# IQ difference and jokes. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 27, 2010, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iq-difference-and-jokes/534053 "2010-03-27T20:58:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![JoelUpchurch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f05b48/32.png) [@JoelUpchurch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoelUpchurch)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iq-difference-and-jokes/534053/21 "2010-03-28T04:28:57Z")
> [@beowulff](#): > > I’m not sure if it requires a high IQ, but having one certainly makes the [Futurama Quantum Finish](http://www.videosift.com/video/Futurama-A-race-with-a-quantum-finish) joke funnier. Esoteric knowledge. I remember at least 3 jokes based on the uncertainty principle on _The Big Bang Theory_ and based on their ratings, either the average viewer can’t have an IQ much over 110-120 or their demographic has people who can hack the Nielsen computers. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iq-difference-and-jokes/534053/22 "2010-03-28T04:33:52Z")
Re: the OP, it’s something someone pulled out of their ass. At least, it might as well be; without some kind of cite, there’s no reason for you to believe it. Also, re: that Futurama joke about the quantum finish: this is exactly the sort of thing **JoelUpchurch** was talking about; the joke is (mildly) esoteric, yes, but that’s all. If IQ really measures the things it’s supposed to be measuring, then it shouldn’t have anything directly to do with whether you get that joke; getting the joke is just a matter of being familiar with the particular reference being made. Nothing to do with your ability to reason intelligently; entirely to do with what you happen to have heard about and what terminology you are familiar with. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iq-difference-and-jokes/534053/23 "2010-03-28T04:40:05Z")
> [@beowulff](#): > > I’m not sure if it requires a high IQ, but having one certainly makes the [Futurama Quantum Finish](http://www.videosift.com/video/Futurama-A-race-with-a-quantum-finish) joke funnier. You don’t need to have a high IQ to get that joke, you just have to know that in quantum physics, the act of observing something can alter it. You don’t have to know why that’s true, or how it works, or even what it really means to get the Futurama joke. I know this, because I get the joke, but I don’t understand diddly squat about quantum physics. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iq-difference-and-jokes/534053/24 "2010-03-28T04:49:14Z")
I’ve known people who were dumb as planks and comfortable with it, and people who were pretty dumb and hated any reminder of it. The first group were perfectly happy to spend time with others smarter than them and the smarter ones were perfectly happy as well (and perfectly happy to explain anything their not-so-smart pals asked as many times and in as many ways as necessary); the second group were unhappy in the presence of anybody with faster comprehension or a higher degree (in case anybody wasn’t paying attention, having a bigger piece of paper does not directly and automatically correlate with a better brain) and did their best to spread the misery. I don’t think there’s a direct link between “difference in IQ” and “ability to communicate”, but there does be one between “being an ass” and “ability to communicate”. ---
**Author:** ![alice\_in\_wonderland](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alice_in_wonderland/32/176_2.png) [@alice\_in\_wonderland](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alice_in_wonderland)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iq-difference-and-jokes/534053/25 "2010-03-28T04:51:45Z")
Humm - well, there may be a bit of truth to it, but I suspect it depends where on the scale someone falls with people at either end having more trouble relating to people in the middle. What I’m suggesting is that I suspect it’s easier for a person with an IQ of 95 to get along with a person with an IQ of 125 than say 65 and 35. A person with an IQ of 65 is slow; however, they can still function in a pretty normal way (with some assistance, perhaps). A person with an IQ of 35 just doesn’t have a whole lot going on and likely has trouble verbalizing at all. I suspect things would be similar at the other end of the range. Someone with an IQ of 130 is pretty bright, but I think they’re going to struggle with someone with an IQ of 160 (I mean a real IQ of 160 - not a 'made-up-for-the-internet IQ of 160). I’ve often heard it said that people with IQs that high (i.e. in the 160 range) are often very lonely, as there are so few people around who get them - my brother’s best friend is VERY bright and he has a very hard time meeting women to date as very few can relate to his big-brainedness. (That is TOO a word!) ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iq-difference-and-jokes/534053/26 "2010-03-28T04:58:54Z")
> [@JoelUpchurch](#): > > Also keep in mind that humor will work up even if doesn’t work down This. Much of humor lies in something being unexpected or surprising. Insult humor? There’s an element of surprise that “somebody would actually say that”. Go all the way down to that lowest form of verbal humor, the pun - the key to the humor is the surprise at the unexpected twist of words. Witness children telling jokes - they almost always preface the punchline with “all of a sudden …”. It’s because children usually don’t really know how to tell a joke, or may not remember exactly how it goes, but they instinctively grasp the “surpise” aspect (notice how babies laugh when you surprise them?(except for the ones who start screaming - these are the ones who grow up with no sense of humor)), and so they stick the “all of a sudden” in there to emphasize the surprise, which makes it funnier _to them_. So when you have an wide intelligence gap (or at the very least an _educational_ gap) between the joke teller on the high side and the joke hearer on the low side, the joke may contain the element of surprise, but the person on the low side simply doesn’t recognize what the surprise is supposed to be, and so to them it doesn’t seem funny. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iq-difference-and-jokes/534053/27 "2010-03-28T05:10:10Z")
