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

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

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Comment author: Gedusa 01 November 2011 12:57:59AM 13 points [-]

This is great! I hope there's a big response.

It seems likely you're going to get skewed answers for the IQ question. Mostly it's the really intelligent and the below average who get (professional) IQ tests - average people seem less likely to get them.

I predict high average IQ, but low response rate on the IQ question, which will give bad results. Can you tell us how many people respond to that question this time? (no. of responses isn't registered on the previous survey)

Comment author: torekp 01 November 2011 01:18:27AM *  7 points [-]

Are we encouraged to estimate IQ from SAT tests and the like? That's what I did. That could reduce the excluded-middle bias that Gedusa mentions.

Comment author: CG_Morton 01 November 2011 03:29:05PM 4 points [-]

I underwent a real IQ test when I was young, and so I can say that this estimation significantly overshoots my actual score. But that's because it factors in test-taking as a skill (one that I'm good at). Then again, I'm also a little shocked that the table on that site puts an SAT score of 1420 at the 99.9th percentile. At my high school there were, to my knowledge, at least 10 people with that high of a score (and that's only those I knew of), not to mention one perfect score. This is out of ~700 people. Does that mean my school was, on average, at the 90th percentile of intelligence? Or just at the 90th percentile of studying hard (much more likely I think).

Comment author: cata 02 November 2011 01:39:17PM *  5 points [-]

If you're in the median age band for Less Wrong, you misread the estimator. The "SAT to IQ" table is for the pre-1995 SAT, which had much more rarefied heights. The "SAT I to IQ" table is for the 1995-2005 SAT.

(I did the same thing.)

Comment author: CG_Morton 02 November 2011 02:50:17PM 1 point [-]

You are quite right. My scores correlate much better now; I retract my confusion.

Comment author: Desrtopa 01 November 2011 03:36:44PM 2 points [-]

And of course, there are also SAT prep services which offer guarantees of raising your score by such and such an amount (my mother thought I ought to try working for one, given my own SAT scores and the high pay, but I don't want to join the Dark Side and work in favor of more inequality of education by income,) and these services are almost certainly not raising their recipients' IQs.