The quickest Google search for "flaws of IQ tests" comes back with so many studies showing that IQ is not correlated to intelligence that at this point the burden of proof is on anyone who says IQ is relevant. Even if IQ does measure something, it's not an indicator of anything other than the ability to pass a standardized test. It certainly is not an indicator of intelligence.
In other words: what is your evidence that IQ measures anything actually relevant?
I never said anything about IQ tests measuring intelligence. No doubt the “something” that is measured is, at least in part, “intelligence,” at least as it applies in an academic setting. However, for you to dismiss them outright is simply not supported by the literature. For example:
> Kids who score higher on IQ tests will, on average, go on to do better in conventional measures of success in life: academic achievement, economic success, even greater health, and longevity.[0]
Yes, you can improve your performance on IQ tests with practice and motivation, but that does not make them “scientifically invalid” in any way. The fact is that so many things are correlated to IQ that it’s a useful theoretical construct, even if it’s misnamed and has little to do with what you’d call “intelligence.”
If IQ can be improved through education, then you cannot use it to argue that lower IQ people cannot be educated to be better at STEM jobs as the parent was arguing.
Sure, I'll give you that IQ measures something. The question is, is that something relevant to the argument that you can only be competitive in STEM with a higher IQ and therefore many people cannot be educated into STEM careers? Does IQ make you better suited for those jobs, or does the training for those jobs cause you to score higher on IQ tests?
It's no shock that richer and healthier people do better in school. If you want to call that "IQ" then fine, but saying the correlation goes the other way is an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary proof. Without proof that a higher IQ makes you richer and healthier rather than the other way around, then yes, it is entirely scientifically invalid. Especially if you're not exactly sure what IQ is actually measuring.
If the parent wants to argue that some people can never be trained in STEM careers because STEM careers require too high of IQ, I demand proof that this psuedo-science malarky is defined and that it is proven to be inherent and cannot be trained during the course of STEM education.
In other words: what is your evidence that IQ measures anything actually relevant?
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/iq-tests-are-fund...
https://www.popsci.com/why-iq-is-flawed
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/iq-scores-not-accurate-marker-o...
https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2009/07/the-tru...
https://www.apa.org/monitor/feb03/intelligent