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[StreetsofBeige]

And neither of those has to do with intelligence as tested in an IQ test.

I dont know how legit all those IQ tests are online, but like many of us I've done my share of doing them to see where I stand.

IQ tests IMO arent useful at all because they all seem similar in logic and numbers and pattern recognition. At least the ones I've done. If you've done one, you have an idea what to do for future ones.

I have a business background and deal with finances and work with finance, sales and marketing. Anything I've seen in those typical IQ tests have absolutely zero to do with business. Unless there's some general math questions in them I've done requiring quick reflexes to do math in your head (which is important because you got to have some numbers skills fast), I'd say the rest of IQ tests dont mean anything for my job function.

I totally understand that IQ tests try to test a person's general cognitive ability for vague things like shapes, patterns and in what relation Sally's mom is compared to her brother Tom, who is uncle to Pete and barber to Tony.

But some of those IQ questions are no different than me staring at wallpaper, looking at shapes and guessing what the next square foot of wallpaper looks like if someone covered it and asked me what it is.

 

[DeepEnigma]

thats the part i dont get, theres no questioning the fact that hes highly intelligent but man hes said some seriously dumb shit..

Maybe he feels he needs to dumb it down to the level of the literal idiocracy that is the current political paradigm?

 

[Dark Star]

Society puts way too much stock in scientific/mathematical intelligence. What about art/music/writing/etc? Creative/cultural stuff. I feel like many people are intelligent, but they would rather join a rock band than go to medical school. Lots of intelligent people end up becoming plumbers and carpenters and do other skilled-trades that society doesn't think takes "brains". But you don't want a dumb guy repairing your sink, or an idiot roofing your house, because it will cause more problems long-term if done incorrectly. Not everyone has the upbringing, culture, or both financial and familial/peer support to become a rocket scientist or brain surgeon, so they end up doing something more attainable. I'd say becoming a brain surgeon is more-so a matter of determination, work ethic, deep interest in medicine, and drive over extremely high intelligence. Of course you need to be above average intelligence to study and learn that stuff, but not everyone is interested in a career path so rigorous and time consuming. Life is short, do what you wanna do, follow your passion

 

[Razvedka]

People are not cognitively equal.

Intelligence, as we measure it (g factor) is among the most hereditary of all traits and correlates with a variety of things. Brain size being one of them.

Lore is right about this, mitigating factors not withstanding (upbringing, nutrition, so on) & Flynn Effect.

Something to note though:

While interrelated:

Intelligence - Is neither knowledge nor wisdom.

Wisdom - is neither knowledge nor intelligence.

Knowledge - is neither intelligence nor wisdom.

 

[Bernd Lauert]

I dont know how legit all those IQ tests are online, but like many of us I've done my share of doing them to see where I stand.

IQ tests IMO arent useful at all because they all seem similar in logic and numbers and pattern recognition. At least the ones I've done. If you've done one, you have an idea what to do for future ones.

I have a business background and deal with finances and work with finance, sales and marketing. Anything I've seen in those typical IQ tests have absolutely zero to do with business. Unless there's some general math questions in them I've done requiring quick reflexes to do math in your head (which is important because you got to have some numbers skills fast), I'd say the rest of IQ tests dont mean anything for my job function.

I totally understand that IQ tests try to test a person's general cognitive ability for vague things like shapes, patterns and in what relation Sally's mom is compared to her brother Tom, who is uncle to Pete and barber to Tony.

But some of those IQ questions are no different than me staring at wallpaper, looking at shapes and guessing what the next square foot of wallpaper looks like if someone covered it and asked me what it is.

I've only done https://mensa.dk/iqtest/ and I loved it because it's only patterns, no bullshit. It also gets super hard later on, but maybe I'm a brainlet.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Society puts way too much stock in scientific/mathematical intelligence. What about art/music/writing/etc? Creative/cultural stuff. I feel like many people are intelligent, but they would rather join a rock band than go to medical school. Lots of intelligent people end up becoming plumbers and carpenters and do other skilled-trades that society doesn't think takes "brains". But you don't want a dumb guy repairing your sink, or an idiot roofing your house, because it will cause more problems long-term if done incorrectly. Not everyone has the upbringing, culture, or both financial and familial/peer support to become a rocket scientist or brain surgeon, so they end up doing something more attainable. I'd say becoming a brain surgeon is more-so a matter of determination, work ethic, deep interest in medicine, and drive over extremely high intelligence. Of course you need to be above average intelligence to study and learn that stuff, but not everyone is interested in a career path so rigorous and time consuming. Life is short, do what you wanna do, follow your passion

It's probably because to get those jobs, you need to qualify with marks, and then if they graduate you get a proof of degrees. So the "proof" is there of achievement.

