The masturbatory "we're smart" threads

[brazil84]

I just checked a normal distribution table. Assuming a standard deviation of 15, an IQ of 130 would put one – roughly – in the top 2%. So perhaps an IQ of 130 means that you were one of the smartest people in your high school class.

I would guess that there are plenty of people on this board with IQs in the 130 range.

An IQ of 145 puts you at roughly 1 in 750 Obviously a lot rarer, but I would think that there are probably at least a few posters here who test in that range.

An IQ of 160 puts you at about 1 in 30,000. Probably the proportion of the population that feels the need to exaggerate their IQ is a lot more than 1 in 30,000. So if somebody claims an IQ of 160, there’s a good chance they are BSing.

Nevertheless, I would say there’s a plausible chance that 1 or 2 posters here have IQ’s at that level.

[Jackmannii]

Of course, superior intelligence is not everything. Take me - reading at 18 months, completing and quoting from the collected works of Shakespeare and Tolstoy by 4, through high school and college by age 12, retiring a multimillionaire with the proceeds of my inventions, women fawning all over my intellectual accomplishments and anatomical virtuousity. But has it made me a better person? Naaah. I’ve decided I’ll be happier being average.

@zuma

I’m just average, I guess…

Hah! I’m much more average than you.

[Beware_of_Doug]

Be careful Jackmannii. The world’s longest dick must be awfully easy to step on.

[Shagnasty]

@brazil84

I just checked a normal distribution table. Assuming a standard deviation of 15, an IQ of 130 would put one – roughly – in the top 2%. So perhaps an IQ of 130 means that you were one of the smartest people in your high school class.

I would guess that there are plenty of people on this board with IQs in the 130 range.

An IQ of 145 puts you at roughly 1 in 750 Obviously a lot rarer, but I would think that there are probably at least a few posters here who test in that range.

An IQ of 160 puts you at about 1 in 30,000. Probably the proportion of the population that feels the need to exaggerate their IQ is a lot more than 1 in 30,000. So if somebody claims an IQ of 160, there’s a good chance they are BSing.

Nevertheless, I would say there’s a plausible chance that 1 or 2 posters here have IQ’s at that level.

Your statistics skills are very good and basically what I was getting at. However, IQ tests don’t do well when you move towards the 160+ range. They simply can’t measure it reliably so people that claim scores like that are BS’ing. We have had people here over the years that claimed 180+ IQ scores which means we need to switch that around and assume they meant a negative 5.3 standard deviation which is way off the chart and the equivalent of a dead sea slug.

[ultrafilter]

I’ve found that people will expect me to be impressed by their IQ or scores on any other test exactly when they don’t have anything else to impress me with. That said, the recent IMHO thread that undoubtedly inspired this one really didn’t strike me as a dick-waving contest. Rather, it was just a bunch of people sharing stories about a particular kind of experience they have in common. We’ve all at some point realized that we’re somehow different from most of the people around us, and some of us are different in significant ways. Is it so bad to share the stories?

A couple comments on the IQ test discussion: While it is extremely unlikely that any given individual has an IQ greater than 160, the probability that everyone living right now has an IQ under 160 is so small as to be effectively 0. Assuming that IQs are normally distributed with mean 100 and standard deviation 15, a population of 6,000,000,000 should have about 200,000 people with an IQ above 160.

Also, if you have a bunch of people claiming that they have genius-level IQs, it’s reasonable to conclude that they’re not all telling the truth. It is not reasonable (based on those claims alone) to conclude that they’re all lying, or that any particular one of them is lying. Any extra information you have about the individuals in question may influence your degree of belief in their claims.

[Tamerlane]

@MGibson

I doubt it was because you were smart. I recall people in my classes who made very high marks and nobody teased them about it. Likewise there were some students who were barely passing that got made fun of somewhat frequently. I think the dynamics of school bullying and popularity is a bit more complicated than jumping on the smart kids.

I’d have to agree. I don’t remember much of a bias against “smart” in high school and only a very mild one against the nerdier eggheads. The most consistently harassed were the gawky social misfits, which in my school tended to be low functioning at everything, including academia. Which wasn’t a good thing, but certainly wasn’t mediated by hatred of smarts.

Granted I didn’t go to one of those small-town schools that lives, breathes and shits the local sports scene.

[Shagnasty]

@Jackmannii

Of course, superior intelligence is not everything. Take me - reading at 18 months, completing and quoting from the collected works of Shakespeare and Tolstoy by 4, through high school and college by age 12, retiring a multimillionaire with the proceeds of my inventions, women fawning all over my intellectual accomplishments and anatomical virtuousity. But has it made me a better person? Naaah. I’ve decided I’ll be happier being average.Hah! I’m much more average than you.

I have always wanted to be average. I cut 5 inches off of my penis with garden shears. I still didn’t feel like average. I got a friend to run over my head with a truck in -100F weather. I had my IQ tested afterwards and it was still 130 so I stuck two sticks of dynamite up my nose and lit them. The explosion stung but afterwards my IQ tested out at 105 which was good enough.

