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from the maybe-they-only-surveyed-the-nimnobs dept.
Why can we talk about PISA results, comparing the performance of students in school, but we are not allowed to talk about differences in IQ? Bring this subject up, and you are immediately accused of racism. And yet. And yet, if there are substantial differences in intellectual capability, might this not explain some of the world's problems?
An update of a massive "study of studies" is underway; this article summarizes the work to date, and provides links to the work in progress. A quick summary of the answers to the questions no one dares ask:
- Eastern Asia (Japan, China): IQ around 105
- Europe/North America: IQ around 98
- Middle East: IQ around 85
- Africa: IQ around 70
In the first instance, it doesn't even matter why there are differences. They may be genetic, or disease related, or nutrition related, or something else. If these differences are real (and the evidence is pretty strong that they are), then we need to deal with them. Imagine if the low IQs in Africa turn out to be fixable - what would the impact be, if we could raise the IQ of an entire continent by 30 points?!
Sticking our collective heads in the sand, because the topic is not PC, is not going to solve any problems.
(Score: 2) by srobert on Thursday November 02 2017, @06:28PM (18 children)
MENSA isn't all bad. I was a member year's ago. I met some nice people there. I also met some assholes. Mostly, my experience with MENSA made me doubt the legitimacy of IQ tests.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Thursday November 02 2017, @07:04PM (17 children)
The thing that made me realize that MENSA wasn't all it's cracked up to be is the realization that MENSA members, unless they've been diligently hiding their association with MENSA, have zero correlation with other highly successful people in society, and have no real accomplishments to speak of.
For instance, Marilyn vos Savant has supposedly the highest-measured IQ. What has she ever accomplished, other than that incident about the Monty Python question? Her career has been as a small-time columnist on the back page of some section of the newspaper, answering puzzle questions.
It just shows that very high IQ is not correlated at all with any really useful ability in society, and in fact these people may be handicapped in being able to do anything really productive which involves working within society (as any normal job does). Being able to sit around and answer clever riddles doesn't exactly earn you a big paycheck.
(Score: 1, Troll) by jmorris on Thursday November 02 2017, @07:44PM (1 child)
We live in the age of the Internet and you write something that dumb? No wonder you want to poo poo the idea some people are smarter than you. First learn to use a search engine, then you shall be permitted to request reentry into adult discussions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 03 2017, @01:06AM
You've been excluded from the grown up table, no amount of shifting blame will get you no where.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @07:54PM (5 children)
Famous(?) pornstar, and a mensa member. How do you explain that, huh, smartguy?!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @08:22PM (2 children)
According to Wikipedia she got multiple scholarships as a child. So it's a safe bet she was smart before she started in p0rn. Then her career ended, she moved to Utah, her husband died and she became an alcoholic. High IQ people do stupid shit to ... Next question?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @09:08PM
"Smart" doesn't mean "no mistake". At least hers is a case of extraordinary life.
(Score: 1) by snmygos on Friday November 03 2017, @07:28AM
As soon you are governed by you emotions and not you reason, intelligence (and IQ) does not matter.
(Score: 4, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday November 02 2017, @09:23PM (1 child)
"I like fucking" + "I like money" + "I don't want a real job" = "Make porn"
Seems logical to me.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday November 03 2017, @12:43AM
Or at least she did back when the sins of the flesh dominated my eternal spirit.
At the time anyway, she was also married.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by BasilBrush on Thursday November 02 2017, @08:09PM (1 child)
Presumably you mean the Monty Hall problem.
Hurrah! Quoting works now!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 03 2017, @02:20AM
Not the "Monte Carlo" problem?
Or the "montebank" problem?
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday November 02 2017, @09:19PM (2 children)
Well, yeah. It measures intelligence not wisdom, ambition, creativity, social prowess, or any number of other factors of human life. There's no reason to read anything but raw intelligence into an IQ score. For that it's quite accurate though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 03 2017, @01:08AM (1 child)
It is not that great at raw intelligence, you listed quite a few of the reasons yourself. NEXT!
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday November 03 2017, @01:53AM
Those have nothing to do with intelligence.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Thursday November 02 2017, @10:21PM (2 children)
Success is 80% determination, stubbornness, getting your ass out of bed in them morning every morning, eating right, courage, raw fucking will power. 15% luck. 5% ability and "talent".
Intelligent, unmotivated, lazy people fuck up at life 99% of the time.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday November 02 2017, @10:33PM
Yeah, I realize all this; everyone here has probably heard the saying "success is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration". I'm just pointing out that my beef with MENSA is that these people basically have this group for themselves and go to meetings together and basically sit around and congratulate themselves for being so intelligent, yet collectively what have they really accomplished, compared to any group of people picked at random? They're not famous for anything; they're not fabulously wealthy, they're not highly accomplished academically, they just don't have any actual accomplishments to speak of, beyond what many other people of allegedly lesser intelligence have done. It just seems like a group of people who want to stroke theirs and each others' egos for scoring high on a silly test, instead of doing something useful. The truly gifted people are likely too busy actually doing things to be bothered with such stuff.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 03 2017, @02:22AM
For crafoo, 100% of success is not stepping in poo you did not lay down yourself. Jus' saying!
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 03 2017, @08:17AM
To become a highly successful person in a financial / career sense, you need to be a psychopath. Being intelligent is not enough 99% of the time. On the other hand, being a psychopath and of average intelligence does not stop people, all you need to do is convince intelligent people to do the hard work for you, then screw them over.
A psychopath with high IQ may do better than one with average IQ, but there isn't a lot of correlation between high IQ and being a psychopath, so you won't see a lot of high IQ people among the highly successful. If one percent of people are psychopaths and 10% are considered high IQ (depends on where you put the line for "high"), only 0.1 percent of people are likely to be high IQ psychopaths.