So some jokes require a particular _knowledge set_ to “get” the joke, and part of the enjoyment of the joke is the fact that you are among the subgroup that possesses that knowledge, yes? (A sort of in-group-ism, if not quite elitism.) But isn’t membership in the group that possesses particular (esoteric) knowledge sets correlated in some way with IQ? Let’s face it, getting Sheldon’s neutrino joke (A neutron get a drink at a bar and asks how much he owes. The bartender answers “You? No charge.”) doesn’t require a high IQ, but odds are that more of those with higher IQs are in immediate possession of the knowledge that neutrons are chargeless particles than those with IQs 30 or more points lower. Fewer still might chuckle about the neutrino who didn’t order because he just passing through, or the quark that charmed the ladies, or the atom that said “Damn, I’ve lost an electron” “You sure” “Yeah, I’m positive.”, or the high energy physics particle church congregation that was waiting for the Higgs boson to show up so they could have mass. (None original.) The jokes themselves are all stupid; but being in the club that gets them is usually correlated with higher than average (not gifted) IQ more than those who do not, in America at least. Hence some things are sometimes funny to those with higher IQ that are not to those without. And the high IQ uber-nerd may not get jokes making some pop culture or sports references … Knowing that you get it and others do not is part of the fun in each case, isn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iq-difference-and-jokes/534053/28 "2010-03-28T07:26:57Z")
Sure, I guess, but that’s a very odd way to look at a very specific kind of joke. I mean, you might as well say “It’s hard for people to relate to each other when one of them is a physicist and the other is a non-physicist”, or “It’s hard for people interested in science to relate to people interested in law” or whatever, on the same kinds of vague correlations for abilities to understand reference-based silly in-jokes. But it’s not really that hard for such people to relate to each other, is it? ---
**Author:** ![dogeman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/71e660/32.png) [@dogeman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dogeman)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iq-difference-and-jokes/534053/29 "2010-03-28T07:37:51Z")
> [@Sister\_Vigilante](#): > > My friends all think I’m hilarious with a very dry sense of humor, and that I’m often very serious but when I let one fly it brings down the house. My IQ is 160 or thereabouts, Mensa tells me I’m in the top 1% of the population. > > Only two of my friends shared any classes with me, and one of them had an IQ higher than mine by around 5 points (the class we shared was one specifically for the smartest kids in school and of course we all took an IQ test). The rest were in the mid-level classes. > > So, I would say, “no.” > > Also, I find my friends pretty funny as well. Gee thanks for dropping that one in there. I am in awe of you. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iq-difference-and-jokes/534053/30 "2010-03-28T07:39:19Z")
Sorry, I mean to say, the remark quoted in the OP is a very odd way to look at that, if that’s all that’s being referred to. **Dseid** , on the other hand, does not appear to have said anything I’d feel the need to disagree with. ETA: And sorry again, this was meant to be an addendum to my last post, but now there’s one inbetween… ah, whatever. ---
**Author:** ![Rigamarole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 8:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iq-difference-and-jokes/534053/31 "2010-03-28T08:47:21Z")
> [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > Besdides, the difference between 100 and 70 IQ is bigger than 160 to 130. Technically, no. There are certainly far more people who measure in between the 100 IQ guy and the 70 IQ guy than there are between the 160 IQ guy and the 130 IQ guy due to the normal distribution but that’s just a _relative_ difference in intelligence. The _cognitive_ difference is exactly the same, since most IQ tests are designed to have a standard deviation of exactly 15. A person with a measured IQ of 160 has scored 2 sigmas above someone measured at 130 and is therefore _much_ smarter, by precisely as much as someone with a measured IQ of 100 is smarter than someone measured at 70. That’s assuming all measurements are made correctly, of course. As has already been noted in this thread, there’s a strong tendency for reports of IQ to be inflated either due to issues with the test, the test-taker, or both. A true IQ of 160 is very rare indeed. (not 1% rare but closer to 0.0003%) Now you could go with the argument that there is a bigger _practical_ difference as well. 160 Guy and 130 Guy are both going to be very capable individuals, while 70 Guy might struggle with life quite a bit more than 100 Guy. And that’s a valid way of framing it… it’s just that in the most technical sense, your comment isn’t true as stated. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 8:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iq-difference-and-jokes/534053/32 "2010-03-28T08:53:32Z")