Someone who is an awesome contractor or plumber starting with apprenticeships and working their way up to making $100,000+ knowing how to fix shit just by looking at it and going to his truck to get some parts is something that cant be measured. Even though he did a great job, he would still be looked down upon vs a $60,000 office analyst numbnutting it on excel because the image is: office dude = prim and proper brainer, while blue collar guy = dumb slob.

The same goes for arts. If someone is a master violinist, how does someone measure how good he or she is? The doctor is easy. Great marks and makes $400,000 per year at a hospital. And everyone calls him Dr.

Going by what I see working in an office for 20+ years, I can tell everyone here the typical analyst is both an idiot and not even great at excel anyway. Yet somehow they can pull off $60-90k doing lousy work. Its not until you get to SFA level (senior financial analyst) that makes around $100k when the value starts to show.

 

[12Goblins]

So I know neurosurgeons aren’t super geniuses since I work with them. But they are intelligent. And in order to complete the requirements for the career, they have to be incredibly driven. To me, this is like saying “anyone can bench 300lbs if they work hard enough.” Maybe that’s true, but willingness to do the hard work is what sets people apart. And similar to the bench press example, some people will need to work harder than others, and for some it won’t matter how hard they work, they will never achieve it.

have to agree with this, and I like the benching anolpgy - anyone can do it, but what sets them apart is that they are driven, focused, and committed enough to execute which tend not to get measured in these tests. I've known some fuckwit neurosurgeons, one of which died from covid at age 51 because he didn't know how to care of himself and taking care of him was just pitiful. and we can't forget this dick head that fooled a bunch of other fuckwit doctors into thinking he knew what he was doing

Spoiler

(Christopher Dunstch)

it's terrifying to think about that these are the people that fly our planes and control our lives, so I completely understand why we tend to have a lot of reverence for these specialists, who are really just that

 

[Airbus Jr]

You can have 200 IQ and ended up as janitor if you want to and you can be a neurosurgery or aerospace engineer even if your IQ is bellow 100

Your effort makes the difference if you study hard you can achieve greatness but if youre lazy no matter how smart or talented you are you wont achieve anything

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Someone can be the smartest person in the world that enjoys helping people in a hospital. But if they cant take cutting people open and staring at guts and blood, you wont make it as a surgeon.

So similar to what you guys are saying about being driven, or having balls of steel it's something that cant be measured. No cheesy test about memory skills or pattern recognition can displace that.

 

[TheMan]

big factors in success are opportunity, drive, luck, and connections. Those can take you just as far or further than intelligence.

 

[InverseAgonist]

You can have 200 IQ and ended up as janitor if you want to and you can be a neurosurgery or aerospace engineer even if your IQ is bellow 100

Your effort makes the difference if you study hard you can achieve greatness but if youre lazy no matter how smart or talented you are you wont achieve anything

That's actually highly unlikely (the moving upward part) if you follow the statistics of IQ and g in psychometric testing. But, if it makes you feel better.

There is a tremendous genetic component to cognitive ability that is coupled with achievement. This can be seen in the Roe and SMPY datasets.

I would recommend reading The Cambridge Handbook of Intelligence -- it's a fantastic resource on this topic.

Or Stephen Hsu has talked extensively about this, there's one of his talks at Michigan State (I believe) on Genetic Architecture of Intelligence that is tangentially related and interesting.

 

[Airbus Jr]

That's actually highly unlikely (the moving upward part) if you follow the statistics of IQ and g in psychometric testing. But, if it makes you feel better.

There is a tremendous genetic component to cognitive ability that is coupled with achievement. This can be seen in the Roe and SMPY datasets.

I would recommend reading The Cambridge Handbook of Intelligence -- it's a fantastic resource on this topic.

Or Stephen Hsu has talked extensively about this, there's one of his talks at Michigan State (I believe) on Genetic Architecture of Intelligence that is tangentially related and interesting.

I never deny that high IQ cant achieve greatness

What i mean is IQ is not everything to measure greatness EQ more important these days and far more significant

 

[InverseAgonist]

I never deny that high IQ cant achieve greatness

What i mean is IQ is not everything to measure greatness EQ more important these days and far more significant

I would suggest that is very strong language given that it's still unknown if EI even provides for marginal or incremental benefit over the g metric at all.

I understand what you're saying and we can find common ground here, but we need to be precise. At this time IQ/g has much more grounding and support in the psychometric community than does EI. And it should be noted that there is a hell of a lot of predictive capability that knowing IQ/g provides.

 

[strange headache]

Eh, the study seems to ignore the narrow margins at play here. Sometimes 10 IQ points make a huge difference:

That being said, engineers and neurosurgeons are not necessarily smarter but certainly more dedicated. The sacrifices you have to make in order to master these occupations are way higher than with many other jobs. Your degree is for the most part not a result of your intelligence, but your diligence. Most people prefer a hedonistic lifestyle and either lack the necessary discipline or simply don't want to make the required sacrifices.

