The Second Half

[Log]

Though I now crave delicious beef, potato, and tomato stew. Yum! I am going to go make some.

Yes, you will.

Edited April 26, 2012 by Log

[Stargazer]

How many people here know their IQ? I have taken tests but never actually seen the results. How come supposed geniuses are the only ones who know their IQ?

I suppose you wouldn't tell someone their IQ was 87 because they might feel dumb. On the other hand why cripple someone, making them think it actually is significant that they have a high IQ, when in most cases hard work and a good attitude will get you farther than sitting on your laurels being a "genius"?

Does everyone but me know their IQ?

Apparently I have a higher IQ, as they used to make a practice of testing kids when young, and my parents were told that I was above average to some degree and they should provide some opportunity for me to learn extra stuff. I didn't find this out until much later, and at the time I couldn't care less. When I took the military ASVAB test for joining the Army, my "General Technical" score was 130, which was at the time was the military's "IQ" result, or so I was told. It basically gave me the "privilege" of picking any career area in the Army that I physically qualified for. I picked Infantry. That, perhaps, might demonstrate that my IQ wasn't all it was cracked up to be! But that's what I had wanted to do for years and years -- war movies took their toll, I guess.

My little brother tested out as dead average. And he has arguably been more successful in so many ways. He's tried several lines of work and rose to great competency and leadership in each one, ran a couple of successful businesses, and has had a political career besides (he's on the city council of the city he lives in). He has a large circle of friends, many with business and political influence. Meanwhile I can program computers, hooray. I've failed at every business I've tried. I've run for election to public office twice, and lost. As for friends, I don't get out much. I don't really like to socialize in groups -- although I can do it if I have to.

And I spend way too much time here.

[HiJolly]

How many people here know their IQ? I have taken tests but never actually seen the results. How come supposed geniuses are the only ones who know their IQ?

I suppose you wouldn't tell someone their IQ was 87 because they might feel dumb. On the other hand why cripple someone, making them think it actually is significant that they have a high IQ, when in most cases hard work and a good attitude will get you farther than sitting on your laurels being a "genius"?

Does everyone but me know their IQ?

I do. It's because after you've taken the proctored test for Mensa, they tell you your scores.

HiJolly

ps. I turned them down because the 'welcome to Mensa' letter arrived whilst I was in the MTC...

[Tarski]

How many people here know their IQ? I have taken tests but never actually seen the results. How come supposed geniuses are the only ones who know their IQ?

I suppose you wouldn't tell someone their IQ was 87 because they might feel dumb. On the other hand why cripple someone, making them think it actually is significant that they have a high IQ, when in most cases hard work and a good attitude will get you farther than sitting on your laurels being a "genius"?

Does everyone but me know their IQ?

I have slowly become quite negative about IQ tests. Part of the problem is the many "counter-examples" I have met in my life. One I mentioned before is a friend with a bit of dyslexia who was a graduate student in mathematics with me at UCLA. He did drop out but only to become a millionaire in business. He was obviously very very smart as he would routinely come up with very clever proofs......and incidentally a genius in the humor department.

Anyway, his IQ tested at 89! (and no that isn't 89 factorial).

I have also met card-carrying Mensa types that seemed quite free from the kind of intelligence that impresses me (they could do puzzles and mental arithmetic well but nothing deep). Marilyn vos Savant's inane and uncomprehending criticisms of the proof of "Fermat's last theorem" really put the nail in the coffin of IQ scores for me.

My suspicion is that the common occurrence of varying subclinical cases of things like attention deficit and dyslexia confound matters way too much.

In any case, I think it is best for people to not know their own IQ score for reasons other than my lack of confidence in the meaningfulness of test scores.

Being told that you got a very high score can make you a jerk and create unwarranted intellectual confidence. Being told you have a low or disappointing score can lead to giving up on an interest that one might actually be quite good at. What effect did my friend's IQ score have on his confidence to pursue a degree in mathematics? It can't have been good and that is a shame in his case.

Besides, no matter how high a score one gets, it can still be seen as a limit of some sort.

Finally, it's at least a little personal; the fact that my own several standard IQ test scores (4 of them) have been all over the map (though always respectably high) gives me another reason for doubt. My general lack of confidence in the rigor of the soft sciences is also at play.

I know IQ scores can't be meaningless but their meaning is overrated for sure.

My advice is to not seek to obtain a score and to ignore it (high or low) if you already have one.

