Gosh, I wonder why that would be?
…and how can we get “Head of the Class” back into the network lineup?
Probably. If I were looking into models for IQ distributions, I’d be more concerned with how fat the tails are.
I’ve got a sick little secret. I love to read those threads…for the soul purpose of wincing at the responses. For some sick reason, I get off on people embarrassing themselves.
I have a co-worker that is a one-upper. If you are talking about cooking, he used to be a top chef. If you are talking about drug dealers, he used to be the top dealer in the city, etc.
For some strange reason, I get a little thrill hearing him go on and on to the whole team with these clearly made up stories. As long as no one calls him on it. If someone were to say right to his face, “bullshit”, I would squirm and have to leave the room, I think.
All of that being said, I will admit that I do find the posters on this board to be of higher intelligence than your average bear. I have always longed to be smarter…to have a deep understanding of math and science, and even though I never was able to get any genius for myself, I love to be ‘around’ a group of people that I do find really smart. They are great to learn from.
1200 may not have been spectacular, but it was good. So 127 might not be too far off. [or maybe I just want to believe it’s right, given the score it gave me based on my SAT’s.]
Speaking of which, wouldn’t that be sole purpose?
Marc
Who knows? Maybe all of those smarties have got the funk.
I dunno. It seems kind of fishy to me…
Well, I don’t really know what I’m talking about; it just doesn’t jibe with personal experience. I don’t think it’s safe to assume people here necessarily represent a sample of the general population.
We’re also talking about something extremely subjective – most people who think they know their IQs (including myself) know it from taking some unstandardized version, like maybe something they find online (not to mention the controversy over which version to use.) My sister in law was tested (part of a psych battery) and came back a 130–gets mostly Bs in school, obviously an intelligent girl, but hardly at the top of her class. Her greatest intelligence is kinesthetic IMO, which obviously doesn’t show up on an IQ test. Maybe they were using a different scale? I have grown to think that most of my family members and friends and probably my husband are in the 130 range. It’s weird to hear that’s extremely unlikely.
The only real way to know for sure would be to sit down and formally take the test. I sincerely doubt the majority of people who ‘‘know’’ their score have formally taken a MENSA test. I admit I’m curious, but the thought of actually taking an official MENSA test is a little distasteful to me. Besides, I hate IQ tests–they remind me how little I know. When I took one at school, I was pretty upset to find out I was not, in fact, a genius. Of course overachievers fucking love the attention–anyone who tells you otherwise is a liar. It’s natural to want to be praised for doing something you love doing. But it definitely got to the point where my grades brought me a sense of relief, not a sense of accomplishment–just dodging another bullet. Once you set the bar so high for yourself, you’re pretty much fucked. There is a point when achievement is no longer achievement – it’s just ‘‘not failure.’’ There is a very clearly drawn line – on the one side, there is perfection, and on the other side there is failure, with no gray area. It’s a bleak perspective, but not an uncommon one – and from this perspective, I failed college.
The Dope is different from school, though – standards are clear enough in school, you grasp what expectations are and you fulfill those expectations as best you can. The Dope is much more unpredictable, and for that matter much more nerve-racking.
I don’t often post to GD because the assumption there is that you have to know what you’re talking about. The first time I entered GD it was about US-Mexico foreign policy and I didn’t know what the fuck I was talking about. The second time it was about US-Mexico foreign policy and I really DID know what I was talking about because I’d just had an entire course on the subject and written a final paper in a Spanish class (467: Culture and State in Contemporary Mexico) that focused entirely on the impact of free-trade on Mexican economy… and then spent two months living in the hardest-hit areas of the state of Jalisco, which is notorious for its problem of emigration. I even had, if requested, cites from the United Nations for Christ’s sake. but I let someone bully me into believing I was talking out of my ass. I’m not well-suited for Great Debates because if someone says to me, ‘‘you are wrong,’’ I suspect there’s a 90% chance they are right even if it’s pure bullshit. I’ve gotten into conversations with people who have convinced me that their view, which is the complete polar opposite of mine, has merit and cannot be discounted–I’m talking Pat Buchanan levels of bigotry and idiocy. It’s like I hit some kind of mental wall where I’m afraid to disagree with people. That is not an attribute in GD. Then I tried an OP on something I thought I understood that revealed my ignorance on the subject to such an extent that I didn’t even feel I could participate.
I’m guessing the main reason people don’t like GD is because we get comfortable with the idea that we are smart and don’t like coming face to face with the sheer amount of ignorance we possess.
Honestly the only genius I ever actually knew well ( a boy I kinda dated who had scored 1600 on his SAT) was completely beyond my ability to comprehend. On our first date he proudly displayed the elaborate schematics of Detroit’s plumbing system he’d drawn up and discussed his plan to become mayor and revamp the greater metro area. (He is now a grad student in urban planning–conditionally–did I mention he nearly flunked out of undergrad?) I cannot possibly describe in words how little I care about the plumbing system of the greater metro area, or for that matter all the other crazy ideas he came up with. My uncle is a very intelligent man, but he is also schizophrenic. Listening to him speak and listening to my genius friend speak were approximately the same experience – you’re pretty sure it’s lunacy, but in the back of your head you have the idea that possibly he was saying something based in reality that you’re just too dumb to comprehend.