Even with an exploded nose, I still felt that I was too attractive to fit in with average people. I cut off my ears and scorched my scalp with a blow torch to create scar tissue where the hair would not grow. I hired a surgeon to give me a hair lip.

I choose to think all of that moved me towards the average. I always found it easy to run a marathon in less than 2 hours and that certainly wasn’t average. I gorged myself and put on 200 pounds then I took a boxcutter and sliced some key muscles in my legs. I also took up smoking Camel filterless cigarettes. For the next Boston Marathon, I came in at 3:35 which was definitely in the right direction but still well above average. I am working on a way to damage my knees now. I just bought a dilapidated ranch house and kicked out my wife for an uglier one. I learned that it isn’t easy being average but I am sure the results are worth it.

[Tamerlane]

@Shagnasty

This is getting into some serious controversial issues. Lots of tests can approximate IQ scores as determined by clinical tests like the Stanford-Binet or Wechsler. There are charts that can convert approximate IQ scores from such tests as the SAT and ACT into an established IQ score. They tend to correlate well so if you have the score from either of those, you can just translate them. This concept is known as the G factor of intelligence which means that all scores on roughly similar tests will end up with approximately the same result.

I just tried that with this converter: IQ conversion

I am bit sceptical that my unspectacular combined SAT score ( ~1984 ) of 1200 actually equals the 127 that thing spits out.

[Cisco]

[Zapp Brannigan]

What makes a good man go average? Lust for gold? Power? Or were you just born with a heart full of averageness?

[eleanorigby]

Does anyone take into account the 7 or so “types” of intelligence posited by Howard Gardner?

I am book smart and language smart, but not so great in the math-logistical intelligence or spatial intelligence etc. I am more skilled at intrapersonal and body-kinesthetic intelligences than some people, less than others etc.
I think he’s on to something. IQ tests don’t measure all of the different kinds of skills people demonstrate. I could no more solve a story problem than walk on my hands, but does not mean I am less intelligent than someone who can.

As for the linked thread, I stumbled upon my “smarts” in junior year of high school when I tutored Regular and Essential level students in creative writing. It had never occurred to me that someone could get to HS and not know how to write a paragraph or a complete sentence. I was so busy beating myself up for my lack of math skills, I never noticed that I excelled at English and writing. Go figure.

That said, there is an intellectual arrogance pervasive at the Dope. It’s easy to sneer at folks from behind a computer screen. I’ve done it myself.

And THAT said, it is true that if you excel in sports it’s more “ok” to brag about it than your SAT scores etc. Same with music and art. Not that bragging is all that much smiled upon, no matter the peer group. There was never an assembly at school, during school hours, that celebrated the Mathletes or the Chess club or the perfect ISAT scores, though. Not recognizing this is a long way from persecution of this demographic. All I can remember about HS is the burn-outs (so called because they smoked cigarettes and actively tried to make trouble and bad grades) beating up each other.

[Jackmannii]

@Shagnasty

I also took up smoking Camel filterless cigarettes.

Alright, now you’re taking this too far.

[Vihaga]

@Shagnasty

There are charts that can convert approximate IQ scores from such tests as the SAT and ACT into an established IQ score. They tend to correlate well so if you have the score from either of those, you can just translate them.

This amuses me highly, as I personally know people who’ve had vastly different scores on those depending on whether they took a prep course for it and how they prepared. They didn’t magically get smarter from six weeks of study!

I agree with you, Zuma. I just avoid those threads. It’s like starting a thread asking how early people realized they were more wealthy or more attractive than everyone else. Ugh.

[Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party]

@Tamerlane

I’d have to agree. I don’t remember much of a bias against “smart” in high school and only a very mild one against the nerdier eggheads.

Me too. I remember the “cool gang” at high school was at least semicomposed of those in “top sets” for every subject. Bullying wasn’t based on intelligence, rather, it was based on how much of a dick/social retard you were.

[furt]

@Lucky 13

Yeah, I’m as guilty of bragging about my intelligence here as the next Doper. But I guess the reason I do this is because book smarts is about all I’ve got,

I suspect this is true of a lot of the people who post in such threads.

Actually, though, you are incorrect: You have self-awareness and honesty, which is more than a lot of people ever have. If you can add courage (or even fake it) you can leverage those two things to address everything else.

[j666]

sorry I missed the replies to my post

@monstro

I think people mistrust and dislike smart people who talk about being smart.

I’ve found that people are quite respectful of and deferential to people rude enough to do so. However, if a person quietly demonstrates intelligence, people mistrust them and suspect them of elitism.

Look at recent American Presidents for examples. None in my lifetime had a particularly intelligent persona. Look at some of the candidates who lost in either primaries or the general elections. The most intelligent appearing candidates never win!

