Swimmer963 comments on Rationality Quotes August 2013 - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (733)
I chose Ramanujan as my example because mathematics is extremely meritocratic, as proven by how he went from poor/middle-class Indian on the verge of starving to England on the strength of his correspondence & papers. If there really were countless such people, we would see many many examples of starving farmers banging out some impressive proofs and achieving levels of fame somewhat comparable to Einstein; hence the reference class of peasant-Einsteins must be very small since we see so few people using sheer brainpower to become famous like Ramanujan.
(Or we could simply point out that with average IQs in the 70s and 80s, average mathematician IQs closer to 140s - or 4 standard deviations away, even in a population of billions we still would only expect a small handful of Ramanujans - consistent with the evidence. Gould, of course, being a Marxist who denies any intelligence, would not agree.)
Isn't the average IQ 100 by definition?
Yes - but whose average?
Presumably the people who write the IQ test, based on whatever population sample they use to calibrate it. Is the point that the average IQ in India is 70-80, as opposed to the average in the US? (This could be technically true on an IQ test written in the US, without being meaningful, or it could be actually true because of nutrition or whatever). What data does the number 70-80 actually come from?
Presumably from this list.