MacCann, Matthews, and Roberts (2012) and Mayer, Salovey, and Caruso (2012) have offered responses to my evaluation of the validity of the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT) as a measure of emotional intelligence. MacCann et al. argue that my standards for validity evidence are unrealistically high, but their argument mistakenly supposes that the concept of measurement is somehow relative, rather than absolute. Mayer et al. offer valuable clarifications regarding their emotional intelligence (EI) model, and some new evidence of its correlates. (...) However, the new evidence is not persuasive, and I think that they have largely missed the point of my call for a stronger focus on causal explanations of test performance. (shrink)