You can always rest on your best of the worst laurels
…well, at least until someone decides it’s masturbatory.
Your post was interesting but rambling. RickJay said that it is highly unlikely that the average IQ score here is 130. Regardless of what people claim, that is almost certainly true. It would be true even if we were all physicians at a regular city hospital. Some will be way above that and most will be below. An IQ score of 130 is high enough so that you won’t be hindered in any profession given other relevant skills. You have to look at the normal curve that they are based on to see why that is.
I have taken four Honest to God IQ tests in my life. One was in 3rd grade, another was in 4th grade, one was in undergraduate school for a psychometrics class, and the other was in graduate school for another psychometrics class. I know my IQ score and how the tests work at a fundamental level. They definitely measure something because all of them correlate highly with one another even over time but they don’t predict life success or tell you how good of a person you are.
IQ scores are one of the most misunderstood tools that exist. They are scientifically valid in that they are based on firm statistics and they tend to be stable over time. They are a decent predictor of college grades but certainly not perfect. They aren’t meant to predict anything like life success overall.
To give everyone a reference point, I should say that I’m by far the smartest person here. By which I mean to say, no I’m not. Not only do I have a pronounced lack of understand of Bell curves, my lack of understand spreads to cover other kinds of curves and lines and shapes as well. By which I mean, I often make mistakes that lead others to wrong conclusions about me, though, in fairness, it only affects those who seek conclusions about me.
I think being smart is just fine, just like being strong or adaptable or tireless or hopeful or funny or patient is just fine. But if you want praise for your attributes, they have to be connected to an admirable purpose which you employ your talents to serve. You’re strong? Great! What do you do? Beat up your boss’ debtors? Huh. Excuse me, please. How about you? You’re brilliant? Great! What are you doing? Heading up the ad campaign for a sneaker company’s blue-tinted sugar-water? Oh. Pity. May I meet the much-less-talented person, who was only moderately good at math and French, who went to work for the Salvation Army, please?
What you can or might do is important, but it sometimes is the refuge of those who have done much less than they should have, given their abilities and circumstances.
Hmmm…I don’t think it is false modesty to say that I’m pretty sceptical of the SAT to IQ conversion I cited above. I consider myself to be reasonably bright, but no way am I top 5%'er.
Unless I’m misremembering and my score was 1100 combined, which would yield a somewhat more reasonable 117. I remember my exact verbal score, but I might be misremembering my math score, I guess.
Still…
Sadly, it was worse before I edited it.
I understand the concept of a bell curve, I just didn’t realize where a 130 IQ lies on the curve until it was clarified.
I am not trying to dispute the reliability of a standardized, professionally administered IQ test. The point I was trying to make is just that there probably isn’t reliable consistency among self-reports of IQ tests – I don’t think I have taken one ‘‘honest-to-god’’ myself, but obviously if the subject comes up I’ve got an idea based on the results of the school one and the results of an online one… there is a specific number in my head, maybe not accurate, but nevertheless if I were to be asked to report it somewhere, I’d give that number because it’s the closest I have to actually knowing. I am trying to say that the lack of reliability and consistency in methodology that the average person might find acceptable for posting their IQ on a message board does not necessarily make Straight Dopers liars. It might just mean they took an inaccurate or incomplete test.
On preview: King of Soup, your post wins.
No reply, Shagnasty?
Is frequent masturbation an indicator of high intelligence? Then I’m a fuckin’ Einstein.
And who gets to say what someone should have done with their assets and abilities?
If one is very beautiful and hasn’t done anything substantial with it, should they?
If one can sing beautifully but hasn’t done anything professionally with it, do other people get to say what they should do?
If the answer to either of these is in the negative, why should mental abilities be any different?
What is funny is people are coming into this thread saying “Yes, it is irritating to hear people brag about how smart they are. Yes, yes, I agree.”
Then they say “However, I am smart, but couldn’t help it, blah blah, they called me a geek/nerd, it hurt BUT I AM STILL SMART!”
They just can’t resist. :rolleyes:
I’ve taken two in my life; one in first grade scored me up in your unlikely/bullshit range, and the second in high school scored me at bright normal. Combined with my ACT and SAT scores, my far-less-than-stellar grades and less-than-average life achievements, and all I can conclude is that taking tests is easy for me. I don’t know if I’m smart or not and at this stage in my life I don’t really care other than that it often leaves me too intimidated here to post even about topics I have some knowledge about.
But I’m curious; you mention scores tending to be stable over time. Since that was not the case for me, I’m wondering if there is any possibility the person administering the test can influence the results in any way short of deliberately mis-scoring? (I put it this way because I can see no advantage to the administrator doing that.)
I think it’s only an indicator of a good right* arm.
*or left, depending on your preference.