Is IQ a valid measure of intelligence ?

[Randall]

IQ

​

 

[smcder]

IQ

​

My German is a little rusty but I think I made it out OK ...

 

[smcder]

If you read it from bottom to top it says "Paul McCartney is dead."

 

[smcder]

http://homepages.gac.edu/~jwotton2/PSY225/rosenthal66.pdf

The Teacher Expectation Project | Character and Context

Rosenthal and Jacobson on the effect of teacher expectations on IQ gain.

 

[SRL+]

IQ

​

Message reads as follows:

This message serves to prove how our minds can do amazing things! Impressive things in the beginning it was hard but now, on this line your mind is reading it automatically without even thinking about it, Be proud! Only certain people can read this. Please forward if you can read this. ET has landed on the White House lawn and is now having lunch with the president.

 

[boomerang]

Feynman 125: A Polymath Physicist On Richard Feynman's "Low" IQ And Finding Another Einstein | Psychology Today

See also Stephen j Gould's "The Mismeasure of Man" and Robert j Sternberg's (what's with the "j"?) "Triarchic Theory of Intelligence" - Sternberg also wrote about creativity and wisdom.

Worth reading and a somewhat cautionary tale as well. Someone looking only at Feynman's verbal abilities as measured by that particular exam would have missed the forest by virtue of a view blocked by one particular tree.

What's the mildly contentious disagreement? You give some indication in your last post ... seems your wife would be in a position to make some interesting observations.

My wife places much less emphasis on the value of aptitude test scores. I think it is as much a matter of viewing the same issue from different angles as of core disagreement. She emphasizes, as any good teacher should, the needs and motivations of the individual and I often take a wider view. Society tells us to give our young people the message that anyone can be whatever they really want to be. I can't be quite so optimistic. No matter how badly I might want to be a Feynman or a Yo Yo Ma, nature had other ideas !

And still, I remain thankful and aware of the existential imperative to work with whatever tools we have been given. First and foremost we must be scrupulously cautious about imposing perceived limitations on young and developing minds. Many of my wife's students who were a real "hot mess" in middle school went on to become very productive members of society.

 

[smcder]

Worth reading and a somewhat cautionary tale as well. Someone looking only at Feynman's verbal abilities as measured by that particular exam would have missed the forest by virtue of a view blocked by one particular tree.



My wife places much less emphasis on the value of aptitude test scores. I think it is as much a matter of viewing the same issue from different angles as of core disagreement. She emphasizes, as any good teacher should, the needs and motivations of the individual and I often take a wider view. Society tells us to give our young people the message that anyone can be whatever they really want to be. I can't be quite so optimistic. No matter how badly I might want to be a Feynman or a Yo Yo Ma, nature had other ideas !

And still, I remain thankful and aware of the existential imperative to work with whatever tools we have been given. First and foremost we must be scrupulously cautious about imposing perceived limitations on young and developing minds. Many of my wife's students who were a real "hot mess" in middle school went on to become very productive members of society.

No matter how badly I might want to be a Feynman or a Yo Yo Ma, nature had other ideas !

Expertise in a given skill seems to require about 10,000 hours of practice ... which maybe takes a gift of persistence or heart ... maybe it takes more than 10,000 hours but I bet we don't know much about that because so few put in that kind of time on quality practice. I had a friend whose mother was rather determined and he took Suzuki method at a very young age and he now travels the world and teaches at a name brand university, it's hard to say if he had any extra talent or if he represented what an average person could do ...

This research seems to show it's acquired skill over native ability.

Expertise

When experts exhibit their superior performance in public their behavior looks so effortless and natural that we are tempted to attribute it to special talents. Although a certain amount of knowledge and training seems necessary, the role of acquired skill for the highest levels of achievement has traditionally been minimized. However, when scientists began measuring the experts' supposedly superior powers of speed, memory and intelligence with psychometric tests, no general superiority was found --the demonstrated superiority was domain specific. For example, the superiority of the chess experts' memory was constrained to regular chess positions and did not generalize to other types of materials (Djakow, Petrowski & Rudik, 1927). Not even IQ could distinguish the best among chessplayers (Doll & Mayr, 1987) nor the most successful and creative among artists and scientists (Taylor, 1975). In a recent review, Ericsson and Lehmann (1996) found that (1) measures of general basic capacities do not predict success in a domain, (2) the superior performance of experts is often very domain specific and transfer outside their narrow area of expertise is surprisingly limited and (3) systematic differences between experts and less proficient individuals nearly always reflect attributes acquired by the experts during their lengthy training.

