I like masturbating.
I like being smart.
I fail to see the problem.
I guess. People with average I.Q.s sometimes mix their homophones. Luckily there are lots of geniuses around here to straighten me out!
A man much smarter than me once said:
“Never seem more learned than the people you are with. Wear your learning like a pocket watch and keep it hidden. Do not pull it out to count the hours, but give the time when you are asked.”
Lord Chesterfield
The last time I tried grasping curves I ended up getting slapped in the face!
Jeez, you try and better yourself, and look where it gets you!
This argument implies that Dopers are a random sample of the population. We are talking about highly verbal and often argumentative people with nothing better to do on a Saturday night than post on a message board. That group could skew high.
Also, didn’t you switch assumptions, from an average of 130, to 130 or higher? Well, nevermind.
2006 U.S population 18 - 64: 188,402,570
% with I.Q. above 130: 3,768,051
Regular SDMB posters: 5,000
So, 0.13% of the available U.S. residents and military personnel would have to be posting here to meet your more stringent qualification. This does NOT include non-U.S. posters, bright teen-agers, or retirees.
I think an average I.Q. of 130 is possible.
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An example is not to be taken as definitive evidence. However, the election of a president is NOT the act of a handle of people in the entertainment and advertisement industry, but of a fairly representative sample of the population. It’s not a definitive measure, but it is a reasonable one.
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Bill Clinton is a perfect example. He might be the smartest* person elected president in my lifetime, but that was not his persona. His persona was that of a clever and charming man (with the good sense to use people smarter than he was).
*At least when he was getting blood to his brain.
Does the SAT (<95) mean that the test score has to be from before 1995? What are all these other values? I don’t think I’ve ever even heard of any other IQ test than the Stanford-Binet.
I think he’s right. By and large, people have a moral obligation to contribute something good to the world using the gifts they have. Most people enjoy doing the things they are good at – I’m not calling for people to do things that make them miserable to serve the common good, I’m just talking about people taking some responsibility for their community and contributing however they can and like to. Would I pass some kind of law, am I talking about creating some kind of dystopian hell where everybody has to follow a certain path? Nope, I’m only saying that most people who give a shit about others will use their gifts to help them out. And they should. I think KoS’ post was spot on.
It’s also worth mentioning the criteria for what constitutes ‘‘using’’ an ability isn’t really set in stone. One of my favorite movies is Goodwill Hunting. Everyone’s telling him he should be doing specific things with his talents, contributing to the math world on some profound level, working in government intelligence. It doesn’t feel right to him, and ultimately he chooses to focus on what he wants, not what others are telling him he’s obligated to do. The ability to love is a gift, too. That counts.
Insecurity. I think everyone on this board is smart. I cannot think of a single poster here who I would not classify as smart, even the ones I think are batshit insane. Some of these people might not necessarily feel smart, or be aware of it, or have had feedback as a kid confirming it, but they are still smart. Saying, ‘‘I’m smart!’’ here is like declaring, ‘‘I have hair!’’ But there are probably people here, who are smart, who did have regular feedback as a kid, who have some kind of complex because of it. It’s still rooted in insecurity, the need to justify being here.
I don’t see it as any different than say, a modeling board with people who constantly feel the need to justify how attractive they are. The Straight Dope is dedicated to fighting ignorance, therefore pretty obviously intended for smart people. It doesn’t help how incredibly rude some people can be on this board/during debates–words like, ‘‘you’re a fucking idiot’’ clearly are aimed at belittling the opponent intellectually, when it’s pretty obvious that person is not a fucking idiot or else they wouldn’t be posting here. Speaking irrationally, perhaps. Making invalid assumptions based on spurious evidence, sure. But there is a world of difference between someone who is ignorant on a certain specific matter and a person who is stupid. None of us are stupid. Some of us are arrogant and judgmental as fuck, but none of us are stupid.
I don’t usually read the “We’re so smart” threads, but I got curious after reading this thread. It was pretty much as I expected. I laughed out loud a couple of times at the folks who were obviously poking fun at the concept of the thread.
