Viliam_Bur comments on 2011 Less Wrong Census / Survey - Less Wrong

77 Post author: Yvain 01 November 2011 06:28PM

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Comment author: saturn 01 November 2011 03:37:22AM 15 points [-]

I think it would be more informative to ask people to take one specific online test, now, and report their score. With everyone taking the same test, even if it's miscalibrated, people could at least see how they compare to other LWers. Asking people to remember a score they were given years ago is just going to produce a ridiculous amount of bias.

Comment author: Viliam_Bur 01 November 2011 01:14:58PM 4 points [-]

With everyone taking the same test, even if it's miscalibrated, people could at least see how they compare to other LWers.

There are two ways an IQ test can fail: a) it can be miscalibrated; b) it can measure something else than IQ.

If you only want to know your percentile in LW population, (a) is not a problem, but (b) remains. What if the test does not measure the "general intelligence factor", but something else? It can partly correlate to IQ, and partly to something else, e.g. mathematical or verbal skills.

Also you have a preselection bias -- some LWers will fill the survey, others won't.