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My IQ

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Re: My IQ

#101

Post by furyofantares »

gnosis wrote: post #92
hellrich wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kafka and Einstein had white collar jobs when those were rare and Wittgenstein gave away his (inherited) fortune.

The OP was judging a person by his job, and implying that the person in question couldn't be a genius because he worked at a menial job. I simply provided some counterexamples. Furthermore, white collar or not, I doubt that many would contend that Kafka or Einstein were some sorts of models of "success" if judged by their jobs, and few would judge them "geniuses" solely by looking at what they did for a living. The f…

I don't think jessedhillon was saying that someone working a menial job must not be highly intelligent. His point was that such a person isn't getting much value out of being highly intelligent (he was presenting it as a supporting point in favor of his claim that 'being intelligent has no intrinsic value').

Re: My IQ

#102

Post by onetimeuser50 »

I am a HN regular but I don't want to sound boastful so using a one time account.

I have a high but not super-high IQ, about 138. I went to a highly IQ-selective school, and as a result have met people who are smarter. Here is the interesting part: while they can do certain kinds of things better than me (puzzles, certain kinds of math, certain kinds of intricate code, analogies etc). Yet, I have gotten far more interesting things in life done than they have.

Even more interesting, I have discovered that I have thought harder and deeper about many problems than some of the exceptional IQ people I have met. As a result, I can simplify problems that they "only" (!) know how to solve. And this simplifying skill has proved to be extremely valuable in the real world. That skill doesn't seem to be directly implied by super-high IQ alone.

Re: My IQ

#103

Post by bennyg »

paisawalla wrote: post #100
gnosis wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The OP was judging a person by his job, and implying that the person in question couldn't be a genius because he worked at a menial job. I simply provided some counterexamples. Furthermore, white collar or not, I doubt that many would contend that Kafka or Einstein were some sorts of models of "success" if judged by their jobs, and few would judge them "geniuses" solely by looking at what they did for a living. The f…

The OP was judging a person by his job, and implying that the person in question couldn't be a genius because he worked at a menial job. No, I was judging him by his accomplishments -- a measure by which your counterexamples shine, and the LSAT instructor falls down. All of the people you mention were successes in some way outside of their job, and they met my other criteria: they disproportionately advanced the stat…

But still, don't you think it's a little premature to judge your Target worker? Einstein was a patent worker while he thought about and conceptualized Special Relativity. Do you know what that fella' was doing in his free time?

I still agree with the main point though - IQ doesn't mean anything except another avenue of high potential. Just like being extremely physically fit and a better athlete leaves you with high potential to succeed in something physical. A high IQ gives you the potential to succeed in something mental, but you still have to put in the work and do something with it.

Re: My IQ

#104

Post by gnosis »

paisawalla wrote: post #100
gnosis wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The OP was judging a person by his job, and implying that the person in question couldn't be a genius because he worked at a menial job. I simply provided some counterexamples. Furthermore, white collar or not, I doubt that many would contend that Kafka or Einstein were some sorts of models of "success" if judged by their jobs, and few would judge them "geniuses" solely by looking at what they did for a living. The f…

The OP was judging a person by his job, and implying that the person in question couldn't be a genius because he worked at a menial job. No, I was judging him by his accomplishments -- a measure by which your counterexamples shine, and the LSAT instructor falls down. All of the people you mention were successes in some way outside of their job, and they met my other criteria: they disproportionately advanced the stat…

"No, I was judging him by his accomplishments"

What made you think your LSAT instructor's accomplishments were limited to his job titles?

What do you know about this man apart from those two facts?

Kafka and Van Gogh were completely unknown and unappreciated during their lifetimes. Kafka even burned 90% of his work before he died.

There are countless other examples of people who were only discovered and appreciated after they died -- often long after they died.

Conversely, many (if not most) of those who achieved great fame and fortune during their lifetimes are largely forgotten now, or considered of minor importance.

"You were talking about [jobs as marks of genius], but nobody else was."

On the contrary, that seems to be exactly what you were doing. Your lack of knowledge or appreciation of someone's accomplishments and apparent eagerness to judge this person by the job they held is what I was responding to.

Re: My IQ

#105

Post by Pinatubo »

graeme wrote: post #86
anothermachine wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone at an Ivy League law school might have more lucrative opportunities than teaching LSAT classes.

