Letsrunners with high IQs, how do you manage to deal with average Joes?

dfbaskwill wrote:

Although Richard Feynman's IQ was measured at 125, he is widely viewed as one of the most intelligent Americans ever. He scored far in excess of anyone ever on the standard mathematics exams, including Einstein and Hawking. During his tenure at Cal Tech he ate lunch frequently at a strip club next to campus. He always thought of ways to teach Physics to the ordinary blokes like me. He would advise "brainiacs" not to surround themselves with like-minded people. He rather enjoyed the "idiots" of the world.

You have some good points in there, and Feynman was indeed the farthest thing from an intellectual snob, but you made up the part about "scoring far in excess of Einstein and Hawking". Hawking is British, Einstein was German, Feynman was American, and they were born decades apart. There weren't any "standard mathematics exams" that they all took, and if there were they'd all hit the ceiling and so be indistinguishable.

Here is the way it is wrote:

And thus Flagpole has been owned once again. As seems to be a frightfully common occurrence whenever simple mathematical concepts are involved.

Incorrect. That guy is wrong.

Here is the way it is wrote:

And thus Flagpole has been owned once again. As seems to be a frightfully common occurrence whenever simple mathematical concepts are involved.

Here's the traditional IQ ranking system that the guy called me out on (when I was using the exact terms I used of "genius or near genius) -

- he called that a "flaw" in my thinking...UM how about NOPE.

Also, I was responding to the guy who said he had an IQ of 161. I then used a CATEGORY of 160+, NOT right on 160, but 160+ which was in the table I used. Here's the table -

- notice it says people in the 160+ category are approximately 1 in 100,000...this includes EVERYONE at 160 and above, NOT just right at 160.

Then we have to hear about his childhood trip to space camp, his suspicion (but not concrete knowledge) that several people at in some Scholars group had IQs above 160 (oh man he owned me on that one!) Just no concrete knowledge at all about the IQs of people he was with. He wants greatness by association, and he is doing EXACTLY what too many people do...they THINK they know what a good IQ score is, and they ALWAYS believe that they are on the higher side of the norm and that everyone they are in contact with is there too. Upper normal is 100. Bright is 115. Yet, you talk to just about anyone and they would think you're a moron if you told them you had an IQ of 135 (130 is GIFTED).

Sorry brother, but I was not owned...that dude is making assumptions based on nothing...he's been around some smart people and he assumes they have IQs above 160, he has no proof, he chastizes me for correctly identifying 140 IQ as "genius or near genius" and then tells me in a snarky way that he now knows me as a person? BS brother. He's making WAY too many assumptions to say that he knows SEVERAL people with IQs above 160. He simply doesn't have and can't have that information, and judging from his not knowing how 140 has long been described, you can bet money he doesn't know what he's talking about.

INTJ/Flagpole. Would you two go get a room?

Yours truly,

INFP

Flagpole, there is no way to measure these things. They're not physical objects and this infernal attempt to find mathematical conversions for any and everything goes back to Plato's idealism. Look. You have your opinion. This other guy has his. Neither of you are going to admit the other is right. So, for the rest of us, please shut up. This is akin to trying to figure out whose pink is pinker. You both look ridiculous in that shade of nonsense at this point.

smarter, self-motivated people = skinny nerds who can't hack it on the football team or in other "real" sports:)

High School Senior wrote:

You guys also forget that running lends itself well to smarter, self-motivated people. All the guys on my team are well above the football team's players in terms of iq

Did anyone else just absolutely love "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!"? It's a classic - better even than Boswell's "Life of Samuel Johnson."

mathematician wrote:

...

A mathematician is trained to work in generalities - to solve a whole range of problems by reducing everything down to a single problem that you can solve abstractly, and then "plugging in numbers" and whatever other specific conditions are needed in order to solve some specific problem. Most people work in the opposite way. They solve a lot of problems specifically, then build up some general experience or intuition about how to solve it, so that when they are faced with a similar problem but in a slightly different scenario, they have an idea of what approach to try.

...

This might apply to Grothendieck, But I think the majority of mathematicians tend more toward the second approach.

In highschool I tested about 4 standard deviations above the norm. I'm just used to being much better than most people at most mental processes (except for my immediate family). My drawing ability topped out at stick-men, and my ability to dance is laughable. Yous just gotta goes with whats you got.

It's interesting that such a small population contains so many extreme outliers. How many users are there on Letsrun? Surely not more than a few thousand in the life span of this thread. Yet, somehow, the board is filled with people who think they're 3 and 4 SD above the mean. For instance, 4 SD above the mean for the guy above means he's somewhere near the top 0.01% of all people. So Letsrun has at least 2 of these extreme people.

This thread is like Lake Wobegon, where all the children are above average, and most of them, way above average. This thread is symptomatic of parents being told to tell their children how great they are. Many of these children were probably told so many times by their parents about how smart they were that the children started to believe it. Wow.

Consider This wrote:

Today's Huck Finn wrote:

You have some good points in there, and Feynman was indeed the farthest thing from an intellectual snob, but you made up the part about "scoring far in excess of Einstein and Hawking". Hawking is British, Einstein was German, Feynman was American, and they were born decades apart. There weren't any "standard mathematics exams" that they all took, and if there were they'd all hit the ceiling and so be indistinguishable.

Did anyone else just absolutely love "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!"? It's a classic - better even than Boswell's "Life of Samuel Johnson."

