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GM Hikaru Nakamura famously took the Mensa online IQ test and scored a very average 102 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nx3h70GoaoM https://www.youtube.com/wat

GM Hikaru Nakamura famously took the Mensa online IQ test and scored a very average 102 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nx3h70GoaoM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nx3h70GoaoM I guess if you accept IQ as a proxy for general cognitive ability, this would suggest the article is right. On the other hand, I still find it very counter intuitive. The ability to plan ahead and the spatial thinking are things I though would transfer well to other domains (arguably both are not things that an IQ test, or the academic tests from the article, would measure well though).

imaliesiera 6y ago
I've always thought of chess being more about talent rather than the measure of IQ but it also depends on what one's definition of "smart" really is.
- pmoriarty 6y ago
  Nah, chess ability is more about playing lots of chess when you're young, and being trained effectively at it at a critical age. If you start playing chess too late in your life, it doesn't matter what innate talents you have, you're never going to be very good.
  - imaliesiera 6y ago
    There is definitely the aspect of talent. I've seen (and arbitrated) players who began at an early age, had the most effective training and became completely average or even stagnated. And I've also interacted with those who heightened their chess skills in a really short time and are among the highest rated players.
    - pmoriarty 6y ago
      Point well taken, but I'm still not convinced that the variability you describe couldn't be accounted for by things like differences in diet (which can greatly affect cognitive ability), or differing circumstances at home (ie. abusive homes, or parents who are neglective vs caring and nurturing) and/or outside the home (like various forms of stress when kids live in dangerous neighborhoods where their peers and adults get assaulted or murdered on a regular basis), parents who push their kids to achieve vs ones who don't care how or what their kids do, etc... Picking out the effects of nature vs nurture in a random chess playing kid is not easy, and I wouldn't be so quick to attribute to innate talent that which could be explained by environment. What is clear, however, and something which you did not seem to deny in your own response, is that playing a lot of chess when you're young is critical to overall chess performance. Without that even "intelligent" and very capable adults who started playing too late are just not going to catch up to capable kids who played a lot of chess early.
      - imaliesiera 6y ago
        Yes, I may have assumed that all other variables are held constant, which is usually not the case. Although on your other point, I feel as though your argument sounds more like the 10,000 Hour rule popularised by Malcom Gladwell which I don't 100% agree with.
        pmoriarty 6y ago
        But I don't believe an adult who started playing chess late and plays 10,000 hours will be anywhere near as good as a child who started playing chess early and played 10,000 hours (all other variables held constant). Also, I have no confidence in a 10,000 hour (or any other fixed number of hours) figure. The hours it takes to attain a certain skill in chess will vary from person to person, depending on all sorts of intrinsic and extrinsic factors, including their training regimen, the skill of their teachers, and many of the factors I listed in my earlier post.
    - newen 6y ago
      Chess takes a lot of motivation because you need to practice for hours a day for years, even when you’re young.
gameswithgo 6y ago
It isn't assumed that IQ is a proxy go general cognitive ability, it is known that it correlates to some degree with many positive outcomes and abilities. So you can look up how well it correlates with what things, and what it doesn't, and get an idea of what it is predictive of. It isn't anywhere near perfect of course, you can't capture the whole of a person's cognitive ability in one number, but then it is only a "proxy" as you said.
- weego 6y ago
  Recent research across various specialisations just indicates that being good at mensa tests largely only correlates to being good at mensa tests.
  - david-gpu 6y ago
    Sources, please. Peer-reviewed, if possible. Mensa is an association of moderately high-IQ people, and IQ correlates positively [0] with education and income, among other things. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient#Social_correlations https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient#Social...
    - new2628 6y ago
      It correlates with education, income, etc. because it serves basically as a literacy test. (As in, very low IQ means you fail at most measurable things.) Once you condition on IQ>110, the correlation disappears.
      - rodonn 6y ago
        Do you have a source for this claim? Here are two survey articles with a lot of evidence about all the different outcomes that are strongly correlated with IQ. https://www.gwern.net/docs/iq/2015-strenze.pdf https://www.gwern.net/docs/iq/2015-strenze.pdf https://www.gwern.net/docs/iq/2007-strenze.pdf https://www.gwern.net/docs/iq/2007-strenze.pdf Specifically, when looking at people with IQ above 110, it seems like the correlations are still there at least for PhD level science. Most fields have average IQs above 130: http://www.religjournal.com/pdf/ijrr10001.pdf http://www.religjournal.com/pdf/ijrr10001.pdf One thing I didn't know initially is that IQ tests are normalized so the mean is 100 and the standard deviation is 10. If we assume IQ is normally distributed (not exactly true, but roughly accurate), then IQ of 110 puts you in the top 33% of the population. IQ of 130 puts you in the top 0.3%.
deleted 6y ago
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dmonitor 6y ago
Skills from chess certainly would translate to other fields, but that is true for any activity. The question is whether chess is better than alternative than other things.
csa 6y ago
IQ tests can have a lot of type 2 error (scoring lower than one’s theoretical maximum). I wouldn’t put too much weight on a low score for someone who is demonstrably intelligent. Edit: He was doing it while on stream (multitasking) while being watched (probably increased stress), while talking out his answers. For most folks who tried to do the same, the results would be much lower a score taken under typical conditions.
sukilot 6y ago
That test is terrible. He bombed the test because he didn't understand the format that the grid is a series of 3 geometric equations (one per row) like A XOR B = C

imaliesiera 6y ago

I've always thought of chess being more about talent rather than the measure of IQ but it also depends on what one's definition of "smart" really is.