In the end, it's mostly a question of interest, motivation and self-discipline. People with higher IQ are usually, but not always, better at managing their temptations.

 

[Coolwhhip]

You can have 200 IQ and ended up as janitor if you want to and you can be a neurosurgery or aerospace engineer even if your IQ is bellow 100

Your effort makes the difference if you study hard you can achieve greatness but if youre lazy no matter how smart or talented you are you wont achieve anything

Yep. Fighters win. And if you are a very smart fighter you win even more.

 

[DanteFox]

As someone studying rocket science and trying to become one as a professional propulsion engineer, I can safely say that rocket science is really freaking hard. The proof is in how few entities (public or private) have been able to send a payload into orbit and the fact that launches still fail from time to time. That said, I believe anyone can learn it if they really apply themselves. So both statements are true.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Eh, the study seems to ignore the narrow margins at play here. Sometimes 10 IQ points make a huge difference:

That being said, engineers and neurosurgeons are not necessarily smarter but certainly more dedicated. The sacrifices you have to make in order to master these occupations are way higher than with many other jobs. Your degree is for the most part not a result of your intelligence, but your diligence. Most people prefer a hedonistic lifestyle and either lack the necessary discipline or simply don't want to make the required sacrifices.

In the end, it's mostly a question of interest, motivation and self-discipline. People with higher IQ are usually, but not always, better at managing their temptations.

The thing about IQ tests is that they seem heavy into mathy kinds of problems.... numbers, math, patterns, logic problems etc... which skew to the professions heavy into stats and logic. So they kind of go hand in hand.

If IQ tests were skewed to writing skills, case study coherence, or even something as simple as how neat your writing is and spelling mistake tracking, someone in an arts field would run laps around a mathy person.

 

[jufonuk]

The next step in our woke society: letting idiots go to medical school because it's unfair only smart people get to go.

I fear this will happen.

 

[InverseAgonist]

The thing about IQ tests is that they seem heavy into mathy kinds of problems.... numbers, math, patterns, logic problems etc... which skew to the professions heavy into stats and logic. So they kind of go hand in hand.

If IQ tests were skewed to writing skills, case study coherence, or even something as simple as how neat your writing is and spelling mistake tracking, someone in an arts field would run laps around a mathy person.

That's actually not exactly true either. The factor loading on almost any cognitively intensive skill is highly coupled to g. You're example of "neat writing" notwithstanding as I don't think you were serious.

For example, from the video in my previous post you can see that Verbal, Spatial and Mathematical scores correlate well when viewed together. It's not the case, as people often think, that good writers aren't good at spatial ability or math. Much to the contrary, as laid out in the text I put a link to that is excellent, these conditions are correlated and highly genetic.

 

[nush]

“I will always choose a lazy person to do a difficult job because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.” Bill Gates.

A lot of truth in that quote, as long as the lazy person isnt so lazy they don't finish the job. But if you get to work for Microsoft you're going to been a certain performance standard. Personally I think I'm smart enough, but I've never taken the test to give me a bit of paper to say I'm smart a/b/c. I'm just not motivated, unless something interests me then I can be all in.

 

[InverseAgonist]

I mean, does anyone here think the normal IQ distribution overlaps perfectly with the average distribution of physicists? Because that's what's being said.

 

[The Pleasure]

Well this is a UK study so they probably only surveyed the NHS surgeons and not the smart ones that fucked off to the US for 10x salary.

Welcome to British Costco. I love you, guv.

 

[Bernd Lauert]

You can have 200 IQ and ended up as janitor if you want to and you can be a neurosurgery or aerospace engineer even if your IQ is bellow 100

Your effort makes the difference if you study hard you can achieve greatness but if youre lazy no matter how smart or talented you are you wont achieve anything

I'd like to see a successful sub 100 IQ aerospace engineer. Would be interesting. I don't think such a person exists though.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

I've only done https://mensa.dk/iqtest/ and I loved it because it's only patterns, no bullshit. It also gets super hard later on, but maybe I'm a brainlet.

Last 10 were hard. I'm literally heading out to dinner so I just guessed at the last 3-4 without even looking it. They looked hard so I probably wouldnt get them anyway even if I sat there with the time remaining.

I always get about 130-ish on IQ tests. So this makes sense. I missed out on Mensa 131! lol

 

[Bernd Lauert]

Last 10 were hard. I'm literally heading out to dinner so I just guessed at the last 3-4 without even looking it. They looked hard so I probably wouldnt get them anyway even if I sat there with the time remaining.

I always get about 130-ish on IQ tests. So this makes sense. I missed out on Mensa 131! lol

This is funny, because that's literally my score, if I remember correctly.

