posted 06-14-99 05:01 PM ET        

Me: 16 years and 158 IQ

posted 06-14-99 10:12 PM ET            

15 yrs., 150+ IQ

posted 06-15-99 07:10 AM ET            

A lot of people here seem to have IQ 150+. Do the posters in this forum constitute the intelectual and technological future of humanity or most people are just lying?

posted 06-15-99 12:50 PM ET         

IQ tests are weighted in such a way that less than 1/2 of 1% of the people whom take them will receive a score of 150+. While this does nothing to say that IQ scores are useful to any degree, that stat remains constent because the makers of the tests weight them in such a way as to arrive at that result.

For those who are intrested, the rough odds of the people on this forum all being here are (((.5 * .01) ^ 10) * 100)% or ~0.00000000000000000000975%.

Now, this does assume a random selection of the entire population. We are dealing with only those who use computers. If only 1% of the population uses computers, those odds go up to a whopping ~0.000000000000000000975%.

Now, we must assume only people who use computer on the net (say 1/2) and only people who post to forums of those (say 1/10,000).

Our odds are now a huge ~0.0000000000000185%.

posted 06-15-99 02:36 PM ET         

Hugo, I wasn't talking about the odds of people with a decent, or even high IQ posting, but about people who are measured to be 2 full standard deviations above the genius level. That is a very large chasm to cross.

CarckGenius, incidently the average IQ almost everywhere is 100 +/- 1 or 2. The Standard Deviation is 10 +/- 1. A standard deviation in a country of 20 would be an huge abberation.

posted 06-15-99 03:01 PM ET            

In response to:
This thread further supports my theory that everyone who can figure out how to use a Modem is a genius. I think I have yet to see any such thread in any group I've been involved in that the posters IQ weren't in the genius (130+) range.

What makes you think everybody on the forum is posting their IQ scores? Only those with high enough scores to brag about--or those with cynical remarks who fail to mention their IQ standing (or do not know it)--seem to be posting their scores. Thus, your argument stands as ambiguous and tentative at best.

And what of different testing conditions as well? IQ tests can be highly variable. For instance, can an internet test truly compare with a test made in person with a PhD in psychology? And even still, the tests are faulty, for an IQ test measures how fast you can learn and not how much you know. For instance, if a person were asked in a test to rearrange a pattern to a certain figure, if that person had already worked with a similar figure before, he or she would complete the test quicker than a person of the same abilities simply because he had memorised it. Thus, a suggestion. Perhaps a system could be setup that integrates a fellow's brain with a completely new medium of output--say, for instance, he had his brain attached to a robotic arm. One could be tested on how long it would take to fully utilise the arm and what things the person can do with it. Actually, my friend and I have come up with a method to do this (by taking brain waves and taking the fourier transform of the sinusoidal wave), but we got bored with it after a while...

posted 06-16-99 09:22 AM ET            

Sure, we can consider the forumers to be above average, but geniuses?? Why wouldn't people with somewhat above average IQ results (104, 120, 125) post? I can understand it if people with below average IQ results didn't want to post but...

The lowest IQ I've seen in this thread is 138.

posted 06-16-99 02:44 PM ET         

The point being made, however, is that I always see these debates. I've been on this forum for quite some time, and this is the third time this subject has come up in Off Topic since about January. Every time it comes up, there are a huge number of people whose Iq's measure to be 150+.

That doesn't just happen here, it's everywhere. comp.sys.ibm.pc.game.rpg and comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic both had similar debates recently, and they had similar responses, and it isn't just that some people aren't posting. Everyone who is a regular poster posts, and everyone is two full degrees above the genius level. Never fails.

So does this say that Iq tests are obviously pointless? Thats what people always conclude from this data, but people fail to reckgnize that Iq tests are structured around the premice that only so many people should score only so high. If lots of people start to get 150's then the tests are weighted down and vice-verca.

I understand why posts such like these tend to get people riled up. I suppose it could be assumed in a backhanded way I'm calling everyone here a pack of liars. I'm not judging any one persons claim because that would be insane. However I am saying that huge conglomerations of super-genius level Iq's shouldn't happen every time one turns around on the 'net, yet they do.

Additionally, people need to understand that 'net based Iq tests are simply wrong. It isn't that they get innacurate when poeple start going 150+, it's that they get innacurate when people start getting 100+. Iq tests are long and complex, and you aren't scored by what answers you get right, you're also scored by how you get the answer you did. Someone who regurgitates equations to find a curve gets less points than someone who uses creative methods because they didn't know the correct one in the first place.

Anywho, hate me for it, but concentrations such as these are a little out of hand.

posted 06-25-99 03:18 AM ET            

First is the more common familiarity in the general population with the type of abstract reasononing and visualization problems which dominate standardized IQ tests. Over a period of years, exposure to similar problems and education in problem solving techniques reduces the value of the tests in measuring whatever they actually measuse.

Also, since this forum draws strategy gamers, and mostly draws ones serious enough to register, read and post, it is fair to presume that one of the elements of being a good strategy gamer is the ability to rapidly process abstract relationships - the exact sort of thing measured by IQ tests.

I think the posts here, rather than reflect anybody lying, simply point to the difficulty in defining "intelligence" the way it is commonly defined, and the arbitrary and meaningless nature of IQ tests.

The published mu and sigma are also design values as the tests were created, not as they are empirically measured. This is also complicated by the number of different tests, and the various revisions that they have undergone. So a score of two standard deviations above average was statistically modeled to apply to a certain percentage of the population, but does not actually do so.

Also, BTW, "The Bell Curve" is riddled with inaccuracies in both the mathematics and the general statements, as the authors had a clearly stated sociopolitical agenda. Not PC, to be sure, but pure drivel, nonetheless. Like their PC brethren, they let ideology filter and guide their selection of facts and their descriptions. The book was very poorly received in the mainstream scientific community, not even considering the uproar it caused in the PC crowd.

39 and tested by numerous real tests, but I don't consider it even slightly relevant, so it would be internally inconsistent for me to post the numbers. Their all in the low three digits though.