I do think these people's claim about their IQ is silly. Simply because I agree with you that there can't possibly be a suitable test for those outliers. You say 150 would be a suitable ceiling for IQ tests. I think the ceiling should be still lower, given the dwindling lack of correlation between IQ and real world achievement above 120-…
I do think these people's claim about their IQ is silly. Simply because I agree with you that there can't possibly be a suitable test for those outliers. You say 150 would be a suitable ceiling for IQ tests. I think the ceiling should be still lower, given the dwindling lack of correlation between IQ and real world achievement above 120-130 or so. The point of IQ tests should be their predictive power. Once they fail to predict real-world achievements, they should be considered useless.
Still, I think I can see a common denominator between three of the four remarkable men on my list: They were child prodigies and very fast and early learners, according to the available information. So I'm prone to believe that an extraordinary ability to see patterns correlates with something. That something just doesn't seem to be thinking ability.
I'm in no sense intending to discredit the IQ scale as such. I think it has great predictive power. I just think it should be left to do what it is good at: Predicting outcomes.
Well, we don't exactly agree - I think that a *common* ceiling for intelligence tests is 160, and that on such tests scores around the 150-160 range *can* be inaccurate. They most definitely don't stop predicting real world achievement above 130 IQ. For example, look at the average IQs of Nobel Laureates:
Note that the theoretical physicists scored 157, ten points higher than laureates in anthropology, and far higher than the 120-130 range you write about as a practical ceiling. This is useful, practical information of direct relevance to me personally - that's why I majored in physics, to find a smart young lady to be Mrs. Apple Pie.
I think those Quora statistics support a ceiling of 130 rather well. At least four of the best scientists in 1952 had IQs below 135. One had as low as 122. A test that fail to catch people who actually achieve something outstanding is not a very good test. Lewis Terman tried to predict "genius", and missed two future Nobel Prize Laureates in physics https://russellwarne.com/2020/09/14/termans-non-geniuses-shockley-and-alvarez/ That says something about the limitations of IQ tests as predictors of special abilities.
I don't at all deny that there is a correlation between IQ and achievement above 130. I just think that by then it starts to get weak enough to discredit the IQ scale as such. There are obvious differences between people with IQs of 80, 100 and 120. There are no such obvious differences between people with IQs of 130 and 150. If you get biographical details of different people, you could probably tell who is an 80, a 100 and a 120. But I think it would be nigh on impossible to tell who is a 130 or 150 from biographical details (except, maybe, if one of the study subjects is a theoretical phycisist).
My first thought when you said you searched for an intelligent partner in physics, was that you once mentioned that Mrs Appel Pie doesn't write voluntarily. By this I don't mean to say she is not very intelligent - I suppose she is - but I still suspect that piece of information supports the general observation that abilities among top scorers diverge. People who are really bad at math tend to also be really bad at writing. People who are really good at math do not tend to be really good at writing in any corresponding way.
Eminent researchers in theoretical physics had higher IQ scores than the rest of the population of eminent researchers. Does that mean that eminent phycisists are more intelligent than eminent anthropologists and psychologists and biologists? Or does it just mean that IQ tests are better at predicting talent in theoretical physics than in other subjects? I would opt for the latter explanation.
"- IQ tests are better at predicting talent in theoretical physics than in other subjects?" I agree with this as a possibility. I've also read about pranks the super smart physicist types would play on their merely very bright peers. Kinda made me feel bad for the victims.
I also love that you brought up Terman. His son Frederick was an institution at Stanford, considered one of the founders of Si Valley, and wrote what would become the standard handbook for radio electronics. The original is outdated now, but lots of the empirical data is useful decades later, and not widely available elsewhere.
Ironically, I don't know if Lewis Terman's own son actually met his metrics for the cadre he studied. The best I recall is that he didn't, yet he was a giant in early tech.
I definitely support the "threshold" notion of intelligence. Above a certain point, say a bit over what we measure as 125-130 these days, it starts to matter less. It can even be a disadvantage to be super-duper bright - boredom can kill off achievement too. I recall an interview with a scientist who noted that not being too far above the 120's was helpful because people in that range would still spend time on the tedious stuff needed to actually find something out.
Another considerations is the difficulty of not having peers, or thinking one has no peers, admittedly separate things, but still issues. It makes me think that the vanishing population in the upper tail are lonely indeed. Who, in a population sense, even understands what it's like to be someone that good with stuff in Wechsler or Stanford - Binet type tests?