The thing that really irked me, though, was this second post of NightRabbit’s. In it, she says this:
Most kids are NOT morons. There are no more dumb kids than there are smart kids. Hence the bell curve Shagnasty has been talking about. Most kids are somewhere around average, you see…that’s the definition of average. If you are lucky enough to be on the smart end of the curve, it doesn’t look very good for you to go around disparaging the average kids as morons. It certainly isn’t evidence for an assertion that the point of the thread was not for it to be an intellectual circle-jerk.
I didn’t read the thread at first because “vis-a-vis” was used seriously in the title. That set the whole tone for me.
Not that high. You’re just wildly off on your assumption of how intelligent a 130 IQ is. That’s not “high,” it’s EXTREMELY high. That means the average SDMB poster is an honest-to-God genius, and I just do not believe that is true. I don’t think most posters here are smarter than I am, and I am NOT a genius. 130 is high enough than many elementary school classes of 25-30 children will have not even a single student that high on the IQ scale. Think about that; in a group of 30 people, the odds are pretty good that the smartest person in the whole group does not have an IQ as high as the average IQ you are proposing for this message board.
I would agree, with some reservations, that the average IQ of an SDMB poster is slightly higher than the population, but 130 is insane. 105-110, I’d believe. Understand that if the average IQ here was, say, 112, that would be VERY noticeable. You would notice that a group of people who averages 112 would seem smarter than an ordinary group of people.
I just cannot believe a group of people on an Internet message board, very few of whom seem like actual geniuses to me, average genius intelligence, but that appears to be your claim. Absent a properly administered test to a representative sample we will never know, but I’ll tell you what; if we could set up such a test, I’d bet ten thousand dollars the median IQ would not be 130. That is just so unlikely as to approach impossibility.
If the average is 130 then one would assume quite a lot are at or above it, no?
I’m sorry, but I think this is a plainly ridiculous argument. The manner in which Presidents are selected is so far removed from the attitude people have towards their peers that it’s not a basis for comparison at all.
Whenever this sort of thread pops up I just get straight to the facts.
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Okay, with the test I took in school, 145 and above was considered genius. We’ve just confirmed the tests I took are not standardized. I would be incredibly unsurprised to find out the case was the same for other people reporting their IQs.
Actually I recall hearing somewhere that the cutoff for “genius” is 150.
Anyway, I doubt that the average IQ of SDMB posters is 130. However, as I indicated above, I would guess that there are a good number of posters who test at that level.
One thing that’s funny about IQ is that the “Peter Principle” applies a lot of the time. If you are one of the smartest kids in your high school, you may very well end up at a top college. If you are a top student in your college, you may end up at a top professional school.
But eventually, you meet people who are equal in smarts to you – or head and shoulders above you.
Now that’s just creepy. He’s dead Boyo, let him rest in peace.
Is it cold where you live?
I agree with you. I actually didn’t think the thread had any real negative tone until that post. The “most kids are morons” thing bothered me because it seemed to be saying that if you weren’t one of the hallowed few* who were labeled gifted, then you were wearing a helmet and licking windows all day as a kid. There’s not a real barrier separating someone with an IQ of 120 and one with 110.
Maybe it was just something NightRabbit threw out defensively, but I think it’s fair to call him out on it.
*Seriously, it seems like gifted kids are just as commonplace as average kids nowadays. What the hell does “gifted” mean if every Johnny and Suzy meets the criteria?
Everything I’ve ever read about IQ bears out what Shagnasty has posted. I’ve also noticed that any thread where IQ (or winter temperature) is mentioned quickly turns into a game of liar’s poker. That doesn’t mean someone out there isn’t holding isn’t holding a bill with eight 9s, but if there was money on it, I’d call bullshit.
We appreciate your honesty, sir.
sinjin is now entitled to start a thread entitled, ‘‘When did you realize, vis-a-vis other kids, that you were absolutely fucking hilarious?’’ 
The test that the state of Tennessee gave me had 130 as “gifted”. I fell just short of it and at least a few of the other kids that took it surpassed it.
I think everything below 130 was just “above average” and don’t remember what the value for “genius” was.
Personally, I often feel pretty fucking stupid.
Also, it’d’ve been better if she’d said “He’s dead, Jim”