Now think of all the cognitive resources that are dormant:

American Time Use Survey Summary

Watching TV was the leisure activity that occupied the most time (2.8 hours
per day), accounting for more than half of leisure time, on average, for those
age 15 and over.

At that rate, you start a child playing piano at age 6 and before he is 16, he will have 10,000 hours in. Another way to think about this is that the average kid in America is an expert at television .... ;-(

And think what it would be like if the "average" kid chose a path to expertise from age 6 to 16 ... in music, mathematics, art, sport ...

If all this is true, the average person is pretty extraordinary (potentially).

 

[boomerang]

No matter how badly I might want to be a Feynman or a Yo Yo Ma, nature had other ideas !

Expertise in a given skill seems to require about 10,000 hours of practice ... which maybe takes a gift of persistence or heart ... maybe it takes more than 10,000 hours but I bet we don't know much about that because so few put in that kind of time on quality practice. I had a friend whose mother was rather determined and he took Suzuki method at a very young age and he now travels the world and teaches at a name brand university, it's hard to say if he had any extra talent or if he represented what an average person could do ...

This research seems to show it's acquired skill over native ability.

Expertise

When experts exhibit their superior performance in public their behavior looks so effortless and natural that we are tempted to attribute it to special talents. Although a certain amount of knowledge and training seems necessary, the role of acquired skill for the highest levels of achievement has traditionally been minimized. However, when scientists began measuring the experts' supposedly superior powers of speed, memory and intelligence with psychometric tests, no general superiority was found --the demonstrated superiority was domain specific. For example, the superiority of the chess experts' memory was constrained to regular chess positions and did not generalize to other types of materials (Djakow, Petrowski & Rudik, 1927). Not even IQ could distinguish the best among chessplayers (Doll & Mayr, 1987) nor the most successful and creative among artists and scientists (Taylor, 1975). In a recent review, Ericsson and Lehmann (1996) found that (1) measures of general basic capacities do not predict success in a domain, (2) the superior performance of experts is often very domain specific and transfer outside their narrow area of expertise is surprisingly limited and (3) systematic differences between experts and less proficient individuals nearly always reflect attributes acquired by the experts during their lengthy training.

Now think of all the cognitive resources that are dormant:

American Time Use Survey Summary

Watching TV was the leisure activity that occupied the most time (2.8 hours
per day), accounting for more than half of leisure time, on average, for those
age 15 and over.

At that rate, you start a child playing piano at age 6 and before he is 16, he will have 10,000 hours in. Another way to think about this is that the average kid in America is an expert at television .... ;-(

And think what it would be like if the "average" kid chose a path to expertise from age 6 to 16 ... in music, mathematics, art, sport ...

If all this is true, the average person is pretty extraordinary (potentially).

Your emphasis on environmental components and dedication to acquisition of skills we sometimes shrug off as manifestation of "just talented", is well taken. I think also the plasticity of young and developing brains is never to be underestimated.

But I have a hard time envisioning all humans as running life's "software" on identical "hardware". The brain is, after all, a biological organ. For me, the question is more one of how early environment and genetic endowment interact than of either alone. Here, I think, is where the greatest payoff may be found. I don't doubt the so called 10,000 hour rule. But one could just as easily ask why a given individual happens to be motivated to dedicate 10,000 hours in pursuit of a very specific and complex skill set. Incremental reward by improvement for hard work in practice must be, in itself, one of the most powerful of motivators.

And lastly, there are now decades of adoptive twin studies. There will probably never be a 'last word' on this subject and adoptive twin studies certainly are not.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304898704577478482432277706

Effects of Heredity and Environment on Intelligence | Education.com

 

[smcder]

Your emphasis on environmental components and dedication to acquisition of skills we sometimes shrug off as manifestation of "just talented", is well taken. I think also the plasticity of young and developing brains is never to be underestimated.

