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IQ Matters Less Than You Think

nautil.us

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Re: IQ Matters Less Than You Think

#241

Post by toasterlovin »

pessimizer wrote: post #209
toasterlovin wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I said that the IQ measurement is itself not worth much except as a general guide in fairly broad ranges. IQ predicts about 30% of a whole host of life outcomes (mostly related to job performance, educational attainment, earnings, etc.). That might not seem like a whole lot, but it's the best single predictor of life outcomes that exists, aside from looking at a person's parents and siblings.

But IQ itself is predicted by parental earnings and parental educational attainment (and, IIRC, mostly by the sheer volume of reading for pleasure during childhood.) There's a chicken/egg thing here that I think is a cart/horse thing.

It has roughly 30% predictive power after controlling for the most obvious confounding factors (like the ones you mention).

Re: IQ Matters Less Than You Think

#242

Post by [deleted] »

Shekelberg wrote: post #155

Funny how HN is full of people with >120 IQ claiming that IQ doesn't matter. If that's really true, than why is pretty much everyone here in the top 10-15% of the population? Where are all the <100 IQ people here claiming to have successful careers in the tech industry despite their IQ scores? Remember, the average IQ is 100 by definition, so roughly half the general population is <100. What are the odds of this happ…

[deleted]

Re: IQ Matters Less Than You Think

#243

Post by drb91 »

baccheion wrote: post #165
Shekelberg wrote: post #155

Funny how HN is full of people with >120 IQ claiming that IQ doesn't matter. If that's really true, than why is pretty much everyone here in the top 10-15% of the population? Where are all the <100 IQ people here claiming to have successful careers in the tech industry despite their IQ scores? Remember, the average IQ is 100 by definition, so roughly half the general population is <100. What are the odds of this happ…

Average IQ among intuitor types (xNxx; MBTI) is said to be one standard deviation above the norm (115+ SD15). They are also very overrepresented online. Having an IQ 2 standard deviations above the norm (130+ SD15) tends to attract problems/difficulty/friction in corporate environments. That is, companies are biased toward Te users (xxTJs) and extroverts + judgers (ExxJs) with IQs in the 115-125 range. Synthesis usua…

Have any sources?

Re: IQ Matters Less Than You Think

#244

Post by toasterlovin »

danans wrote: post #228
toasterlovin wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, IQ is not pseudo-science. The research around IQ is some of the most robust psychological research that exists. In fact, it is one of the few areas of psychology that has basically been unscathed by the replication crisis.

The measure is not pseudo-science, but the attempts to draw sweeping conclusions from it at the individual or societal level are pure nonsense. Ethical psychologists don't consider IQ in isolation the way that pop culture and many in forums like HN do.

You have to engage in some really convoluted thinking to have something like IQ, which significantly predicts a whole bunch of important life outcomes, and somehow convince yourself that it doesn't have sweeping implications at the individual and societal level. It would be like convincing yourself that height had nothing to do with success in basketball. Surely it's not the only important factor, but it makes a huge difference.

Re: IQ Matters Less Than You Think

#245

Post by melling »

virgilp wrote: post #50
thomasfedb wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps it is necessary but not sufficient?

There are instances of success without perseverance. For instance, the guy who invented GANs did it in one evening, more or less on a whim. One could argue that education and probably IQ were the dominant enablers there.

“It’s you — Picasso, the great artist! Oh, you must sketch my portrait! I insist.”

So Picasso agreed to sketch her. After studying her for a moment, he used a single pencil stroke to create her portrait. He handed the women his work of art.

“It’s perfect!” she gushed. “You managed to capture my essence with one stroke, in one moment. Thank you! How much do I owe you?”

“Five thousand dollars,” the artist replied.

“But, what?” the woman sputtered. “How could you want so much money for this picture? It only took you a second to draw it!”

To which Picasso responded, “Madame, it took me my entire life.”

Re: IQ Matters Less Than You Think

#246

Post by diminoten »

WorkLifeBalance wrote: post #235
SiempreViernes wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The objection was that you can't reliably tell apart the 99 from the 99.99 percentile with a common IQ test.

The difference between 99th and 99.99th percentile is 1.4 standard deviations, a common IQ test ought to be able to be accurate to that. Otherwise it couldn't measure the difference between 100 and 120 IQ (0 to 1.4z) which it clearly can.

> a common IQ test ought to be able to be accurate to that

Accurate to what, even? The very notion of IQ is fuzzy, so naturally any test trying to measure the value would inherit that fuzziness.

The difference between 100 and 120 may be statistically identical to 99 and 99.99, but the practical difference is vastly different. At a certain point, the IQ test is "defeated", and any value above a certain threshold is nose.

Re: IQ Matters Less Than You Think

#247

Post by MaxBarraclough »

com2kid wrote: post #239
MaxBarraclough wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's well understood that IQ is linked to academic achievement. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=G_factor_(psychom...

I genuinely wonder sometimes if no one on HN has actually bothered to go through and take a full intelligence test. You get a multi-page report back with measurements of all types of cognitive functions. An IQ number is given, but it quickly becomes apparent that number is just a summary measure. Just as a 3.95 GPA doesn't tell what subjects a student is good in, a high IQ doesn't tell you what areas of mental streng…

Don't follow. I didn't say that personality, or intelligence, is a single-dimensional variable.

