Highest IQ??? [Archive] - Physics Forums

BlackVision

May22-04, 11:55 PM

Marilyn Vos Savant is supposed to have the highest IQ according to Guiness. But Guiness isn't really commonly used in Scientific discussions as a source of knowledge.
Marilyn Vos Savant's 228 IQ is as a child. Child IQs are less accurate and has a higher standard deviation than an adult IQ test. Marilyn Vos Savant's Adult IQ has been ranked at 186.

Some sites say Goethe or Leonardo da Vinci were the most intelligent in the World.
Goethe and Leonardo da Vinci could not have the highest IQ since they died before IQ tests were ever invented. So how could they have ever taken an IQ test? Although if they did take one I'm sure they would do well but it's impossible to estimate exactly what score they will get.

The person with the highest IQ alive today is suppose to be Kim Ung-Yong from South Korea. Who's IQ was ranked at 210.

"Testers have only been able to estimate the IQ of Kim Ung-Yong, who was born in Seoul, Korea, on March 7, 1963. His IQ has been placed at exceeding 200. He was fluent in Japanese, Korean, German, and English by his fourth birthday. At four years, eight months he solved complicated calculus problems on Japanese TV. He is considered to be the most brilliant person alive. One factor may be that his parents, both university professors, were born at precisely the same moment: 11:00 a.m., May 23, 1934."

Source: http://campus.murraystate.edu/academic/faculty/winfield.rose/wub.htm

quddusaliquddus

May23-04, 05:00 AM

It's me :D

... no seriously ... ... it's me :D

Jokes ... no really ... I'm jokin!

Hey BlackVision ! How wierd is that? Why/How would the simultaneous births of his parents affect hois IQ?

BlackVision

May23-04, 05:50 AM

Hey BlackVision ! How wierd is that? Why/How would the simultaneous births of his parents affect hois IQ?
Probably doesn't. It's just weird and all and something to ponder over.

Dooga Blackrazor

May23-04, 02:25 PM

Thanks for the help. Does anyone know anything on Sidis?

Integral

May23-04, 04:26 PM

This is a pointless question, with no possible chance of arriving at a meaningful answer. Two reasons.
1. There is no universal test of intellegence.
2. No possible way of testing all living humans.

Seems to me it is a waste of time to even ask the question.

Evo

May23-04, 07:52 PM

Thanks for the help. Does anyone know anything on Sidis?I had read about Sidis some time ago.

His life was destroyed by his parent's attempts at creating a genius.

Young Sidis could read at 18 months. He'd written four books and was fluent in eight languages before he was eight. He gave a Harvard seminar on the fourth dimension at nine. He entered Harvard at eleven. He may've been the most intelligent person who ever lived.

Here is a partial list of William James Sidis' extraordinary capabilities and accomplishments:
1. Given IQ is a purely anthropocentric means of assessing intelligence, Sidis' IQ is crudely estimated at 250-300.
2. Infant Billy listened to Greek myths read to him by Sarah as bedtime stories.
3. Started feeding himself with a spoon at eight months (after two months of trial and error).
4. Cajoled by Boris, Billy learned to pronounce alphabetic syllables from blocks hanging in his crib.
5. At six months, Billy said, "Door." A couple months later he told Mom he liked things, doors and people, that move.
6. At seven months he pointed to Earth's moon and called it, "moon." He wanted a 'moon' of his own.
7. Mastered higher mathematics and planetary revolutions by age 11.
8. Learned to spell efficiently by one year old.
9. Started reading The New York Times at 18 months.
10. Started typing at three. Used his high chair to reach a typewriter. First composed letter was an order for toys from Macy's.
11. Read Caesar's Gallic Wars, in Latin (self-taught), as a birthday present to his Father in Billy's fourth year.
12. Learned Greek alphabet and read Homer in Greek in his fourth year.
13. Learned Aristotelian logic in his sixth year.
14. At six, Billy learned Russian, French, German, and Hebrew, and soon after, Turkish and Armenian.
15. Calculated mentally a day any date in history would fall at age six. Absolutely fascinated by calendars.
16. Learned Gray's Anatomy at six. Could pass a student medical examination.
17. Billy started grammar school at six, in 3 days 3rd grade, graduated grammar school in 7 months.
18. At age 8, Billy surpassed his father (a genius) in mathematics.
19. Corrected E. V. Huntington's mathematics text galleys at age of eight.
20. Total recall of everything he read.
21. Wrote four books between ages of four and eight. Two on anatomy and astronomy, lost.
22. Passed Harvard Medical School anatomy exam at age seven.
23. Passed MIT entrance exam at age eight.
24. Intellect surpassed best secondary school teachers.
25. At age 10, in one evening, corrected Harvard logic professor Josiah Royce's book manuscript: citing, "wrong paragraphs."
26. Attempted to enroll in Harvard at nine.
27. In 1909, became youngest student to ever enroll at Harvard at age 11.
28. In 1910, at age 11, lectured Harvard Mathematical Club on 'Four-Dimensional Bodies.'
29. Billy graduated from Harvard, cum laude, on June 24, 1914, at age 16.
30. Billy entered Harvard Law School in 1916.
31. Billy could learn a whole language in one day!
32. Billy knew all the languages (approximately 200) of the world, and could translate among them instantly!

Here are a couple of links for the above references.

http://www.quantonics.com/The_Prodigy_Review.html

http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi969.htm

quddusaliquddus

May24-04, 06:55 AM

How did his life get distroyed?

killerinstinct

Jun3-04, 08:23 AM

Destroyed, that is extremely fascinating.

Evo

Jun6-04, 12:23 AM

How did his life get distroyed?You would have to read the book to fully understand what his parents put him through.

"William James Sidis was not the first nor last child wounded by parents trying to create a trophy. Others have lamented the creative productivity we lost when Sidis dropped out of society. What I grieve is all the joy that his well-honed mind should've given him -- all the joy that Sidis was never able to access."

Dagenais

Jun6-04, 05:23 PM

Evo

Jun6-04, 05:54 PM

Isn't Mensa the Universal IQ test?

Or is that just for those that speak English?Mensa is a society.

Dagenais

Jun6-04, 07:13 PM

Mensa is a society.

Don't they administrate their own version of an IQ test?

Evo

Jun6-04, 07:17 PM

I'm not sure if they have their own version or if it is a standard test.

JohnDubYa

Jun11-04, 04:24 AM

RE: "6. At seven months he pointed to Earth's moon and called it, "moon." He wanted a 'moon' of his own. "

Hmmm... a baby born with an inate understanding of the English language. Sure, whatever.

JohnDubYa

Jun11-04, 04:26 AM

To a more important point, there is no way of establishing the IQs of people once they reach adulthood. It is all just shoddy guesswork, and usually colored by political/sociological convictions.

selfAdjoint

Jun11-04, 11:11 AM

It is all just shoddy guesswork, and usually colored by political/sociological convictions..

Self-referential?

Tigers2B1

Jun11-04, 01:00 PM

RE: "6. At seven months he pointed to Earth's moon and called it, "moon." He wanted a 'moon' of his own. "

Hmmm... a baby born with an inate understanding of the English language. Sure, whatever.

Read the quote you posted? The quote indicates "at seven months" not that he was "born with an innate understanding of English ..."

Tigers2B1

Jun11-04, 01:01 PM

To a more important point, there is no way of establishing the IQs of people once they reach adulthood. It is all just shoddy guesswork, and usually colored by political/sociological convictions.

I would be interested in seeing your source for that statement. Is there something from an .edu source (or other source generally thought of as credible) on the Internet that can be linked?

franznietzsche

Jun11-04, 03:32 PM

"William James Sidis was not the first nor last child wounded by parents trying to create a trophy. Others have lamented the creative productivity we lost when Sidis dropped out of society. What I grieve is all the joy that his well-honed mind should've given him -- all the joy that Sidis was never able to access."

Happy genius is an oxymoron. Anyone that smart can't be an optimist, logic contradicts it too well.

JohnDubYa

Jun11-04, 05:37 PM

Gee, self-Adjoint, I don't recall guessing the IQs of adults, so I fail to see how my statement could be considered self-referential.

So how does one go about testing the accuracy of an IQ test? If an IQ test says 185, how can one determine that 180 is less accurate?

IQ tests are completely bogus when used on adults, because the phenonemon they attempt to measure cannot be separated from the adults' life experience. A person who takes a calculus course is going to do better on portions of the exam than an illiterate farmer, but IQs are not designed to test knowledge.

Now, you can test the aptitude of an adult to a certain extent, but IQ? Baaah!!

The smartest guy in the world is probably some potato farmer, who simply has not had the opportunity, or possibly the gumption, to take advantage of his good fortune.

And testing the IQs of adults is completely pointless anyway.

By the way, I think the smarter you get the more you appreciate the world. Any idiot can focus on problems and bemoan his lot in life.

Dooga Blackrazor

Jun11-04, 08:21 PM

I agree with the pointlessness of IQ tests John. Knowledge effects IQ tests in an amount that people don't want to let on. So do many other factors. Eventually we may be able to calculate intelligence from properties of the brain itself but from written tests I don't think its possible. For those wondering, Sidis can actually be verified from Prometheus society if you deem them to be a legitimate source of information.

Concerning your comment about intelligence effecting appreciation. I'd say that probably would be more of a wisdom & maturity issue than intelligence itself. I wouldn't say your theory isn't possible though. I notice as I got older (and with it smarter), I started to appreciate the world more. However I can't accurately conclude that the intelligence increase is a factor or the only factor contributing to that. It's an interesting theory that I myself have thought about before.

JohnDubYa

Jun11-04, 09:07 PM

My comment about Sidis regards the absurdity that a baby (or anyone) would call an object by its proper English name without being taught.

BlackVision

Jun12-04, 09:17 AM

A person who takes a calculus course is going to do better on portions of the exam than an illiterate farmer
NOT true. IQ tests, the official ones, are not culturally bias. It wouldn't make a difference whether you flunked out of elementary school or if you got a PhD. IQ measures one thing and one thing only. Your natural cognitive ability.

I want someone to look at a Matrices IQ test such as "Raven's Progressive Matrices" and tell me how education will have any impact on your ability to take that test.

Dooga Blackrazor

Jun12-04, 12:11 PM

JohnDubYa

Jun12-04, 12:58 PM

RE: "NOT true. IQ tests, the official ones, are not culturally bias. It wouldn't make a difference whether you flunked out of elementary school or if you got a PhD. IQ measures one thing and one thing only. Your natural cognitive ability."

Your statement is (mostly) accurate when applied to children. However, we are discussing the application of IQ tests to adults. There is no way to measure "natural" cognitive ability since a person's education affects his cognitive ability.

If you disagree, post one of the questions used in the IQ test and we can discuss it.

And you didn't answer my question, "How do you test the accuracy of an IQ test?"

Tigers2B1

Jun12-04, 06:51 PM

My comment about Sidis regards the absurdity that a baby (or anyone) would call an object by its proper English name without being taught.

The original comment didn’t indicate that he wasn't 'taught' the word – I imagine he learned the word like all babies do. I think the point was that, at 8 months old, Sidis had some idea of the relationship between the Earth and the Moon - shown by his request for a "moon of his own." That at 8 months he already had the association in his head. That was my read anyway -

Tigers2B1

Jun12-04, 06:54 PM

The rate at which you can mathmatically solve problems, through multiplication and other things could effect IQ test results. If your good at Calculus your brain would also be more used to an exposed to mathmatical thinking. Perhaps there is a question in which your tricked somehow. If you took a Calculus course you'd know where to look for the answers.

