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Lessons from a 45-year Study of Super-Smart Children

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Re: Lessons from a 45-year Study of Super-Smart Children

#161

Post by antisthenes »

truth_sentinell wrote: post #113
ralusek wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is everybody so binary about this? Are we really suggesting that some individuals are not capable of intellectual tasks at a greater capacity, or a greater speed than others? If you understand that a human being has a higher cognitive function than a sea slug, a wasp, a mouse, a dog, a dolphin, an ape, by our genetics alone, then you have to accept that there is a degree of genetic variance between individual hum…

"Genetics" is the new God. Apparently people assign whatever they don't know or understand to genetics. Can't play football? That's genetics!! Knows math? More genetics!! Are actually there studies that claim a special ability is due to genetics only?

Do you really need a study to see that the top athletes in the Olympics, for example, are all there due to genetic advantages?

Whether it's higher endurance, a tiny difference in bone structure, longer arms, greater height, etc. - that's all mostly genetics with a bit of environmental factors mixed in (like childhood nutrition)

But cognitive abilities and intelligence are far less understood, because you simply can't measure it as well as physical achievements (in fact, some of the top comments here gripe about using a PhD degree as a benchmark for achievement; or patents; or publications; or even income level)

Re: Lessons from a 45-year Study of Super-Smart Children

#162

Post by trendia »

jsprogrammer wrote: post #131
trendia wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People with graduate degrees have higher than average IQ, but people with higher IQ do not necessarily have graduate degrees. That is, intelligence is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition to get a graduate degree in STEM. The other necessary conditions you mention (training, interest, etc.) are also important, but still require a baseline ability. Even looking at undergraduate degrees, IQ is a significant facto…

Again, you are only exposing group bias. Doctorates are largely predicated on test scores - they are a filter on who can access a defense committee - of course those with doctorates will have higher prior test scores; those with high test score were intentionally picked as doctoral candidates, in part, because of their test score(s).

What I think you're trying to say is that intelligence is irrelevant to getting a Doctorate because test scores, not intelligence, are the factor. But of course doctorates are based on test scores. That's because test scores are an indicator of intelligence, and so admissions committees filter based on test scores in order to filter on intelligence. So that means yes, admissions depends on test scores, but no, test scores are not independent of intelligence.

That is:

P(high IQ | high test score) > P(low IQ | high test score)

What you're trying to say is that getting a doctorate a degree doesn't depend on intelligence, and is just an indicator of some "group bias". What I'm saying is that test scores are correlated with IQ. This implies that if you do not have high intelligence, it is going to be extremely difficult to get the test scores required to get into graduate school, and thus intelligence is required for admission.

In other words, intelligence is indeed a necessary but not sufficient condition to get a graduate degree in STEM.

Re: Lessons from a 45-year Study of Super-Smart Children

#163

Post by dalke »

trendia wrote: post #95
dalke wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Features #1-3 do not "rely heavily on intelligence". While intelligence certainly has a role, they rely much more heavily on training. All three also depend on knowing what is interesting , which is more a form of curiosity guided by knowing what other people know than a form of intelligence that can be measured by taking the SAT. (I don't know enough about #4 or #5 to make a comment.)

People with graduate degrees have higher than average IQ, but people with higher IQ do not necessarily have graduate degrees. That is, intelligence is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition to get a graduate degree in STEM. The other necessary conditions you mention (training, interest, etc.) are also important, but still require a baseline ability. Even looking at undergraduate degrees, IQ is a significant facto…

I wrote "While intelligence certainly has a role, they rely much more heavily on training".

Everything you wrote just now agrees with my statement.

Originally you wrote "All five rely heavily on intelligence". It is that emphasis on "heavily" that I am disputing. I argue that it's less important than training, though of course not un-important.

I disagree with your interpretation of [1]. You wrote "Physics and astronomy majors have an average of IQ [1] of over 130". However, your [1] shows not a measure of IQ but an approximate estimate of IQ based on the cumulative SAT.

After showing the plots, your [1] then points out the correlation is only with the quantitative/analytical section of the SAT, and not the verbal, commenting "we see why this IQ estimation is potentially misleading."

> This tells us that the original plot is actually showing preference for quantitative majors: The higher the estimated IQ, the more quantitative/analytical the major, and the fewer women enrolling in those majors.