It depends on what you mean by saying that one difference/span is as large as another; you certainly could mean that there is a greater population within the span, and you certainly could mean that there is a greater percentage of the total population within the span. Neither is the “real” meaning; it’s up to you to pick which notion is relevant for whatever purpose. One could just as well give your exact post in reverse; “Technically, no. There certainly is a far greater difference in _percentile_ between…, but that’s just a _relative_ difference… The _cognitive_ difference is exactly the same, because there are far more people…” ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 9:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iq-difference-and-jokes/534053/33 "2010-03-28T09:26:56Z")
Rigamarole writes: \> A true IQ of 160 is very rare indeed. (not 1% rare but closer to 0.0003%) No, your calculations are off. A 160 I.Q. is about 1 in 31,000. That’s .00003, which is .003%. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 9:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iq-difference-and-jokes/534053/34 "2010-03-28T09:35:08Z")
Wait a second, what the fuck did I write in my last post? How could a greater population not correspond to a greater percentage of the total population? I surely should have said something else, but for now, I think I desperately need to go to bed… ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iq-difference-and-jokes/534053/35 "2010-03-28T15:12:20Z")
_On the subject of humor_: I think **Mister Rik** , that it usually takes more than the unexpected alone. It takes either having something that is not what was expected but is also not only a good fit, but maybe even a better fit (the twist, such as that highest form of verbal humor, the pun), or an unexpected that runs up against something that we are uncomfortable about. And what we are uncomfortable about varies between cultures. In America we have many more jokes about sex as we, as a society, have so many sexual hang-ups; in societies with a history of stricter social conventions (Japan still today, England historically) silly rules (think Monty Python). While many with high IQs are not funny, I don’t think that many who are funny have low average IQs, even if they have no academic accomplishment; you need a certain amount of brain power to bring to bear in order to process from so many angles at once effectively - I think the ideal comic is a very high IQ individual who leans slightly to the ADD side, thinking about ten things at once all the time, always finding the one of those other things that twists what was just said on itself or into the slightly uncomfortable subject. _On the subject of IQ tests_: I think we need to be careful in our rigid application that IQ tests are statistical norms. First off they originally were not. They were a quotient in children tested of mental age over chronologic age (that’s how the word “quotient” came to be part of the name) that was later attempted to be normed against populations. But that norming process is not perfect, and in the earlier years was quite far off, especially for higher scores - meaning that it produced many more with IQs over 145 than would be expected in a normal population. Yes, they’ve been re-normed since, but that only brings up another issue: populations change on how they perform on the actual test; raw scores [have increased](http://www.indiana.edu/~intell/flynneffect.shtml) with time, generational increases from 5 to 25 points in most countries. Now since the test score is supposed to represent a statistical SD the tests gets re-normed every so often to extant test results such that 125 still represents roughly the same relative place in the current population. Why has there been improvement in the average raw scores over time? I don’t think anyone knows for sure but few believe it is because people overall are actually smarter. The bottom line is the circumstance in which there are more individuals who were tested decades ago who can honestly report very high IQ test results than there should be if IQs really were statistically normative, and an increase in IQ over the years, which then drops down as tests are re-normed. So while **Shagnasty** ’s Principle has validity, the reality of the distribution of scores and of whatever the scores actually measure is a bit more complex than the normal curve’s S.D.'s. _On the subject of social discomfort between those 2 or more S.D.'s apart on IQ tests_: Probably there is no research proving the statement but 2 S.D.'s _is_ a big spread (probably the speaker pulled out 30 points merely on the basis of knowing it was 2 S.D.'s). Someone with an IQ of 100 is statistically more likely to have significantly lower educational achievement and less academic interests than someone with and IQ of 130; their knowledge bases _will_ likely have areas that do not overlap - for both of them - and therefore may not get each other’s jokes and not “bond”. How many close friends do _you_ have who have significantly different educational levels and interests than you do? Now does that same thing apply from 120 to 150? Well at 120 you have likely attended college and done well and likely have stayed moderately well read as an adult; among your numbers are many who become professionals in our society including many MDs, JDs, and PhDs of all sorts. Allegedly Francis Crick was 115. Much of what you are interested in and accomplish at that level is a function of what you were exposed to and what “habits of mind” you have developed (as well as how hard you apply yourself and your social skills). You are not in the same top 0.05% that the 150 IQ individual but the two of you likely share enough background and experience to “get” each other. Or to look at it from the other direction - an individual with an IQ of 150 is likely well educated but most of those who are well educated do not have IQs that high. The spread of interests of those relatively with IQs as high as that or higher [putatively ranges](http://www.aceintelligence.com/interesting_iq_questions.php) from Sharon Stone to Bill Gates to Bibi Netanyahu to the Unabomber, so perhaps those 150 IQ individuals will find more kindred spirits and shared interests among the 120 crowd than within their 150 and above cohort. ---
