My IQ • Hacker News Board

Re: My IQ

#201

Post by gurkendoktor » Mon, Nov 05, 2012, 1:11 AM UTC

pjscott wrote: post #148

freework wrote: post #78

IQ tests are just like anything else in life: If you practice enough, you will get good. If you are motivated enough to spend 10 hours a day practicing taking IQ tests, you will eventually get a high score. If you are motivated enough to practice the guitar 10 hours a day, you'll eventually become a guitar virtuoso. If you are motivated enough to spend 10 hours a day writing code, you'll eventually become a Rob Pike…

Since most people who take IQ tests are doing it just once, without preparation, I'm not sure I see the relevance of this claim.

I have taken three and I have never applied for Mensa. Once in school when our biology class was curious about the topic; once online because somebody challenged me to it; once because it was in the TV magazine and I was bored, and I wanted to know if one really gets better at it. (I think I did)

Re: My IQ

#202

Post by gurkendoktor » Mon, Nov 05, 2012, 1:14 AM UTC

gurkendoktor wrote: post #199

hackinthebochs wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find interesting the backlash against those who may have any interest in knowing their IQ, or god-forbid even feel good about it. What your anecdotes tell me is not that IQ itself is meaningless, but that success has a large factor of luck involved. It's a failing of our society that genuinely high IQ people are not out there working to improve the lot of mankind. This growing trend of derision for those who acknow…

> It's a failing of our society that genuinely high IQ people are not out there working to improve the lot of mankind. Or maybe it's a failing of those high IQ people? The genius who proudly saves the codebase at Zynga every single day is completely useless compared to any single nurse working her shift right now. Even the doctor at the top of the hospital does not necessarily have a stellar IQ. What other way is the…

(I would love to be proven wrong by somebody who knows what Mensa spends their brainpower thinking about :))

Re: My IQ

#203

Post by mgkimsal » Mon, Nov 05, 2012, 1:19 AM UTC

freework wrote: post #78

IQ tests are just like anything else in life: If you practice enough, you will get good. If you are motivated enough to spend 10 hours a day practicing taking IQ tests, you will eventually get a high score. If you are motivated enough to practice the guitar 10 hours a day, you'll eventually become a guitar virtuoso. If you are motivated enough to spend 10 hours a day writing code, you'll eventually become a Rob Pike…

Maybe, to some degree, that's true. But... I never spent any time learning how to take IQ tests, and have been tested at multiple stages - specifically IQ tests, and also the ACT/SAT.

First tests I remember, I was 9. Then ACT at... 15? Maybe it was 16. Then more IQ tests (3 different ones, IIRC) about 4 years ago. All showed me to be in the same X percentile, with a very small degree of variance between tests and over 30+ years of taking them.

And to repeat, I never spent any time learning how to 'take' a test. It was actually disappointing to get the test results and compare them to ~30 years earlier, and not see any change. I thought I'd have been 'smarter' as an adult, but I do realize it's not really testing that so much as... raw capacity perhaps? That hasn't demonstrably changed, despite all the life that's happened to me. No major health issues tho; I can certainly imagine that had I had a brain injury, my IQ test scores would be lower.

Re: My IQ

#204

Post by aaron695 » Mon, Nov 05, 2012, 1:19 AM UTC

I think the simple fact the writer knew the answer, (Hen) but then went on to explain why it might be other things showed a lack of intelligence if anything.

Anyone who's intelligent would know Kosher is a cultural test so is not valid.

If you don't know how to answer the question correctly it's a lack of intelligence, not you're smarter than the test. Knowledge of the state of mind of others is what is normally defines intelligence in animals. Knowing what answer they want is part of the test. Some people just don't get it...

This is the same as psych tests that ask if you want to commit suicide. If you don't know why this question is there then the test is working. You're not smarter than the test because you think it's a stupid question, you just don't understand the test.