Yes. I think that the correlation between IQ and what is commonly called intelligence wears off somewhere above 120-something. Still, I have noticed one thing since I wrote the post above: All my three present-day examples of very high IQ people seem to have been very precoscious and very good at learning in general. So I'm starting to suspect that IQ might actually correlate with something interesting also above that threshold. I think that something could be information processing ability. Rick Rosner, Christopher Langan and Michael Kearney all seem to be great at taking in and using information. They don't appear to be better thinkers than the rest of us, but I'm more and more thinking that they actually are better at absorbing human knowledge and symbols than the rest of us.
>It makes me think that the vanishing population in the upper tail are lonely indeed.
This makes me think of Rick Rosner. In some sense he definitely seems unusual, but not because he is deeper or thinks better than other people. For example, he is not above writing manuses for and participating in plebeian TV shows.
"So I'm starting to suspect that IQ might actually correlate with something interesting also above that threshold." I definitely agree.
I know a several people in the (edit) 135+ range. They have an extra something. All of them are neuro-typical, and very very smart. I seek them out for thoughts on the world and the three I know best are good at sorting politics and social trends. Among other things, they are amazing at noting how people work out ways around laws or policy and ways things won't fly in the political realm.
I wish I could say the same. But I hardly know anyone's IQ. I guess IQ testing is more of an American thing. In general, few neurotypicals know their IQ in Europe, because the only reason to have an IQ test is for psychtriatry to figure out what is wrong with you.
Hah! IQ is sort of like salary. It doesn't come up in casual conversation. On the other hand, there are smart people and then there are these others.
After Sputnik, there was a big push over here. There were achievement tests and intelligence tests and there was new math,and so there were parents that knew a bit about their kiddos. It's more like you say now. Aptitude tests are used to sort out whats going on with an obviously bright student who seems to struggle with daily tasks. Good at puzzles, not good at reading for example.
I work in a field where there are a lot of sharp people. Everyone kinda knows who they are.
One day I looked up ranges for various occupations.
1. Do you think that "ability to think," and "creative scientific ability" are the same thing?
2. Do you think that there is any way to test "extremely good ability to think?" Is there any test, or cluster of tests, out there?
I'm also curious about:
3. Do you think that "Intelligence," "smarts," or "brains" is a somewhat obvious trait that can be observed merely by talking to people? In other words, if we asked Hrothgar and Ragnhild about how smart various people were, would their guesses correlate at some trivial amount (r = .1) or rather well (r = .6)?
1. Interesting question! I think "creative scientific ability" is a subcategory to the ability to think. The ability to make clever artistic allegories is another, different subcategory to the ability to think. The ability for philosophical reasoning is also a subcategory to the ability to think.
2. No, I think it has proven to be very difficult to develop such a test, and that is not very strange: Thinking is about finding out new lines of reasoning not thought about previously. I don't know what such a test, with right and wrong answers, could look like. I do think that only people with fairly high IQ levels can be extremely good thinkers. If nothing else, people who do not belong to those with, say, the ten percent or so highest IQ are in general unable to learn enough of existing human knowledge to use as a basis for their thinking.
3. As I wrote about elsewhere, I think people would assess "intelligence" in other people more or less as uniformly as they assess "beauty" in other people. That is, I think different people's assessments would be different, but not wildly different.
OK, at #1 you describe different subcategories of thinking. It sounds like you believe that a person could easily be "rather good" at thinking, but merely "good" at philosophical reasoning, "average" at artistic allegories, and "superb" at scientific reasoning. Is this right, or, would such a person actually seem extremely strange or unlikely to you?
I understand what you mean at #2. And I'm avoiding using studies, but, how interesting or convincing do you find it when people speak from personal experience? Many people tend to ignore claims about what life is like, or how things feel to them, but in the past you've given the impression that you accept personal accounts without too much skepticism. Would you say this is accurate, or, would it be a waste of time to try to convince you of anything on the basis of people I've personally observed?
1. > It sounds like you believe that a person could easily be "rather good" at thinking, but merely "good" at philosophical reasoning, "average" at artistic allegories, and "superb" at scientific reasoning.
Definitely, yes. That sounds like a very likely person. Although I would consider "thinking" an umbrella term comprising all the others.
2. I do not only accept personal accounts. I eagerly seek them out. I am so perversely interested in people's personal anecdotes that over the years I have unwittingly given several men the impression that I am flirting with them just through listening to them very attentively for extended times. Like if people believe that no one can be that interested in what they say for real. So, yes, if you have something to tell from your own experience, I should be one of the more eager recipients of that information.