But I have a hard time envisioning all humans as running life's "software" on identical "hardware". The brain is, after all, a biological organ. For me, the question is more one of how early environment and genetic endowment interact than of either alone. Here, I think, is where the greatest payoff may be found. I don't doubt the so called 10,000 hour rule. But one could just as easily ask why a given individual happens to be motivated to dedicate 10,000 hours in pursuit of a very specific and complex skill set. Incremental reward by improvement for hard work in practice must be, in itself, one of the most powerful of motivators.

And lastly, there are now decades of adoptive twin studies. There will probably never be a 'last word' on this subject and adoptive twin studies certainly are not.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304898704577478482432277706

Effects of Heredity and Environment on Intelligence | Education.com

What was most interesting to me was that measures of general skill didn't differentiate the expert, superiority was domain specific which argues both for a re-assessment of the role of practice and against a rigid idea of "g" or general intelligence.

That doesn't mean other measurables wouldn't discriminate - such as personality traits- but I also suspect in any given individual, intangibles play a role.

Of course what makes a Yo Yo Ma is partly cultural reception - aesthetics and trends in music ... what's popular and personality.

 

[Jeff Davis]

A great, GREAT, and thoroughly fascinating topic. IMO, 125 and Feynman says it all. Of course, further breakitondown is required.

My wife is a recently retired public school teacher, having made a long and successful career of shaping young minds. We have had, over the years, a mildly contentious disagreement over the meaning and validity of written tests that measure intellectual aptitude--i.e., IQ tests.

A great, GREAT, and thoroughly fascinating area in which to disagree and expand one's awareness. IMO, 125 and Feynman says it all. Of course, further breakitalldown (thank you William S. Burroughs) is required and I shall proceed with my own experiences and interlaced opinions.

Growing up throughout my childhood, something that many contend that I have never parted with, I was always attracted to the quality of intelligence amidst and within the small circle of friends that I made and best related to. In the first, second, and third grade it was Brian who was my best friend. Whose house I slept over at and whose birthday party's I most eagerly attended. Brian was an exceptionally intelligent kid known for hanging out in the elementary school library, tracing pictures of dinosaurs onto notebook paper, and copying down their Latin derived names. He would have me verbally quiz him via his self penned flash cards, in a whisper of course due the fact that we were in the school library, as to the correct pronunciation and spelling of those dinosaur names! It was he that first taught me the word Paleontologist. Naturally, he insisted on spelling it for me.

Post the third grade, my parents sent me to a private school due to the onset of the public school system's impending racial segregation. I still vividly remember the public school system's attempt at conditioning us all to this fascinating process. At very least it was fascinating to me in the third grade due to the fact that as much was represent of a "get out of school" class field trip in which whole class rooms, on a strict prenatally initiated volunteer basis, were sent across town to the black community's parallel school system for a day, while they did the same thing by sending a percentage of black children to our district on that same day. Yes folks, even in those days, (1960s) the social engineers were determined to run the farm their way right down to the promotion of fluoride treatments to your teeth in the school classroom!

Anyhow, I arrived a St. whatever's 4th grade doorway a few cities away, straight away. This being despite the fact, that at least in my mind, I had sincerely enjoyed the heck out of the fun aforementioned field trip. This being amidst the childhood ignorance at the time, of being both pretend "jumped" by several little black boys in the school gymnasium, and then stabbed in the palm of my hand latter that same day by one of my new found 3rd grade "brethren". This was not as long impacting to my psychological person, nor nearly as serious as it might seem. Being pretend jumped consisted of three kids simultaneously jumping onto my back while I was standing, passing behind the curtains on the gymnasium's stage, while waiting in line to proceed for the hot lunch service. In those days the gym was always turned into a table top cafeteria at lunch time and you waited in line to go by the school's kitchen window which was always connected adjacent to the gymnasium via a large roll down covered window at which your tray was filled with that days milk and lunch grub. Anyhow, I shook those 3 guys off like fleas as I had always been about twice as big as most for my age while growing up. One of them started crying due the fact that when I did throw 'em off he lost his balance and fell on some equipment like parallel bars or something. So the rest of them decided they would leave me alone. Later that afternoon, the class was a little rowdy prior to starting and it was a reasonably sharp pencil's lead that I got stabbed with in the palm of my right hand. I never told my mom or dad about that, despite still having the pencil lead broken off in palm of my hand, and it ended up healing that way. I could see a dark spot under the skin of my right palm for roughly the next 5 or 6 years. No big deal to a kid.