> This brings up an interesting question of how valuable the SAT is as a standardized test across all majors, if a higher SAT score is really only indicating that the student is better at solving quantitative/analytical problems. Not all majors require a high analytical aptitude, after all.

Your source therefore does not seem to be making the statement that "Physics and astronomy majors have an average of IQ of over 130" but that physics and astronomy require a high analytical aptitude, which is correlated to how well a student does on a test for analytical aptitude, which is correlated to the cumulative SAT score, which is correlated to g factor. That's a weaker conclusion than what you described.

In any case, undergraduate study does not require the ability to identify what is scientifically interesting, which is a key point of my objection to your original statement.

EDIT: Also, your [1] points out "men and women have about the same IQ" then shows that physics and astronomy has a greatly disproportionate number of men than women. Thus, being male is a stronger correlation for those undergraduate degrees than intelligence. Thus suggests that some other factor than general intelligence is biasing the numbers.

Re: Lessons from a 45-year Study of Super-Smart Children

#164

Post by iopq »

blubb-fish wrote: post #148
iopq wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't feel like that's true. I didn't expend any effort on my studies and it just came easily to me. Now, I'm not a genius, but there's a huge difference between my aptitude towards anything and the average person. I scored in the 99th percentile in math on the California high school exit exam. I went to community college at 15 (while still taking some high school courses at first, but upon taking the proficiency e…

> Now, I'm not a genius, but there's a huge difference between my aptitude towards anything and the average person. anything - I bet you just don't know how little aptitude you have at things you didn't happen to spend time with. > It took me longer to graduate at that point, but it was mostly because I was expected to do work and I never did before. Or - you're not that smart and good with excuses :) > I was reading…

> anything - I bet you just don't know how little aptitude you have at things you didn't happen to spend time with.

As compared to other people trying things for the first time I'm usually a very quick learner. I think being a quick learner is innate. I've had the ability to learn things quickly since early childhood.

> Reading is not understanding - maybe you just enjoyed the attention that you got from it.

I didn't get any attention from this, I tried to hide it from other kids so I don't stand out too much. When I placed first in the math Olympiad they kind of resented me and said "oh, he studies like a grade ahead of the rest of us". I was actually much further ahead. Calculus is NOT that hard. It's not a super power to be able to understand calculus. It's just a little bit more abstract (limits and so forth are not intuitive for some people).

> This contextually implies you consider yourself talented

I think I'm talented. I just don't actually do anything useful with my life. The last course I had to complete to finish college was a technical writing course. It was 100% busywork and presentations and posters and BSing. It was the worst.

Re: Lessons from a 45-year Study of Super-Smart Children

#165

Post by matthewvincent »

Isamu wrote: post #14

> Such results contradict long-established ideas suggesting that expert performance is built mainly through practice—that anyone can get to the top with enough focused effort of the right kind. Actually the claim is the other way around - that the people at the top got there through focused effort of the right kind. Finding "gifted" children does not contradict this. Nobody pops out of the womb a math genius. Gifted…

I think you hit the nail on the head here. The "gift" of the genius seems to be the ability to spend hours and hours ~focusing~ On literally anything.

Problem solving ability and comprehension levels will only take one so far if they can't bring themselves to bury their head in a book, or sit in front of a piano, or shoot hoops, for the time necessary to master said subject.

Re: Lessons from a 45-year Study of Super-Smart Children

#166

Post by comex »

truth_sentinell wrote: post #113
ralusek wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is everybody so binary about this? Are we really suggesting that some individuals are not capable of intellectual tasks at a greater capacity, or a greater speed than others? If you understand that a human being has a higher cognitive function than a sea slug, a wasp, a mouse, a dog, a dolphin, an ape, by our genetics alone, then you have to accept that there is a degree of genetic variance between individual hum…

"Genetics" is the new God. Apparently people assign whatever they don't know or understand to genetics. Can't play football? That's genetics!! Knows math? More genetics!! Are actually there studies that claim a special ability is due to genetics only?

> Are actually there studies that claim a special ability is due to genetics only?

Not "only", but yes, there are studies attributing variation in intelligence in significant part to genetics.

https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/primer/traits/intelligence

> These studies suggest that genetic factors underlie about 50 percent of the difference in intelligence among individuals.