If you take a course on System of Equations and do tricky problems you'll be more exposed to possibilities of how to achieve an outcome. That could help you on an IQ test. From personal experience I took an IQ type test in which the answers were shown afterwards. It revealed that vowels effected the answer of a question. I then knew in future IQ tests to check and see if vowels effected the result.

Cultural differences may or may not effect non-timed IQ tests but I'm sure they'd effect time-oriented tests. Official tests may be more accurate but I wouldn't deem them an accurate measurement intelligence in an individual. IQ test accuracy is often an opinion anyway though.

Truly culture free tests of mental quickness correlate highly with the results of IQ tests. Here is an artcle related to these culture free tests.

Here’s the link - http://www.brainmachines.com/body_wolf.html

…The idea was to provide a way of testing intelligence that would be free of "cultural bias," one that would not force anyone to deal with words or concepts that might be familiar to people from one culture but not to people from another. The IQ Cap recorded only brain waves; and a computer, not a potentially biased human test-giver, analyzed the results…
It was not a complicated process. You attached sixteen electrodes to the scalp of the person you wanted to test. You had to muss up his hair a little, but you didn't have to cut it, much less shave it. Then you had him stare at a marker on a blank wall. This particular researcher used a raspberry- red thumbtack. Then you pushed a toggle switch. In sixteen seconds the Cap's computer box gave you an accurate prediction (within one-half of a standard deviation) of what the subject would score on all eleven subtests of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale or, in the case of children, the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children--all from sixteen seconds' worth of brain waves. There was nothing culturally biased about the test whatsoever. What could be cultural about staring at a thumbtack on a wall? The savings in time and money were breathtaking. The conventional IQ test took two hours to complete; and the overhead, in terms of paying test-givers, test-scorers, test-preparers, and the rent, was $100 an hour at the very least. The IQ Cap required about fifteen minutes and sixteen seconds--it took about fifteen minutes to put the electrodes on the scalp--and about a tenth of a penny's worth of electricity.

Tigers2B1

Jun12-04, 07:00 PM

...IQ tests are completely bogus when used on adults, because the phenonemon they attempt to measure cannot be separated from the adults' life experience. A person who takes a calculus course is going to do better on portions of the exam than an illiterate farmer, but IQs are not designed to test knowledge.

Now, you can test the aptitude of an adult to a certain extent, but IQ? Baaah!!...

I'm still waiting for your .edu or other credible sourse for that assertion. If your assertion is in fact true that information needs to be got to either the defense or the prosecution in some of these murder cases ---- since IQ tests are used in the U.S. legal system. IQ scores are part of the process determining whether a convicted murderer gets a sentence of death or some other punishment. Linked is the Supreme Court's holding in regarding the use of IQ in Atkins v. Virginia

http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/00-8452.ZO.html

Here is a quote from the decision itself. Note that there is extensive discussion of the use of IQ in the decision notes located at the bottom, after the decision ---

…In the penalty phase, the defense relied on one witness, Dr. Evan Nelson, a forensic psychologist who had evaluated Atkins before trial and concluded that he was “mildly mentally retarded.” His conclusion was based on interviews with people who knew Atkins, a review of school and court records, and the administration of a standard intelligence test which indicated that Atkins had a full scale IQ of 59.

Tigers2B1

Jun12-04, 07:05 PM

...If you disagree, post one of the questions used in the IQ test and we can discuss it...

Standardized IQ tests are not published so I don’t know what a standardized culture free test looks like. However, I may have seen a 'culture free test' at one time even though it wasn’t described to me that way. I suspect this online "IQ test," which takes about a minute to load, is composed of what might be thought of as 'culture free' type questions. Not actual standardized IQ questions used by professionals but, nevertheless descriptive of the types of questions I saw. Does anyone know what professionally administered culture free questions look like and if so, do they look anything like what is shown at this site? ----- That is, they don’t assume much or anything in the way of “knowledge,” -- if these questions even do that. Also ---- if these questions aren’t considered culture free why would that be?

http://home.hetnet.nl/~rijk42/progressivUS.swf

JohnDubYa

Jun13-04, 02:26 AM

As I said:

"Your statement is (mostly) accurate when applied to children. However, we are discussing the application of IQ tests to adults. There is no way to measure "natural" cognitive ability since a person's education affects his cognitive ability."

A person who has an IQ of only 60 has no education. In fact, his cognitive abilities have not developed much beyond his childhood years. Therefore we are, in effect, testing the IQ of a child.

Those on the upper scale of IQ have had too much meaningful interaction with their surroundings to make IQ tests practical. You simply cannot remove a person's cognitive skill developed in life when testing his IQ. If you can't, then you are testing aptitude, not intelligence.

And no one has answered my question, how can you tell if an IQ result is accurate?

Monique

Jun13-04, 05:05 AM

People worry so much about their IQ, I think intelligence should be measured by success. Being able to accomplish things in life is much more important than being assigned a number..

selfAdjoint

Jun13-04, 09:33 AM

People worry so much about their IQ, I think intelligence should be measured by success.

Hmmm. Some people achieve success by skullduggery. Examples will come to mind, I am sure. I think it would be better to be an obscure "quick study" than to be one of those.

JohnDubYa

Jun13-04, 12:06 PM

We need to design a Success Quotient. :)

So who would have the highest SQ?

Tigers2B1

Jun13-04, 12:07 PM

Also, while "success" is open to individual interpretation --- in that it could mean having a large family in a five million dollar home OR it could mean living alone as a self-reliant near a pond OR anything in between if graded by individual standards. When discussing certain types of "achievement" - IQ does have correlations with real life achievements and activities. As this paper from the American Psychological Association indicates, IQ has a correlation with school performance, job performance, years of education and a variety of other life achievements.

Note that a correlation of +1 (or 1.0) means that whenever you see one item you always see the other. (e.g. the sun and sunlight) A correlation of ‘0’ mean that if you see one there is a random chance you will see the other. A correlation of –1 means that if you see one you never see the other. You can get an approximate idea from that -

Tests as Predictors

School Performance. Intelligence tests were originally devised by Alfred Binet to measure children's ability to succeed in school. They do in fact predict school performance fairly well: the correlation between IQ scores and grades is about .50…

Years of Education. Some children stay in school longer than others; many go on to college and perhaps beyond. Two variables that can be measured as early as elementary school correlate with the total amount of education individuals will obtain: test scores and social class background. Correlations between IQ scores and total years of education are about .55 …

Job Performance. Scores on intelligence tests predict various measures of job performance: supervisor ratings, work samples, etc. Such correlations, which typically lie between r=.30 and r=.50, are partly restricted by the limited reliability of those measures themselves. They become higher when statistically corrected for this unreliability: in one survey of relevant studies (Hunter, 1983), the mean of the corrected correlations was .54. This implies that, across a wide range of occupations, intelligence test performance accounts for some 29% of the variance in job performance….

Social Outcomes. Psychometric intelligence is negatively correlated with certain socially undesirable outcomes. For example, children with high test scores are less likely than lower-scoring children to engage in juvenile crime. In one study, Moffitt, Gabrielli, Mednick & Schulsinger (1981) found a correlation of -.19 between IQ scores and number of juvenile offenses in a large Danish sample; with social class controlled, the correlation dropped to -. 17…

The link –

http://www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/iku.html

JohnDubYa

Jun13-04, 11:01 PM

RE: "As this paper from the American Psychological Association indicates, IQ has a correlation with school performance, job performance, years of education and a variety of other life achievements."

Gee, I would hope so.

selfAdjoint

Jun14-04, 08:29 AM

So first you say IQ doesn't predict anything, and then when you are told about these correlations (which are old, old news), you imply it was obvious.

Would it hurt you to investigate, just as an interesting thought, that you were wrong?

JohnDubYa

Jun14-04, 12:18 PM

You are trying to assign a cause/effect relationship to mere correlation. That is an obvious fallacy.

My point has been that IQ tests cannot separate learned knowledge from natural intelligence. Your correlation study would support my argument as equally as yours. Think about it: If IQ tests really only tested learned knowledge, doesn't it make sense that those measured with a high "IQ" would have better education, more money, and so on?

If you are so sure that the questions on an IQ test can be applied to adults and test purely intelligence, then post one of the questions for our review. If you don't even know the questions, then how can you be so sure? (Appeal to authority fallacy coming up, I bet.)

selfAdjoint

Jun14-04, 03:53 PM

Here's a site that gives the honest skinny on online IQ tests (mostly sucker bait), and a couple of suggestions on how the find out your own IQ. Not an authority, just a resource.

http://www.wilderdom.com/personality/L2-1UnderstandingIQ.html

Tigers2B1

Jun15-04, 03:14 PM

You are trying to assign a cause/effect relationship to mere correlation. That is an obvious fallacy.

Who said there was a direct cause - effect relationship? As in "a 130 IQ = PHD degree." Not me nor has anyone else that I've noticed. In fact, I used the word "correlation" in my post a number of times, never used the term "cause - effect" or anything similar, and even went as far as to explain what "correlation" meant. Now ---- high positive correlations of the sort offered certainly create a strong implication that a relationship exists between the abilities displayed by IQ results and other achievement.

My point has been that IQ tests cannot separate learned knowledge from natural intelligence.

You've already posted that 'conclusion' without even the supporting reasons OR any source once. Since everybody can post anything about everything --- I’ll ask again --do you have an authoritative source for that? And if not an authoritative source --- do you have any rationale to support what are only, at this time, unsupported conclusions?

Your correlation study would support my argument as equally as yours.

Well its not "my correlation study" – it is a paper from the American Psychological Association. The American Psychological Association is the primary association of psychometricians, psychologists, and psychiatrists, who are involved in this sort of testing.

And finally, how does this study support "…my argument as equally as yours" as you stated in the above quote?

Think about it: If IQ tests really only tested learned knowledge, doesn't it make sense that those measured with a high "IQ" would have better education, more money, and so on?

This paper dealt with IQ as a predictor. That is – take two large, random groups of 10 year olds from the same economic background. For the purposes of this example - everyone in Group 1 has an IQ score of 130 and everyone in Group 2 has an IQ score of 100. These groups are similar but for their IQ scores. Individual personality (motivation, values, et. al) is factored out due to the size of the groups. From those IQ scores you can make valid predictions about the later life 'achievements' generally found in each of those two big groups many years later.

If you are so sure that the questions on an IQ test can be applied to adults and test purely intelligence, then post one of the questions for our review. If you don't even know the questions, then how can you be so sure? (Appeal to authority fallacy coming up, I bet.)

Did you not see this prior post directly responding to the same request made by you? --- Here it is -

“Standardized IQ tests are not published so I don’t know what a standardized culture free test looks like. However, I may have seen a 'culture free test' at one time even though it wasn’t described to me that way. I suspect this online "IQ test," which takes about a minute to load, is composed of what might be thought of as 'culture free' type questions. Not actual standardized IQ questions used by professionals but, nevertheless descriptive of the types of questions I saw. Does anyone know what professionally administered culture free questions look like and if so, do they look anything like what is shown at this site? ----- That is, they don’t assume much or anything in the way of “knowledge,” -- if these questions even do that. Also ---- if these questions aren’t considered culture free why would that be?”

