I like Dawkins' equation. Using that Criteria, the Spearman-Burt theory of cognitive abilities has got to be in the top 10.

BTW, has anyone done a proper investigation into the Skodak and Skeels results? They seem to me a bit 'Burtish', and not in a good sense. 
 
Chapter 5 of Spitz's book is devoted to it.

The point is that frontal-lobe-specific damage often doesn't impact IQ test scores at all, so IQ measurements don't necessarily show us how skilled a person is at thinking. 
 
The issue with studying people with brain damage is that inference can usually only be made one way: If X area is damaged, and Y function can no longer be performed, then likely X and Y have a close, perhaps causal, relationship. However, if X is damaged and Z function is still viable, it doesn't necessarily mean that X, or some area right next to it, anyway, is not related to Z. However, I am not a neuroscientist, so perhaps I am overstating things here. 
 
I think some IQ instruments get at some aspects of thinking/higher-order cognitive processes (e.g., the Raven's), but you are right in that IQ tests generally don't do this; however, the last parts of the full (20 subtest) version of the Woodcock-Johnson gets into this somewhat. 
 
Interestingly, the Jung-Harier paper I linked to reported that BAs 46,47 (pre-frontal) and 10 (frontal) all were related to IQ.

When I say recalibrate, I mean to put them on the same underlying metric. Perhaps if I used the word equating/linking, instead, it would alleviate confusion.  
 
It also affects international comparisons to the extent that the Flynn effect diminishes as it progresses, with different nations at different stages of the trajectory. 
 
How so? If the scores are obtained in (ballpark) the same period of time, why can't they be compared?

It sounds to me as though you're trying to wave away the Flynn effect. 
 
IMO, the FE is likely little more than a calibration problem. I have a paper coming out that shows, using the NLSY, when you calibrate the instrument (in this case the PPVT) correctly, the FE almost completely disappears. Of course, we will really never know until the Psych. Corp open up the Wechler data archives, although I and a colleague are in the process of working on a workaround to that problem.  
 
Still, this is nothing more than a red herring when it comes to within generation comparisons.

don't get this one at all. Not all scales need recalibration, and if one does, it's because of soe kind of physical wear and tear. Nothing comparable in an IQ test. 
 
Almost all measurement instruments need some type of re-calibration at some point(s). At the gym I see them doing it once in a great while just to make sure that it, say, doesn't register 5 lbs when there is nothing on the scale. Of course weight and IQ are quite different, but I was trying to make the point that re-calibration is not unique to IQ, it is not an issue to get in a tizzy about, and, moreover, there are very refined ways to do the re-calibration-linking process.

The whole book is great (except the last chapter on canonical correlations--who does those anymore?) Chapter 9, on FA/PCA, is very, very good. When I read it in grad. school in my multivariate class, it was the first time I actually "got" what FA does.

Ian Deary's Intelligence: A very short introduction. As the names says, it is very short; it is also very cheap (used copies are $4). Consider it the cliff notes of the Deary's more elaborate Looking down book.  
 
Also, Brand's free online version of the g factor. It, too, is short and very good introduction to g.

I cannot stress the importance of occupational assessment and vocational education (broadly defined). Murray had the right idea in that college is good, fine and well for certain folks with the intellectual and personality requirements, but it does not, ipso facto, result in a good, happy life (again, broadly defined). Secondary schools do many students a world of disfavor by making them complete "esoteric" classes in upper math/science/English when, instead, the time would be better spent in helping them (a) find their penchants and understand their abilities, (b) learn how to use their penchants/abilities to provide services that others will pay for, and (c) give them some "on-the-job" training. Contracting and cosmetology may work fine for some, but I wouldn't make the blanket recommendation as I am sure the turnover in those professions is high, for a reason.

dance 
You may be right. I looked through Psycinfo and only found one study on individual differences in (spatial) intelligence and dance (ballet) ability, and close-to-zero relationship was found. On one article I wouldn't base a huge amount of weight, but this area seems ripe for investigation. Anyone looking for a dissertation topic? 
 
