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

Flagpole wrote:

standard traditional terms.

he has one view of what this is. you have another. yelling the same thing over and over again helps no one when the other side has turned a deaf ear whether either of you are right or not. youre compulsion to be right and make sure others know it is a bit of chink in your armor dude. iq tests are not an absolute science. there is no universally agreed upon measurement. why cant you just accept this guy has a different definition of things than you

once a mathematician wrote:

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

I suppose you might be right when considering extremely difficult concepts, but when it comes to everyday problems, I think mathematicians are readily able to abstract away unnecessary specifics.

Do you still work in an area which is mathematically-inclined? (assuming from your handle that you decided to stop doing mathematics)

No. What's really going on is that if the area under the entire Gaussian curve (which adult IQs are based on by definition) is 1, and it has a mean of 100 and an SD of 15, then the area under it beyond 160 is about 1/30,000.Another example is that the area to the right of (or, in this case only, to the left of) 100 is 1/2, meaning half of the population has an IQ above (or below) 100. That doesn't mean half of the population has an IQ right at 100."Taking an average of everyone above 160" makes no sense, and if you think it through I think you'll understand: try to walk us through, step by mathematical step, how that average would be calculated.

Flagpole wrote:

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:

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.

Flagpole wrote:

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.

Just stop. This is painful. Not knowing much about statistics doesn't make you stupid. Pretending to understand statistics and maintaining your position after people have called you out is indicative of stupidity or a personality disorder.

Today's Huck Finn wrote:

"Taking an average of everyone above 160" makes no sense, and if you think it through I think you'll understand: try to walk us through, step by mathematical step, how that average would be calculated.

I can't wait for the response to this.

To quote the rabbit - Hilariouser and hilariouser.

stanford binet wrote:

Just stop. This is painful. Not knowing much about statistics doesn't make you stupid. Pretending to understand statistics and maintaining your position after people have called you out is indicative of stupidity or a personality disorder.

I go with option B: personality disorder. He's right on some stuff, but, doesn't seem willing or capable of admitting when he's wrong on others. Pride, inferiority/superiority complexes or insecurity bordering on hubris are unattractive qualities, particularly, when paired with intelligence. It undermines the actual value of what you do have through the self-denigration of your own actions and poor choices. Sometimes the wisest thing one can say is nothing. But, wisdom and restraint have never proven to be his strong suits.

Wow, OP, 8/10! Good job!

I'm pretty sure anybody who does serious work in the field of intelligence "measurement" will tell you that standard tests (individually administered by a psychologist, or one of the better group tests), and the resulting scores, are not particularly meaningful when you get distant from the median value of 100.

Notice I said "median" value of 100, not mean value. If 100 if the mean value, and 1 SD is 15 points, this implies negative scores are feasible with a large enough sample size, as are scores beyond 200 (and even 300, theoretically).

But the gaussian distribution assumed to represent the statistical distribution of "intelligence" (as though this were some precisely defined physical property) is a gross approximation, a mathematical abstraction, that has some useful meaning close to the middle, and virtually no meaning at ~ 40-50 or more points away from 100.

That will be exactly $0.02, please. :-)

Perhaps a thread should be started (in a more clever way than the last one): Letrunners with fast PR's, how do you manage to deal with hobby joggers? The delivery is key.

To Flagpole and the guys arguing with him, you all look like asses.

For anyone interested in their IQ who hasn't actually taken an IQ test, apparently there are SAT, ACT, and GRE conversions that will estimate it for you. Obviously it's not going to be 100% accurate, but based on percentiles I would guess it's within 5 points either way most of the time. Obviously the conversions will be less accurate for outliers.

GRE table (scroll down):

http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/GREIQ.aspx

ACT and SAT:

http://www.cougarboard.com/board/message.html?id=2779704

Mine came out to be 135-140, which I would guess is about right, maybe a little high; I don't know. I know I'm a pretty smart guy, but I'm certainly not a genius and knew about half a dozen other guys (not sure about girls) in high school who I thought were quite a bit smarter than me. I went to a good school in a good part of the country though, so I would guess even the average student probably had a 105-110 IQ there.