So --- go to this site ----> http://home.hetnet.nl/~rijk42/progressivUS.swf take a look at THESE QUESTIONS and let me know what your objections are – (i.e. Why these questions test ‘knowledge’ - rather than cognitive ability.)

hitssquad

Jun15-04, 03:45 PM

“Standardized IQ tests are not published so I don’t know what a standardized culture free test looks like.There are no culture-free instruments that rely on voluntary item performances by test subjects. Arthur Jensen explains this in his 1980 book Bias in Mental Testing (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0029164303). Raymond Cattell's Culture-Fair IQ Test is sometimes misremembered as his Culture-Free test.

There are, however, culture-reduced tests. Further however, these tests are not necessarily any less biased than tests that are highly-loaded on culture. As Arthur Jensen shows in Bias in Mental Testing, tests highly-loaded on culture can be virtually free of bias, given that the tested populations in question have been given equal exposure to the particular culture the tests are loaded on.

However, I may have seen a 'culture free test' at one time even though it wasn’t described to me that way. I suspect this online "IQ test," which takes about a minute to load, is composed of what might be thought of as 'culture free' type questions.Nicologic's (http://nicologic.free.fr/) tests seem to me to be good examples of culture-reduced tests.

Does anyone know what professionally administered culture free questions look like and if so, do they look anything like what is shown at this site? ----- That is, they don’t assume much or anything in the way of “knowledge,” -- if these questions even do that.IQ tests do not have questions per se; they have items.

Test and Item. A test is any collection of items (tasks, problems, questions, etc.) that elicit abilities when persons are asked to respond to the items in a particular way. The items may be anything the test maker chooses, so long as each one elicits an ability.

It is important not to confuse the three distinct meanings associated with the term "item." First, there is the physical item itself--a spoken or printed question, or problem, or task to be performed (but not including the person's performance). Second, there is the item response --the record or score of a person's adequacy of performance on the item. Third, there are the item statistics --the mean and variance of the scores on an item taken by a group of persons.
[Arthur Jensen. The g Factor (http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=24373874). p53.]

Tigers2B1

Jun15-04, 05:29 PM

Thanks hitsquad for pointing out the correct terms and the clarification on bias and culture-reduced/fair tests. But thanks especially for your link to the online library --- I’ve now got that site linked in my favorites list :)

hitssquad

Jun16-04, 01:29 AM

thanks especially for your link to the online libraryYou're welcome. If The g Factor is of interest to you, the other books Questia has online that are written (or edited) by that book's editor, Seymour W. Itzkoff, may also be of interest to you. To find Itzkoff's other books, just perform an author search (http://www.questia.com/search/NewSearch.jsp) for the name Itzkoff.

One you may find yourself interested in in particular is The Decline of Intelligence in America: A Strategy for National Renewal (http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=24657676).

JohnDubYa

Jun16-04, 02:49 AM

RE: "Who said there was a direct cause - effect relationship? As in "a 130 IQ = PHD degree." Not me nor has anyone else that I've noticed."

You posted a correlation and implied that the sole determiner of the correlation was IQ. Go back and read your post. In no way did you allow for the possiblity that other factors may be present, such as aptitude.

RE: "In fact, I used the word "correlation" in my post a number of times, never used the term "cause - effect" or anything similar, and even went as far as to explain what "correlation" meant. Now ---- high positive correlations of the sort offered certainly create a strong implication that a relationship exists between the abilities displayed by IQ results and other achievement."

Not at all, especially since learned knowledge would produce the same result.

You have two possible factors, X and Y. Both predict Z. Finding Z implies in no way that X was present at all until you eliminate Y.

RE: "You've already posted that 'conclusion' without even the supporting reasons OR any source once."

That would be proving the negative. It is assumed that learned knowledge and high IQ are present in many individuals and that they would provide similar results. It is up to science to prove that they can separate one from the other. It is not up to skeptics to prove that they cannot be separated, since such a proof is impossible.

The burden of proof is on the IQ testers.

RE: " Since everybody can post anything about everything --- I’ll ask again --do you have an authoritative source for that?"

I don't argue from the viewpoint of appeals to authority. I have offered my rationale many times here -- learned knowledge can mask raw intelligence. There is little doubt about that.

Since you do not have any actual IQ questions for us to examine, do you have anything other than appeal to authority to support your notion that IQ can be isolated and tested in adults?

RE: "Well its not "my correlation study" – it is a paper from the American Psychological Association. The American Psychological Association is the primary association of psychometricians, psychologists, and psychiatrists, who are involved in this sort of testing."

In other words, you are resorting to an appeal of authority fallacy.

And finally, how does this study support "…my argument as equally as yours" as you stated in the above quote?

Easy. Those that have learned a great deal would exhibit the same characteristics -- better average salary, and so on -- when tested as those with high IQs. It was pointless to even bother posting the study for the sake of this argument.

RE: "Think about it: If IQ tests really only tested learned knowledge, doesn't it make sense that those measured with a high "IQ" would have better education, more money, and so on?"

RE: "This paper dealt with IQ as a predictor. That is – take two large, random groups of 10 year olds..."

This argument is the validity of IQ tests when given to ADULTS.

If you are so sure that the questions on an IQ test can be applied to adults and test purely intelligence, then post one of the questions for our review. If you don't even know the questions, then how can you be so sure? (Appeal to authority fallacy coming up, I bet.)

“Standardized IQ tests are not published so I don’t know what a standardized culture free test looks like."

In other words, you can't be sure. Is that correct?

Read the next paragraph -- hardly sounds like a definitive example of anything to base a theory on.

"However, I may have seen a 'culture free test' at one time even though it wasn’t described to me that way. I suspect this online "IQ test," which takes about a minute to load, is composed of what might be thought of as 'culture free' type questions. Not actual standardized IQ questions used by professionals but, nevertheless descriptive of the types of questions I saw. Does anyone know what professionally administered culture free questions look like and if so, do they look anything like what is shown at this site? ----- That is, they don’t assume much or anything in the way of “knowledge,” -- if these questions even do that. Also ---- if these questions aren’t considered culture free why would that be?”

RE: "So --- go to this site ----> http://home.hetnet.nl/~rijk42/progressivUS.swf take a look at THESE QUESTIONS and let me know what your objections are – (i.e. Why these questions test ‘knowledge’ - rather than cognitive ability.)"

Never did load.

And you still haven't answered my question: How do you know whether or not an IQ is test is accurate?

selfAdjoint

Jun16-04, 08:33 AM

RE: "So --- go to this site ----> http://home.hetnet.nl/~rijk42/progressivUS.swf take a look at THESE QUESTIONS and let me know what your objections are – (i.e. Why these questions test ‘knowledge’ - rather than cognitive ability.)"

Never did load.

Loads just fine for me.

BobG

Jun16-04, 02:13 PM

So --- go to this site ----> http://home.hetnet.nl/~rijk42/progressivUS.swf take a look at THESE QUESTIONS and let me know what your objections are – (i.e. Why these questions test ‘knowledge’ - rather than cognitive ability.)

I think this test just points out the impossibility of filtering all past experiences. A person who had dealt with AND gates and NOR gates would be a little quicker and more likely to recognize a couple of the patterns than the average person.

None the less, this is at least a culture reduced test, where you'd at least expect a very small amount of deviation due to past experience and learning, even for adults. For younger age groups, I think you could be pretty confident in believing this was testing at least one aspect of cognitive ability rather than past learning.

hitssquad

Jun17-04, 05:48 PM

Loads just fine for me.It's .5 MB in size. If one doesn't have a broadband connection, it may "never" load.

hitssquad

Jun17-04, 05:52 PM

BobG

Jun18-04, 10:27 AM

I admit, that's an extreme general statement made in response to the test in question.

The statement is obviously true (even if it may be quibbling). You can get close to 100% correlation, but you're never going to quite reach it, especially if you test adults with a diverse background. With a good test, good testing technique, and a good method of measurement, you can still reduce the 'noise' level enough to gain valuable information - at least a ball park figure for a person's intelligence.

The test in the link has a standard deviation of about 16 points, but it's only a free online test that only tests ability to recognize visual patterns. In this case, such a large deviation might be due more to the limited scope and the shortness of the test than question quality. The questions don't eliminate the possibility of results being 'corrupted' by using past experiences to reason out the answer, but a long enough test could also measure the rate that performance improves over the course of the test to compensate for that.

A culture free verbal test is a lot more challenging to develop. The closest I've seen to a culture-free verbal test is the military's DLAB tests, which test an individual's ability to learn new languages. The test invents new languages over the course of the day that the testee could not possibly have been exposed to and measures how quickly and accurately they learn the vocabulary and structure of new languages. Portions of the lessons/tests are even read to the testee via recording. Yet, since the languages they invent use structures similar to existing languages (even if modifying the specifics), a multi-lingual person will still be more likely to recognize the patterns and structures than a person who knows only English. A small matter for the military, since the tests' primary aim is to find people who can be literate in a foreign language in a short amount of time - not to figure why people can learn new languages.

Tigers2B1

Jun18-04, 11:22 AM

Would the test described here qualify as a culture free test? I had read of these sorts of tests – from Arthur Jenson for one, which measure reaction time to a dot that appears on a screen. As quoted below this reaction time is correlated with old fashion IQ results. I, however, had trouble finding information on the Net related to this.

I posted this link and quote already - on page two of this thread - but maybe you didn’t catch that.

Here’s the link - http://www.brainmachines.com/body_wolf.html

…The idea was to provide a way of testing intelligence that would be free of "cultural bias," one that would not force anyone to deal with words or concepts that might be familiar to people from one culture but not to people from another. The IQ Cap recorded only brain waves; and a computer, not a potentially biased human test-giver, analyzed the results…

It was not a complicated process. You attached sixteen electrodes to the scalp of the person you wanted to test. … Then you had him stare at a marker on a blank wall. This particular researcher used a raspberry- red thumbtack. Then you pushed a toggle switch. In sixteen seconds the Cap's computer box gave you an accurate prediction (within one-half of a standard deviation) of what the subject would score on all eleven subtests of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale or, in the case of children, the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children—

hitssquad

Jun19-04, 07:58 PM

Would the test described here qualify as a culture free test?A fitting rule would seem to be that any mental abilities test that relies on voluntary responses has cultural loading above zero and that any mental abilities test that does not rely on voluntary responses has cultural loading at zero.

I had read of these sorts of tests – from Arthur Jenson for one, which measure reaction time to a dot that appears on a screen.No. The test involving seeing something on a screen is an inspection time (http://www.google.com/search?q=%22inspection+time%22+iq) test. The task is to identify the fundamental figure through a precisely timed mask (the figure appears and a precise number of milliseconds later a masking figure appears - hence what is tested how large of a time gap you need - and the larger the time gap needed, the lower your IQ, generally.)

Reaction time (http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Reaction+time%22+iq) tests involve a physical response (such as pushing a button) excecuted as quickly as possible to a stimulus (such as a light or a pattern of lights).

A culture free brain-electrode IQ test would probably involve evoked potentials (http://www.google.com/search?q=%22evoked+potentials%22+iq) (brain waves evoked by a fundamental stimulus such as auditory click).

Here’s the link - http://www.brainmachines.com/body_wolf.html

The_Professional

Jun28-04, 01:30 AM

Don't they administrate their own version of an IQ test?

