It's sometimes been stated that the top 10% of society, from an intellectual perspective, contribute virtually everything of value. If we want to be even more precise, we might argue that only the top few percent of the IQ distribution make any real scientific contributions to humanity. For instance, Geoffrey Miller has argued that an IQ of roughly 130 is generally the cut-off point required for being able to make original scientific contributions. If one assumes a normal distribution for IQ with a mean of 100 and a SD of 15, this corresponds roughly to the top 2.275% of society at large. The bottom line is quite clear. A few people are carrying the vast majority of society on their backs, allowing them to enjoy the accouterments of modern civilization.

And yet the left frequently despises what it labels as elitism. I struggle mightily to understand this sentiment. When a few people work hard and utilize their intellects, making vastly disproportionate contributions to humanity, shouldn't they be revered rather than scorned? Can someone explain where this source of anti-elitism comes from? Does anyone think that its vastly hypocritical for those on the left to criticize elitism on the one hand, but partake of the fruits of modern civilization on the other?

Your OP fails from the outset. Generallly, IQ isn't worth a damn. It's a very narrow (subjective) testing methodology that only looks for some characteristics of intelligence.

False. IQ has been accepted by most as having good predictive ability. Do you have anything besides outrage to offer? If you think that IQ has no correlation to one's occupational or academic status, you're sadly mistaken.

From the APA on intelligence...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligen ... d_Unknowns

Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns states that psychometric testing, despite being one of the most fruitful approaches to studying intelligence, has yet to produce answers to many questions regarding intelligence. Though psychometricians have devised ways to measure the distinct yet intercorrelated abilities believed to play an important role in the development of intelligence, the correlations between those abilities remain largely unclear. The report asserts that intelligence tests measure important skills, as intelligence test scores correlate moderately well with educational measures. While educational achievement is not primarily determined by intelligence, intelligence test scores do correlate significantly with occupational status later in life.

You might argue that one's outcome in life is broadly speaking the result of 3 factors, IQ, conscientiousness or hard work, and luck. But I think it's fair to argue that for many intellectually rigorous fields, high IQ is a necessary, though not necessarily sufficient criteria for attaining success.

Predictive ability? Of what exactly? Of who's good at IQ tests? Yes it's marvelously predictive at that.

It still only probes a very small range of human intelligence and is a subjective test. IQ yardsticks in a sample population in India will differ from a sample population in Norway. What good is that fucking test?

Richard Feynman only scored 125 in an IQ test when he was in high school. I suppose according to your OP, he wasn't of much fucking use to society at all.

FAIL

The Feynman number has often been asserted to be flawed. Steve Hsu argues that some tests have relatively low ceilings for math and verbal ability.

http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2008/07/an ... inent.html

Feynman's 124: in this context one often hears of Feynman's modest grade school IQ score of 124. To understand this score we have to remember that typical IQ tests (e.g., administered to public school children) tend to have low ceilings. They are not of the kind that Roe used in her study. One can imagine that the ceiling on Feynman's exam was roughly 135 (say, 99th percentile). If Feynman received the highest score on the mathematical portion, and a modest score of 115 on the verbal, we can easily understand the resulting average of 124. However, it is well known that Feynman was extremely strong mathematically. He was asked on short notice to take the Putnam exam for MIT as a senior, and received the top score in the country that year! On Roe's test Feynman's math score would presumably have been > 190, with a correspondingly higher composite IQ.

I suggest you watch this Horizon program entitled, Battle of the Brains.



Click on video and get the other parts on youtube.

Smart people don't always form elites.

Isaac Newton was a lousy socialiser.

Hugh, I suggest you read what I posted about Feynman above. You might also enjoy reading Steve Hsu's post. Cheers.
In fact, we have further proof of the highly skewed nature of Feynman's ability in favor of the quantitative fields.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Fe ... mic_career

He obtained a perfect score on the graduate school entrance exams to Princeton University in mathematics and physics — an unprecedented feat — but did rather poorly on the history and English portions.[13]

The fact that he was a Putnam Fellow implies a significant degree of mathematical/quantitative intelligence.

YanShen wrote:The Feynman number has often been asserted to be flawed. Steve Hsu argues that some tests have relatively low ceilings for math and verbal ability.

http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2008/07/an ... inent.html

Feynman's 124: in this context one often hears of Feynman's modest grade school IQ score of 124. To understand this score we have to remember that typical IQ tests (e.g., administered to public school children) tend to have low ceilings. They are not of the kind that Roe used in her study. One can imagine that the ceiling on Feynman's exam was roughly 135 (say, 99th percentile). If Feynman received the highest score on the mathematical portion, and a modest score of 115 on the verbal, we can easily understand the resulting average of 124. However, it is well known that Feynman was extremely strong mathematically. He was asked on short notice to take the Putnam exam for MIT as a senior, and received the top score in the country that year! On Roe's test Feynman's math score would presumably have been > 190, with a correspondingly higher composite IQ.

