Is Internet Explorer For The Dumb?

An unknown company from Vancouver, BC has released the results of a study showing the average IQ’s of the users for various web browsers. What were their results? Users of Internet Explorer 6.0 (IE6) are the dumbest, and the average intelligence for users of all versions of Internet Explorer is low.

I don’t normally find unknown businesses to poke fun of, but the nature of this study got a chuckle out of me that I don’t think AptiQuant was looking for. Let me start by pointing out that people who are using a browser that is no longer supported by the maker probably ARE less intelligent on average than users of competing browsers. I also wouldn’t be too surprise if people who take the time to find a browser that they legitimately like are probably more intelligent on average than those who simply use what came with their computers. IE6 users could be the second least intelligent group involved in this study. Who is the first? Those who actually take the study seriously.

As I have said before, intelligence cannot be measured. There are about a million elements to intelligence. What we value when it comes to evaluating individuals varies significantly. For example, I don’t care about “Jeopardy smarts” since being told the answer at some point in your life is far more valuable in trivia games than the ability to think for yourself. What I do care about is the ability for people to form their beliefs and opinions. How can you make sure that their beliefs and opinions are their own? You can’t. You also can’t objectively evaluate the quality of thought required to develop these beliefs and opinions. Simply put, IQ tests are a total sham. Common sense should be proof enough that the tests are invalid, and I tend to look down on those who lack that common sense.

Congratulations AptiQuant. Your claim to fame is producing an invalid study based off of a test that someone else developed. Why did you do it? It looks like you have already defended yourselves on your website. Looking at the third paragraph:

The company spokesman said that they are really surprised by the unexpected attention that their study got. He said that the company first thought of doing this study when they were trying to add some new features to the website and found IE versions 6.0 and 7.0 extremely difficult to work with.

Let me see if I got this right. The company put this study together to prove that IE6 and IE7 users were unintelligent. That should be enough to remove any remaining element of legitimacy. This purpose of this study wasn’t to figure out the truth. It was meant to prove something that they already believed. If they really wanted to make that point, they could have at least looked for a neutral party to handle the study. Of course, the original press release already made their bias clear:

Microsoft created a conspiracy with Internet Explorer’s shell integration with Windows Explorer, and making its removal complicated, if not impossible. It is usually criticized that this move was made during the last moments of Windows 95 release in a haphazard manner, just to snub the competition from Netscape Navigator. In the following years Microsoft spent millions of dollars on Internet Explorer, with the aim to dominate the browser market. It succeeded to gain a huge share of over 95% for quite a few years. But recently open source browsers like Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome have taken away a large share out of Microsoft’s pie. These browsers are not only better in performance than IE, but offer better compatibility with W3C standards.

That certainly doesn’t sound neutral to me, but you don’t need to read the entire press release when the page title said, “Is Internet Explorer For The Dumb? A New Study Suggests Exactly That.”

If you want more proof that the study is invalid, just look at Safari. That browser is well ahead of Internet Explorer in terms of AptiQuant‘s perceived level of intellect. Safari is Apple’s entry into the browser wars. As anyone with a brain already knows, Apple incorporates the stupidity of their customers into their business model. When you also take into consideration that most users of Safari don’t bother to actually choose a browser (something that I mentioned with Internet Explorer), they are obviously being significantly overestimated.

Let’s face it, their study is funnier than most modern comedies.

EDIT: Oops. It turns out that AptiQuant's numerous and laughable mistakes were not due to incompetence. This study was actually a hoax. I'm kind of mad at myself for not putting two and two together. I saw plenty to make me suspicious. For example, I wondered how this decision to test intelligence could have resulted in years worth of data. It turns out that the data is as real as fiscal responsibility in the federal government. I guess that I shouldn't have jumped to the conclusion that if everyone in the mainstream media latches onto a story that at least one source would bother to check the credentials of a company that they obviously hadn't heard of. At least I was more realistic than most of the idiots out there such as Firefox and Safari users. Even so, I still can't help but laugh at the creators of a study that makes Internet Explorer users look dumb defending the results by insisting that it was created for the purpose of making Internet Explorer users look dumb.