Re: CHAT: Profile of a Conlanger

On Wed, 12 May 1999, Tom Wier wrote:

> Padraic Brown wrote:
> > It's a load of pigs ears.  All the questions (at the site anyway) force
> > either/or answers: and you scheduled/unscheduled; do you prefer a neat
> > desk/messy desk; do prefer paper/plastic; and that.  In a very rough,
> > general way, it can probably tell you what you already know about
> > yourself.  I've never yet taken one that pins anything down properly or
> > very detailed.
>
> Well, you can say that about almost any test.   You might as well criticize
> IQ tests, EQ tests (yes, there are some, even on the net), and certainly
> you can criticize the SAT tests! (college entrance exams for you
> Non-Americans out there)
Of course, and I have.  Some of the lower rankings of my HS class (amongst
them me) who scored poorly on the SAT and who barely squeeked into the
state's Party School Extraordinaire (at that time) ended up doing very
well overall at university.  Some of the top guns who got into
"prestigious" schools with SATs in the stratosphere (or higher) ended up
flunking out of said prestigious school.  I've also never met a college
professor yet who puts much faith in these kinds of tests.  None of this
gives me much faith in them; and it's these kinds of tests that are
supposedly "designed" to be a slice or three above your average Spanish
325 midterm exam.

> Almost any test will reflect *lots* of things other than what's being
> tested over, and sometimes these things override the purpose of the test
> in the first place.  But inasmuch as this test was designed by experts
> in the field, I feel it was a pretty good measure of what it's measuring
> -- and more importantly, it formalizes it, analyzes it, breaks one's
> personality down into its constituent parts.  *That* is why you take the
> test:  not because you don't know who you are, but because you know only
> in a vague, nonspecific way, and this tells you specifically.
Well, "expert" doesn't necessarily mean they will come up with an
excellent product.  Now, what I said is that these tests _don't_ tell me
anything specific.  They break up one's personality into four categories.
Big deal: it tells me I'm Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling and Perceiving.
The point is I knew that going in: all the test did was come up with four
snappy psychobabbles to pigeonhole my answers. It doesn't say anything
specific, it doesn't make connections and it isn't capable of telling me
anything other than my results at this instant in time.  I'll grant that
it measures and analyses what it measures well enough, but I don't think
it "tells"  much.  A great psychological Rube Goldberg that does
essentially what a very close friend or spouse ought to be able to come
with inside of five minutes.

Just my opinion.
Padraic.

>
> =======================================================
> Tom Wier <artabanos@...>
> ICQ#: 4315704   AIM: Deuterotom
> Website: <http://www.angelfire.com/tx/eclectorium/>
> "Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."
>
> Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and
> oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil
> spirits at the dawn of day. - Thomas Jefferson
> ========================================================
>