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I'm going to discuss your comment in three parts. Thank god this isn't reddit as I'd probably follow up with a "Your shit's all fucked up and you talk like a fa
by iuguy 18y ago
I'm going to discuss your comment in three parts. Thank god this isn't reddit as I'd probably follow up with a "Your shit's all fucked up and you talk like a fag" or a pun type post.
Your first assertion is that people who decry high IQs as the sole purviews of snotty brats is a combination of sour grapes and a biased sample. I can't speak based on a scientific sample of high IQ folk. I can only speak for myself and people I know. My IQ (in case you were wondering) is 167 according to SB5 testing (I was tested through most of my childhood and some of my early academic life) putting me in the fairly smart range. To provide a counterpoint, I'll quote Alfred Binet (the 'B' in SB5) and just say:
"The scale, properly speaking, does not permit the measure of intelligence, because intellectual qualities are not superposable, and therefore cannot be measured as linear surfaces are measured." - Binet 1905.
There are snotty brats with low IQs. There are snotty brats with high IQs. Thus we can surmise that in any given sample of sufficient size regardless of IQ there are snotty brats. If you don't believe me I suggest you visit 4chan.org sometime.
Your second comment tries to pair correlation with reality. In some cases this works, in your example it doesn't as "real intelligence" is undefined, yet we are expected to accept that this undefined and unmeasured form of intelligence correlates with IQ. If you were to define what constitutes real intelligence then there's a point of discussion, but you must admit that your statement 'Whatever "real intelligence" is' implies that you don't know what it is - to be honest no-one does and that's the problem. An IQ score doesn't provide a measure of real intelligence, only problem solving within a measured subset of boundaries.
This then acts as a counterpoint for your third argument being that:
The science cannot be strong if "real intelligence" is less definable than "Real Madrid". Therefore I pose the counterpoint that correlation of an individual's success rate of "Real Madrid" (whatever "success rate" is) is more valid than correlation with "Real intelligence".
After all, "Real Intelligence" never won La Liga, the European cup, and so on, yet noone would ever argue against the genius of Real Madrid's European cup winning squads, no more than you could argue with the master strokes of Van Gogh or Raphael, nor the abilities of Newton - despite his inferior understanding of modern mathematics and logic, nor the ancient greeks despite their limitations.
One of the things I really appreciate about HN is that people have constructive arguments and disagreements. I completely accept that there's an element of fun in the topic I discussed (particularly about football teams) but I would like to say that although I don't agree with you, thanks for expressing your opinion and challenging mine. It's always good to have to rethink your worldview :)
- jibiki 18y ago"In some cases this works, in your example it doesn't as 'real intelligence' is undefined, yet we are expected to accept that this undefined and unmeasured form of intelligence correlates with IQ." So do you think (general) intelligence exists?
- jerf 18y agoIf you have a point in your discussion of my first point, it escapes me. For your discussion of the second point and third point, let me tell you the term to Google: "g factor". You can take that argument up with psychologists themselves. Your arguments against correlation are pretty much what I was trying to cover with my parenthetical. You aren't decrying correlation, you're decrying popular misapprehensions about correlation, ones which I don't share. The correlation is present and the statistical analysis is simple; nobody can point at the g factor in one single test, but the statistical tests that show it is there is Statistics 101-type stuff. The science is clear. Take it up with the scientists. You can start by searching for "g factor". (I recommend the quotes be included.)