7 ms·

Anecdotally, I would very much agree with this, with an added caveat: there are diminishing returns on mental horsepower after 2 stdevs (e.g. 130 iq). After a c

Anecdotally, I would very much agree with this, with an added caveat: there are diminishing returns on mental horsepower after 2 stdevs (e.g. 130 iq). After a certain point obsessiveness separates the wheat from the chaff, by very wide margins. The long-game is underrated.

toasterlovin 8y ago
You need all three. Picking the wrong thing to work on wastes all of the time that gets spent because of obsession.
- geezerjay 8y ago
  > You need all three. Actually, you don't. It may help to be gifted on all three, but work ethics makes up for any deficit in intellectual potential. For example, MENSA membership does not correlate with intellectual elites in any research field, but you'd be hard pressed to find a leading researcher who doesn't have a strong work ethic.
  - barry-cotter 8y ago
    If you can’t hack calculus you will never be an Engineering professor, likewise close critical reading and an English professor. That puts a floor somewhere between 115 and 120 IQ on becoming a professor at a decent community college no matter how hard you’re willing to work. I guarantee you MENSA members have higher incomes and educational attainment than non members. I’m equally sure that non-members who are eligible for membership but wouldn’t bother do better because they have better social skills which are helpful for anything.
    - geezerjay 8y ago
      > If you can’t hack calculus you will never be an Engineering professor, likewise close critical reading and an English professor. You don't need to score high marks in IQ tests to pass calculus, and there are plenty of fields of research in engineering where a good grasp of calculus is fundamental. Thus, quite obviously you can become an engineering professor eventhough you suck at calculus. > I guarantee you MENSA members have higher incomes and educational attainment than non members. Feel free to provide any reference to back your baseless assertion.
      - barry-cotter 8y ago
        https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Correlation-of-IQ-scores-with-occupational-achievement-applicable-to-young-white-adults_fig2_299441650 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Correlation-of-IQ-scores... Graph showing 110 is about the minimum, not for understanding calculus well enough to teach it, but for any job as a teacher. Source article https://www1.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/reprints/1998generalintelligencefactor.pdf https://www1.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/reprints/1998generali... The General Intelligence Factor 82% of American Mensa members have a Bachelor’s or higher. Given that that’s double the rate among the general populace I’m just going to presume they make more money without botering to look it up. https://www.us.mensa.org/learn/about/demographics/ https://www.us.mensa.org/learn/about/demographics/
        geezerjay 8y ago
        Your comparison is at best skewed. By definition the general populace has on average an IQ of 100. In the US, over 60% of the population has at least some college. The percentage of MENSA members is small. How do MENSA members fare agains the general population with at least some college wrt income? The fact that this info is not in plain sight nor is even advertised is a clear indicator that the correlation isn't that favourable. In fact, some sources [1] state that the top MENSA eaeners (top 10%) earn over $57k, which is surprisingly low and a fraction of what the average software developer earns (above $100k). [1] https://www.paysa.com/salaries/american-mensa--member https://www.paysa.com/salaries/american-mensa--member
  - scotty79 8y ago
    > For example, MENSA membership does not correlate with intellectual elites in any research field It's mostly because MENSA membership is interesting for very small fraction of intelligent people. If everyone applied to mensa, 150 mln people would get in while only less than 150 thousand are actually in mensa. Even if every member of intelectual elite was above mensa threshold only 1 in 1000 would be in mensa. It's hard to correlate anything with that.
    - roel_v 8y ago
      Mensa membership is actually quite interesting, and possibly relevant to this discussion. It's full if people who are 'smart' (i.e., did well on the mensa tests), yet don't do that well professionally to be around smart people all the time. It's full or primary school teachers and nurses and that sort of thing. Mensa is for people who feel out of place in their day to day lives, they're generally not well understood by their day to day environment. While (most) doctors and lawyers and engineers and academics are already around smart people all the time, and don't need any extra on top of it. (All this imo, may be observation bias, ymmv, etc)
    - james_s_tayler 8y ago
      Yeah, you actually have to investigate two things 1) why people desire to actually become a member of Mensa in the first place 2) the population of people who are eligible for membership (2% of the whole population) yet are not members. On cursory inspection it would seem if you just talked about the top 2% of the distribution you would likely get a different answer than if you just talked about the people who felt the need to self- select into the MENSA organization. Ok, so what about the selection bias itself? What would drive you to join MENSA? If you were already "accomplished" to some degree that you felt satisfied with why would you necessarily feel the need to say "I'm in the smart people club". Yes, you've already visibly demonstrated that. So what if you haven't demonstrated that but you find everyone around you mildly maddening to deal with because they just don't get it. Well... you might be inclined to join the smart people club and find some interesting people to hang out with. Makes sense to me.
      - 8y ago
haihaibye 8y ago
>> diminishing returns after 130 iq There's evidence higher IQ leads to better outcomes all the way up the scale. The graph below shows scores vs outcomes for students scoring in the top 1% of a maths test. It's not flat as your anecdotal caveat would predict: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4b8ThyfDgzs/U29nQEBAQTI/AAAAAAAAE40/iu0AgfuHE8E/s1600/smpy_odds.png http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4b8ThyfDgzs/U29nQEBAQTI/AAAAAAAAE4... You're 18 times more likely to get a STEM doctorate scoring at the 99.8th percentile vs 99th. Or a paper linked earlier in the thread: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41038598?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents https://www.jstor.org/stable/41038598?seq=1#page_scan_tab_co...