Hell yes I did. That book rules. I read it over and over, and I don't usually reread books.

Azaleas wrote:

It's interesting that such a small population contains so many extreme outliers. How many users are there on Letsrun? Surely not more than a few thousand in the life span of this thread. Yet, somehow, the board is filled with people who think they're 3 and 4 SD above the mean. For instance, 4 SD above the mean for the guy above means he's somewhere near the top 0.01% of all people. So Letsrun has at least 2 of these extreme people.

Everybody on Letsrun.com runs a sub 14:00 5k (and thinks that is average) is married to a supermodel, and makes $300,000+ per year as well.

bad as naomi russell wrote:

smarter, self-motivated people = skinny nerds who can't hack it on the football team or in other "real" sports:)

High School Senior wrote:

You guys also forget that running lends itself well to smarter, self-motivated people. All the guys on my team are well above the football team's players in terms of iq

At my high school the football players who graduated with me had a higher average SAT (which corresponds quite well to IQ) than the school overall, and I knew a couple of them who had scores above 1500 (before the writing section was added, so yes, out of 1600).

By the way, Flagpole, stop quoting that site that says 160+ is 1 in 100,000, because it's just wrong -- it also claims 70 is less than 1 in 100,000, which is totally ridiculous. 160 is +4SD, which is 1 in 30,000, as others have said.

Today's Huck Finn wrote:

By the way, Flagpole, stop quoting that site that says 160+ is 1 in 100,000, because it's just wrong -- it also claims 70 is less than 1 in 100,000, which is totally ridiculous. 160 is +4SD, which is 1 in 30,000, as others have said.

You seem to assuming that Flagpole is capable of:

1) Understanding basic math

and

2) Admitting he is wrong

Both of these are poor assumptions.

correct, except for a few (former) elite runners lurking, the LRC crowd is mediocre at almost everything and lies within

1 sd of the mean (Gaussian distribution). I, on the other hand... oh wait. I am average too.

ggg wrote:

correct, except for a few (former) elite runners lurking, the LRC crowd is mediocre at almost everything and lies within

1 sd of the mean (Gaussian distribution). I, on the other hand... oh wait. I am average too.

So, what is +1 SD again? I am okay at things. 15 flat guy. A little under 1300 on the old SAT the night after tripping on LSD for 2 days, but, horrible grades (maybe 2.8 coming out of a very competitive high school). Note sure what my IQ is, but, guess maybe 130. Nothing out of this world, but, good enough to usually get most things. I suspect if I trained I could have gotten close to 1500, but, had no clue how to take tests back then. My sister has an undergrad from an Ivy. A master's in very specialized area from UT Austin (because she didn't want to stay up north and go to MIT for her PhD). Along the way she got a Fullbright and worked at the Ford Foundation. So, it's not like it's not in the genes. She just worked her tail off to get out of Dodge due to family issues and academics was her ticket. I never even thought I was bright at all until I was well out of college. Now I realize I am a little better at some things than most people, but, there are lots of people who can put me to shame in many specific areas. More importantly, I get along well with people, have a good job, tend to deal with major issues well and contribute to society. Few are given the intellectual ability AND personal capacity to contribute greatly to society. It's about more than brains. Many times the truly "intellectual" types get into highly technical (i.e., specialized) fields and the value of their works are lost on most people. The complexity of these fields interests them as much as anything which is part of the reason they are removed from the everyday joe. I've had a few friends who were the 1550 SAT types. Geniuses? I don't know. Very bright? Yes. About 1/2 of them ended up contributing to society. The other half are drop outs, drug addicts, losers, and, otherwise useless to the world at large. It's as much a crap shoot as it is a fact of having that golden ticket of genius. Remember, that concept of genius relates back to fate more so than intelligence in the languages the word originally came from. IQ tests are like checkpoints along the way that SUGGEST great things ahead...provided people can handle other intangibles along the way as they attempt to fulfill the promise those tests might seem to indicate. I see them more as predictors than measurements. For me, they fall into the category of stochastics and forecasting since there are so many variables that ultimately determine how well these gifted souls fit into the big picture. But, character, work ethic, and, intensity (will power and motivation) are things IQ tests don't measure which are, in my opinion, much greater predictors of success than any standardized (or professionally administered) test can measure. To my IQ is potential, whereas, these others are kinetic use of energy.

I agree with this. Having a high IQ is like having a faster processor on your computer. You can do more things, and do them faster, but that doesn't mean you will. You still have to put in work to be good at anything meaningful.

I understand the math perfectly brother. 160 IQ is 1 in 30,000. 180 IQ is 1 in 1,000,000. 168 IQ is 1 in 100,000.The table I referred to says 160+ is about 1 in 100,000...obviously they are taking an average of everyone above 160.I admit when I'm wrong here all the time...just not wrong this time when a guy calls me out for using terms related to a 140 IQ that are standard traditional terms.

Tom Terrific wrote:

Today's Huck Finn wrote:

By the way, Flagpole, stop quoting that site that says 160+ is 1 in 100,000, because it's just wrong -- it also claims 70 is less than 1 in 100,000, which is totally ridiculous. 160 is +4SD, which is 1 in 30,000, as others have said.

You seem to assuming that Flagpole is capable of:

1) Understanding basic math

and

2) Admitting he is wrong

Both of these are poor assumptions.