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IQ Matters Less Than You Think

nautil.us

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Re: IQ Matters Less Than You Think

#261

Post by gmiller123456 »

tzs wrote: post #161
Alex888 wrote: post #92

Intelligence doesn't matter much when you have it. It matters quite a lot when you don't. Like in basketball - being 2.50m tall doesn't mean you'll beat everyone on the court. But being 1.50m pretty much guarantees you're out of luck.

> But being 1.50m pretty much guarantees you're out of luck 1.60 m, though, is apparently good enough: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muggsy_Bogues

You're really just reaching the edge of where his analogy breaks down. There are actually advantages to being shorter in basketball, but his analogy did not account for it.

Re: IQ Matters Less Than You Think

#262

Post by astura »

taneq wrote: post #215
annabellish wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any research backing up this position? It seems to fly in the face of every reputable study I've seen, which suggests the opposite is true - average genes, hard work, and sacrifice is not enough to "guarantee" anything.

Nothing in life is guaranteed, but some things sure stack the deck. Average skills, hard work and a bit of ambition will greatly increase your chances of a comfortable life.

"Increase your chances" is not the same as "guarantee."

Re: IQ Matters Less Than You Think

#263

Post by GaryNumanVevo »

codingdave wrote: post #127

The smartest people I know discover what is important to them in life and set up their life to pursue those interests. They may or may not be interests that make them famous in their fields, but if you define success as living a happy, satisfying life, they are succeeding at their top capacity.

I appreciate this little nugget of wisdom

Re: IQ Matters Less Than You Think

#264

Post by candiodari »

I love the opening statement:

"People too often forget that IQ tests haven’t been around that long. Indeed, such psychological measures are only about a century old."

Yeah, because other metrics of human mental performance, or any kind of psychological property of humans for that matter are so much older than a century, right ? A century in psychometrics, is 13.5 billion years in physics, to make the "dog-years" analogy.

Reality: IQ is the oldest, best, and most solidly established predictive metric of success. In fact it's pretty much the oldest metric anyone bothered keeping at all (presumably exactly because it works, it seems very unlikely to me that it just happened to be the first one they tried. I remember studies that tried to quantify "nobleness" and "noble blood" in people and correlate that to intelligence for example).

Back to the article. The source for all this wisdom ?

https://www.amazon.com/Genius-Checklist-Paradoxical-Become-C...

(This book essentially makes the point that there is a lot or variability at the extreme outliers of genius. Even then, it is forced to conclude that while those extreme outliers weren't the very top geniuses at a young age, they were very smart. The just weren't top of the top early in life, even though they did become the top of the top later in life. It points out the corollary: genius increases the odds of success, which is very different from guaranteeing it)

Re: IQ Matters Less Than You Think

#265

Post by jjeaff »

Retric wrote: post #232
owens99 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surprisingly, many findings show there is not. Malcolm Gladwell explains this well in his book Outliers. https://www.honorsociety.org/articles/trouble-geniuses-malco... “Gladwell cites studies done by Arthur Jensen that indicate the IQ level needed to successfully attend and graduate from undergraduate college is 115, after which Jensen believe IQ becomes relatively unimportant. For comparison, Albert Einstein, a wel…

150 IQ is extremely high ~1/1,125 relative to the general population and that score may or may not be that accurate. Which seems to disagree with your suggestion. Winning a Nobel prize is a highly random process as someone needs to be in an 'open' field ripe for major discovery.

That's what I was thinking. Nobel prize is like a lottery that requires a high IQ and a desire to work in academia and research among other factors in order to buy a ticket.

You also have to be lucky enough not to have contemporaries with equally impressive work in more popular fields.

Re: IQ Matters Less Than You Think

#266

Post by madeuptempacct »

annabellish wrote: post #211
madeuptempacct wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's common sense. I did say barring accidents and having an actual life. The below is conservative. 1. Pick practical degree, because you are poor and anything else is luxury. 2. Work in college, because you are poor. End up with 30k of debt because you are dumn and didn't get a scholarship. 3. Make 40k a year. (22% fed, let's say 4% state), 30k net. -10k rent, -10k expenses, 10k left. 4. Pay off college by 25. 5. S…

I can tell that that isn't your story, because there's a lot of conjecture in there that isn't supported by the data. Even just starting with #1, the ability to pick a degree at _all_ is a privilege not automatically afforded to everybody. Should you be able to do so, then working during college is strongly linked to worse outcomes, as you have less time to dedicate to learning - thus making #3 harder as you're compe…

"the ability to pick a degree at _all_ is a privilege not automatically afforded to everybody."

I completely agree that this is a huge issue. A large problem for kids from "bad" families is not having any idea what they "should" be doing, and by the time they figure it out, they may have already ruined their life and missed opportunities.

Re: IQ Matters Less Than You Think

#267

Post by oblib »

I'll offer that many of those with a high IQ are not all that interested in becoming "highly successful" or obtaining "professional or graduate degrees".

Those are really only importance to those who are inclined to hold value in those and they're not necessarily something everyone with a high IQ values.

So, the results they're measuring don't account for what the subject group (high IQs) deems important to them. For example, if your family is struggling to make ends meet one might work hard to solve that problem by doing what's necessary, including digging ditches if that's all they can find to make ends meet. If you follow them you might find they come up with a way to make digging ditches much easier, faster, and better. And you'll most likely find that they didn't get any credit at all for that, and that they didn't care.

Re: IQ Matters Less Than You Think

#268

Post by falcolas »

wufufufu wrote: post #253
astura wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There are still plenty of fields where you can start late in life and not come from wealth but still be the best in the world. Such as?

https://www.quora.com/What-are-examples-of-some-world-class-...

It's entertaining to note that many of the "late in life" switches were still in their teens.

Re: IQ Matters Less Than You Think

#269

Post by SiempreViernes »

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.

Sorry, I don't understand: how do you know the percentile difference in terms of standard deviations but not know if a test is accurate enough?

Re: IQ Matters Less Than You Think

#270

Post by phaus »

JamesBarney wrote: post #256
owens99 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surprisingly, many findings show there is not. Malcolm Gladwell explains this well in his book Outliers. https://www.honorsociety.org/articles/trouble-geniuses-malco... “Gladwell cites studies done by Arthur Jensen that indicate the IQ level needed to successfully attend and graduate from undergraduate college is 115, after which Jensen believe IQ becomes relatively unimportant. For comparison, Albert Einstein, a wel…

I don't think there would be too much disagreement if I said von neuman was one of the smartest 10 guys to live in the last century. But he seemed to relate to people just fine.

>I don't think there would be too much disagreement if I said von neuman was one of the smartest 10 guys to live in the last century.

Obviously there won't be much disagreement on a platform dominated by computer scientists. If you went to forums for other fields they would also pick their favorites and see no reason to disagree that they are not only the best and brightest in the field, but also the best and brightest in general.

And to be clear I'm not saying he isn't. I don't really know.

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