Corsi-Cabrera, M.; Gutierrez, L. (1991) Spatial ability in classic dancers and their perceptual style. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 72, 399-402.

psychometricans and their advocates do I think tend to give short shrift to different mental ability peaks and special talents which in the real work of comparison among fairly close IQ peers in most high achieving professions, is what we all focus upon most. 
 
I don't think anyone (here) denied the existence of special abilities/talents. And if you have homogeneous IQ group, then penchants & talents become especially prominent. What I said was that the skills tended to be positively related, unlike Gardner, Sternberg, etc. who imagine these abilities are completely independent of g. That is, you can have, say, high "interpersonal intelligence/practical intelligence" and not understand much of anything that goes on in School.  
 
The EI field is too new, and I think they have some measurement issues, but my prediction is, if the field keeps going, that we'll find that it is another first order factor under Carroll's hierarchy.

Fair enough, if the evidence is sound, but I am sceptical at the claim (based on a study of his own) that 'individual differences' on the different tasks he describes are 'perfectly correlated'. 
 
That is just line of his argument, though. The major argument (in my opinion) is via neuropsychology, where you can get a very wide array of cognitive malfunctions for a wide variety of reasons, yet tasks that require similar abilities, are relatively unaffected. This is contrary to what the Thorndike/Thompson Sampling Theory would predict. For example, why are some people with prosopagnosia still able to recognize facial expressions? But there are many other examples in this literature.

athletic ability...an athlete with lots of g may succeed in getting more out of his or her ability  
 
I think that qualifies as being g related. 
 
Moreover, why are athletes (at least in football) required to take the Wonderlic? If the teams didn't think that cognitive ability had something to do with athletic performance, then why not simply rely on only the physical tests? Granted, though, in RT tasks, movement time is unrelated to g, so the relationship may not very strong. 
 
artistic/musical ability I don't think excellence in the arts could be achieved without a strong g engine behind it. Moreover, Spearman himself found that pitch discrimination was loaded onto g. However, it is likely that success in, say, acting on TV or motion pictures is a much less loaded of a g task. Any one know of some studies? Something along the lines of number of Oscars/Emmys vs. SAT or College accepted into? 
 
parenting. Hard to define success here as genes have a way to produce outcomes rather irrespective of parenting (assuming a "good enough" environment). But, g is related to understanding instructions for taking medicine, motorvehicle accidents, monetary resource allocation, etc., all of which are likely components of good parenting.

Given that I never floated a "theory" let alone suggested kindness as an "argument," that's a very dim response.  
 
Didn't mean "you" personally, but "you" in general. I know of none of your theories, so I wouldn't have a clue as to their validity.  
 
I don't know whose common experience Gardner's mantra resonates with; I see his MI stuff often pushed on Educators who in turn try to bully it onto others "much the same way that Moses handled the Ten Commandments," but when I ask them about their experience, I hear once that resonates with individual differences viz a viz g. My own personal experience in the classroom also does the same: I appreciate the kind people and folks with pleasant dispositions, but that doesn't make up for the ability to understand and process information.  
 
As far as PR, why not just tell people the truth and move on? When ever I read Gardner's stuff (well his books; can't say I ever read his peer-reviewed articles [does he have any?])I can't help but think he dances around a lot and, while entertaining, is vapid, whereas, say, Jensen is more terse, but he doesn't pull many punches and is much more rewarding to work through.

and point out that a number of things which are highly valued in society do not in fact require intelligence as one of their primary pre-requisites.  
 
That sounds good, but what are these highly valued things? And is their evidence that they are not related, at least in part, to g? 
 
I never said, and never will say, that g is life's reason d' etre. However, I am waiting for a single entity that can predict as much, as well.

life outcomes 
 
A generic term I use to encompass things like: educational attainment, occupational prestige, fewer health problems, longevity, etc. 
 
I use that purposefully, as the old argument was that g was only valid in predicating educational outcomes, but we know better now.  
 
I think it's probably pretty common experience that "gifts" come in all kinds of sizes and shapes.  
 
Yes, but Gardner posits they are independent of g, which is (a) testable, and (b) found to be untrue. 
 