Once settled into St. Cliques, I met several fast friends in this fine new semi religious private institutional learning establishment. Two of which I still know well to this day. Both being a couple of the best friends that I have ever had. Tod is unquestionably the most gifted human being I have ever known with respect to and for raw intelligence. A BRILLIANT man if EVER there were one, right out of the chute. Tod's father is a retired professor emeritus from a local high level university. His mother was recruited directly, and worked for a considerable amount of time for the CIA ,prior to having her children and settling down with her family. To describe this family as being "smart" would be akin to calling King Kong a monkey.

When I would spend the night in Tod's home and go to school the next day at this private elementary/junior high school, a ritual that went back and forth routinely in each others households both in the summer, and during the school year, the following was a routine observation of my friend Tod. We would, as kids are typically instructed to do, go to bed at a specified "bedtime". Well, naturally that meant going into whoever's room and keeping quiet enough so that the parents didn't know you were still awake. We both enjoyed reading and drawing so this part was easy enough to get away with. After a short while I would tire and just fall asleep as kids typically do. Not so much the case with my friend Tod. Many times I would awake in the wee hours to find the light still on, or sometimes after a full night's sleep in the morning, only to find Tod still reading and never having slept a wink. Didn't phase him one bit. He would just stop reading, get up, eat breakfast, get dressed, and off to school we'd go. Tod's favorite choice of reading material during these overnight stays, the Encyclopedia Britannica!

Tod graduated at the top of the 8th grade community where we had met, won a paid scholarship to a local elite private school of learning known, and still known as, Cranbrook. Next he would win a full paid college level scholarship to some elite Ivy League school where even his boarding was covered out on the east coast. Years went by, like 25-30 of them, and I managed to track down Tod's parents in an effort to reacquaint myself with my old friend. I was very excited when I found an email address online via his father's former profession so I inquired. About a month later I heard back from Tod's Mom who proceeded to fill me in to some degree. Now you have to understand, I am a man of imagination. I had often imagined Tod as having been recruited and inducted into some high level top secret R&D government UFO program or whatever. Possibly he had become a Harvard Professor, or an Astrophysicist. But whatever it was that he was doing, it just HAD to be amazing and beyond the cutting edge with respect to his truly gifted degree of intelligence. So what had Tod been doing with himself all this time? He had become a commercial fisherman in Alaska! Good grief.

It seems that he had gotten into a fight in school and found himself in trouble after which time he made his way across the USA to Alaska where he spent a good deal of time living among the local Aleuts, sleeping on the beach, and doing free psychotropic drugs secreted by toads or sea slugs or some such critter. These days, Tod is a maintenance man at a factory sized commercial bakery and sadly has spent considerable time living in his automobile.

Remember Brian, the Paleontologist? Well, I ran back into him locally in my 20s quite by surprise. What were we doing and how did we meet by chance? We were both getting blasted out of our minds drinking Jack Daniels, smoking dope, and dropping acid in a public park that belonged to that same exact elementary school who's library we had made our infamous dinosaur pacts in nearly twenty years earlier! I sincerely hope that Brian made it out too.

IMO, intelligence testing is no real indicator of anything apart from depicting a very narrow slice of one's raw potential. In fact, I good and guarantee you that it has NOTHING to do with success. In fact, I would state unoquivicobly that it has FAR less to do with the actual impact we have on the world around us compared to the qualities of enthusiasm, consistent determination, and a clear and undaunted sense of conviction. If you want to get right down to the science of success, I would strongly suggest starting here with respect to the seven Cs of success. Morris Institute of Human Values: Weekly Wisdom Certainly, this guy's (Tom Morris) lectures are the most powerful I have ever witnessed in person. Amazing.

What an absolute GENIUS Richard Feynman was. I was initially turned onto him via this amazing Nova edition from 1988 right when it first aired.

Via this great show, Feynman is the one who introduced me to something TRULY important. Namely: Tuvan Throat Singing and spastic bongos.

If you REALLY dig into Feynman, or Planck, or Einstein, I good and damn guarantee you that it was NOT their intelligence that was responsible for the impact they had in the world in which we live. Einstein absolutely struggled with intelligence. He had several nervous breakdowns due to as much. All these cats exemplified the seven Cs far and away more than their brain's were some kind superstitious magical light that lit up the world around them. There intelligence wasn't it at all. It was however, their rather unique intelligences combined with an undying commitment to their passionate convictions.