I do think these people's claim about their IQ is silly. Simply because I agree with you that there can't possibly be a suitable test for those outliers. You say 150 would be a suitable ceiling for IQ tests. I think the ceiling should be still lower, given the dwindling lack of correlation between IQ and real world achievement above 120-130 or so. The point of IQ tests should be their predictive power. Once they fail to predict real-world achievements, they should be considered useless.
Still, I think I can see a common denominator between three of the four remarkable men on my list: They were child prodigies and very fast and early learners, according to the available information. So I'm prone to believe that an extraordinary ability to see patterns correlates with something. That something just doesn't seem to be thinking ability.
I'm in no sense intending to discredit the IQ scale as such. I think it has great predictive power. I just think it should be left to do what it is good at: Predicting outcomes.
Well, we don't exactly agree - I think that a *common* ceiling for intelligence tests is 160, and that on such tests scores around the 150-160 range *can* be inaccurate. They most definitely don't stop predicting real world achievement above 130 IQ. For example, look at the average IQs of Nobel Laureates:
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-average-IQ-of-Nobel-Laureates?share=1
Note that the theoretical physicists scored 157, ten points higher than laureates in anthropology, and far higher than the 120-130 range you write about as a practical ceiling. This is useful, practical information of direct relevance to me personally - that's why I majored in physics, to find a smart young lady to be Mrs. Apple Pie.
I think those Quora statistics support a ceiling of 130 rather well. At least four of the best scientists in 1952 had IQs below 135. One had as low as 122. A test that fail to catch people who actually achieve something outstanding is not a very good test. Lewis Terman tried to predict "genius", and missed two future Nobel Prize Laureates in physics https://russellwarne.com/2020/09/14/termans-non-geniuses-shockley-and-alvarez/ That says something about the limitations of IQ tests as predictors of special abilities.
I don't at all deny that there is a correlation between IQ and achievement above 130. I just think that by then it starts to get weak enough to discredit the IQ scale as such. There are obvious differences between people with IQs of 80, 100 and 120. There are no such obvious differences between people with IQs of 130 and 150. If you get biographical details of different people, you could probably tell who is an 80, a 100 and a 120. But I think it would be nigh on impossible to tell who is a 130 or 150 from biographical details (except, maybe, if one of the study subjects is a theoretical phycisist).
My first thought when you said you searched for an intelligent partner in physics, was that you once mentioned that Mrs Appel Pie doesn't write voluntarily. By this I don't mean to say she is not very intelligent - I suppose she is - but I still suspect that piece of information supports the general observation that abilities among top scorers diverge. People who are really bad at math tend to also be really bad at writing. People who are really good at math do not tend to be really good at writing in any corresponding way.
Eminent researchers in theoretical physics had higher IQ scores than the rest of the population of eminent researchers. Does that mean that eminent phycisists are more intelligent than eminent anthropologists and psychologists and biologists? Or does it just mean that IQ tests are better at predicting talent in theoretical physics than in other subjects? I would opt for the latter explanation.
"- IQ tests are better at predicting talent in theoretical physics than in other subjects?" I agree with this as a possibility. I've also read about pranks the super smart physicist types would play on their merely very bright peers. Kinda made me feel bad for the victims.
I also love that you brought up Terman. His son Frederick was an institution at Stanford, considered one of the founders of Si Valley, and wrote what would become the standard handbook for radio electronics. The original is outdated now, but lots of the empirical data is useful decades later, and not widely available elsewhere.
Ironically, I don't know if Lewis Terman's own son actually met his metrics for the cadre he studied. The best I recall is that he didn't, yet he was a giant in early tech.
I definitely support the "threshold" notion of intelligence. Above a certain point, say a bit over what we measure as 125-130 these days, it starts to matter less. It can even be a disadvantage to be super-duper bright - boredom can kill off achievement too. I recall an interview with a scientist who noted that not being too far above the 120's was helpful because people in that range would still spend time on the tedious stuff needed to actually find something out.
Another considerations is the difficulty of not having peers, or thinking one has no peers, admittedly separate things, but still issues. It makes me think that the vanishing population in the upper tail are lonely indeed. Who, in a population sense, even understands what it's like to be someone that good with stuff in Wechsler or Stanford - Binet type tests?
Yes. I think that the correlation between IQ and what is commonly called intelligence wears off somewhere above 120-something. Still, I have noticed one thing since I wrote the post above: All my three present-day examples of very high IQ people seem to have been very precoscious and very good at learning in general. So I'm starting to suspect that IQ might actually correlate with something interesting also above that threshold. I think that something could be information processing ability. Rick Rosner, Christopher Langan and Michael Kearney all seem to be great at taking in and using information. They don't appear to be better thinkers than the rest of us, but I'm more and more thinking that they actually are better at absorbing human knowledge and symbols than the rest of us.
