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Superior IQs associated with mental and physical disorders, research suggests

scientificamerican.com

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Re: Superior IQs associated with mental and physical disorders, research suggests

#141

Post by delhanty »

The mental bit is possibly related to Joel Spolsky's

  {smart, not-smart} X {gets things done, doesn't}
analysis [1]

>People who are Smart but don’t Get Things Done often have PhDs and work in big companies where nobody listens to them because they are completely impractical. ...

Also, the ADHD thing of course.

Definitely I'd like to get more done, and for my mind and body to hurt less, even if it costs me some IQ points.

So I experiment with neotropics: cold black coffee in the mornings and magnesium taurate at night for example.

Also interval training of course: swimming 40 x 25 metres on the 1 minute works for me.

Plus sun-bathing for mood when possible.

[1] https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/10/25/the-guerrilla-guid...

Re: Superior IQs associated with mental and physical disorders, research suggests

#142

Post by soVeryTired »

ben_w wrote: post #133
DoreenMichele wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reality is that most IQ tests do not go all that high. It is quite challenging to get an accurate IQ score above a certain range. It requires not only the right assessment tools -- ie tests -- but a trained professional administering it. Gifted kids mess with test administrators all the time, sometimes intentionally so. (Plus, to get a super high score, you need to test the child by about age 7. After that age, w…

> After that age, we just cannot reliably assert that someone's IQ is, say, above 200. To add to all the other criticisms of IQ score, it’s defined to be mean-100-σ-15* — so nobody has an IQ of over 197, and only newborn anenephalactics ever score as low az IQ 3… and perhaps not even then if they score the same as the comatose. * or σ-16, which changes the subsequent statements a little.

There's no guarantee that the normal distribution is a good model in the tails though. A former lecturer of mine would often assert that nothing is normal in the tails.

Re: Superior IQs associated with mental and physical disorders, research suggests

#143

Post by bitwize »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #62
oppositelock wrote: post #4

I'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…

Holy cow, that sounds so Sheldon Cooper it's physically cringe-inducing.

Re: Superior IQs associated with mental and physical disorders, research suggests

#144

Post by lucio »

tigershark wrote: post #123
MR4D wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I had a choice between having a reputation as being very smart or having a reputation as very hard working, I’d choose the latter. 25 years in the working world have utterly convinced me that being hard working is a much higher contribution to civilization than being super smart.

I don't think so. A single super smart person has a far far bigger impact on society than billions of hard working people. Our society would still be surviving by hunting if it wasn't for the smart people. Seriously, I never thought that I would read something like this on HN...

It's not that simple. You can be super smart and (by that reason) choose to retire from society, or worst. The unabomber had a high IQ, for example. High IQ PLUS hard work (Conscientiousness, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qH9-xsuPiUk) is what can make a big difference in the world.

Re: Superior IQs associated with mental and physical disorders, research suggests

#145

Post by croon »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #71
thaumaturgy wrote: post #62

Earlier 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…

While I agree on your overall point that you should be using your mind for something productive rather than showing off, I have to note that getting degrees has nothing (edit: very little) to do with IQ.

IQ might help you understand a subject better, but being focused, studying, planning, and having the motivation is what gets you degrees.

Re: Superior IQs associated with mental and physical disorders, research suggests

#146

Post by lucio »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #65
sndean wrote: post #49

Some 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…

>>British or Canadian IQ test

Google Raven Progressive Matrices, there are accurate IQ tests are not associated with any culture

Re: Superior IQs associated with mental and physical disorders, research suggests

#148

Post by lucio »

dqpb wrote: post #36

People who do well on standardized tests of intelligence—IQ tests—tend to be more successful in the classroom and the workplace. Where is everyone taking these IQ tests? In my entire life I've never come across one in the wild, just SAT, GRE, etc.

There's a correlation between SAT and GRE and IQ, you can even convert (with a +- error) see https://www.braingle.com/mind/iq/convert.php

Re: Superior IQs associated with mental and physical disorders, research suggests

#149

Post by nether »

Knufen wrote: post #9
warent wrote: post #3

Their entire high IQ sample comes from Mensa. So this should be restated something like "Inclination to join Mensa correlates with mental and physical disorder"

With my very limited experience with Mensa (1 month), I can anecdotally confirm that a lot of members do have a lot of problems. At least the group I spend time with there were mental disorders, workless (for decades) etc.

Scott Adams said he felt like "fucking Goldfinger" because he was the only employed person in his Mensa group. He was delivering pizzas at the time.

Re: Superior IQs associated with mental and physical disorders, research suggests

#150

Post by lucio »

coon57 wrote: post #97

These 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 predict…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSo5v5t4OQM IQ is one the most well defined and predictive test in psychology
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