Yes, they do

http://www.mensa.org/info.html

Generally, there are two ways to prove that you qualify for Mensa: either take the Mensa test, or submit a qualifying test score from another test. There is a large number of intelligence tests that are "approved". More information on whether a test you have taken is approved, as well as information on the procedure for taking the Mensa test, can be obtained from the nearest Mensa office. There are no on-line tests that can be used for admission to Mensa. Feel free to contact Mensa for specific details about eligibility.

Mensa gatherings are a way for really intelligent people to get together and pat themselves in the back in a sort of 'We feel good, we're so smart' kind of way :biggrin:

franznietzsche

Jun28-04, 10:51 AM

Yes, they do

http://www.mensa.org/info.html

Mensa gatherings are a way for really intelligent people to get together and pat themselves in the back in a sort of 'We feel good, we're so smart' kind of way :biggrin:

Beats spending time with stupid people instead. :yuck:

shonagon53

Jun28-04, 04:35 PM

Tigers2B1

Jun28-04, 07:07 PM

Why are there still people of my generation who believe all the nonsensical, superstitious crap surrounding the validity of IQ tests? IQ tests are what they are: a tool for frustrated paranoid psychologists with tiny penises.

No cites? Or you just mindlessly ranting? Since, outside of the tiny penis claim ---- if I thought you had any credible cite to back up your assertion – well, I’d ask. But I don’t so I don’t.

-- But to the question portion of your statement ---- concerning your assertion that people still use IQ results notwithstanding their proven invalidity. I don’t know –- maybe it's because there are still people who look for evidence and don’t march lock step with the PC crowd? No? Surprise me.

BlackVision

Jun28-04, 09:00 PM

Why are there still people of my generation who believe all the nonsensical, superstitious crap surrounding the validity of IQ tests? IQ tests are what they are: a tool for frustrated paranoid psychologists with tiny penises.
Because the genetic correlation of IQ tests is .80. Meaning it is 80% genetic based. It measure your natural intelligence.

shonagon53

Jun29-04, 02:14 AM

No cites?

Wow, since when do you have to be able to cite someone else to back up a thought?

This is really interesting. It says a lot about you, and your IQ, no doubt.

BlackVision

Jun29-04, 03:49 AM

Wow, since when do you have to be able to cite someone else to back up a thought?

This is really interesting. It says a lot about you, and your IQ, no doubt.
Well there certainly is plenty of researches and articles that hold the validity of IQ tests. Showing the correlation of one's IQ to one's ability to do multitude of different skills. Tigers2B1 was asking for any research to refute any of this but it seems like you do not have any.

Also the fact that you state that "It says a lot about you, and your IQ" shows that you put weight behind IQ.

shonagon53

Jun29-04, 05:51 AM

Also the fact that you state that "It says a lot about you, and your IQ" shows that you put weight behind IQ.

Djee, on the scale of understanding Irony, you score a big ZERO.

Tigers2B1

Jun29-04, 08:53 AM

Wow, since when do you have to be able to cite someone else to back up a thought?

Not a "thought" but an assertion and one you don't and can't support. But as suspected --- an assertion along the line of "mindlessly ranting." Carry on.

BlackVision

Jun29-04, 11:07 PM

Djee, on the scale of understanding Irony, you score a big ZERO.
Hold on. On my entire comment, this is the part that you decided to answer? That is just sad bro. Let me try again.

"Well there certainly is plenty of researches and articles that hold the validity of IQ tests. Showing the correlation of one's IQ to one's ability to do multitude of different skills. Tigers2B1 was asking for any research to refute any of this but it seems like you do not have any."

So do you have reviewable researches in such that the validity of IQ have been dismissed or once again have you talked out of your ***?

Tasthius

Jun30-04, 05:40 AM

I'm doing a project on IQ and for posters I'm doing some information on the person with the Highest IQ in the world. Unfortunately, this seems to be a difficult thing to determine.

Type this name into Google: Christopher Michael Langan. He is a 40-something year old bar bouncer who has only made $6K a year for most of his adult life. He was featured on 20/20 and was subsequently administered a supervised IQ test by a psychologist that was hired by 20/20. Afterward, the shrink reported that it was the "highest score he had ever seen in his professional career," and estimated Langan's IQ to be somewhere near 190 (S.D. 16) This would make Langan a little smarter than Marilyn Savant. One must remember that Savant's score of 228 was a ratio score, not a deviation score. Ratio scores are outdated and were typically used for children only (Marilyn was 12 when she received that famous score). Her adult IQ has been estimated around 180-185, as her Mega and Titan (http://www.eskimo.com/~miyaguch/titan.html) test results suggest.

Speaking of the Mega test, this test was designed by one Ronald K. Hoeflin in the early 80's in order to psychometrically identify the "severely gifted." The test was intended to be so difficult that people with superior IQ's (such as Mensa members) would only get an average score. Only those with stratospheric IQ's (160+) would be able to answer the majority of questions correctly. The test has 48 questions. Marilyn answered 46 correctly, and Langan got 47 (he solved 43 in a few hours by his own admission, a phenomenal feat if you ask me). The test was published in OMNI magazine and taken by thousands of people (most of whom were brainiac puzzle solvers) and to my knowledge no one ever got a perfect 48 raw score. The Mega test is no longer availible online, but its sister test, the Titan test is. The Titan test is almost identical in construct. Follow the link above to access it (complete with norms). Mensa members should, on average, be able to answer about 8 or 10 questions correctly out of 48. Solomon Golomb, the rather well known mathematician, got l43 or 44 correct, and John Sununu (yeah the old CNN crossfire guy) got 44 correct, making him a rare intellect (I guess not all Republicans are stupid).

Interestingly, another very high scorer is another bar bouncer. Rick Rosner made a perfect 48 score on the Titan test, and scored 46 on the Mega, putting his IQ around 180.

The main difference in Langan and Savant seems to be that Langan has dedicated himself to serious scholarly and scientific research and not "mentally masturbating" by solving asinine puzzles and writing tabloid articles. Although Savant has put forth her own solution for Fermat's last theorem and a few other mathematical brain teasers, she hasn't done much else with that purported Olympian IQ. Langan has actually concocted a rather strange theory which supposedly is a TOE, and unifies cosmology and philosophy and calls it the "Cognitive Theoretic Model of the Universe," (http://www.ctmu.com/) or CTMU for short.

But I digress..

Other than Savant, Rosner, and Langan and maybe a few child prodigies such as Gregory Smith (PhD candidate in math at age 14) and that Oriental-American kid who is a med student at 12, I can't think of any more publicized geniuses currently living. Of course, when I refer to "genius" here I refer to a purely psychometric use of the term, not the one usually associated with accomplishment (i.e. Da Vinci, Newton, Leibniz or Mozart who all would knock the ceiling out of the Mega test).

Bobby Fischer does come to mind as does Garry Kasparov, both of whom reportedly have IQs around 180. I don't doubt Fischer's IQ, especially on a visual-spatial test, but he does come across rather, shall we say, schizo. Definitely a disturbed individual. The most astonishing thing about Fischer, however, is his working memory. Incredible. But I digress.

Esquire magazine did an article on Langan, his gifted girlfriend, Dr. Hoeflin, and a couple of other members of the "Mega Society." Interesting and eccentric characters indeed.

A few other links of interest for you may be the various "High IQ societies." How many of you here know that Mensa is one of only about a dozen such clubs? How many know that Mensa has one of the lowest cut-offs of any such club?

Here is a link with a list of all currently active high IQ societies, some are as restrictive as 1 in a 1,000,000 (99.9999 percentile). I highly reccomend perusing the website of the "Prometheus Society" (IQ greater than 1 in 30,000) and the "Mega Society." (IQ greater than 1 in 1,000,000). Perhaps you will run across individuals there of interest. Chris Langan, Rick Rosner, and Dr. Hoeflin (who designed the Mega and Titan tests) are all members of these "super High IQ" clubs.

Mega Society (http://www.megasociety.org)
Prometheus (http://www.prometheussociety.org)

All other active societies (http://members.shaw.ca/delajara/criteria.html)

IQ Society resource (http://www.eskimo.com/~miyaguch/hoeflin.html)

Hope this helps.

P.S., the next time you go to your favorite local bar, just remember that the bouncer in the corner may just be manipulating equations for M-theory in his head. :wink:

Tasthius

Jun30-04, 06:24 AM

William James Sidis was not the first nor last child wounded by parents trying to create a trophy. Others have lamented the creative productivity we lost when Sidis dropped out of society. What I grieve is all the joy that his well-honed mind should've given him -- all the joy that Sidis was never able to access."
__________________

True. There is a kid who was in the news a few years ago. I believe his name was Justin Chapman. He was supposed to be one of the smartest kids alive, with an IQ approaching 200. His mother would go on talk shows giving all of these anecdotal tales of miraculous intellectual feats. She sat in with him as a shrink tested his IQ via the WAIS, and he hit the ceiling (meaning he was too smart to be measured). Well guess what? it turns out that the whole story is a fraud. Many people now suspect that his mother made up the whole tale and that there is nothing at all extraordinary about her son. It is believed that she managed to obtain a copy of the IQ test beforehand and memorize the questions and answers and instructed her son on what to say during the test.

Tasthius

Jun30-04, 06:28 AM

In response to Mensa testing:

Someone here mentioned the Mensa test, and asked if it was a standardized test from another author or if it was created by Mensa. The answer is both. Mensa indeed does have a test created and normed by Mensa psychologists, as well as another standardized test that they routinely proctor for anyone interested in joining. When you take the "Mensa test", you are actually taking two separate tests, one designed by Mensa and the otherone is called the Wonderlic (or something to that effect if I remember correctly). A score of the 98th%ile or better on either test qualifies you.

More info is availible on Mensa's website.

Tasthius

Jun30-04, 06:37 AM

JohnDubya said:

To a more important point, there is no way of establishing the IQs of people once they reach adulthood. It is all just shoddy guesswork, and usually colored by political/sociological convictions.

I don't know what hokum you have been reading, but this simply isn't true. It is true, as I stated in a previous post, that IQ testing was first established in the early 1900's as a way of assessing French school children and discovering potential learning disabilities, but IQ testing has come a long way since. The ratio scale has been dropped in favor of the much more accurate and mathematically sound deviation scale (folliwing the Gaussian curve). The deviation scale can be used accurately on either adults or children.

Do some google searches for Arthur Jensen and Raymond B Cattell and "The Bell Curve" which was written by Herrnstein and Murray.

Tasthius

Jun30-04, 06:47 AM

"Knowledge effects IQ tests in an amount that people don't want to let on. "

--Sigh--- Seeing that this is a physics forum, I shouldn't be too surprised if most here don't have a clue about psychometrics (no offense intended).

Have you ever thought that perhaps the test designers took this into account? They realize that some questions on IQ tests will be knowledge specific, but they also realize that more intelligent people tend to retain more information more easily than do average people. Someone on another thread posted an excerpt from Arthur Jensen (an expert and innovator on IQ testing) that suggests that research shows that higher IQed people are able to amass a larger vocabulary not by reading voraciously, but because they retain the nuances of definitions much more easily under the same conditions as less intelligent people. In other words, a smarter person will by default under the same conditions as a less intelligent person retain more information pertinent for problem solving, pointing to an innate mental superiority -- not to a priviledged upbringing or educational process.