Re: IQ Matters Less Than You Think

#248

Post by ghostbrainalpha »

taneq wrote: post #220
madeuptempacct wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Willpower can be trained: https://www.apa.org/helpcenter/willpower.aspx

But what if I can't be bothered? (Seriously. Training willpower takes willpower. If someone has some kind of executive disfunction or something, they literally can't 'just choose the right thing'.)

Very few people have absolute 0 willpower.

Excepting those with a medical condition, low willpower individuals can invest that willpower in developing more willpower and get to average levels over time.

I've seen this many times working with the homeless and in addiction recovery. It's just like compound interest with investing.

Just because you start with a very very small amount doesn't mean it can't grow over time.

This is embarrassing as hell to admit, but in high school my ADHD was so bad the only thing I enjoyed was World of Warcraft. I would commonly play for more than 24 hours and couldn't get myself to stop for anything. It completely dominated and ruined my life. You can say video game addiction isn't a thing if you want, but I was definitely acting like it was. Tried alcohol, cocaine, etc.. and never had a problem, but I could not control myself with certain video games.

When I started developing my Willpower it was literally with 5 minute breaks every 4 hours. And it was extremely difficult. After a week, I extended those to 15 minute breaks, and it was 6 months before I got my total WOW time to less than 8 hours in a day. But I did it.

I'm in my 30's now, and this new World of Warcraft expansion is the only one I haven't played at all. Hoping to keep it that way.

Re: IQ Matters Less Than You Think

#249

Post by adventured »

astura wrote: post #180
madeuptempacct wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very much this - average genes, hard work, and sacrifice can generally guarantee upper middle class (barring accidents). Basically, all you need to get there is being a good cog in the machine. That is to say - you come in groomed, you do your job, you study or take night classes, you don't spend your money on having a life, you don't make mistakes which come with fun. Eventually, you will get to your $100,000/year a…

$100,000/year salary and $1M net worth are incredibly specific numbers, where are you getting them from? It's a tautology to claim "average genes, hard work, and sacrifice can generally guarantee upper middle class" because if someone isn't upper middle class you can just claim they don't have average genes, they didn't work hard enough, or they didn't sacrifice enough. None of those things are measurable.

The median full-time wage in the US is near $50,000 now. That median is a person with two years of college or less.

If you have a four year degree with ten years or more of experience (eg you're around 35 years old), in almost anything to do with eg engineering, getting to $100,000 or close to it, is not difficult.

The average salary for a person with a bachelor's degree, in the engineering field, first year out of school, is around $65,000 for 2018. Emphasis that that's the first year income. Petroleum engineers with a bachelor's degree earn an average of more than $80,000 their first year out of school.

The parent's premise isn't very far out of line, even if it glosses over that the effort required is considerable, and a lot of people simply do not want to be engineers (with the best six figure alternatives for volume being healthcare and sales/biz-dev).

Re: IQ Matters Less Than You Think

#250

Post by com2kid »

baccheion wrote: post #165
Shekelberg wrote: post #155

Funny how HN is full of people with >120 IQ claiming that IQ doesn't matter. If that's really true, than why is pretty much everyone here in the top 10-15% of the population? Where are all the <100 IQ people here claiming to have successful careers in the tech industry despite their IQ scores? Remember, the average IQ is 100 by definition, so roughly half the general population is <100. What are the odds of this happ…

Average IQ among intuitor types (xNxx; MBTI) is said to be one standard deviation above the norm (115+ SD15). They are also very overrepresented online. Having an IQ 2 standard deviations above the norm (130+ SD15) tends to attract problems/difficulty/friction in corporate environments. That is, companies are biased toward Te users (xxTJs) and extroverts + judgers (ExxJs) with IQs in the 115-125 range. Synthesis usua…

> Average IQ among intuitor types (xNxx; MBTI)

Please stop giving MBTI mind share, it has repeatedly been proven to be non-scientific. The creators of the test had minimal to no training in psychology, the underlying basis of the test are not based on sound theory, and test results for a given person are not stable across multiple retakes over medium periods of time.

MBTI was sold to corporations as a psuedo-scientific way to make employment decisions. It explains everything in a nice, simple way, that makes everyone feel good about their "strengths".

> Synthesis usually starts at 130+. Companies either don't like it, or want it cheaper.

MBTI doesn't represent people's actual personality. I am supposed to be INTP, yet I enjoy managing teams of people, I am capable of standing up and entertaining a room full of people, and I am able to play long term internal politics to help ensure the project I am on can stay on track.

I also haven't seen MBTI used, anytime recently, by companies as a management tool. I have seen other pseudo-science hackery in place, but they almost always has the same attitude towards results MBTI does, all positives, no negatives.

Actually a friend's company did recently go through a corporate psych test that was brutal in its results. People got results back that said things like "you try to control and manipulate other people around you to get results" and "you are insecure in your work and that causes you to lash out at others."

It was hilarious to see honest results being given to people in a corporate setting, not what people are used to. :)

For an actual scientific measurement of personality, Big5 is where to go right now.

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