Firstly that number was quoted by his biographer, so I'll trust his judgment over yours.

Secondly, so fucking what? Basically what you've quoted actually proves my point.

IQ tests are not reliable references.

When the test is carefully constructed by professional psychometricians, the test has good predictive ability. The point made by Steve Hsu was that the particular test was not a professional one, in the sense that it was designed to be administered to typical high school children, and therefore has a relatively low ceiling. Professional tests are able to much more accurately test out to the extremes of the distribution.

Take for instance the Iowa Test of Basic skills. It caps out at the 99th percentile. This is of course a serious flaw. The difference between someone at the 99th percent and say the 99.999th percent is simply enormous.

HughMcB wrote:

YanShen wrote:The Feynman number has often been asserted to be flawed. Steve Hsu argues that some tests have relatively low ceilings for math and verbal ability.

http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2008/07/an ... inent.html

Feynman's 124: in this context one often hears of Feynman's modest grade school IQ score of 124. To understand this score we have to remember that typical IQ tests (e.g., administered to public school children) tend to have low ceilings. They are not of the kind that Roe used in her study. One can imagine that the ceiling on Feynman's exam was roughly 135 (say, 99th percentile). If Feynman received the highest score on the mathematical portion, and a modest score of 115 on the verbal, we can easily understand the resulting average of 124. However, it is well known that Feynman was extremely strong mathematically. He was asked on short notice to take the Putnam exam for MIT as a senior, and received the top score in the country that year! On Roe's test Feynman's math score would presumably have been > 190, with a correspondingly higher composite IQ.

Firstly that number was quoted by his biographer, so I'll trust his judgment over yours.

Secondly, so fucking what? Basically what you've quoted actually proves my point.

IQ tests are not reliable references.

They are used in court proceedings here in the UK sometimes. I guess that proves nothing?

YanShen wrote:When the test is carefully constructed by professional psychometricians, the test has good predictive ability. The point made by Steve Hsu was that the particular test was not a professional one, in the sense that it was designed to be administered to typical high school children, and therefore has a relatively low ceiling. Professional tests are able to much more accurately test out to the extremes of the distribution.

I remember taking the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. It capped out at the 99th percentile. This is of course a serious flaw. The difference between someone at the 99th percent and say the 99.999th percent is simply enormous.

So as a matter of interest what sort of test should be given to high school students. One designed for high school students, or one designed for quantum physicists?

How can you not see this, the test is unreliable. You need to know the target area of intelligence to accurately test for said intelligence (as you have highlighted yourself). How is that in any way useful. It's clearly not.

Let me guess, Hugh will argue that IQ is a meaningless metric, unless of course someone with an IQ of 75 is on trial for murder. Then all of a sudden IQ becomes a tremendously meaningful measure in terms of exculpating the criminal from responsibility for his crimes.

The tests administered to most high school students are fine. They adequately capture the perform of basically 99% of the population, in some sense. The point Steve Hsu was making was that such tests were incapable of distinguishing those at the 99th percentile from someone who might be a 1 in a million talent.

alienpresence wrote:They are used in court proceedings here in the UK sometimes. I guess that proves nothing?

Firstly I don't know wtf they could be used for in court. However secondly, are you really going to appeal to authority here, of a court! The same court that uses eyewitness testimony and personal anecdotes as credible sources of evidence.

Fuck me a court of law can be one of the most unscientific places you can get.

The "top 10%" coulnd't survive without the other 90%. So there is no need to emphasize them. Every work done in society is necessary for society to survive, so there is no need to value one over the other. Different people have different skills.

YanShen wrote:Let me guess, Hugh will argue that IQ is a meaningless metric, unless of course someone with an IQ of 75 is on trial for murder. Then all of a sudden IQ becomes a tremendously meaningful measure in terms of exculpating the criminal from responsibility for his crimes.

Strawman much?

I actually never mentioned court until someone else brought it up. Actually if someone was suspected of being mentally deficient I would suggest a good psychologist and a battery of medical tests including some CT scans, and a number of them from different sources to corroborate the results. Again, IQ tests are not reliable. Why the fuck would I promote it?

NineBerry, I'll go out on a limb and say that we could in fact survive without a certain percentage of the lower end of the population distribution.

Define "lower end"?

And I say we couldn't. How do you define "low"?

Okay, let's say in theory that the worst of the underclass, the bottom 10% of society, were to somehow "disappear". I'll go out on a limb and say that society would go on functioning without losing a step. Of course, we could perhaps take it to a higher level than the bottom 10%. My only point was that in theory we could make do without some percentage of the lower end of the distribution. And let's not ignore the rising trend of technology encroaching upon some lower level jobs. A lot of the grocery stores in West Philadelphia already have large numbers of self service check outs.

By the way, don't confuse my stating that society in theory could prosper without the underclass, to my stating that the underclass somehow don't deserve to live. I think its obvious that everyone has a sacred right to life.