One of the smartest people in America psychometrically was a farmer and a firefighter and is currently a bar bouncer. This person knocks the ceiling off of IQ tests, but has hardly step foot into a university. He checks for fake IDs at the door and breaks up fights instead of teaching physics at MIT, yet can outwit, out debate, and out think most eminent scientists in the world.

shonagon53

Jun30-04, 10:47 AM

Hi, I have a score of 142 on the international Mensa IQ test. I feel completely stupid now, and offended, since Mensa is big bogus.

Tigers2B1

Jun30-04, 03:35 PM

I'll add this since people generally don't seem to be aware of the possibility that people who wear 'out of style' clothes might be smart. What am I talking about? That race of myoptic nerds, the breed that laughs through their pinched noses and they push up their taped glasses, just might be smarter than the average bear after all. There seems to be a correlation of myopia (nearsightedness) with IQ and brain and eye size. See this -

With respect to the high correlation between intelligence and myopia both within and between populations, Miller asserts that an obvious explanation is that high intelligence leads to more reading, and this leads to greater myopia. Yet, with respect to why myopia is so frequent among very intelligent people, he proposes 'a pleitropic genetic effect by which one gene promotes the growth of both the brain and the eyeball, with the eyeball growth leading to myopia, or a [greater] predisposition to myopia.' However, in the study Miller cites, where Myopia was twice as common among the extremely precocious students than among their siblings (whose IQs averaged 115), the non-gifted sib tended to spend about the same amount of time reading (Benbow 1986)...

The link --

http://psycprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00000144/

And evidence that myopia is inherited

A new study strongly indicates that the primary cause of nearsightedness is heredity. The study also suggests that the amount of time a child spends studying or reading plays a minor role in the development of myopia, or nearsightedness…

Source link -

http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/myokid.htm

plus

Jul1-04, 11:14 AM

Marilyn Vos Savant's 228 IQ is as a child. Child IQs are less accurate and has a higher standard deviation than an adult IQ test. Marilyn Vos Savant's Adult IQ has been ranked at 186.

Goethe and Leonardo da Vinci could not have the highest IQ since they died before IQ tests were ever invented. So how could they have ever taken an IQ test? Although if they did take one I'm sure they would do well but it's impossible to estimate exactly what score they will get.

The person with the highest IQ alive today is suppose to be Kim Ung-Yong from South Korea. Who's IQ was ranked at 210.

"Testers have only been able to estimate the IQ of Kim Ung-Yong, who was born in Seoul, Korea, on March 7, 1963. His IQ has been placed at exceeding 200. He was fluent in Japanese, Korean, German, and English by his fourth birthday. At four years, eight months he solved complicated calculus problems on Japanese TV. He is considered to be the most brilliant person alive. One factor may be that his parents, both university professors, were born at precisely the same moment: 11:00 a.m., May 23, 1934."

Source: http://campus.murraystate.edu/academic/faculty/winfield.rose/wub.htm

The way to estimate the adult IQ is to put the population into a gaussian bell curve distribution by method of percentile of the population. Then a mean of 100 and a standard deviation (usually value 16) is assigned. Using this, the person with the highest IQ in the world will not have an IQ of above 200. An IQ of 210 would require a much much much larger sample group than the number of people in the world. You can easily calculate this from the normal distribution curve.

For this method an IQ of 210 is impossible. A number of people are claiming to have an IQ at the level of 1 in a billion though.

BlackVision

Jul1-04, 12:58 PM

The way to estimate the adult IQ is to put the population into a gaussian bell curve distribution by method of percentile of the population. Then a mean of 100 and a standard deviation (usually value 16) is assigned. Using this, the person with the highest IQ in the world will not have an IQ of above 200. An IQ of 210 would require a much much much larger sample group than the number of people in the world. You can easily calculate this from the normal distribution curve.
This is extraordinarily faulty. Even if the statistic probability of a 210 IQ is 1 in 10 billion, higher than the population of the Earth which is little over 6 billion, that does not mean it is impossible for one to have a 210 IQ. Much like it is possible to win the lottery with just 100 tickets even if the statistic probability is 1 in 40 million.

selfAdjoint

Jul1-04, 01:18 PM

BTW, it is sort of accepted in the psychometric professional community that the IQ curve is not pure gaussian, but has fat tails.

Tigers2B1

Jul1-04, 02:10 PM

Curves and fat tails? ---------------------- Nope -- just too too easy :)

The_Professional

Jul2-04, 11:37 PM

Esquire magazine did an article on Langan, his gifted girlfriend, Dr. Hoeflin, and a couple of other members of the "Mega Society." Interesting and eccentric characters indeed.

Charlize Theron was on the front cover. A very beautiful woman. From what I recall, Dr. Hoeflin likes to eat at Wendy's and usually orders salad and grilled chicken sandwich.

P.S., the next time you go to your favorite local bar, just remember that the bouncer in the corner may just be manipulating equations for M-theory in his head. :wink:
True. Reminds me of the old adage: Do not judge a book by its cover.

plus

Jul3-04, 10:32 AM

This is extraordinarily faulty. Even if the statistic probability of a 210 IQ is 1 in 10 billion, higher than the population of the Earth which is little over 6 billion, that does not mean it is impossible for one to have a 210 IQ. Much like it is possible to win the lottery with just 100 tickets even if the statistic probability is 1 in 40 million.

But from the definition of the IQ curve, an adult IQ is only based upon the sample group. Thus it would be as ludicrous to state that someone has an IQ of 300 as it would to state 210 as there are not enough people in the world to value this claim. People could believe that in the next x generations there will not be anyone with an IQ this high, and hence the reason for the guess of 210, but to state it is nonesense.

http://members.chello.nl/p.cooijmans/gliaweb/grail/

The website above estimates that the highest IQ ever out of the 50 billion people who have ever existed is 205.

plus

Jul3-04, 10:33 AM

BTW, it is sort of accepted in the psychometric professional community that the IQ curve is not pure gaussian, but has fat tails.
What do you mean that it is 'sort of accepted'. Has the definition of adult IQ been changed?

BlackVision

Jul4-04, 03:57 AM

But from the definition of the IQ curve, an adult IQ is only based upon the sample group. Thus it would be as ludicrous to state that someone has an IQ of 300 as it would to state 210 as there are not enough people in the world to value this claim. People could believe that in the next x generations there will not be anyone with an IQ this high, and hence the reason for the guess of 210, but to state it is nonesense.
The definition of IQ curve comes from the average IQ of the general population and the standard deviation. That is it. Even with the odds of 1 in 10 billion, it would be possible for one to have such an IQ level.

The website above estimates that the highest IQ ever out of the 50 billion people who have ever existed is 205.
This site is using a standard deviation of 15. The most common standard deviation is 16.

hitssquad

Jul4-04, 05:05 AM

This site is using a standard deviation of 15. The most common standard deviation is 16.The most popular family of IQ tests is the Wechsler. Wechsler test scores all have standard deviations of 15. The Raven's Matrices tests also have standard deviations of 15. Here is more evidence for the popularity of SD 15:

There are plausible reasons, however, for assuming that individual differences in g have an approximately normal, or Gaussian ("bellshaped"), distribution, at least within the range of ±2σ from the mean. That range is equivalent to IQs from 70 to 130 on the typical IQ scale (i.e., μ = 100, σ = 15). (Arthur Jensen. The g Factor (http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=24373874). p88.)

IQ is conventionally scaled to a mean of 100 and a SD of 15. (Ibid (http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=24373874). p89.)

As this subject sample had a restricted range of IQ (the group's standard deviation was only 9.2/15 = .61 as large as the SD in the general population), one can correct the obtained correlation for range restriction(Ibid (http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=24373874). p155.)

(The IQ scale, with mean = 100 and SD = 15, is simply 100 + 15 z .)(Ibid (http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=24373874). p311.)

Mean and Standard Deviation. When IQ is scaled to a mean of 100 and a standard deviation (SD) of 15 in the white population, large representative samples of the black population of the whole United States (rather than a local subgroup) show a mean close to 85. For most samples and tests, the range is 80 to 90. The black SD of IQ is approximately 12, ranging in most samples from 11 to 14. There is some slight, nonsystematic variation for different IQ tests and normative samples. For example, the normative sample on one of the most widely used individual IQ tests for school-age children (the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised, or WISC-R), using the same scale (i.e., white mean = 100, SD = 15), the black mean is 84.0, with SD of 13.6. (Ibid (http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=24373874). p353.)

This formula shows that for two normal distributions, A and B, where A has a mean = 100 and SD = 15 and B has a mean = 85 and SD = 12 (thus corresponding to typical IQ statistics for the white and black populations) the probability that the "score" of a randomly selected individual from distribution B will exceed that of a random individual from distribution A is precisely 22 percent (Ibid (http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=24373874). p403.)

selfAdjoint

Jul4-04, 10:26 AM

BlackVision

Jul4-04, 02:25 PM

The most popular family of IQ tests is the Wechsler. Wechsler test scores all have standard deviations of 15. The Raven's Matrices tests also have standard deviations of 15. Here is more evidence for the popularity of SD 15:

There are plausible reasons, however, for assuming that individual differences in g have an approximately normal, or Gaussian ("bellshaped"), distribution, at least within the range of ±2σ from the mean. That range is equivalent to IQs from 70 to 130 on the typical IQ scale (i.e., μ = 100, σ = 15). (Arthur Jensen. The g Factor (http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=24373874). p88.)

IQ is conventionally scaled to a mean of 100 and a SD of 15. (Ibid (http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=24373874). p89.)

As this subject sample had a restricted range of IQ (the group's standard deviation was only 9.2/15 = .61 as large as the SD in the general population), one can correct the obtained correlation for range restriction(Ibid (http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=24373874). p155.)

(The IQ scale, with mean = 100 and SD = 15, is simply 100 + 15 z .)(Ibid (http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=24373874). p311.)

Mean and Standard Deviation. When IQ is scaled to a mean of 100 and a standard deviation (SD) of 15 in the white population, large representative samples of the black population of the whole United States (rather than a local subgroup) show a mean close to 85. For most samples and tests, the range is 80 to 90. The black SD of IQ is approximately 12, ranging in most samples from 11 to 14. There is some slight, nonsystematic variation for different IQ tests and normative samples. For example, the normative sample on one of the most widely used individual IQ tests for school-age children (the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised, or WISC-R), using the same scale (i.e., white mean = 100, SD = 15), the black mean is 84.0, with SD of 13.6. (Ibid (http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=24373874). p353.)

This formula shows that for two normal distributions, A and B, where A has a mean = 100 and SD = 15 and B has a mean = 85 and SD = 12 (thus corresponding to typical IQ statistics for the white and black populations) the probability that the "score" of a randomly selected individual from distribution B will exceed that of a random individual from distribution A is precisely 22 percent (Ibid (http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=24373874). p403.)
The most popular IQ test is Stanford Binet not Wechsler and it has a standard deviation of 16. Raven's Progressive Matrices is also 16. Raven's Stanford Progressive Matrices and Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices have different standard deviations. One is 15, one is 16 I believe. I forget which is which. The old version of Raven's Progressive Matrices was 24 however.

You need to be 2 standard deviations above average to join Mensa. Here are the qualifying scores for various tests to join Mensa. I see quite a number of 132s proving the popularity of sd16. http://www.us.mensa.org/join_mensa/testscores.php3

selfAdjoint

Jul4-04, 04:22 PM

I thought the old Stanford Binet test was phased out. Hitsquad is right about Wechsler, I'm pretty sure. At least in popularity among psychologists.

loseyourname

Jul4-04, 04:28 PM

That's all you need to join Mensa? What do they even do?

hitssquad

Jul4-04, 04:47 PM

The most popular IQ test is Stanford Binet not WechslerAre you sure (http://giqtest.com/test/html/about.html)?