Still in yet, I have yet to hear of the single biggest causal agent ever involved in ANY and all forms of successful impact. Namely: Circumstance, or what is know as good old fashioned, LUCK.

Any of these men, no matter who we ever refer to as an example, could have just as easily have become street sweepers, with just the slightest bit of differing circumstances. Just the tinist bit actually. The wings of a butterfly are truly a POWERFUL thing.

Good Luck!

 

[smcder]

A great, GREAT, and thoroughly fascinating topic. IMO, 125 and Feynman says it all. Of course, further breakitondown is required.


A great, GREAT, and thoroughly fascinating area in which to disagree and expand one's awareness. IMO, 125 and Feynman says it all. Of course, further breakitalldown (thank you William S. Burroughs) is required and I shall proceed with my own experiences and interlaced opinions.

Growing up throughout my childhood, something that many contend that I have never parted with, I was always attracted to the quality of intelligence amidst and within the small circle of friends that I made and best related to. In the first, second, and third grade it was Brian who was my best friend. Whose house I slept over at and whose birthday party's I most eagerly attended. Brian was an exceptionally intelligent kid known for hanging out in the elementary school library, tracing pictures of dinosaurs onto notebook paper, and copying down their Latin derived names. He would have me verbally quiz him via his self penned flash cards, in a whisper of course due the fact that we were in the school library, as to the correct pronunciation and spelling of those dinosaur names! It was he that first taught me the word Paleontologist. Naturally, he insisted on spelling it for me.

Post the third grade, my parents sent me to a private school due to the onset of the public school system's impending racial segregation. I still vividly remember the public school system's attempt at conditioning us all to this fascinating process. At very least it was fascinating to me in the third grade due to the fact that as much was represent of a "get out of school" class field trip in which whole class rooms, on a strict prenatally initiated volunteer basis, were sent across town to the black community's parallel school system for a day, while they did the same thing by sending a percentage of black children to our district on that same day. Yes folks, even in those days, (1960s) the social engineers were determined to run the farm their way right down to the promotion of fluoride treatments to your teeth in the school classroom!

Anyhow, I arrived a St. whatever's 4th grade doorway a few cities away, straight away. This being despite the fact, that at least in my mind, I had sincerely enjoyed the heck out of the fun aforementioned field trip. This being amidst the childhood ignorance at the time, of being both pretend "jumped" by several little black boys in the school gymnasium, and then stabbed in the palm of my hand latter that same day by one of my new found 3rd grade "brethren". This was not as long impacting to my psychological person, nor nearly as serious as it might seem. Being pretend jumped consisted of three kids simultaneously jumping onto my back while I was standing, passing behind the curtains on the gymnasium's stage, while waiting in line to proceed for the hot lunch service. In those days the gym was always turned into a table top cafeteria at lunch time and you waited in line to go by the school's kitchen window which was always connected adjacent to the gymnasium via a large roll down covered window at which your tray was filled with that days milk and lunch grub. Anyhow, I shook those 3 guys off like fleas as I had always been about twice as big as most for my age while growing up. One of them started crying due the fact that when I did throw 'em off he lost his balance and fell on some equipment like parallel bars or something. So the rest of them decided they would leave me alone. Later that afternoon, the class was a little rowdy prior to starting and it was a reasonably sharp pencil's lead that I got stabbed with in the palm of my right hand. I never told my mom or dad about that, despite still having the pencil lead broken off in palm of my hand, and it ended up healing that way. I could see a dark spot under the skin of my right palm for roughly the next 5 or 6 years. No big deal to a kid.

Once settled into St. Cliques, I met several fast friends in this fine new semi religious private institutional learning establishment. Two of which I still know well to this day. Both being a couple of the best friends that I have ever had. Tod is unquestionably the most gifted human being I have ever known with respect to and for raw intelligence. A BRILLIANT man if EVER there were one, right out of the chute. Tod's father is a retired professor emeritus from a local high level university. His mother was recruited directly, and worked for a considerable amount of time for the CIA ,prior to having her children and settling down with her family. To describe this family as being "smart" would be akin to calling King Kong a monkey.

