How do you guys deal...

[Jon Miller]

If KH has said he was one of the greatest 20k financial minds I wouldn't have disagreed, and if he said he was one of the greatest 20k analytic minds today, I wouldn't have argued.

Based on my understanding of science and testing, I don't see how it couldn't be undetermined. For much more simple systems which are much better modeled, I and other physicists are have a very hard time determining differences of that nature. I expect that there is a difference that you can be sure about between 170 and 140, though.

You aren't arguing that those with genius achievements don't have very high IQs (greater than 140, for example). You are arguing that they had IQs uniformly in the top of the distribution (in the top 20k, say).

Francis Crick has an IQ of 115.
Bobby Fischer has an IQ of 187.
James Woods an IQ of 180.
Kim Ung-Yong an IQ of 210.
Marilyn vos Savant with an IQ of 228 (more accurately 190, I think).

Einstein was not tested, but in the method that people use to assign scores to people would not have had a high score.

Most studies I have seen agree that above some point (definitely above 160, and some even say below 155) differences in IQ have no real meaning. From this I would guess that it becomes less useful in comparing people with scores above 140.

JM

[Felch]

Francis Crick temporarily buffed his INT with Mentats.

[The Mad Monk]

It's a bad metaphor. The difference between IQ and physical strength makes your analogy invalid.

If the badness of the metaphor is known by you, why even bring up such a bad comparison?

Never understood this dismissal when someone explains the invalidity of a metaphor... 'it's only a metaphor. shut up.' Like if your metaphor is meaningless, why did you even bring it up?


I don't understand people.

The metaphor isn't bad, just your understanding of it. Jon got it, why can't you?

[Guynemer]

Francis Crick temporarily buffed his INT with Mentats.

Should've gone with Black Coffee. Just as much of an INT buff, with much less chance of addiction.

[giblets]

BTW, thanks for lightening my day, guys. It kills me that after all this time, I'm still able to get to 5 pages with almost no effort. As far as the 20k number is concerned, it's the low end of my range (which extends up to 500k or so). The calc is based on my measured max out of a childhood IQ test at 3.7 sigma and further interaction with people in the 3-5 sigma range. Based on that, I've classified myself as being at 4-4.7 sigma or so in pure horsepower. Midpoint of that range is about one in 30k. I generally multiply that by 2 billion given substantial evidence that the modern developed world is essentially the only place to look for the top end of the distribution (based on Flynn effect and measured disparity between developed and developing world IQs).

It's not clear that undeveloped societies produce a negligible amount of geniuses:

Some studies have found the gains of the Flynn effect to be particularly concentrated at the lower end of the distribution. Teasdale and Owen (1989), for example, found the effect primarily reduced the number of low-end scores, resulting in an increased number of moderately high scores, with no increase in very high scores. In another study, two large samples of Spanish children were assessed with a 30-year gap. Comparison of the IQ distributions indicated that the mean IQ-scores on the test had increased by 9.7 points (the Flynn effect), the gains were concentrated in the lower half of the distribution and negligible in the top half, and the gains gradually decreased as the IQ of the individuals increased. Some studies have found a reverse Flynn effect with declining scores for those with high IQ.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect#The_rise_in_IQ

I certainly don't think you're smarter than Aristotle or Newton

[MRT144]

Francis Crick temporarily buffed his INT with Mentats.

Classic.

[KrazyHorse]

So

Communicating badly and then acting smug when you're misunderstood == Achievement

It's not communicating badly; it's communicating efficiently, depending on your audience (I'm not kidding you when I say that this episode in itself is likely a pretty good test of intelligence). Albie was about to make an enormous mistake in applying the statistics of measures of intelligence outside the population to which they were calibrated. This is a categorical error, a fact which I bundled up nicely in a way I consider it reasonable for an intelligent person to unbundle without difficulty.

I understand that it's likely difficult for you to accept how trivial I find this level of abstraction, but a failure to engage in it is precisely what makes much of alby's posting hilarious. It's indicative of boring, rigid, narrow and linear thinking.

[MRT144]

I understand that it's likely difficult for you to accept how trivial I find this level of abstraction, but a failure to engage in it is precisely what makes much of alby's posting hilarious. It's indicative of boring, rigid, narrow and linear thinking.

I don't think anyone was asking how they'd think Alby would perform in bed.

[Aeson]

It's not communicating badly; it's communicating efficiently, depending on your audience (I'm not kidding you when I say that this episode in itself is likely a pretty good test of intelligence).

This episode is not a good test of intelligence. If you don't know why I am saying so then you're an idiot

[Elok]

So...if I make an obviously false claim, and people call me on it, I can claim that I was thinking of (but not saying) some arbitrary, tangential, and ultimately irrelevant proviso, and act condescending about people's "insufficiently broad thinking"?

Does this work for everyone, or does Kitty have a monopoly on it? For example, can I say "my six-inch penis is the biggest on earth," sneer for a while, and then point out that penis measurements are necessarily imprecise since different people measure from different points, lots of them lie about it and it's hard to say with absolute certainty when it's fully erect? Because that makes about as much sense as what Kitty just pulled.

[Dinner]

Seems that way. Kh was a great guy to meet and I like him but he's being a douche bag right now. It takes one to know one.

[self biased]

The rest of you were trapped, and were letting ridiculous arguments like alby's stand.

i find this statement offensive. i was nothing of the sort.

[Elok]

Now, if he'd pointed out that a relatively large percentage of the world's population is too young to even take any kind of IQ test, I guess I'd buy that, though it still leaves you with, I'm going to guess, somewhere upwards of sixty million depending on whether you consider the juvenile versions to be the same test. If not...forty-five million? I have no clue how the world's population breaks down demographically. Anyway, the fact that a hypothetical worldwide IQ test would be statistically invalid for this reason or that still means nothing.

[Tupac Shakur]

i find this statement offensive. i was nothing of the sort.

QFT. Some of us lost interest in this thread before Alby ever posted in it.

[MikeH]

It's not communicating badly; it's communicating efficiently, depending on your audience (I'm not kidding you when I say that this episode in itself is likely a pretty good test of intelligence). Albie was about to make an enormous mistake in applying the statistics of measures of intelligence outside the population to which they were calibrated. This is a categorical error, a fact which I bundled up nicely in a way I consider it reasonable for an intelligent person to unbundle without difficulty.

I understand that it's likely difficult for you to accept how trivial I find this level of abstraction, but a failure to engage in it is precisely what makes much of alby's posting hilarious. It's indicative of boring, rigid, narrow and linear thinking.

This thread has proven that it was exceedingly inefficient communication. A couple of extra words, or slight tweaking of the sentence which as it stood, was not literally correct, would have eliminated most of the thread. But of course the point was not to have as few posts in the thread as possible was it?

Like you said, this entire thread was fundamentally started as a troll and at least in part so you could eventually point out this mistake to Alby.