toasterlovin 8y ago

You need all three. Picking the wrong thing to work on wastes all of the time that gets spent because of obsession.

geezerjay 8y ago
> You need all three. Actually, you don't. It may help to be gifted on all three, but work ethics makes up for any deficit in intellectual potential. For example, MENSA membership does not correlate with intellectual elites in any research field, but you'd be hard pressed to find a leading researcher who doesn't have a strong work ethic.
- barry-cotter 8y ago
  If you can’t hack calculus you will never be an Engineering professor, likewise close critical reading and an English professor. That puts a floor somewhere between 115 and 120 IQ on becoming a professor at a decent community college no matter how hard you’re willing to work. I guarantee you MENSA members have higher incomes and educational attainment than non members. I’m equally sure that non-members who are eligible for membership but wouldn’t bother do better because they have better social skills which are helpful for anything.
  - geezerjay 8y ago
    > If you can’t hack calculus you will never be an Engineering professor, likewise close critical reading and an English professor. You don't need to score high marks in IQ tests to pass calculus, and there are plenty of fields of research in engineering where a good grasp of calculus is fundamental. Thus, quite obviously you can become an engineering professor eventhough you suck at calculus. > I guarantee you MENSA members have higher incomes and educational attainment than non members. Feel free to provide any reference to back your baseless assertion.
    - barry-cotter 8y ago
      https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Correlation-of-IQ-scores-with-occupational-achievement-applicable-to-young-white-adults_fig2_299441650 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Correlation-of-IQ-scores... Graph showing 110 is about the minimum, not for understanding calculus well enough to teach it, but for any job as a teacher. Source article https://www1.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/reprints/1998generalintelligencefactor.pdf https://www1.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/reprints/1998generali... The General Intelligence Factor 82% of American Mensa members have a Bachelor’s or higher. Given that that’s double the rate among the general populace I’m just going to presume they make more money without botering to look it up. https://www.us.mensa.org/learn/about/demographics/ https://www.us.mensa.org/learn/about/demographics/
      - geezerjay 8y ago
        Your comparison is at best skewed. By definition the general populace has on average an IQ of 100. In the US, over 60% of the population has at least some college. The percentage of MENSA members is small. How do MENSA members fare agains the general population with at least some college wrt income? The fact that this info is not in plain sight nor is even advertised is a clear indicator that the correlation isn't that favourable. In fact, some sources [1] state that the top MENSA eaeners (top 10%) earn over $57k, which is surprisingly low and a fraction of what the average software developer earns (above $100k). [1] https://www.paysa.com/salaries/american-mensa--member https://www.paysa.com/salaries/american-mensa--member
- scotty79 8y ago
  > For example, MENSA membership does not correlate with intellectual elites in any research field It's mostly because MENSA membership is interesting for very small fraction of intelligent people. If everyone applied to mensa, 150 mln people would get in while only less than 150 thousand are actually in mensa. Even if every member of intelectual elite was above mensa threshold only 1 in 1000 would be in mensa. It's hard to correlate anything with that.
  - roel_v 8y ago
    Mensa membership is actually quite interesting, and possibly relevant to this discussion. It's full if people who are 'smart' (i.e., did well on the mensa tests), yet don't do that well professionally to be around smart people all the time. It's full or primary school teachers and nurses and that sort of thing. Mensa is for people who feel out of place in their day to day lives, they're generally not well understood by their day to day environment. While (most) doctors and lawyers and engineers and academics are already around smart people all the time, and don't need any extra on top of it. (All this imo, may be observation bias, ymmv, etc)
  - james_s_tayler 8y ago
    Yeah, you actually have to investigate two things 1) why people desire to actually become a member of Mensa in the first place 2) the population of people who are eligible for membership (2% of the whole population) yet are not members. On cursory inspection it would seem if you just talked about the top 2% of the distribution you would likely get a different answer than if you just talked about the people who felt the need to self- select into the MENSA organization. Ok, so what about the selection bias itself? What would drive you to join MENSA? If you were already "accomplished" to some degree that you felt satisfied with why would you necessarily feel the need to say "I'm in the smart people club". Yes, you've already visibly demonstrated that. So what if you haven't demonstrated that but you find everyone around you mildly maddening to deal with because they just don't get it. Well... you might be inclined to join the smart people club and find some interesting people to hang out with. Makes sense to me.
    - 8y ago

haihaibye 8y ago

>> diminishing returns after 130 iq There's evidence higher IQ leads to better outcomes all the way up the scale. The graph below shows scores vs outcomes for students scoring in the top 1% of a maths test. It's not flat as your anecdotal caveat would predict: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4b8ThyfDgzs/U29nQEBAQTI/AAAAAAAAE40/iu0AgfuHE8E/s1600/smpy_odds.png http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4b8ThyfDgzs/U29nQEBAQTI/AAAAAAAAE4... You're 18 times more likely to get a STEM doctorate scoring at the 99.8th percentile vs 99th. Or a paper linked earlier in the thread: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41038598?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents https://www.jstor.org/stable/41038598?seq=1#page_scan_tab_co...