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Superior IQs associated with mental and physical disorders, research suggests
91–100 of 232 posts
Re: Superior IQs associated with mental and physical disorders, research suggests
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
Richard Feynman, one of the most respected geniuses of our era, tested as only having an IQ of 125. IQ tests are far from perfect, to say the least. This means our concept of IQ is likely inherently flawed. Feynman seemed to take glee in sharing his "low" IQ of only a 125. He was one of the smartest men on the planet in the last 100 years. Surely, we should defer to his opinion that the concept IQ is sort of a joke.…
It always struck me as crazy to represent all that is intelligence in one number. Also AFAIK many things such as "social intelligence" are not tested at all. I always smile at people putting that much weight into IQ numbers..
I usually cringe.
Re: Superior IQs associated with mental and physical disorders, research suggests
#93I've met plenty of incredibly intelligent people in my life, and very few mentioned Mensa. Those who did had a yearning for being recognized as smart or exceptional. Perhaps using Mensa membership to draw inferences about smart people in general isn't statistically applicable. It could be that people who want to be recognized as smart have those mental issues, which other smart people don't.
Mensa is not exceptionally smart. It's 2% of all people. [removed a distracting point about social group size.] Most people are likely to know someone who could qualify for Mensa. Mensa is quite smart, but I wouldn't use the word "exceptional." If you write a method that throws an exception on 2% of all inputs, I think maybe you're doing it wrong. 2% is still too common, in my opinion, to be considered an exception.
There are actually specific terms to label intelligence based on the number of standard deviations from the norm (100 IQ). Two to 3 SD's is highly gifted; 4-5 is exceptionally gifted; and 6+ SD's is profoundly gifted. The numbers change depending on what IQ instrument is used, but the terms for those SD brackets remain the same. I forget what Mensa's IQ threshold is and what IQ instruments they accept as measures (I was a Mensa member for a year about 10 years ago, but they took my only available score, a GRE score, as proof), but it's possible that "exceptionally smart" is technically correct, based on SD thresholds.
Re: Superior IQs associated with mental and physical disorders, research suggests
#94Some of this reminds me of The Ph.D. Grind by Philip Guo [0] and my own experience when I was getting my PhD: "For those few months, I morphed into an antisocial grump who shunned all distraction and became deeply immersed in my craft. All I thought about was computer code; I could barely speak in coherent English sentences except during my weekly progress meetings with Margo. Even though I appeared and acted subhuma…
Achieving excellence has a personal cost. Imagine that. The other thing is that the first test that gave rise to the concept of IQ tests was not intended to measure intelligence. It was intended to measure school readiness for rural French children who often did not have birth certificates, so age could not be used as an indicator of school readiness. The problem was complicated by the fact that rural kids and city k…
Your opinion is mindless drivel, and is a bad mentality for culture in the west. People are objectively better, spreading this clean slate illusion is only harming us in the long run. Sure some people do better do to familiarity with the problems, but iq tests are incredibly effective intrapopultion. IQ is the largest predictor is successful life outcomes, even more than parental socioeconomic status and wealth.
Re: Superior IQs associated with mental and physical disorders, research suggests
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
I tried out Mensa briefly some years ago. I was just looking for new social circles. I have some pretty sharp older buddies that I play Go with weekly, they're a blast to talk to, and I thought I'd find some more of that. It was bad. Really, really bad. The local chapter had a tiny handful of post-retirement members. I knew a ton of folks in my community at the time, a bunch of them were smart, active people, and non…
I never applied to Mensa. A cousin of mine (that I barely knew) was in it. He encouraged me to apply on the theory that they had a small scholarship that would help me return to college. He felt my SAT scores would qualify me. I have seen some discussions on the internet that fit with your hypothesis that many people join Mensa to have their smarts validated. There are other ways to validate that, like getting additi…
And by extension, people who need validation via pursuing PhDs in an artificial environment (academia) are often people who have trouble succeeding in the real world.