About IQ

What is the WAIS®-III IQ Test?
The WAIS®-III is the 'gold standard' of IQ Tests. It was developed by the Psychological Corporation and released in 1997 as a refinement of the venerable WAIS®-R test. The WAIS® tests account for 97% of clinically proctored IQ tests administered in the US.

hitssquad

Jul4-04, 05:17 PM

That's all you need to join Mensa?Mensa seems to be set up to strike a happy medium between exclusivity and inclusivity. Mensa may not be meant to be purely exclusive. There are other high-IQ societies that cater to exclusivity, and the fact that a sizable proportion of persons who qualify for those other societies join Mensa also or instead evidences the value of inclusivity.

If you only dated people who were exactly as desirable as you, how many dates would you get?

Another item to consider, as Charles Murray has pointed out, is that people who are well above average in IQ tend -- due to their being surrounded full-time by their self-selected social and professional circles of acquaintances -- to be oblivious to the existence of the rest of the bell curve. Most people with IQs above 130 refuse or find it difficult to acknowledge the existence of the 85% of the population with IQs below 115 (where mean = 100 and SD = 15) since they so rarely meet these people. Mensa's cutoff may seem low to you and other high-IQ people, but in relation to the total bell curve its 98th percentile cutoff *is* exclusive (Arthur Jensen lists IQ 120 as "very superior" and states that the "normal" range of IQ is 90-110). However, pointing again to Mensa's inclusivity is the fact that its entrance cutoff is only one-third of the way from the bell curve median to the maximum theoretical IQ estimated by Richard Lynn as ~IQ 200 (SD = 15, so about 7 SD compared with Mensa's 2 SD cutoff).

What do they even do?They (http://www.mensa.org/info.html) socialize, and run websites and newsgroups. (Mensa's physical socializations take the forms of their regional, national, and international gatherings.)

What is Mensa?

Mensa was founded in England in 1946 by Roland Berrill, a barrister, and Dr. Lance Ware, a scientist and lawyer. They had the idea of forming a society for bright people, the only qualification for membership of which was a high IQ. The original aims were, as they are today, to create a society that is non-political and free from all racial or religious distinctions. The society welcomes people from every walk of life whose IQ is in the top 2% of the population, with the objective of enjoying each other's company and participating in a wide range of social and cultural activities.

What are Mensa's goals?

Mensa has three stated purposes: to identify and foster human intelligence for the benefit of humanity, to encourage research in the nature, characteristics and uses of intelligence, and to promote stimulating intellectual and social opportunities for its members.

BlackVision

Jul4-04, 07:07 PM

Almost all IQ tests seem to either fall under 15, 16, or 24 for standard deviation. 24 seems to be phasing out though although there are still IQ tests that still use 24. Cattell is one I believe.

Tasthius

Jul4-04, 09:57 PM

hitssquad

Jul6-04, 09:56 AM

This formula shows that for two normal distributions, A and B, where A has a mean = 100 and SD = 15 and B has a mean = 85 and SD = 12 (thus corresponding to typical IQ statistics for the white and black populations) the probability that the "score" of a randomly selected individual from distribution B will exceed that of a random individual from distribution A is precisely 22 percentIn words, better than one black in five is smarter than the average white.No. These are just aggregates of IQ scores. Current American IQ tests are somewhat biased in favor of blacks. The actual IQ difference between blacks and whites in terms of pure g is 19.65 (1.31σ * SD 15) points:

A further validating feature of these data is revealed by the linear regression of the standardized W-B differences on the tests' g loadings. (The regression equation for the W-B difference, shown in Figure 11.6 , is D = 1.47σ - .163). The regression line, which indicates the best estimate of the mean W-B difference on a test with a given g loading, shows that for a hypothetical test with zero g loading, the predicted mean group difference is slightly below zero (- .163σ), and for a hypothetical test with a g loading of unity (g = 1), the predicted mean group difference is 1.31σ. The latter value is, in fact, approached or equaled by the average difference found for the most highly g-loaded test batteries using highly representative samples of black and white Americans twelve years of age and over. In the black and white standardization samples of the Stanford-Binet IV, for example, the mean difference is 1.11σ; for the WISCR, 1.14σ; and the most precisely representative large-scale sampling of the American youth population (aged fifteen to twenty-three), sponsored by the Department of Defense in 1980, showed a W-B difference of 1.3σ on the AFQT. 36(Arthur Jensen. The g Factor (http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=24373874). pp377-378.)

An American black meeting the white mean would be 1.64σ (19.65σ / 12) above the black mean. This would put him at the 95th percentile of the black distribution. Hence, in terms of pure g, only 5% of American blacks - and not 22% of blacks - exceed the American white IQ mean. Only 1 in twenty blacks is "smarter" than the average white.

BlackVision

Jul7-04, 12:56 AM

Do you happen to have statistics to compare Asians and/or Ashkenazi Jews to Whites as well?

Monique

Jul7-04, 10:27 AM

On the credibility of A. Jensen:

In his book The Mismeasure of Man, Stephen Jay Gould, the late Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology at Harvard University, makes three criticisms of Jensen's work:

The first criticism is also the criticism most commonly leveled against Jensen by other anthropologists and biologists: that Jensen misunderstands the concept of "heritability." Heritability measures the percentage of variation of a trait due to inheritance, within a population. Jensen, however, has used the concept of heritability to measure differences in inheritance between populations (Gould 1981: 127; 156-156).

The second criticism is relatively minor: Gould disagrees with Jensen's support of the attempts of others to calculate the IQ of dead people (such as the famous Polish astronomer and Prussian monetary theorist Copernicus) (1981: 153-154).

The third criticism is significant: Gould disagrees with Jensen's belief that IQ tests measure a real variable called g or "general intelligence," which can be measured along a unilinear scale. This is a claim most closely identified with Cyril Burt and Charles Spearman. According to Gould, Jensen misunderstood the research of L. L. Thurstone to ultimately support this claim; Gould however argues that Thurstone's factoral analysis of intelligence revealed g to be an illusion (1981: 159; 13-314).http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race

Tigers2B1

Jul7-04, 11:28 AM

Here are some links to results of monozygotic twin studies and the high correlation found when comparing IQ results. In fact, IQ results have a correlation in almost direct relation with the degree of genetic relatedness. I seriously doubt this is mere coincidence and I doubt very seriously that anyone will find any study from an .edu source that substantially differs from these. The monozygotic twin studies implies a very strong correlation of genetics and IQ. IQ results of monozygotic twins raised apart and together, siblings raised apart and together, adoptees raised together and compared to biologically unrelated persons raised apart all point to the inescapable conclusion that IQ is heritable to a high percentage. In fact, the argument is no longer whether IQ is heritable as once maintained by the ‘blank slaters’ - but whether it’s 40, 50, 60, 70 or 80% -- heritable --

http://www.loni.ucla.edu/~thompson/MEDIA/NN/ns.html

http://www.atlantis.edu/~nutmeg/neuro/twinstudies.htm

Monique

Jul7-04, 11:49 AM

What I'd like to see is a study that compares correlation of IQ scores of monozygotic twins raised apart to correlation of IQ scores of unrelated matched individuals.

selfAdjoint

Jul7-04, 11:52 AM

Monique

Jul7-04, 12:09 PM

I agree cognitive abilities can be inheritable.

But you have to agree that the effect is most clear in MZ twins, less clear in DZ twins, even less clear in siblings, disappearing in cousins. So how would you justify extending MZ twin data to a whole population.

I will believe data on restricted purified groups, not on undefined populations such as Asians and whites.

shonagon53

Jul7-04, 12:10 PM

It's agit-prop, not science.

I just read your article. If that isn't agit-prop, then what is.

It's full of subjective appreciations and bold statements which are open for ideological debate. It's a highly political article, using a warrior tone and a combattant style of reasoning.

Just one quote (about the ideological relevance of HapMap):

"We will know that we are triumphant when educated people believe that human genetic differences matter and they matter intensely."

-Now that's the tautology of the matter: the HapMappers will need a lot of lobbying to shove that up "educated people's" throats. They believe what they want to believe. (They use the word "believe" themselves.)

-For me, and for many "educated people" (they're called "nihilists" by the HapMap fundamentalists) genetic differences are so small, that they don't matter very much; the equality is far greater and far more important.

Deciding how "intensely" they matter is a purely social, cultural, political and ideological matter.

Sorry, no escape from politics on this one.

You know, many educated people (the ones who will be triumphant) have read Fukuyama's "Our Posthuman Future" and they understand the basic fact that whenever you're trying to assess the "importance" of genetic differences, you're out of science and into politics.

Tigers2B1

Jul7-04, 12:43 PM

What I'd like to see is a study that compares correlation of IQ scores of monozygotic twins raised apart to correlation of IQ scores of unrelated matched individuals.

Well - here is a chart (linked below) showing IQ results and the correlation with the degree of genetic relatedness (including unrelated individuals) -

Note that this guy doesn’t appear to be an advocate based on the subscript -- so, I suspect that if pushed, I could find stats that are more compelling than these -

http://www.mun.ca/biology/scarr/IQ_Correlations.htm

selfAdjoint

Jul7-04, 02:49 PM

I just read your article. If that isn't agit-prop, then what is.

I agree that GNXP and related sites like Steve Sailer and Griffe du Lion are political to the max, and their use of genetics and statistics is racist (although you know, you have to refute the statistics and genetics, not just call names).

But the paper is not racist and the bullet point summary of it is good, comments apart. This is genuine scientific data.

hitssquad

Jul7-04, 03:09 PM

There is a major new paper on the physical correlates and heritabilitiy of g.

See the summary at GNXP (http://www.gnxp.com/MT2/archives/002366.html?entry=2366), and then follow the link there to read the whole PDF file. To all those people who claim IQ and g are fictions, here's the evidence they are real.

And Monique, it's not very productive at this late date to quote Gould's Mismeasure of Man against Jensen. That book has been shown by professionals to be tendentious and misleading. It's agit-prop, not science.I just read your article. If that isn't agit-prop, then what is.selfAdjoint said "summary." The GNXP text (http://www.gnxp.com/MT2/archives/002366.html?entry=2366) linked to by selfAdjoint contains, according to the introduction "First, a bulleted list. Then, my commentary, and finally the full Thompson/Gray PDF."

