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How many "pioneering mathematicians" are not one-percenters? If the answer is "99%", then there's no bias in favor of those who do well on the SAT. The article

by dalke 10y ago

How many "pioneering mathematicians" are not one-percenters? If the answer is "99%", then there's no bias in favor of those who do well on the SAT. The article doesn't give that information. A similar question can be asked of famous musicians. How does Lady Gaga's success support, much less confirm, your pet theory? Did she have success in a STEM field? I see no mention of STEM in her Wikipedia biography. The article points out that while the original evaluation was based a math assessment, "[l]ater, researchers included the verbal portion and other assessments", so perhaps she was a one-percenter in verbal, not math. From her bio, she put a lot of work into the arts. That would suggest a different possibility, which is that someone who has a good grasp of any subject would also excel in other favorite activities.

aab0 10y ago
"How many "pioneering mathematicians" are not one-percenters? If the answer is "99%", then there's no bias in favor of those who do well on the SAT. The article doesn't give that information." The article doesn't give that information, but unless you believe that being in the top 1% is actively harmful to becoming a pioneering mathematician, the odds ratios of they give for doctorates gives you a good idea, since no one will be a pioneering mathematician without earning a doctorate in math these days. Something like 25% of them have doctorates, compared to the general population which is more like ~1.7%, so simply going by proportion and ignoring the curves in https://my.vanderbilt.edu/smpy/files/2013/02/Ferriman_20101.pdf https://my.vanderbilt.edu/smpy/files/2013/02/Ferriman_20101.... and the extreme tail behaviors of these things, at least 0.25*0.01 / 0.017 = 15% of pioneering mathematicians will have been 1%ers. (Take into account the tail, and it'll go up quite a bit.)
- dalke 10y ago
  That's a good point, thank you.

by dalke 10y ago

aab0 10y ago

"How many "pioneering mathematicians" are not one-percenters? If the answer is "99%", then there's no bias in favor of those who do well on the SAT. The article doesn't give that information." The article doesn't give that information, but unless you believe that being in the top 1% is actively harmful to becoming a pioneering mathematician, the odds ratios of they give for doctorates gives you a good idea, since no one will be a pioneering mathematician without earning a doctorate in math these days. Something like 25% of them have doctorates, compared to the general population which is more like ~1.7%, so simply going by proportion and ignoring the curves in https://my.vanderbilt.edu/smpy/files/2013/02/Ferriman_20101.pdf https://my.vanderbilt.edu/smpy/files/2013/02/Ferriman_20101.... and the extreme tail behaviors of these things, at least 0.25*0.01 / 0.017 = 15% of pioneering mathematicians will have been 1%ers. (Take into account the tail, and it'll go up quite a bit.)

dalke 10y ago
That's a good point, thank you.