Re: Superior IQs associated with mental and physical disorders, research suggests
#96I've met plenty of incredibly intelligent people in my life, and very few mentioned Mensa. Those who did had a yearning for being recognized as smart or exceptional. Perhaps using Mensa membership to draw inferences about smart people in general isn't statistically applicable. It could be that people who want to be recognized as smart have those mental issues, which other smart people don't.
I tried out Mensa briefly some years ago. I was just looking for new social circles. I have some pretty sharp older buddies that I play Go with weekly, they're a blast to talk to, and I thought I'd find some more of that. It was bad. Really, really bad. The local chapter had a tiny handful of post-retirement members. I knew a ton of folks in my community at the time, a bunch of them were smart, active people, and non…
Just out of curiosity, which super hero did they pick? I would imagine that Superman wouldn’t have to be too bright but I don’t know much about his character.
Re: Superior IQs associated with mental and physical disorders, research suggests
#97These types of correlations are interesting on the global statistical scale. However, using them to derive conclusions about yourself is pretty meaningless. Assume you scored low on the IQ test (or even high), and the correlation between success and IQ is ~0.65 (not entirely sure what that means, and how is success defined here, but I've read something along those lines). Thats doesn't really yield any strong predictive power, so one should not take it seriously on the individual level.
Re: Superior IQs associated with mental and physical disorders, research suggests
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
How good you are at Go (or chess for that matter) has no correlation with your IQ. There are plenty of examples of people extremely good at chess that struggle, seriously, with academics (e.g. world champion Jose Raul Capablanca, and the youtuber and grandmaster Eric Hansen). Kasparov doesn't have 180+ IQ, which is a common myth. At some point he took the test and it turned out he had a respectable but definitely sub…
Richard Feynman, one of the most respected geniuses of our era, tested as only having an IQ of 125. IQ tests are far from perfect, to say the least. This means our concept of IQ is likely inherently flawed. Feynman seemed to take glee in sharing his "low" IQ of only a 125. He was one of the smartest men on the planet in the last 100 years. Surely, we should defer to his opinion that the concept IQ is sort of a joke.…
> This means our concept of IQ
> is likely inherently flawed.
Equally flawed, taking one outlier as evidence of something inherent.
Re: Superior IQs associated with mental and physical disorders, research suggests
#99I've met plenty of incredibly intelligent people in my life, and very few mentioned Mensa. Those who did had a yearning for being recognized as smart or exceptional. Perhaps using Mensa membership to draw inferences about smart people in general isn't statistically applicable. It could be that people who want to be recognized as smart have those mental issues, which other smart people don't.
I tried Mensa a few years ago when I was at a crossroads in my life and looking for something new. It was a profoundly disappointing experience. My involvement was limited to the official Mensa Facebook group, which was deeply toxic and rude. I couldn’t believe how childish and confrontational the discussions were, and I quickly lost interest in getting worked up every time I poked my head in.
My take on it was that people who were active members had a chip on their shoulder about their intelligence, and believed themselves to be titans who were not obligated to suffer fools. There are many intelligent people in this world, the vast majority of whom are not in Mensa - and the better for it.
Re: Superior IQs associated with mental and physical disorders, research suggests
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
Richard Feynman, one of the most respected geniuses of our era, tested as only having an IQ of 125. IQ tests are far from perfect, to say the least. This means our concept of IQ is likely inherently flawed. Feynman seemed to take glee in sharing his "low" IQ of only a 125. He was one of the smartest men on the planet in the last 100 years. Surely, we should defer to his opinion that the concept IQ is sort of a joke.…
> This means our concept of IQ > is likely inherently flawed. Equally flawed, taking one outlier as evidence of something inherent.
FWIW, I have studied the space some. I was Director of Community Life for The TAG Project for a bit.
The last time I had this argument in a big way with people telling me I had no clue what I was talking about, some forum I belonged to was having a heated argument because they had the habit of posting ridiculous tests, like "What kind of dog are you?", and someone had posted an online IQ test and things were getting pretty ugly (in part because a lot of people felt it was scoring them too low).
I stated up front that it likely only went up to 140, then took the test to shut people up and scored a 140. I had training in test taking in my high school gifted classes, so I tend to do well on such tests.
But, whatever.