Before the professional intelligence measurement question, please add something like:
Please ESTIMATE your IQ, using a standard average of 100 and stdev of 15.
It might make sense to add on something like:
You may want to check a normal distribution calculator (such as http://stattrek.com/online-calculator/normal.aspx ) to ensure you aren't overestimating.
Or, alternatively, we could get at the same sort of question by asking this:
Please estimate how many people would have to be in a group of adults, chosen uniformly at random, for you to expect the group to contain one (and only one) person smarter than you.
But it's not obvious to me that this is a thing people would be good at estimating.
Please estimate how many people would have to be in a group of adults, chosen uniformly at random, for you to expect the group to contain one (and only one) person smarter than you.
That depends a lot on the group of adults you use as reference. World population? The population of the country in which you are living? City? Your facebook friends?
I think IQ is much better because there are objective standards. "Smart" is also a word that different people interpret slightly differently. IQ is much more precise.
It's that time of year again. Actually, a little earlier than that time of year, but I'm pushing it ahead a little to match when Ozy and I expect to have more free time to process the results.
The first draft of the 2014 Less Wrong Census/Survey is complete (see 2013 results here) .
You can see the survey below if you promise not to try to take the survey because it's not done yet and this is just an example!
2014 Less Wrong Census/Survey Draft
I want two things from you.
First, please critique this draft (it's much the same as last year's). Tell me if any questions are unclear, misleading, offensive, confusing, or stupid. Tell me if the survey is so unbearably long that you would never possibly take it. Tell me if anything needs to be rephrased.
Second, I am willing to include any question you want in the Super Extra Bonus Questions section, as long as it is not offensive, super-long-and-involved, or really dumb. Please post any questions you want there. Please be specific - not "Ask something about taxes" but give the exact question you want me to ask as well as all answer choices.
Try not to add more than a few questions per person, unless you're sure yours are really interesting. Please also don't add any questions that aren't very easily sort-able by a computer program like SPSS unless you can commit to sorting the answers yourself.
I will probably post the survey to Main and officially open it for responses sometime early next week.