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IQ is only a minor factor in success

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Re: IQ is only a minor factor in success

#271

Post by whack »

Rainymood wrote: post #267
whack wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on what you mean by "rich". If your goal is to be a billionaire, then yes, luck plays a major role. But if you simply want to get to the 99th percentile of income/wealth, that can be achieved in a pretty replicable manner. Study hard in HS -> Go to a good college -> Work your ass off for a good GPA -> go do a MBA/JD/MD/CS degree at an elite university -> get a six figure job and work your ass off. Not much…

>replicable manner. Study hard in HS -> Go to a good college -> Work your ass off for a good GPA -> go do a MBA/JD/MD/CS degree at an elite university -> get a six figure job and work your ass off. Not much luck involved there. >Not much luck involved there. Except being born in a white rich household with access to food, water, shelter, support system, good high school so you can go to an elite college. Do you think…

I was making my comment in the context of developed nations where everyone has access to public schooling and college loans/financial-aid. It certainly doesn't apply to those in developing nations.

Re: IQ is only a minor factor in success

#272

Post by yummyfajitas »

Godel_unicode wrote: post #262
yummyfajitas wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that achievement tests and grades are a measure of IQ . Imagine I have a direct relationship, y = g. Now I measure compute a noisy data set, (x,y) with x = g + noise. Depending on the size of the noise I'll discover that y is correlated with g with some R^2. My regression coefficient will come out to be approximately y = 1x. Now imagine I made a new noisy data set, (x1, x2, x3, y). Here x1 = g + noise,…

In order for them to be directly related as you suggest, all high-iq participants need to memorize lots of facts and learn lots of skills and no low-iq participants can do similarly. It seems that, by citing them as separate factors, the authors are saying this is not true for the population they considered.

Table 2 shows it is true.

Re: IQ is only a minor factor in success

#273

Post by Smaug123 »

babuskov wrote: post #269
Smaug123 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're throwing away all the effort How many children must one have before one is morally absolved of this sin?

Zero. I only wrote that for those citing "it's too much of an effort" as a reason not the have kids.

I intended to ask: how many children must I have before I'm allowed to cite "it's too much of an effort" as my reason for not having another child?

Re: IQ is only a minor factor in success

#274

Post by mcguire »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #272
Godel_unicode wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In order for them to be directly related as you suggest, all high-iq participants need to memorize lots of facts and learn lots of skills and no low-iq participants can do similarly. It seems that, by citing them as separate factors, the authors are saying this is not true for the population they considered.

Table 2 shows it is true.

Table 2 shows the pairwise correlations. The highest is between iq and achievement: 0.4-0.7 on different datasets. The correlation between iq and grades is between 0.1 and 0.5. That's strong, but not 1.

Re: IQ is only a minor factor in success

#275

Post by yummyfajitas »

mcguire wrote: post #274
yummyfajitas wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Table 2 shows it is true.

Table 2 shows the pairwise correlations. The highest is between iq and achievement: 0.4-0.7 on different datasets. The correlation between iq and grades is between 0.1 and 0.5. That's strong, but not 1.

My critique doesn't require a correlation of 1, I just used that as a simple example where I could work out the math in my head.

Re: IQ is only a minor factor in success

#276

Post by babuskov »

Smaug123 wrote: post #273
babuskov wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zero. I only wrote that for those citing "it's too much of an effort" as a reason not the have kids.

I intended to ask: how many children must I have before I'm allowed to cite "it's too much of an effort" as my reason for not having another child?

The topic is deciding to have kids or not. I doesn't matter how many.

Re: IQ is only a minor factor in success

#277

Post by Smaug123 »

babuskov wrote: post #276
Smaug123 wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I intended to ask: how many children must I have before I'm allowed to cite "it's too much of an effort" as my reason for not having another child?

The topic is deciding to have kids or not. I doesn't matter how many.

As I understand it, though, the argument applies almost equally to deciding whether to have fewer than $n$ children, whether $n$ is 1 or larger.

Re: IQ is only a minor factor in success

#278

Post by _coldfire »

greggman wrote: post #129
errantspark wrote: post #29

I'm probably decently smart, but I'm not rich at all. In fact I'm quite poor by most people's standards. I'm also really happy and work fewer hours per week than anyone I know. If there's one thing I worry about it's that I should be trying to be rich because I probably have the means to make that happen. I might be making 200k/yr if I worked full time. I might be able to start a successful company if I put my mind t…

My impression is money gets more important as you get older because your ability to get other people to give it to you for work goes way down and your medical expenses go way up. At least that's what I've seen in my family

For nearly all countries in the developed world the medical expenses part is barely an issue.

Re: IQ is only a minor factor in success

#279

Post by Malician »

lisper wrote: post #270
Godel_unicode wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are aware of the correlation between being smart and thinking things which aren't true, right? Smart people are very good at rationalizing.

No, that's news to me. Do tell me more.

People have beliefs and goal functions (religious - obey God; love / protect spouse and family; acquire money and power; maintain health and increase status, and positive image of self.)

A powerful brain is like an engine with more horsepower and torque - like a fast car, if you're going the wrong way it will just get you there even faster.

It's very human to be unwilling to admit error or change your mind. The smarter you are, the more tools you have at your disposal to reason out complicated methods by which you may be correct. Of course, if your position is untenable enough, even these methods will appear ludicrous from the outside.

You can, therefore, be an excellent doctor and even develop new methods for brain surgery while being simultaneously unwilling to drop absurd beliefs inculcated into you during childhood. Yes, you sound stupid to everyone else, but if you've extended and reinforced these beliefs over your entire lifetime you may be so unwilling to drop them that ridicule isn't enough of a push.

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