When I would spend the night in Tod's home and go to school the next day at this private elementary/junior high school, a ritual that went back and forth routinely in each others households both in the summer, and during the school year, the following was a routine observation of my friend Tod. We would, as kids are typically instructed to do, go to bed at a specified "bedtime". Well, naturally that meant going into whoever's room and keeping quiet enough so that the parents didn't know you were still awake. We both enjoyed reading and drawing so this part was easy enough to get away with. After a short while I would tire and just fall asleep as kids typically do. Not so much the case with my friend Tod. Many times I would awake in the wee hours to find the light still on, or sometimes after a full night's sleep in the morning, only to find Tod still reading and never having slept a wink. Didn't phase him one bit. He would just stop reading, get up, eat breakfast, get dressed, and off to school we'd go. Tod's favorite choice of reading material during these overnight stays, the Encyclopedia Britannica!

Tod graduated at the top of the 8th grade community where we had met, won a paid scholarship to a local elite private school of learning known, and still known as, Cranbrook. Next he would win a full paid college level scholarship to some elite Ivy League school where even his boarding was covered out on the east coast. Years went by, like 25-30 of them, and I managed to track down Tod's parents in an effort to reacquaint myself with my old friend. I was very excited when I found an email address online via his father's former profession so I inquired. About a month later I heard back from Tod's Mom who proceeded to fill me in to some degree. Now you have to understand, I am a man of imagination. I had often imagined Tod as having been recruited and inducted into some high level top secret R&D government UFO program or whatever. Possibly he had become a Harvard Professor, or an Astrophysicist. But whatever it was that he was doing, it just HAD to be amazing and beyond the cutting edge with respect to his truly gifted degree of intelligence. So what had Tod been doing with himself all this time? He had become a commercial fisherman in Alaska! Good grief.

It seems that he had gotten into a fight in school and found himself in trouble after which time he made his way across the USA to Alaska where he spent a good deal of time living among the local Aleuts, sleeping on the beach, and doing free psychotropic drugs secreted by toads or sea slugs or some such critter. These days, Tod is a maintenance man at a factory sized commercial bakery and sadly has spent considerable time living in his automobile.

Remember Brian, the Paleontologist? Well, I ran back into him locally in my 20s quite by surprise. What were we doing and how did we meet by chance? We were both getting blasted out of our minds drinking Jack Daniels, smoking dope, and dropping acid in a public park that belonged to that same exact elementary school who's library we had made our infamous dinosaur pacts in nearly twenty years earlier! I sincerely hope that Brian made it out too.

IMO, intelligence testing is no real indicator of anything apart from depicting a very narrow slice of one's raw potential. In fact, I good and guarantee you that it has NOTHING to do with success. In fact, I would state unoquivicobly that it has FAR less to do with the actual impact we have on the world around us compared to the qualities of enthusiasm, consistent determination, and a clear and undaunted sense of conviction. If you want to get right down to the science of success, I would strongly suggest starting here with respect to the seven Cs of success. Morris Institute of Human Values: Weekly Wisdom Certainly, this guy's (Tom Morris) lectures are the most powerful I have ever witnessed in person. Amazing.

What an absolute GENIUS Richard Feynman was. I was initially turned onto him via this amazing Nova edition from 1988 right when it first aired.

Via this great show, Feynman is the one who introduced me to something TRULY important. Namely: Tuvan Throat Singing and spastic bongos.

If you REALLY dig into Feynman, or Planck, or Einstein, I good and damn guarantee you that it was NOT their intelligence that was responsible for the impact they had in the world in which we live. Einstein absolutely struggled with intelligence. He had several nervous breakdowns due to as much. All these cats exemplified the seven Cs far and away more than their brain's were some kind superstitious magical light that lit up the world around them. There intelligence wasn't it at all. It was however, their rather unique intelligences combined with an undying commitment to their passionate convictions.

Still in yet, I have yet to hear of the single biggest causal agent ever involved in ANY and all forms of successful impact. Namely: Circumstance, or what is know as good old fashioned, LUCK.

Any of these men, no matter who we ever refer to as an example, could have just as easily have become street sweepers, with just the slightest bit of differing circumstances. Just the tinist bit actually. The wings of a butterfly are truly a POWERFUL thing.

