and Simon developed the 1905 intelligence scale specifically to diagnose which children were struggling in school and needed additional educational support, not to create a permanent ranking of human worth.
- Binet himself rejected the idea that intelligence was fixed, criticizing this view as 'brutal pessimism,' and pursued 'mental orthopedics' to actively improve children's cognitive abilities.
- After Binet, figures like Terman and Yerkes expanded testing into mass classification (Stanford-Binet, Army Alpha/Beta), and Terman's association with eugenics shows how far the philosophy drifted from Binet's original diagnostic, child-centered intent.
- Modern culture has inverted the original purpose, using IQ scores for social status, online one-upmanship, and organizations like Mensa that gatekeep membership by score rather than using testing to help those who struggle.
- IQ tests only measure a narrow slice of cognitive ability under specific conditions, comparable to judging an entire athlete by a grip-strength test alone.
- A 2016 PNAS study found that switching from teacher/parent referrals to universal screening in a school district dramatically increased identification of economically disadvantaged, Black, and Hispanic gifted students, showing that many capable or needy children are currently overlooked by non-diagnostic, referral-based systems.
Assumptions
- The original intent of a tool's inventors should meaningfully constrain or guide its legitimate uses today.
- Diagnostic/educational uses of IQ testing and status-ranking/social-sorting uses are fundamentally in tension and cannot coexist without corrupting the tool's value.
- Mensa and online score-sharing are representative of 'modern culture' surrounding IQ testing broadly, rather than a narrow subset of enthusiasts.
- The findings of the 2016 universal-screening study (about gifted identification) generalize to support the broader argument about identifying struggling or overlooked children.
- An organization like Mensa has an obligation to serve a broader social good (helping overlooked children) rather than simply serving its stated purpose of connecting high scorers.