Imagine a thread entitled: When did you realize, vis-a-vis other kids, that you were good-looking? Do you think it would go over well? Don’t you think there’d be a negative reaction?

No, I think most people would just ignore the thread, especially those who are not stunningly good-looking. They would recognize that some topics are difficult to discuss IRL, and leave the others to their discussion. Isn’t one of the draws of message boards that one can discuss sensitive subjects?
[They would also worry about appearing homely and bitter about it, by making fun of the Pretty Ones. No one worries about appearing bitter by making fun of the Smart Ones.]

Cry me a river. … Those names didn’t sting nearly as much as when kids called me retarded.

Oh, yeah. I still burn when I remember how one professor humiliated me in front of several other students. [And I was the only one there who aced an earlier, ball-busting course of his. Even my lab partner started questioning me, after I’d pulled him along … but I digress.]

Still, I can not cry you a river. I wasn’t tortured much; I went to good schools and the other kids were either smarter than me, or wanted to copy my math homework. The attitude I described was exhibited by friends-of-friends, cousins, and two absolute bitches who were mothers of my friends. People easy to avoid.

However, as an adult, I have found that many people don’t warm to me until they perceive me as disorganized or plain. Then I fit into a stereotype to which they feel comfortably superior, and then they do warm to me. People like me. I can be fun.

I like people. I like fun, witty, nice people who aren’t as smart as I am, because they are fun, witty, or nice. They also find me useful; I like that. I get an ego-charge and they get a problem solved. Win-win.

I like people who are smarter than I am, because I can always get them to be interesting [unless they’re physicists; I’m not good with physicists]. I really like hanging with people smarter than I am (especially if they are plain or disorganized).

Re: I.Q.
Aren’t there two commonly used scales, one which is ten points higher?

[Musicat]

@monstro

Who’s average and not afraid to admit it?

The fighting men they say that I’m a coward.
Because I never push no one around.
Gentle people call me troublemaker,
Cause I’ll always fight and stand my ground.

Funny, I don’t fit,
Where have all the average peopele gone?

– Roger Miller, Where have all the average peopele gone?

[lobotomyboy63]

I hesitated before replying to the thread (or one of the threads) the OP is talking about.

I finally decided to reply because I felt that the perception that I was smarter than many of my peers ultimately distanced me from other people. In that post, I mentioned that my first-grade teacher gave me a fourth-grade math book. I didn’t say that she looked in the back of the room and I was crying. When she asked why, I replied, “Because I want to be with the other kids.”

As I mentioned in that reply, when I asked a girl for a date, I realized how dumb I was. I bet there are plenty of other dopers who could make a list of things for which they would trade a slice of their intelligence, like better athletic ability or social graces or physical attractiveness or musical ability—a host of things.

Still, I thought it was okay to embrace that side of myself a little. IRL when people have complimented me I’ve brushed it off, but a cyber forum seemed innocuous enough. I know it’s just one element of a person, but it’s a good one, so I might as well give myself a little credit. I won’t be joining the “Aren’t we pretty?” thread, so it balances.

You can think I’m not smart or that I’m arrogant or whatever. I don’t care. I may be right or wrong, but that’s my honest perception of myself. Admitting that in a forum of people I’ll never meet is hardly grandstanding.

[brazil84]

@ultrafilter

I’ve found that people will expect me to be impressed by their IQ or scores on any other test exactly when they don’t have anything else to impress me with. That said, the recent IMHO thread that undoubtedly inspired this one really didn’t strike me as a dick-waving contest. Rather, it was just a bunch of people sharing stories about a particular kind of experience they have in common. We’ve all at some point realized that we’re somehow different from most of the people around us, and some of us are different in significant ways. Is it so bad to share the stories?

I agree. Probably trust fund babies sit around with each other complaining about the problems that come with being super rich.

A couple comments on the IQ test discussion: While it is extremely unlikely that any given individual has an IQ greater than 160, the probability that everyone living right now has an IQ under 160 is so small as to be effectively 0. Assuming that IQs are normally distributed with mean 100 and standard deviation 15, a population of 6,000,000,000 should have about 200,000 people with an IQ above 160.

True enough. Similarly, the probably that nobody is a secret agent is zero. But if you meet a guy in a bar who says he used to be a secret agent, “zero” is a good approximation for the odds that he’s telling the truth.

Still, like I said, there’s a decent chance that one or two people on this message board have IQ’s in the 160 range.

[sinjin]

Wait a minute, I thought we were all above average here. Who let these average people in here? <Looks around; this is Lake Woebegone isn’t it?>

<Emily L.>Never mind</Emily L.>

[monstro]

@Tamerlane

I just tried that with this converter: IQ conversion

I am bit sceptical that my unspectacular combined SAT score ( ~1984 ) of 1200 actually equals the 127 that thing spits out.

I’m also skeptical. According to that convertor (which I did using my GRE score), I’m in the “almost certainly lying” category that Shagnasty defined.

My score was good but it’s not astronomical.