Good Luck!

So ... we can put you down as "no"? ;-)

A couple of things come to mind ... Warren Buffett said his only talent (for amassing money) is only useful in the time and place he happened to be born in ... otherwise he would have been an "ordinary" person and he acknowledges what Robert J Sternberg discusses in The Triarchic Mind; that once adequate intelligence is attained for a field, creative accomplishment is no longer predicted from IQ ... he discussed the case of an extremely successful handicapper with an IQ of 80, whose model of deciding which horse to bet on took into account a staggering number of variables ... wisdom seemed to be particularly unrelated to IQ.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/29/opinion/david-brooks-the-mental-virtues.html

Warren Buffett made a similar point in his own sphere, “Investing is not a game where the guy with the 160 I.Q. beats the guy with the 130 I.Q. Once you have ordinary intelligence, what you need is the temperament to control the urges that get other people into trouble.”

 

[boomerang]

... wisdom seemed to be particularly unrelated to IQ.

The most important take-away here, IMO. And an excellent example of the distinction between wisdom and intelligence.

A key point is an understanding, inasmuch as that is possible, of the difference between a kind of "raw" capacity for abstract thinking and the totality of a person's interaction with society. Perhaps the latter can only be measured in hindsight? Important also, is that anytime we crunch numbers, valid or not, while attempting to better understand human behavior, we are always speaking in terms of the generalized rather than the specific. We must be careful that we do not become one of those "liars who figure" in the process of amassing statistics.

 

[smcder]

The most important take-away here, IMO. And an excellent example of the distinction between wisdom and intelligence.

A key point is an understanding, inasmuch as that is possible, of the difference between a kind of "raw" capacity for abstract thinking and the totality of a person's interaction with society. Perhaps the latter can only be measured in hindsight? Important also, is that anytime we crunch numbers, valid or not, while attempting to better understand human behavior, we are always speaking in terms of the generalized rather than the specific. We must be careful that we do not become one of those "liars who figure" in the process of amassing statistics.

"the totality of a person's interaction with society. " I think that's perfect.

 

[Constance]

For me, the question is more one of how early environment and genetic endowment interact than of either alone. Here, I think, is where the greatest payoff may be found. I don't doubt the so called 10,000 hour rule. But one could just as easily ask why a given individual happens to be motivated to dedicate 10,000 hours in pursuit of a very specific and complex skill set. Incremental reward by improvement for hard work in practice must be, in itself, one of the most powerful of motivators.

I agree. All that and also love of the subject, whether math or music or art or philosophy. How do we account for that quality in the individual that makes all hours spent in improving one's skill a pleasure, even a pure joy? I think that's why a general education (including the arts and humanities as well as the sciences) is necessary from elementary school through at least two years of college (preferably four) before the major is chosen. That kind of broad education gives one a taste of everything and the opportunity to explore that which feels innately rewarding and satisfying. It also provides increased opportunities for all students to encounter a gifted teacher whose vital engagement with his or her subject matter opens that subject up to the fertile and still open mind and spirit of the young person. I'm always hearing people say that their lives were changed by such teachers.

If one is born under lucky stars, he or she can also pursue several fields to fulfillment in different subjects. One of my best friends was especially skilled in science and maths in school in Switzerland and was encouraged by his teachers to pursue organic chemistry, so he did, at the University of Edinburgh, through to the Ph.D. He then worked for ten or fifteen years as an organic chemist in academia, publishing several dozen papers. And then he became bored with the field and started over again in Comparative Literature obtaining a second doctorate in that field, with emphasis in the Baroque. Now, in his retirement, he's published two novels and a play and is at work on a third novel. Meant to become a Renaissance Man or not? In either case, he had the opportunities to become one, and in a more rational, inspired, and just world we all would have such opportunities. These days major universities are limiting the number of hours of coursework allowed by a Bachelor's Degree, and worse, technical schools are cropping up everywhere to supply the economic power structure with the kinds of cogs it requires to operate its machines. The farther we go in this direction, in my opinion, the less satisfaction people in general will find in their work and ultimately in their lives.

 

[smcder]

For fun ...

IQ scores of the famous

I have also heard that Ashton Kutcher and this guy:



Are in the high IQ category, which goes to show the importance of being Earnest ...