**Author:** ![PookahMacPhellimey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pookahmacphellimey/32/3175_2.png) [@PookahMacPhellimey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PookahMacPhellimey)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iq-difference-and-jokes/534053/36 "2010-03-28T16:06:00Z")
If the brighter person is really that bright surely they will adjust their humour to match the level of his their not-so-bright companion. Otherwise their high IQ is not exactly matched by their social intelligence. ---
**Author:** ![sunstone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunstone/32/3372_2.png) [@sunstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sunstone)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iq-difference-and-jokes/534053/37 "2010-03-28T16:18:54Z")
I can offer only a bit of personal observations. Over the course of 30 years of teaching various science subjects in high school, my classes varied from basic science for students who were identified as having learning difficulties to physics. I can tell you that the basic students didn’t get my jokes (many of which were puns), while the physics students would get the jokes and often respond in kind. So either the students were different in their “humor abilities”…or more clever in knowing the wisdom of laughing at the teacher’s jokes… ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iq-difference-and-jokes/534053/38 "2010-03-28T16:20:27Z")
It’s silly to say that _any_ specialized-knowledge joke intrinisically requires intelligence - it happens that science jokes tend to be gotten by the better-educated, but I’m sure there are some very funny, say, meatpacking jokes that I wouldn’t get because I don’t know that much about how the dehiding machine works. On the other hand, there are certainly humor “milestones” in development as somebody said upthread - my youngest nephew is 11 and a little behind and he hasn’t reached a lot of them yet. Still laughs at not-jokes, that sort of thing. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Why\_Bird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e9bcb4/32.png) [@The\_Why\_Bird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Why_Bird)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iq-difference-and-jokes/534053/39 "2010-03-28T16:35:49Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Excuse me for doubting your story, but this doesn’t add up. An I.Q. of 160 or higher is quite rare. Only one person in about 31,000 has an I.Q. of 160 or higher. Someone measuring your I.Q. as 160 and telling you that you’re in the top 1% doesn’t make any sense. Your I.Q., if it’s really 160, is much rarer than the top 1%. It makes even less sense that there are two people in a single class (I assume that this means just that the two of you are the same age and the same high school, not that you were always in the same classes in high school) with an I.Q. that high, since that would be far rarer. Also worth noting, that every different IQ test has a slightly different scale. Mensa alone has several versions, some which top out at 130, others which go up to about 170. So theoretically, a person tested on one scale as 160 could actually be lower than a person that tests 130 on another. That’s not even getting into internet IQ tests, which I suspect are what a lot of people get their score from. I once got a score of 212 on an internet test. Yet some days I add up my time-sheets wrong at work. Does this mean I get to claim I am a super-genius? No. It means the test is bollocks. ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2010, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iq-difference-and-jokes/534053/40 "2010-03-28T16:39:55Z")
> [@Rigamarole](#): > > Technically, no. There are certainly far more people who measure in between the 100 IQ guy and the 70 IQ guy than there are between the 160 IQ guy and the 130 IQ guy due to the normal distribution but that’s just a _relative_ difference in intelligence. The _cognitive_ difference is exactly the same, since most IQ tests are designed to have a standard deviation of exactly 15. A person with a measured IQ of 160 has scored 2 sigmas above someone measured at 130 and is therefore _much_ smarter, by precisely as much as someone with a measured IQ of 100 is smarter than someone measured at 70. > > That’s assuming all measurements are made correctly, of course. As has already been noted in this thread, there’s a strong tendency for reports of IQ to be inflated either due to issues with the test, the test-taker, or both. A true IQ of 160 is very rare indeed. (not 1% rare but closer to 0.0003%) > > Now you could go with the argument that there is a bigger _practical_ difference as well. 160 Guy and 130 Guy are both going to be very capable individuals, while 70 Guy might struggle with life quite a bit more than 100 Guy. And that’s a valid way of framing it… it’s just that in the most technical sense, your comment isn’t true as stated. Your asessment in technically perfect. I went more into practical difference than sigmas and SDs. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iq-difference-and-jokes/534053.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iq-difference-and-jokes/534053.md?page=3)