Episode Details

You've seen the banner ads promising to reveal your IQ score in twenty minutes with geometric puzzles. But what do these tests actually measure? We trace IQ testing back to 1904, when Alfred Binet built a practical diagnostic tool for Paris schools and Charles Spearman proposed the g-factor. We explore Raven's Progressive Matrices, the "culture-free" test that still carries cultural biases, the Flynn Effect's three-point-per-decade rise, and why Howard Gardner and Robert Sternberg argue intelligence extends far beyond what any standardized battery can capture. A critical look at the single number that shaped the 20th century.