 

[Hari Seldon]

Crap statistics = crap study. But that aside I don't think aerospace engineers and surgeon hold the same appeal as they once did. Although with Bezos and Musk shooting off rockets maybe this is making a comeback. I mean yeah working at NASA would be cool, although you won't make much money. But other than that you are slaving away in the defense industry for 1/4th of the salary as a silicon valley engineer. And as for surgeons, jesus crust the amount of work and loans you need to get to the top of the game is astronomical. If you are smart and want to minimize the amount of work you will do over a career, you are a CS major bouncing between startups hoping that one of them has a stock grant that goes big and you are retired by 35. A surgeon doesn't even get started until 35 lmao.

 

[Northeastmonk]

I went to a private college and I noticed a couple things. I was pre-med, so I did all the volunteer and club stuff. It was hard. I don’t have the IQ to learn all that chemistry and genetics. I did notice the caliber of students who did succeed. They were the ones wearing the white coats years later inside actual hospitals. These students were segregated. A lot of the kids were Indian and while this shouldn’t be that important to anyone what nationality they are. It just stood out. I never bothered anyone to ask because it felt unnecessary. I always wondered if it was because of their family or if they were just gifted with the intelligence to become a doctor. They walked the walk and talked the talk. The amount of rigorous studying is a lifestyle in my eyes. You have to be dedicated to your craft or you will fail. That wasn’t good for me. My sister graduated law school and she was #3 in her class. She had boxes and boxes of flash cards. She put a hole in the bathroom wall because she got mad at her performance. She was a dedicated student. She never practiced law after she passed the bar exam and she doesn’t care to.

I think it boils down to how committed and how well you can absorb material. This is why there are horrible medical students observing real doctors in hospitals. They passed the classes, but they are by no means the worlds greatest doctors.

 

[Airbus Jr]

I'd like to see a successful sub 100 IQ aerospace engineer. Would be interesting. I don't think such a person exists though.

I never did any background check man but i have one friend in high school which is not very smart ( IQ wise) but always get high rank and graduate from top university

My point is you should never underestimate people based on their IQ ( like i said earlier IQ isnt everything EQ is more important)

Like a wise man always said succes is 99% effort and 1 % talent

 

[Airbus Jr]

Yep. Fighters win. And if you are a very smart fighter you win even more.

My point is you dont need ultra mega high IQ to be a sucesfull astronauts engineer or surgeon

If you have mental retardation (IQ bellow 60) then yes that will be hard to achieve

But any people with average IQ can ( achieve that) as long as theyre willing to learn and study hard, are more than capable to achieve that target

 

[Halo is Back]

There are different forms of intelligence. Some people are better at problem-solving in hands-on work, some do naturally well in a structured academic setting, some are very socially intelligent, some are intelligent in business and ect. I believe people have thier own strengths that complement society in different ways.

I think a baseline indicator of intelligence is more to do with the ability to adapt to your environment by learning new information.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

My point is you dont need ultra mega high IQ to be a sucesfull astronauts engineer or surgeon

If you have mental retardation (IQ bellow 60) then yes that will be hard to achieve

But any people with average IQ can ( achieve that) as long as theyre willing to learn and study hard, are more than capable to achieve that target

Thats one of the things about these kinds of articles or someone saying "you can do everything". I think the fair assumption is someone who is able bodied and minded is the gist of these motivational pieces.

But technically, someone can bring up "what about handicap people with low IQs or a quadriplegics doing pole vault? The article never mentioned extreme cases so what about them?"

 

[Airbus Jr]

Thats one of the things about these kinds of articles or someone saying "you can do everything". I think the fair assumption is someone who is able bodied and minded is the gist of these motivational pieces.

But technically, someone can bring up "what about handicap people with low IQs or a quadriplegics doing pole vault? The article never mentioned extreme cases so what about them?"

I think handicapped people with low mental retardation IQ can still do plenty field job man

Maybe like firefighters, policeman, soldier, sports atheletes, pilot, office job, farmers, taxi driver etc

But something like neurosurgeon, IT programmer, space enginer, architect, lawyer, no i dont they can, that will require much more complex brain processing and memory

 

[DeepBreath87]

Thats one of the things about these kinds of articles or someone saying "you can do everything". I think the fair assumption is someone who is able bodied and minded is the gist of these motivational pieces.

But technically, someone can bring up "what about handicap people with low IQs or a quadriplegics doing pole vault? The article never mentioned extreme cases so what about them?"

I think the idea that someone with below average intelligence could be a neurosurgeon or a rocket engineer is idiotic. You don’t have to be a genius to do these jobs, but if you have a hard time doing long division or understanding algebra, you aren’t going to be able help design satellites. And I think for people like that, they simply will not be able to get there no matter how hard they work. Some people are not intelligent and no matter how much we try, we can’t make them intelligent.

 

[Enjay]

It probably "cost" $7,000,000 in "funding" and 10 years of research to come to the conclusion that everyone is stupid.