It's full of subjective appreciations and bold statements which are open for ideological debate.The summary ("bulleted list") section - aside from the use of the word "Intriguingly" in Point 4 of the "Behavioral Genetics of IQ" section - does not appear to contain agitprop. In contrast, the commentary section that follows it does appear to contain, or be, agitprop. Here is the former:

these are the points reviewed by the article, divided by subheading:

Neurobiological determinants of intelligence as measured by IQ:

Posterior lesions often cause substantial decreases in IQ. Duncan and colleagues suggested that the frontal lobes are involved more in Gf and goal-directed behaviour than in Gc (Fig. 2). In addition, Gf is compromised more by damage to the frontal lobes than to posterior lobe...
MRI-based studies estimate a moderate correlation between brain size and intelligence of 0.40 to 0.51
g was significantly linked to differences in the volume of frontal grey matter, which were determined primarily by genetic factors... the volume of frontal grey matter had additional predictive validity for g even after the predictive effect of total brain volume was factored out
Only one region is consistently activated during three different intelligence tasks when compared to control tasks...The surface features of the tasks differed (spatial, verbal, circles) but all were moderately strong predictors of g (g LOADING; range of r, 0.55–0.67), whereas control tasks were weaker predictors of g (range of r, 0.37–0.41). Neural activity in several areas, measured by a positron emission tomography (PET) scan, was greater during high-g than low-g tasks.
Speed and reliability of neural transmission are related to higher intelligence (reviewed in Refs 15,20). Early neuroimaging studies using PET found that intelligence correlated negatively with cerebral glucose metabolism during mental activity54 (for a review, see Ref. 55), leading to the formulation of a 'neural efficiency' hypothesis...
Gf is mediated by neural mechanisms that support the executive control of attention during working memory...greater event-related neural activity in many regions, including the frontal, parietal and temporal lobes, dorsal anterior cingulate and lateral cerebellum. Crucially, these patterns were most distinct during high-interference trials, even after controlling for behavioural performance and for activity on low-interference trials within the same regions
RAPM scores obtained outside the scanner predicted brain activity in a single left parietal/temporal region, and not in the frontal lobes.
An exploratory fMRI study60 (n = 7) indicated that parietal areas are involved in inspection time tasks, specifically Brodmann area (BA) 40 and the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (BA47) but not the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex

Behavioral Genetics of IQ:

Monozygotic twins raised separately following adoption show a correlation of 0.72 for intelligence
For 48 identical twin pairs separated in early infancy and reared apart, Bouchard et al.83 found remarkably high between-twin correlations for verbal scores on the WAIS (0.64) and for the first principal component of special mental abilities (0.78)
Psychometric g has been shown to be highly heritable in many studies, even more so than specific cognitive abilities (h2 = 0.62, Ref. 87 compare with Ref. 88; h2 = 0.48, Ref. 89; h2 = 0.6–0.8, Refs 90,91)...
Intriguingly, the influence of shared family environments on IQ dissipates once children leave home — between adult adoptive relatives, there is a correlation of IQ of -0.01

Molecular Genetics of IQ:

Chorney et al.104 discovered an allelic variation in a gene on chromosome 6, which codes for an insulin-like growth factor-2 receptor (IGF2R), that was linked with high intelligence...
Later studies identified a second IQ-related polymorphism in the IGF2R gene, and others in the cathepsin D (CTSD) gene, in the gene for an acetylcholine receptor (CHRM2)106, and in a HOMEOBOX GENE (MSX1) that is important in brain development107, 108.
Influence of each polymorphism was minimal — variants of CHRM2 accounted for a range of only 3–4 IQ points, whereas different forms of CTSD accounted for about 3% of the variation between people...None of these associations has yet been replicated by other research groups
Some patients with microcephaly also possess the ASPM mutation, indicating that a shortened version of the gene might lead to the development of fewer cerebral neurons and a smaller head.
Polymorphism in the human brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) gene is associated with impaired performance on memory tests
Catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) gene influences the activation of working memory circuits. COMT polymorphisms seem to be highly specific to some prefrontal cortex-dependent tasks in children.
Dopamine receptor (DRD4) and monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) polymorphisms are associated with differences in performance and brain activity during tasks that involve executive attention

You know, many educated people (the ones who will be triumphant) have read Fukuyama's "Our Posthuman Future" and they understand the basic fact that whenever you're trying to assess the "importance" of genetic differences, you're out of science and into politics.It appears that the commentary section that follows the above-quoted article summary may gave been written intentionally in an agitprop style.

shonagon53

Jul7-04, 03:12 PM

I agree that GNXP and related sites like Steve Sailer and Griffe du Lion are political to the max, and their use of genetics and statistics is racist (although you know, you have to refute the statistics and genetics, not just call names).

But the paper is not racist and the bullet point summary of it is good, comments apart. This is genuine scientific data.

I agree that the article is sound science, but there's a tad of propaganda in it too. I think we can agree on that.

The basic question remains: do you agree that judging to which extent "genetic differences" matter ("intensely" or not), is always a cultural, political, social and ideological judgement?

Isn't that what makes science mere science, and once you're out of that realm, politics begins?

Most scientists agree that global warming, caused by humans, is a scientific fact. But the extent to which this matters, and what, if anything, we should do about it, is always a political question. (In this case: there are sound arguments to say that Kyoto is important, but that there are far more important things, like the war against terror, aids, hunger, or providing sanitation and clean water to people).

So once again, genetic research is genetic research. Nothing more, nothing less. What we do with it, and how important we judge these scientific findings to be, is always a socio-political problem, open for debate. The HapMap people simply "state" that they think that genetic differences in IQ matter very much. But this is clearly an ideological debate.

Wouldn't you agree with that?

Tigers2B1

Jul7-04, 04:06 PM

A question on the correlation of brain size and IQ results. While I understand that this correlation exists in both men and women (when compared within sexes) -- women, on average, have a smaller brains and fewer neurons than men even after correcting for body -- without similar differences in IQ results. Is the reason for this diffference known?

Is this related to the differences in male and female brains -- that is, men are more aggressive and the areas thought to control agression are proportionally larger in men --- while the portion that links the right and left sides of brains is larger, after considering body size, in women. Maybe women use their brains in less of a lopsided manner?

Vance

Jul7-04, 04:19 PM

Monique

Jul7-04, 04:31 PM

LOl, I google the words agression and testosterone and out came a PF thread
Agression: Men vs Women (http://www.physicsforums.com/archive/t-6281)

Tigers2B1, efficiency of the neuron routing is important too and not just neuron mass :)

selfAdjoint

Jul7-04, 07:09 PM

So once again, genetic research is genetic research. Nothing more, nothing less. What we do with it, and how important we judge these scientific findings to be, is always a socio-political problem, open for debate. The HapMap people simply "state" that they think that genetic differences in IQ matter very much. But this is clearly an ideological debate.

Wouldn't you agree with that?

Yes I would. Part of my problem is that the folks I call the "tabula rasists" - including Gould and Lewontine but also a lot of vaguely leftist journalists - have for decades tried to tell the public that the good science is bad science, that the people who do it are in the line of the bad old eugenicists, and so on. Not in our Genes and Mismeasure of Man were salvos in that war. All I want is for the scientific tradition that this paper represents, and that Jenson represents be allowed to continue without smearing.

hitssquad

Jul8-04, 06:06 AM

There is a major new paper on the physical correlates and heritabilitiy of g.

See the summary at GNXP (http://www.gnxp.com/MT2/archives/002366.html?entry=2366)That is a summary of a (his most recent) Paul Thompson paper. You can read all of Paul Thompson's brain imaging peer-reviewed articles at his site (http://www.loni.ucla.edu/~thompson/thompson.html).

shonagon53

Jul8-04, 11:25 AM

Yes I would. Part of my problem is that the folks I call the "tabula rasists" - including Gould and Lewontine but also a lot of vaguely leftist journalists - have for decades tried to tell the public that the good science is bad science, that the people who do it are in the line of the bad old eugenicists, and so on. Not in our Genes and Mismeasure of Man were salvos in that war. All I want is for the scientific tradition that this paper represents, and that Jenson represents be allowed to continue without smearing.

Gould was a child of his time. I think most non-experts today (like you and me) would agree that both nature and nurture are important, and it's all a very complex combination of factors.

The only ones I'm wary of are the ones who generalize. And you still find those in both camps.

selfAdjoint

Jul8-04, 04:18 PM

I agree that nature and nurture are both important. If you look at the Gray-Thompson paper you will see that they adopt the fluid g, GF and crystalized g, GC formalism. In this view the common cognitive factor g is composed of two parts, one of which increases through childhood but becomes fixed at maturity and doesn't change afterward, except to decline in old age. The other component, is basically th result of environment and increases throughout life. So an old fart like me may have lost some IQ points, but might make up for it by knowing a lot of cagy tricks.

shonagon53

Jul8-04, 04:32 PM

So an old fart like me may have lost some IQ points, but might make up for it by knowing a lot of cagy tricks.

Good for you, eh.

Also, I think most people couldn't bare to live with the idea that everything they do, think, and feel is genetically predetermined in some sense. They would refuse to know and keep some mystery.

This is what that old misunderstood chap Nietzsche thought of when he wrote about "der Übermensch". The Übermensch is the one who fully accepts fate as it comes, while the Untermenschen still need religion or other cultural superstructures to cope with it.

I think we will all remain Untermenschen for a very long time. :-)

hitssquad

Jul8-04, 08:12 PM

I agree that nature and nurture are both important. If you look at the Gray-Thompson paper you will see that they adopt the fluid g, GF and crystalized g, GC formalism.Actually, it is a Cattellism.

In this view the common cognitive factor g is composed of two parts,No. Cattell's investment theory (his theory of Gf/Gc) is incompatible with the existence of g.

...Cattell and Horn prefer not to extract the third-order factor, or g, contrary to the practice of most factor analysts. The Cattell-Horn model of abilities, therefore, is called a truncated hierarchy. That is, it lacks the apex of the hierarchy of factors, which is g. Cattell has stated in italics 25 that "there can be no such thing as a categorical general factor" (p. 87 )....

At the time that only two factors, Gf and Gc, stood at the highest level of Cattell's "truncated" hierarchy, there was a valid reason not to extract a thirdorder g. The reason is not that g doesn't exist in the test battery, but that a thirdorder hierarchical g is mathematically indeterminate when there are no more than two second-order factors. That is, there is only one correlation (i.e., the correlation between the two second-order factors, e.g., Gf and Gc) and all that can be determined is the geometric mean of the these factors' g loadings, which is equal to the square root of the correlation between the two second-order factors. Although we can know the average of the two factors' g loadings, we can't know the exact g loading of each factor separately, and ipso facto we cannot properly calculate the g loadings of each of the tests in the battery or calculate the g factor scores of the subjects who took the tests.Arthur Jensen. The g Factor (http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=24373874). p124.

one of which increases through childhood but becomes fixed at maturity and doesn't change afterward, except to decline in old age.Fluid g peaks and starts declining somewhere in the late-teens to mid-twenties, except in persons who adopt comprehensive anti-senescence regimens.

The other component, is basically th result of environment and increases throughout life.The phrase result of environment makes no sense in this context, and using the word environment to describe what Gf (fluid g) is applied to in order to arrive at the accumulated knowledge of Gc (crystallized g), after first using it in the same paragraph to refer to the environmental component of heredity, amounts to an instance of equivocation.

In heredity, variance in genetic code and variance in environment each, and only each, account for a portion of total variance in phenotype. In development of fluid g, theoretically, both of the environments, biological environment and intellectual environment, play roles. In development of crystallized g, theoretically, of the two aforementioned types of environment, only intellectual environment plays a role. Although both Gf and Gc are substantially heritable and to almost equal degrees, according to theory, the non-environment component of Gf is genetic and the non-environment component of Gc is Gf (such that you need Gf in order to get Gc, but Gc is what you would remember even if you lost your Gf - as in the case of growing old and still retaining your cagey smarts, if not your general mental ability at its former youthful level, as you noted selfAdjoint).

selfAdjoint

Jul8-04, 08:16 PM

hitssquad

Jul8-04, 10:14 PM

There's a neat cartoon in this week's New Yorker. A long line of steps, with on the lowest some animal, and then an ape, and then a neanderthal, and finally a modern man, standing on the middle step visible, looking pensive. And the neanderthal says, "Ah! Now you notice how many steps are still ahead!".