Re: Lessons from a 45-year Study of Super-Smart Children

#167

Post by jsprogrammer »

pas wrote: post #157
squigs25 wrote: post #143

Interesting read, but I have one major qualm about this. There seems to be a confirmatory bias among the academic community that a measure of intellectual success can be found in the percentage of individuals who earn a PhD. Sure, it's true that you need to be reasonably smart to earn a PhD, but I think that someone can have a lot of intellectual success (potentially just as much or maybe more) if they don't earn a P…

Knowing a few friends and other acquaintances with PhDs, all they have common is endurance and focus. They were not exceptionally creative, or apparently breathtakingly genius. And I guess that's why Google et al. likes to hire PhDs. They can take all kinds of shit, and endure. Get to the bottom of those problems even in the face of internal politics/bureaucracy.

A PhD doesn't show that you get to the bottom of problems, but rather that you can influence, and be influenced by, group-think.

Edit:

Looks like it is still a while before my speech ban is up, so I'm pasting my response to kevingwang's response (below) here:

>To a particular degree, anyway. Convincing a University, or being published in peer-journal, for example.

>I think some are more or less ignored, though I guess I can't say that has no influence whatsoever and I'm also not sure that you can entirely avoid the influence of others.

Re: Lessons from a 45-year Study of Super-Smart Children

#168

Post by rurban »

pmoriarty wrote: post #76
Isamu wrote: post #14

> Such results contradict long-established ideas suggesting that expert performance is built mainly through practice—that anyone can get to the top with enough focused effort of the right kind. Actually the claim is the other way around - that the people at the top got there through focused effort of the right kind. Finding "gifted" children does not contradict this. Nobody pops out of the womb a math genius. Gifted…

In certain areas, hours might be enough, but not always and everywhere. Chess is a good example. I've seen a 12 year old kid at a chess competition wipe the floor with dozens of much older players (people in their 40's, 50's, and up), who've been playing chess -- obsessively -- their whole lives. This 12 year old kid has been playing chess for maybe 6 years (let's say 8 years maximum), but he totally crushes others w…

I have to disagree a bit.

I've been labeled a genius as a kid and e.g. loved to beat the best chess computers at that time, Mephisto III on the highest level in the 80ies. I loved to play blind also, but stopped that when I couldn't get to sleep or would not stop dreaming about tricky moves. But I never had a chance against humans on lower levels.

The problem was the time constraint and nervousness. In tournaments and chess clubs deep thinking is not valued, only experience. Folks in the chess club mainly do train speed chess, and simple tournaments limit the time to 30mins.

But the good parts of my chess start when I can concentrate deeper than that, to the 2.5 hrs mark. As with playing against the computer those times. With time constraints I got nervous, didn't calculate through, took too high risks, or when playing against girls just made stupid mistakes. I usually was the last or 2nd to last in club tournaments (30min). I didn't like playing chess against humans at all, that's why I stopped playing it. And nowadays I could never beat a good chess computer. Because they are too fast and force me to play too fast also. It's not fun anymore.

Re: Lessons from a 45-year Study of Super-Smart Children

#169

Post by soared »

Jimmy wrote: post #118
csallen wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May I ask how old you are? And what you're trying to achieve?

I'm 24. My goal is to be one of the most influential video game designers of this century. I may not be considered the absolute greatest (rankings like that are very fickle anyway, and never universally agreed upon, even in the sciences). But I do want my works to be considered necessary for any future survey of the major works of this period.

Well... you talk about video games as if they are a high art. You might be in for more than one wake up call in the near future.

Re: Lessons from a 45-year Study of Super-Smart Children

#170

Post by iopq »

geocar wrote: post #136
saint_fiasco wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calculus textbooks are difficult but rewarding. A 10 year old child who can enjoy them must have some gift that makes it easier for them to understand the difficult parts quickly and get straight to the rewarding part.

> must have some gift Or what? The rest of us are dumb? It could have been a good teacher, who found a way to make it make sense, or some other series of positive reinforcement that shaped them and prepared them, to be thinking about mathematics clearly. It doesn't have to be the luck of the draw. I don't want anyone to give up, thinking they just didn't get the gift, so they should be content with playing with the b…

I was self-taught. It was actually very frustrating asking my mother for an explanation because what she told me was technically correct, but not useful in explaining why the textbook said what it did. What we both missed is that the textbook said it was a UNIT circle which meant that the radius was one.

After this I didn't really rely on her help anymore.

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