Who cares if you are naturally gifted. Its all about results. One may be very intelligent but be lazy as heck and never amount to anything. I have "mensa" friends that haven't done much in their lives. Conversely, I know average, hard-working people that are doctors, are engineers, have PhD's, or are doing well both professionally and socially. It helps to be talented and smart, but all we care about is what you do with your gifts. I know I'm above average IQ at least, but I don't put too much stock in it. Its all about hard work.Results>>>talent.

Average GI Joes wrote:

For anyone on here with an IQ of 126 or above (95th percentile) do you have any problems dealing with people? Have you found it difficult to find people you can have meaningful relationships with? I don't think I'm particularly intelligent and yet I still find myself thinking most people around me are complete idiots. I just wonder what it's like for the brilliant people out there.

That's for those who took the SAT from 1995 to 2005; there's another one at

for those who took the SAT from 1974 to 1994.

And yeah, however they determined that they seem to agree with high IQ societies like Mensa (1250 to get in with the pre-recentering SAT; don't accept the post-recentering one) and Triple Nine (1450 pre-recentering; 1520 post-recentering to 2005; don't accept the current one).

In all seriousness, I think the three worst errors most people fall into are: criticism, comparison and competition. Everyone has a unique purpose and getting into these measurement contests never ends well. The smartest person in the world may never do as much good as a normal person with the right motives. Again, brains ain't where it's all at. Believing this is myopic.

Not all that impressive to be a Mensa member...top 2% isn't really much to write home about...not bad, but to put it in running terms, it's not even as good as a guy running a 15:00 5,000.The standard bearer should be the Prometheus Society which has a test that only about 1 in 30,000 can pass.Not sure why Mensa is always the Society mentioned...probably because there are more members.I know a woman whose father is a past president of Mensa, and so she tried and tried to become a Mensa member, but could only get top 4% and was not allowed in. Too bad too, because she has all the ubergeek qualities but she's just not smart enough.

Flagpole wrote:The standard bearer should be the Prometheus Society which has a test that only about 1 in 30,000 can pass.

From the Prometheus Society website (which claims less than 100 members worldwide, so I assume Flagpole isn't one of them), the following all correspond to their minimum criteria of 1:30,000 intelligence:

Individuals with indicated minimum scores on these tests shall be entitled to the rights and privileges of Membership in the Prometheus Society:

Cattell Culture Fair III (A+B): a raw score of 88 obtained at an age of 16 years of age or older (taken prior to 2008)

GRE (“old”): a score of 1610 on the “old” GRE (taken before October 1, 1981)

LAIT: a score of 164 scored before December 31, 1993

MAT (“new”): a score of 500

MAT (“old”): a score of 98

Mega: a raw score of 36 (taken prior to April 24, 1999)

Mega27: a score of 21 (taken prior to November 27, 1999, only when accompanied by a validated score on an accepted test for demonstrating a 1-in-1,000 cognitive ability)

SAT (“old”): a score of 1560 (taken before April 1, 1995)

Stanford Binet 5: a score of 160

Titan: a raw score of 36 (taken prior to April 24, 1999)

WAIS-III: a raw summed full scale score of 189 (taken prior to 2008)

WAIS-R: a score of 160 obtained at an age of 16 years or older (taken prior to 2008)

When I got tested at the CIA they calculated my IQ to be 160. I once went on a trip to California, LA to be precise, but anyways when I stepped foot off the plane my IQ dropped to 110.

I also run a 4:01 mile.

Being the smartest person on LetsRun is like being the smartest worm in the soil.

Well, pretty much all worms are in the soil, so you're saying it's like being the smartest person anywhere? I doubt that.

I have no doubt that a lot of people on LetsRun are frighteningly smart, even though they don't always act it here.