You'd be surprised ;) On an hourly basis, you can earn more teaching the LSAT than as an Ivy League law grad. Mind you, I don't work 80 hour weeks, so I don't make as much on an absolute basis, but the work is more interesting, and I've branched out into LSAT books and an online LSAT course. But mainly, I wanted to point out that the instructor is unreasonably arrogant. By comparison with his reference group, he's fa…

To be fair, that's 1 in 50 from a group that was relatively accomplished in an academic setting before the test. But I agree that it doesn't qualify as "genius."

Re: My IQ

#106

Post by im3w1l »

anothermachine wrote: post #87
wmil wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not really true. IQ doesn't predict well on the high end, but it's useful for predicting the outcomes of middle intellect people. And it works better for groups than for individuals. For instance, IQ scores are bad at predicting wealth but are the best predictor of adult poverty we have. And the US military uses them extensively. They generally don't allow anyone in with an IQ score below 90.

This is constantly overlooked in debates over IQ, SAT, etc. In most cases where these tests are used, it is far more mportant to separate the above median from below median, or +2 STDDEV from median, etc, and not to pick winners in the Krelboyne Super Bowl. Even assuming there is a total ordering of intelligence, how would a single 300-question test rank 300 million people? Why fill half the test with questions that…

Some online tests change the difficulty of the questions depending on currently estimated intelligence. Valid point for paper tests though.

Re: My IQ

#107

Post by graeme »

Pinatubo wrote: post #105
graeme wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd be surprised ;) On an hourly basis, you can earn more teaching the LSAT than as an Ivy League law grad. Mind you, I don't work 80 hour weeks, so I don't make as much on an absolute basis, but the work is more interesting, and I've branched out into LSAT books and an online LSAT course. But mainly, I wanted to point out that the instructor is unreasonably arrogant. By comparison with his reference group, he's fa…

To be fair, that's 1 in 50 from a group that was relatively accomplished in an academic setting before the test. But I agree that it doesn't qualify as "genius."

I may not have been clear, my posts mix LSAT percentiles and IQ percentiles.

The Mensa cut-off is top 2% of the general public. 98th percentile on an IQ test.

For the LSAT, they accept 163 as meeting that cut-off. Relative to other LSAT takers however, a 163 is 92nd percentile. So the top 8% of LSAT takers are qualified to enter mensa, or roughly 1 in 12.

Re: My IQ

#108

Post by pjscott »

RivieraKid wrote: post #71
rmc wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Science has several rules of thumb, Occams Razor says that the simpliest is usually the more likely, and the assumption that the universe operates according to universal, consistant mathematical rules means that you should favour theories that match every other part of observable reality, the rule of thumb that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence is like occam's razor and means, again, choose the simp…

I think that Occam's razor says, that if we have several theories that describe reality with the same accuracy, we should chose the most succint (least redundant).

That's a good way to put it. If you want to be mathematically rigorous about it, you could phrase it as a statement about probabilities: for any A and B, P(A and B) <= P(A).

Re: My IQ

#109

Post by rayiner »

anothermachine wrote: post #77
graeme wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's interesting. I'm an LSAT instructor. My first reaction to reading the instructor's comment was, 'Ha, only 165, he's no genius'. But, MENSA accepts 163 as a cutoff LSAT score for entry. So if MENSA == genius, then he is a genius. Among people who take the LSAT though, he's only 92nd percentile. He doesn't have much business teaching the test. Anyone who's at an Ivy League law school has a better score than him.…

Anyone at an Ivy League law school might have more lucrative opportunities than teaching LSAT classes.

Being an LSAT instructor is surprisingly remunerative. One of the big test prep companies pays $50/hour, which is about the same as what a first year associate makes at a big law firm (when you account for the fact the the associate probably puts in 3000 hours a year).

Re: My IQ

#110

Post by mietek »

Shenglong wrote: post #26
DanBC wrote: post #11

I'm keen to know what the research is about cleverness and overthinking and multiple choice questions. One of the most intelligent people I know IRL has trouble with the UK driving licence theory questions because she very rapidly provides 6 correct answers, and then has to try to detangle her correct answers from the choices. I suspect that she'd do better if she tried when she was drunk (not the practical!!) becaus…

It might not be that she's overthinking--it could just be that the test-writers don't have as much education/intelligence. I use ad-hominems sparingly, so let me offer a specific example for the beginner's license test in Halifax, NS, Canada: In cold conditions, which of the following freeze before the others? 1. Bridges 2. Overpasses 3. Shaded Areas 4. All of the above I wasn't entirely sure what a "shaded area" was…

You would do well to assume the question isn't meant to be self-contradictory, and find a meaningful intepretation under this assumption. In this case, "before the others" could be extended to mean "before any other areas".
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