Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Scars Unseen" data-source="post: 8463114" data-attributes="member: 10196">As I kind of indicated in an earlier post, that's less a problem with the ability score system and more with people trying to apply the same meanings across species.&nbsp; As much as I hate the IQ comparison, if one were to consider it as an analogue for the intelligence score, what then is the IQ of an ape?&nbsp; Or any other animal?&nbsp; Turns out, that's not really an easy question to answer because IQ tests are engineered towards testing specific kinds of human intelligence, and they don't apply to any other species than human.&nbsp; You can test animal intelligence, but not with the same test (or even the same test for all animals), and the results are not directly comparable.If we can't assess intelligence as a unified trait across species in real life, then why are we treating a very abstract rating of intelligence as having equal specific meaning across species in our fantasy game?&nbsp; How many languages can a cat learn?&nbsp; Does a squirrel get a negative to its Arcana checks?</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Scars Unseen, post: 8463114, member: 10196"] As I kind of indicated in an earlier post, that's less a problem with the ability score system and more with people trying to apply the same meanings across species. As much as I hate the IQ comparison, if one were to consider it as an analogue for the intelligence score, what then is the IQ of an ape? Or any other animal? Turns out, that's not really an easy question to answer because IQ tests are engineered towards testing specific kinds of [I]human[/I] intelligence, and they don't apply to any other species than human. You can test animal intelligence, but not with the same test (or even the same test for all animals), and the results are not directly comparable. If we can't assess intelligence as a unified trait across species in real life, then why are we treating a very abstract rating of intelligence as having equal specific meaning across species in our fantasy game? How many languages can a cat learn? Does a squirrel get a negative to its Arcana checks? [/QUOTE]

Verification