pmoriarty 6y ago
Nah, chess ability is more about playing lots of chess when you're young, and being trained effectively at it at a critical age. If you start playing chess too late in your life, it doesn't matter what innate talents you have, you're never going to be very good.
- imaliesiera 6y ago
  There is definitely the aspect of talent. I've seen (and arbitrated) players who began at an early age, had the most effective training and became completely average or even stagnated. And I've also interacted with those who heightened their chess skills in a really short time and are among the highest rated players.
  - pmoriarty 6y ago
    Point well taken, but I'm still not convinced that the variability you describe couldn't be accounted for by things like differences in diet (which can greatly affect cognitive ability), or differing circumstances at home (ie. abusive homes, or parents who are neglective vs caring and nurturing) and/or outside the home (like various forms of stress when kids live in dangerous neighborhoods where their peers and adults get assaulted or murdered on a regular basis), parents who push their kids to achieve vs ones who don't care how or what their kids do, etc... Picking out the effects of nature vs nurture in a random chess playing kid is not easy, and I wouldn't be so quick to attribute to innate talent that which could be explained by environment. What is clear, however, and something which you did not seem to deny in your own response, is that playing a lot of chess when you're young is critical to overall chess performance. Without that even "intelligent" and very capable adults who started playing too late are just not going to catch up to capable kids who played a lot of chess early.
    - imaliesiera 6y ago
      Yes, I may have assumed that all other variables are held constant, which is usually not the case. Although on your other point, I feel as though your argument sounds more like the 10,000 Hour rule popularised by Malcom Gladwell which I don't 100% agree with.
      - pmoriarty 6y ago
        But I don't believe an adult who started playing chess late and plays 10,000 hours will be anywhere near as good as a child who started playing chess early and played 10,000 hours (all other variables held constant). Also, I have no confidence in a 10,000 hour (or any other fixed number of hours) figure. The hours it takes to attain a certain skill in chess will vary from person to person, depending on all sorts of intrinsic and extrinsic factors, including their training regimen, the skill of their teachers, and many of the factors I listed in my earlier post.
  - newen 6y ago
    Chess takes a lot of motivation because you need to practice for hours a day for years, even when you’re young.

gameswithgo 6y ago

It isn't assumed that IQ is a proxy go general cognitive ability, it is known that it correlates to some degree with many positive outcomes and abilities. So you can look up how well it correlates with what things, and what it doesn't, and get an idea of what it is predictive of. It isn't anywhere near perfect of course, you can't capture the whole of a person's cognitive ability in one number, but then it is only a "proxy" as you said.

weego 6y ago
Recent research across various specialisations just indicates that being good at mensa tests largely only correlates to being good at mensa tests.
- david-gpu 6y ago
  Sources, please. Peer-reviewed, if possible. Mensa is an association of moderately high-IQ people, and IQ correlates positively [0] with education and income, among other things. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient#Social_correlations https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient#Social...
  - new2628 6y ago
    It correlates with education, income, etc. because it serves basically as a literacy test. (As in, very low IQ means you fail at most measurable things.) Once you condition on IQ>110, the correlation disappears.
    - rodonn 6y ago
      Do you have a source for this claim? Here are two survey articles with a lot of evidence about all the different outcomes that are strongly correlated with IQ. https://www.gwern.net/docs/iq/2015-strenze.pdf https://www.gwern.net/docs/iq/2015-strenze.pdf https://www.gwern.net/docs/iq/2007-strenze.pdf https://www.gwern.net/docs/iq/2007-strenze.pdf Specifically, when looking at people with IQ above 110, it seems like the correlations are still there at least for PhD level science. Most fields have average IQs above 130: http://www.religjournal.com/pdf/ijrr10001.pdf http://www.religjournal.com/pdf/ijrr10001.pdf One thing I didn't know initially is that IQ tests are normalized so the mean is 100 and the standard deviation is 10. If we assume IQ is normally distributed (not exactly true, but roughly accurate), then IQ of 110 puts you in the top 33% of the population. IQ of 130 puts you in the top 0.3%.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

dmonitor 6y ago

Skills from chess certainly would translate to other fields, but that is true for any activity. The question is whether chess is better than alternative than other things.

csa 6y ago

IQ tests can have a lot of type 2 error (scoring lower than one’s theoretical maximum). I wouldn’t put too much weight on a low score for someone who is demonstrably intelligent. Edit: He was doing it while on stream (multitasking) while being watched (probably increased stress), while talking out his answers. For most folks who tried to do the same, the results would be much lower a score taken under typical conditions.

sukilot 6y ago

That test is terrible. He bombed the test because he didn't understand the format that the grid is a series of 3 geometric equations (one per row) like A XOR B = C