Edited April 26, 2012 by Tarski

[phaedrus ut]

Now that this thread has been completely derailed I'm going to step in and say I'm with Nehor on this one. I clicked on Log's link for the Vox day blog and unfortunately read quite a bit of his writings there and WorldNetDaily. At first I thought in reading his anti-science anti-women rants that maybe it was a parody. Nope. And after a bit of searching I realized that I had read about this guy before. His father, a director and shareholder of WorldNetDaily, while on trial for tax evasion convinced his separatist tax protest group to convene a common law grand jury and had one of his supporters issue a subpoena to his federal judge to appear in their common law court. This guy delivered the subpoena to their kooky constitutional court right to the judge's front door.

Here is my favorite quote I found from this Vox nut(and believe me there are many of these gems).

First, there is no such thing as marital rape. Once consent is formally given in public ceremony, it cannot be revoked link

This guy is a freakin nut case.

Phaedrus

Edited April 26, 2012 by phaedrus ut

[mfbukowski]

Why are you a bigot against the incontinent?

I have a relative who lost toes to diabetes and have always thought it is terrible that some companies sell milk specifically to people who are lack-toes intolerant.

Lacking toes can be a pretty important handicap and creating products for people who are intolerant of those who lack toes is completely unacceptable.

[mfbukowski]

Fight your own battles Droopy.

He's not the poster named Droopy.

[mfbukowski]

I have slowly become quite negative about IQ tests. Part of the problem is the many "counter-examples" I have met in my life. One I mentioned before is a friend with a bit of dyslexia who was a graduate student in mathematics with me at UCLA. He did drop out but only to become a millionaire in business. He was obviously very very smart as he would routinely come up with very clever proofs......and incidentally a genius in the humor department.

Anyway, his IQ tested at 89! (and no that isn't 89 factorial).

I have also met card-carrying Mensa types that seemed quite free from the kind of intelligence that impresses me (they could do puzzles and mental arithmetic well but nothing deep). Marilyn vos Savant's inane and uncomprehending criticisms of the proof of "Fermat's last theorem" really put the nail in the coffin of IQ scores for me.

My suspicion is that the common occurrence of varying subclinical cases of things like attention deficit and dyslexia confound matters way too much.

In any case, I think it is best for people to not know their own IQ score for reasons other than my lack of confidence in the meaningfulness of test scores.

Being told that you got a very high score can make you a jerk and create unwarranted intellectual confidence. Being told you have a low or disappointing score can lead to giving up on an interest that one might actually be quite good at. What effect did my friend's IQ score have on his confidence to pursue a degree in mathematics? It can't have been good and that is a shame in his case.

Besides, no matter how high a score one gets, it can still be seen as a limit of some sort.

Finally, it's at least a little personal; the fact that my own several standard IQ test scores (4 of them) have been all over the map (though always respectably high) gives me another reason for doubt. My general lack of confidence in the rigor of the soft sciences is also at play.

I know IQ scores can't be meaningless but their meaning is overrated for sure.

My advice is to not seek to obtain a score and to ignore it (high or low) if you already have one.

I agree. I kind of fibbed before. I scored high on one and it has only caused me grief.

[The Nehor]

He's not the poster named Droopy.

There are two of them????? :shok: :shok: :shok:

What kind of world is this and who would have created it?

[Calm]

http://www.science20.com/news_articles/excited_xib_baryon_new_particle_discovered_lhc-89528

This particle was found as predicted. A victory for science.

[thesometimesaint]

A high IQ is like a big Corvette engine. It needs to be fully engaged or it doesn't do much.

Ps; I do get tired of being told that psychology is a "Soft Science". It is much harder than the "Hard Science" of Chemistry. In chemistry there is usually a very limited number of variables. In psychology there always many many more.

Edited April 30, 2012 by thesometimesaint

[bcuzbcuz]

Well, that's disappointing. I was so hoping you'd tell him he was wrong - the only thing is, when he says something like "Even the best, 'gold standard' science has been reported to be 89 percent unreliable, as a matter of fact,"

I happen to know that 67.3% of all statistics are made up.

[bcuzbcuz]

Besides, it is weird too. If it failed we would lose weirdness! Before relativity, there was no speed limit that we knew of and it is down right weird that there should be one. (Why couldn't a bullet shot from rocket which was already travelling very very nearly the speed of light, exceed that speed? Common sense says relative speeds should just add.)

OK, so what's the speed of dark?

I was in a job interview and I opened a book and started reading. Then I said

to the guy, "Let me ask you a question. If you are in a spaceship that is

traveling at the speed of light, and you turn on the headlights, does anything

happen?" He said, "I don't know." I said, "I don't want your job."

-- Steven Wright

Edited April 30, 2012 by bcuzbcuz