Re: My IQ

#205

Post by JabavuAdams » Mon, Nov 05, 2012, 1:25 AM UTC

siglesias wrote: post #175

telemachos wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please look again at your original post. This whole business about "at one point in their life" simply isn't there. You didn't say those words. Just the opposite: in one of the later paragraphs, you talk about people "who lived and died in dire poverty". You seem to be moving the goalposts of the argument. Either that or your first post was very unclear. > in Einstein's and Wittgenstein's case, during significant por…

You guys are both right. The point really is that prior to hitting a career grand slam (a Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, a "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies") one can find oneself in a menial job where one is looked upon as an unfulfilled genius. There's nothing to say that this Target employee isn't writing the next great American novel in his spare time. In summary, the "menial" job in and of itself should…

"You're a loser until you're a winner."

Re: My IQ

#206

Post by crikli » Mon, Nov 05, 2012, 1:26 AM UTC

Intelligence is like an idea: without execution, nothing.

Re: My IQ

#207

Post by Kilimanjaro » Mon, Nov 05, 2012, 1:26 AM UTC

A true genius doesn't want fame, fortune, awards, he doesn't want to stretch hands, hell, he doesn't even want to sign autographs. All he want is peace, out of the spotlight, in absolute and maddening silence, to keep doing what he does best.

To think.

Re: My IQ

#208

Post by lubujackson » Mon, Nov 05, 2012, 1:27 AM UTC

I've actually written an IQ test that a lot of people have taken. When researching how to put together an IQ test it became clear to me that from the beginning IQ testing was not, and never will be, a valid way to rate intelligence.

The simplest explanation is that "IQ score" is not fundamentally different than "SAT score" or "GMAT score" and is in a lot of ways worse because there are so many different interpretations and scoring methods for IQ. You can score 150 on one test but it might be scored completely differently than a test someone else takes. In other words, there is no agreed upon and copyrighted standard for IQ.

All of this type of testing really just sucks. All we really know is that IQ testing (or SATs, etc.) measures... something. And since people need to be quantified in some way, we use these scores for people-sorting. We TOTALLY overuse these scores without understanding them, and people feel great or feel horrible about their scores because of their usage (which is unavoidable) and for what it seems to say about them (which is very little).

It is hard to not feel good or bad about your score, even knowing all of this. We WANT to be rated, we want to score well and score better than others. That's human nature - just don't forget that your score will never impact what you can and can't achieve in life.

Re: My IQ

#209

Post by mgkimsal » Mon, Nov 05, 2012, 1:30 AM UTC

vacri wrote: post #161

JohnLBevan wrote: post #140

David Mitchell (British Comedian)'s view of Mensa: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPMKqyaXtHI

Great points, but "why join a club whose only entrance requirement is that you pass the test to join" is redundant. Every club with any requirement is exactly the same. Want to join a boat club and need the endorsement of one member? That's a test you have to pass to join, a social one. Want to join an old-fashioned gentleman's club? Then your test is 'be endorsed, well dressed, and have a penis'. It's still a test t…

Agreed it's redundant, but there's something else about it too. IQ is biological. You may just as well have a club for left-handed people, or people with green eyes. You'll have about as much in common with them.

Not entirely true, but the few Mensa meetings I went to were all 'social' ones (met at a restaurant), and I had nothing demonstrable in common with the people there other than having the same biological brain ability. We probably did have some things in common, but no one went out of their way to welcome me, and I didn't bother to try to make myself welcome either, so I quit going.

What I think we may have had in common is some of the same social experiences of being outsiders looking in to 'normal' societal groups. Certainly everyone's experiences are different, but often highly intelligent people will be ostracized (through their own fault or the fault of others or both), and being able to relate based on those shared experiences can be useful in some capacity. The group I went to didn't seem to be in to that.

Re: My IQ

#210

Post by mgkimsal » Mon, Nov 05, 2012, 1:33 AM UTC

gurkendoktor wrote: post #201

pjscott wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since most people who take IQ tests are doing it just once, without preparation, I'm not sure I see the relevance of this claim.

I have taken three and I have never applied for Mensa. Once in school when our biology class was curious about the topic; once online because somebody challenged me to it; once because it was in the TV magazine and I was bored, and I wanted to know if one really gets better at it. (I think I did)

I suspect you wouldn't have gotten demonstrably/statistically much better with repeated takings. Maybe if it was the same test multiple times, but even then I'm not sure.

A few years ago I had 3 IQ tests administered to me over several weeks. There wasn't any major difference between any of the scoring/ranking, despite the fact that I was taking multiple. I never got much 'better'.