So a right wing columnist ran some sort of phony analysis on two different test scores and made some specious extropolations which favored his pre-selected candidate?
This is supposed to be meaningful?
Must you always be right? Is it ever just possible to be surprised at reasonable evidence that contradicts your opinion?
Is there not sufficient evidence, given the NYT article quoted above, that this statement is probably a little off:
“Does anyone in America doubt that Kerry has a higher IQ than Bush? I’m sure the candidates’ SATs and college transcripts would put Kerry far ahead.” - Howell Raines - Former Executive Editor of the New York Times
Why not make an intelligent assessment of the findings like David Simmons did?
No, there is not sufficient evidence. The analysis of military test scores is completely contrived and worthless.
I knew I smelled the stench of Mensa…
And besides, the difference between 120 and mid-120s is insignificant. You can get bigger swings than that for the same person.
Dude!
If both of them are in the 120s then you posers should be voting for me!
To agree further with Yllaria - geez, who cares?! This “difference” is what, 8 or 9 points? At the most?
Yes, from that range one absolutely can conclude that George W. Bush is an intellectual giant, heads and shoulders above the dunce that is John Kerry. :rolleyes:
Ok everybody. Let’s read again the quote that I’m refuting. I’ve posted it twice now so let’s make it a game!
Looking at the article in the OP, it doesn’t seem to me to be an unreasonable little analysis. The tone of the article is not to say Bush is smarter, but that, based on what data the author pulls (and I have no idea if it’s complete and sufficient), it is not clear that Kerry is smarter (in an ‘IQ’ sort of way).
I personally have no problem with that conclusion. I have no doubt that Bush is smart enough, in his own way. It’s what he does with his inteliigence that matters. Master the English language and public speaking? Nope. Learn to run a successful business? Not really. Understand the myriad and wonderful diversity of cultures and worldviews on our little planet.? Nu-uh.
Figure out how to get elected? Damn right he has!
Kerry has never struck me as being anything more than bright. But he really cares about issues, and he puts in the work to understand what’s going on (IMO).
The most interesting bit in the article for me was this sentence - “The subtle difference between Bush and Kerry in two words: Bush is competitive and Kerry is ambitious.” The point being, Bush wants to President, because the Bush family competes and wins. Kerry wants to be President, because he wants to be President.
So, for me, it’s not about raw intelligence, it’s about how you use it.
full disclosure: I’m voting for Kerry tomorrow. Twice, if I can get away with it. 
Lemme guess, the right-wing nutjobs are now gonna claim Bush is really a Wile E. Coyote-style Sooper Genius, because it takes that much brainpower to come across as a GWBush-style idiot? 
Actions speak louder than words. And in Bush’s life, his actions all scream “IDIOT!”
The lady doth protest too much, methinks -
Wow! My IQ scores and SAT scores were both higher than the President’s! Call off the election, I’ll pack my bags tomorrow and head to D.C. I can move into the White House immediately right? Because clearly, I am more qualified than Bush to be the leader of the free world.
:rolleyes:
This is just a stupid non-story so that people have something else to fight over. Real glad to see the media and voters focusing on the issues though.
Another poster that actually read the article rather than hit the hotkey for “right-wing nutjob” just as fast as the reply box opened! If Diogenes or rjung actually read the content of posts they would also note that the same
hack analyst estimated Gore’s IQ to be 10 pts higher than Bush’s.
I noted that and I still think he’s a hack. IQ is BS, and it’s BS squared when someone is trying to guess at IQ without IQ scores. As I’ve said previously, it’s like “extrapolating” a golf handicap for someone who’s never played. The IQ is not a tacit biological fact that the test reveals. It is ONLY the score on the test. No test, no score.
That was pretty short-sighted of you :dubious:
That’s like saying, “the taller man typically wins elections - but don’t debate height.”
Can we say overly optimistic rather than short-sighted?
You’re overly optimistic that you can introduce a thread about IQ and hope that it’s not going to devolve into a discussion if IQ?
You know cricetus - I hear that on this board a lot. One thing I’ve never seen on this board- or any other for that matter, is credible support for the statement just asserted. And I’ve asked. I’ll ask again - do you have the results of any study or the supported narrative from any .edu source that indicates what you just asserted as given fact – is in fact the case?
I don’t know if this bears on IQ as a reliable test, but the equality of results for men and women was designed into the Stanford-Binet tests according to Prof. Marvin Harris (Columbia and Florida State U’s) in his book Our Kind.
Early on the investigators found out that women and men answer questions of various differenty types and subject matter differently. Their assumption was that the inate intelligence of men and women was the same. So they tested various tests that included questions of the types that men and women answer differently as well as those that the two answer approximately the same. The then used those mixes of questions that gave roughly the same mean, std deviation and so on for men and women.
Now I maintain that using that method you could get equal IQ’s from gang banger’s and PhD’s from Cambridge.
Actually men and women did not score equally on IQ tests. They score differently on the subparts of the tests AND score differently on the cumulative results at the low and high extremes. But, if by “using that method” you mean changing the test so that certain results are designed into it - than sure. But then why stop at “gang bangers” and “Cambridge PhDs?” Why not take your example to the extremes ---- since if you design a test to get similar results you’re sure to get them – it stands to reason you could design one to get equal results from anything desired - from Yale grads that run for president to parrots. The problem is – you wouldn’t get the correlations of IQ results to academic achievement and a host of other positive life outcomes that you get with actual IQ results. Neither parrots nor earthworms graduate from Cambridge.
So I’ll ask again — is there an .edu source, supported narrative or study results, that indicates, as cricetus and numerous others on this board have asserted, that IQ result is meaningless. I’d really like to see that -