If all that matters is producing a higher species, one a quantum leap beyond our own in terms of intelligence and scientific expertise, it should make no difference who they are, or what they are, or where they are. Cattell says (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/beyondismscience/) we should liquidate our own species in favor of a higher one. If a higher species visited earth and needed our space, would he say we ought to conspire in our own demise? There would be no biological continuity between humanity and them, but surely that is morally irrelevant. They would have done us the favor of providing a short cut to our goal: we could make way for them now rather than wait thousands of years to evolve into something like them. Ethics aside, it is hard to see why biological continuity between our species and another species should have any psychological appeal. Cattell hopes that the next ten thousand years will produce a dozen species so far removed from one another, and from ourselves, that they cannot mate successfully. We must face up to how different these creatures would be from ourselves. As Cattell himself remarks, the gap would be at least as great as between ourselves and a chimpanzee. Olaf Stapledon (1968) in his novel Last and First Men, written in 1931, confronts us with seventeen successor species evolving over two billion years: giants with fused toes, short-lived creatures without humor, big-brained creatures with vestigial bodies and without any emotion we would consider normal, creatures with life expectancies of 250,000 years, and so forth. No matter where they came from, outer space or terrestrial evolution, does anyone really want to sacrifice themselves to creatures of this sort? It is one thing to be kind to species at our mercy, another to be morally obliged to put ourselves at the mercy of an alien species.

If we must maximize intelligence, there is the option of creating artificial intelligence. Here there would be no biological substratum at all, but again that seems irrelevant, unless Cattell makes the fatal concession that he feels no psychological tie with inorganic entities. At least with them, we could minimize the risk to ourselves by following Isaac Asimov's laws and building into our creations an inhibition against taking human life. I present this option not so much as a realistic possibility but rather to pose the question of how much we would be willing to sacrifice for intelligence, assuming a total absence of psychological rapport with whatever is intelligent. Then there is the likelihood that our experiment with intelligence is not unique, that countless planets have already populated the universe with higher intelligences. Cattell grants this possibility but offers a rebuttal: Why have we not received any communications from outer space? Perhaps all other intelligent species have made the Hedonic Pact: they may have been too weak to do their duty and traded away evolutionary and technological progress for universal cooperation and happiness. So our species may offer the universe its last chance. One must weigh the probability of Cattell's explanation against a certainty: the ten thousand years of suffering dictated by choosing his path. However, it is far more important to note what he has conceded: the obligation he wishes to impose is falsifiable. The first communication received from a higher species (the very fact that we receive it will almost certainly betray the presence of a higher species) will relieve us of our burden.(James R. Flynn. How to Defend Humane Ideals: Substitutes for Objectivity (http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?action=openPageViewer&docId=1343964). pp122-124.)

hitssquad

Jul10-04, 06:27 PM

the folks I call the "tabula rasists" - including Gould and Lewontine but also a lot of vaguely leftist journalists - have for decades tried to tell the public that the good science is bad science, that the people who do it are in the line of the bad old eugenicists, and so on.

In sociology, the thin ranks of able researchers, hemmed between armchair, philosophical sociologist colleagues on the one hand, and short-sighted do-gooders with the scientific standards of social workers on the other, can advance but slowly. For the last fifty years it has shown a notorious bias against accepting the findings of behavior genetics and has tried to build a science of group behavior on a _tabula rasa_ theory of the human mind, which was discredited soon after John Locke proposed it two centuries ago.Raymond B. Cattell. A New Morality from Science (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/beyondismscience/). Chapter 2.9 (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/beyondismscience/files/Beyondism_writings/Beyondism_1972/Text_version/Part_I_-_Chapters_1-5/Chapter_2/).

Waterdog

Jul12-04, 02:16 PM

In sociology, the thin ranks of able researchers, hemmed between armchair, philosophical sociologist colleagues on the one hand, and short-sighted do-gooders with the scientific standards of social workers on the other, can advance but slowly. For the last fifty years it has shown a notorious bias against accepting the findings of behavior genetics and has tried to build a science of group behavior on a _tabula rasa_ theory of the human mind, which was discredited soon after John Locke proposed it two centuries ago.
Raymond B. Cattell. A New Morality from Science. Chapter 2.9.

Hmm, apparently Cattell possessed a unique dictionary in which "discredited" was defined as "among the most influential ideas of all time." Of course, whether an idea is given "credit" by others has no direct relationship to the validity of that idea. Locke probably was wrong about the "tabula rasa," but his idea was certainly not "discredited"--among other things, it was the basis of the American education system in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. See Gillian Brown, The Consent of the Governed: The Lockean Legacy in Early American Culture. (Harvard University Press). Despite what you might think based on the title, the book focuses more on Locke's theories of mind than on his social contract theory. Is it ironic that Cattell derides Locke, when Locke was one of the first proponents of empiricism in the study of human beings, which is the basis of modern social sciences such as psychology? I always have trouble figureing out what qualifies as real irony.

It's also funny, and perhaps ironic, that Cattell would bash others for being "armchair, philosophical sociologists," since his own career demonstrates how an otherwise intelligent person can become so infatuated with a set of clever but absurd ideas that he gradually drifts away from reality. He would have made a good science fiction writer. His weird ideas about the future "evolution" of the human species seem similar to Samuel R. Delaney's stuff, though of course since Cattell was a racist if he had written any novels they wouldn't have been very enjoyable to read.

hitssquad

Sep3-04, 05:21 AM

This site is using a standard deviation of 15. The most common standard deviation is 16.Paul Cooijmans has recently presented (http://members.chello.nl/p.cooijmans/essay/sd15.html) (2003) a concise argument for adopting a standard deviation of 15 (a caviat is that Cooijmans is directing his comments to readers concerned about SD values used by ultra-high-IQ societies):

Reasons to Express IQ with a Standard Deviation of 15

Paul Cooijmans, 2003

Scores on high-range IQ tests are mostly reported on a scale with a standard deviation (SD) of 16. This is inspired by the Stanford-Binet, a childhood test. I see however a number of reasons to prefer a scale with an SD of 15, similar to the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS):

High-range tests are mostly taken by adults, and in any case report scores according to adult norms. This fits in better with the convention of the WAIS - a test for adult intelligence - to use a 15 SD.

In scientific and other literature on intelligence, IQ is almost always expressed on a scale with an SD of 15, except where one is explicitly talking about childhood scores on the Stanford-Binet.

A 15-scale gives lower numbers, which is good to counteract possible high-IQ snobism and inflation of high IQ numbers.

With a 15-scale you avoid the eternal confusion of mental/chronological age ratio IQ and deviation IQ that you have with the Stanford-Binet/16 SD scale.

To further explain the last point: originally the Stanford-Binet IQs were obtained by dividing the subject's mental age by the subject's chronological age and multiplying by 100. These ratio IQs had a standard deviation of about 12 in the first version of the test, and in later versions went up to about 16. The distribution however was not "normal"; in the "gifted" range scores were far overpresent. Studies of the distribution of these scores have shown that for instance a ratio IQ of 160 only corresponds to about 150 in a normal distribution with SD = 16, and IQ 170 corresponds to about 156 in a true normal distribution. The latest version of the Stanford-Binet, Revision IV of 1986, has dropped the concept of mental age, and expresses the IQs directly on a scale with SD = 16 (such IQs are called "deviation IQs"). As a result, IQs in the "gifted" range are markedly lower than in the past.

As the general public is mostly not well informed in these matters, there is much confusion of ratio IQs and deviation IQs in popular talk about IQ. Astronomic ratio IQs are often quoted in relation to famous persons, without realization that these cannot be compared to adult deviation IQs. There are in fact even quite a few "high-IQ" societies who accept Stanford-Binet scores by the same norm as deviation scores, apparently not realizing they are thus selecting far below their intended level.

The WAIS has from the start only used deviation IQs, so there is never confusion with ratio IQs and overpresence of high scores. If high-range tests are supposed to extend the range of regular tests upward, the 15-scale is the most appropriate.

BlackVision

Sep3-04, 07:41 AM

LOL. Hitssquad you're still on this? I retract my previous "most common standard deviation is 16" statement. SD16 however is still very common even if not most.

Impossible?

Sep5-04, 08:10 AM

My IQ changes every time i take the test, it depends how i feel that day, lol, i think ill just take an average and stick with that.

Mandrake

Sep5-04, 12:21 PM

Mensa seems to be set up to strike a happy medium between exclusivity and inclusivity. Mensa may not be meant to be purely exclusive. There are other high-IQ societies that cater to exclusivity, and the fact that a sizable proportion of persons who qualify for those other societies join Mensa also or instead evidences the value of inclusivity.

There are some plusses to Mensa, mostly with respect to their size. The more exclusive societies are, IMO, more attractive to those who meet the entrance requirements, but of those who do, most also belong to Mensa.

Some years ago, there was an interview with Dr. Ware in the Mensa Bulletin. He explained how the entrance requirement happened. When the group was formed, they used a self-administered test, that was distributed by mail. The intent was to screen at the top 1%. After some time, they came to realize that the acceptable score that had been used was actually screening at about the 98th percentile. Instead of revising the testing to establish the intended 99th percentile, they just changed the entrance requirement.

Mandrake

Sep5-04, 12:25 PM

Speaking of the "higher IQ societies" (those more exclusive than Mensa), here is an interesting history done by a fellow who knows more than one of the prominent members of the community: Highly suggested for entertainment value.

A Short and Bloody History of the High IQ Societies (http://www.eskimo.com/~miyaguch/history.html)

Anyone who reads this should look for and enjoy the discussion of the Cleo Society! This thing was a masterpiece created by a master creator of such spoofs. It may not be as funny to some, but I know the people involved and find the thing to be hilarious.

Mandrake

Sep5-04, 12:55 PM

Type this name into Google: Christopher Michael Langan. He is a 40-something year old bar bouncer who has only made $6K a year for most of his adult life. He was featured on 20/20 and was subsequently administered a supervised IQ test by a psychologist that was hired by 20/20. Afterward, the shrink reported that it was the "highest score he had ever seen in his professional career," and estimated Langan's IQ to be somewhere near 190 (S.D. 16)"
Chris is off the charts, but unfortunately had life situations that prevented him from obtaining a formal education. His skill with language is truly impressive.

This would make Langan a little smarter than Marilyn Savant. One must remember that Savant's score of 228 was a ratio score, not a deviation score.
And for that reason the score often quoted is meaningless.

Esquire magazine did an article on Langan, his gifted girlfriend, Dr. Hoeflin, and a couple of other members of the "Mega Society." Interesting and eccentric characters indeed.
The November 1999 article discussed 4 people: Langan, Dr. Gina LoSasso, Steve Schuessler, and Dr. Ron Hoeflin.

For those who have access to Gift of Fire (Prometheus Society Journal), the current issue (150) has an article titled: "The Nature of the Ego" by Dave Garrett, that has some discussion (and a picture) of Chris.

How many know that Mensa has one of the lowest cut-offs of any such club?
What happened to High Five and Camelopard?

P.S., the next time you go to your favorite local bar, just remember that the bouncer in the corner may just be manipulating equations for M-theory in his head. :wink:
Yes, that may be true, but the bouncer is not going to be Chris. He and Gina bought a farm out West. If he is bouncing anything, it is more likely to be cows.