>It makes me think that the vanishing population in the upper tail are lonely indeed.
This makes me think of Rick Rosner. In some sense he definitely seems unusual, but not because he is deeper or thinks better than other people. For example, he is not above writing manuses for and participating in plebeian TV shows.
"So I'm starting to suspect that IQ might actually correlate with something interesting also above that threshold." I definitely agree.
I know a several people in the (edit) 135+ range. They have an extra something. All of them are neuro-typical, and very very smart. I seek them out for thoughts on the world and the three I know best are good at sorting politics and social trends. Among other things, they are amazing at noting how people work out ways around laws or policy and ways things won't fly in the political realm.
I wish I could say the same. But I hardly know anyone's IQ. I guess IQ testing is more of an American thing. In general, few neurotypicals know their IQ in Europe, because the only reason to have an IQ test is for psychtriatry to figure out what is wrong with you.
Hah! IQ is sort of like salary. It doesn't come up in casual conversation. On the other hand, there are smart people and then there are these others.
After Sputnik, there was a big push over here. There were achievement tests and intelligence tests and there was new math,and so there were parents that knew a bit about their kiddos. It's more like you say now. Aptitude tests are used to sort out whats going on with an obviously bright student who seems to struggle with daily tasks. Good at puzzles, not good at reading for example.
I work in a field where there are a lot of sharp people. Everyone kinda knows who they are.
One day I looked up ranges for various occupations.
Not a perfect site but there's this one https://psychologenie.com/average-iq-score
and this one for test correlations
https://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/GREIQ.aspx
Anyway. Stats say roughly 1 in 100 are up there. Not an easy sort to say the least.
And, thanks for your thoughts!
I need to ask two other questions, then:
1. Do you think that "ability to think," and "creative scientific ability" are the same thing?
2. Do you think that there is any way to test "extremely good ability to think?" Is there any test, or cluster of tests, out there?
I'm also curious about:
3. Do you think that "Intelligence," "smarts," or "brains" is a somewhat obvious trait that can be observed merely by talking to people? In other words, if we asked Hrothgar and Ragnhild about how smart various people were, would their guesses correlate at some trivial amount (r = .1) or rather well (r = .6)?
1. Interesting question! I think "creative scientific ability" is a subcategory to the ability to think. The ability to make clever artistic allegories is another, different subcategory to the ability to think. The ability for philosophical reasoning is also a subcategory to the ability to think.
2. No, I think it has proven to be very difficult to develop such a test, and that is not very strange: Thinking is about finding out new lines of reasoning not thought about previously. I don't know what such a test, with right and wrong answers, could look like. I do think that only people with fairly high IQ levels can be extremely good thinkers. If nothing else, people who do not belong to those with, say, the ten percent or so highest IQ are in general unable to learn enough of existing human knowledge to use as a basis for their thinking.
3. As I wrote about elsewhere, I think people would assess "intelligence" in other people more or less as uniformly as they assess "beauty" in other people. That is, I think different people's assessments would be different, but not wildly different.
OK, at #1 you describe different subcategories of thinking. It sounds like you believe that a person could easily be "rather good" at thinking, but merely "good" at philosophical reasoning, "average" at artistic allegories, and "superb" at scientific reasoning. Is this right, or, would such a person actually seem extremely strange or unlikely to you?
I understand what you mean at #2. And I'm avoiding using studies, but, how interesting or convincing do you find it when people speak from personal experience? Many people tend to ignore claims about what life is like, or how things feel to them, but in the past you've given the impression that you accept personal accounts without too much skepticism. Would you say this is accurate, or, would it be a waste of time to try to convince you of anything on the basis of people I've personally observed?
1. > It sounds like you believe that a person could easily be "rather good" at thinking, but merely "good" at philosophical reasoning, "average" at artistic allegories, and "superb" at scientific reasoning.
Definitely, yes. That sounds like a very likely person. Although I would consider "thinking" an umbrella term comprising all the others.
2. I do not only accept personal accounts. I eagerly seek them out. I am so perversely interested in people's personal anecdotes that over the years I have unwittingly given several men the impression that I am flirting with them just through listening to them very attentively for extended times. Like if people believe that no one can be that interested in what they say for real. So, yes, if you have something to tell from your own experience, I should be one of the more eager recipients of that information.
2.
OK Tove! I'll email you.
I sent you a reply (in case it got lost in all the other spam).
Oh - I looked for it, but I never found it. I'll check this evening.
Sent on 18 March.