He may also be perceived-of as kind and open in a way that the G crowd isn't, and kindness and opeenness aren't to be sneered at.  
 
Kindness is neither a necessary nor sufficient quality for science. Kindness is good to have in friendships, and I chose my friends, in large part, on this; but kindness is hardly a valid argument when their are mounds of data that refute your theory. It is an ad hominem argument.

Godfrey Thomson? 
 
Godfrey Thomson's book on factor analysis is a very readable introduction; but, that being said, his theory of intelligence is very similar to that of E. L. Thorndike's (unsurprising, given their collaboration). Darth is right in that Jensen (pp.120-121) gives a nice rebuff of both. 
 
However, once the factor analysists (including Thompson) realized you could extract g from oblique factors, this whole controversy withered. 
 
Vernon has a nice bio article on Thompson and his contributions: 
 
Vernon, P. E. (1962). The Contributions to Education of Sir Godfrey Thomson. British Journal of Educational Studies ,2 , 123--137.

you are a generous hearted fellow indeed! 
 
Yes, there mere mention of my name brings many warm fuzzy feelings.

For example, for someone who is seriously environmentally deprived, improving the environment might have a big payoff. 
 
At the extreme, yes. If, say, you are being seriously neglected, then there is no way for your ability to be expressed. However, to my surprise, the range of environments that are "good enough" is quite large.  
 
At the other end, say when looking a population whose IQ is between 140 and 150, social intelligence might be a better predictor of success than IQ. I don't know if this is true (is it?), 
 
I used to think this was so, but David Lubinski/Camilla Benbow's group at Vanderbuilt are challenging this notion. Even in the extremely talented, g is still a powerful predictor of life outcomes. 
 
One thing I never said in the post was that g explained everything (i.e., all the variance). It doesn't. However, for a single construct, it does a phenomenally good job at predicting most life outcomes. Better than (probably) any other single construct.

I would not be of the opinion that school/education did not have an effect, either at an individual or group level (pdf). I would however caveat that by stating the within individual variability in g is more predictive of differences in life outcomes, whether analyzed at the individualized level or the group level.

albatross: 
 
I am not sure I understand your question. Yes, there will be a large correlation between IQ and graduation. Graduating from High School, however, does not cause one to have a high IQ.  
 
Essentially, Ceci (and others) are positing that schooling and IQ are so wrapped up in each other that they are basically the same thing or, even more egregious, that schooling causes high IQs. What Jensen (and others) contend is that it is the other way around. IQ is "causing" schooling effects, likely through both retention of learning information and purposefully seeking new information. 
 
These two things can be hard to tease apart, and really need longitudinal data to do so. Enter Watkins et al.'s study. They basically looked to see in what direction the causal arrows went.

David: 
 
They are both associated, that is if you do the Pearson correlations or multiple regressions, they are high. But doing this cannot really tease apart Ceci's contention (i.e., [oversimplified] IQ is a product of schooling) versus, say, Art Jensen's (i.e., [oversimplified] academic achievement is a product of g). 
 
Watkins looked at specific models to see if IQ at time 1,2 predicted achievement at time 1,2 and vice versa (i.e., does achievement at time 1,2 predict IQ at time 1,2) [time interval: approx. 3 years]. The best fitting model showed that the Achievement at time 1-->IQ time 2 relationship was nil, but the IQ at time 1--> Achievement at time 2 relationship was relatively strong. This a good evidence in favor of Jensen's contention and against Ceci's.

That people who live in non-Western countries require more problem solving skills to complete the mundane tasks that people in Western countries take for granted, may or may not be the case. It sounds logical on the face of it, but one would really need to compare apples and apples to know for sure. It be happy to look at any data you know of to substantiate the claim. 
 
As to the notion that Western society is so modernized and/or run by the elite that g does not influence life success, well, the data simply do not support that notion. It sounds good and can offer policy makers some warm fuzzies, but the arguments have been profited many times before and continue lack a strong empirical backing. Dr. Gottfredson offers a very nice review of these issues with respect to occupational setting. Lubinksi and Humphreys also have a nice (more general) review.