jimrandomh comments on The Level Above Mine - Less Wrong

42 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 26 September 2008 09:18AM

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Comment author: gwern 06 January 2011 09:29:09PM 7 points [-]

Feynman's measured IQ was 123, not 137. And we already know that IQ tests do not measure vitally important aspects of cognition -- in Feynman's case especially, he was quite strong in those aspects while being weak in the aspects measured. (At least, I know that. What the rest of you know is less certain.)

You don't even know that. This sort of thing is why no one here likes you. Here, let me provide some more details about that IQ score you put such weight on as a criticism. To quote a previous comment of mine on this topic:

  • Feynman was younger than 15 when he took it, and very near this factoid in Gleick's bio, he recounts Feynman asking about very basic algebra (2^x=4) and wondering why anything found it hard
  • the IQ is mentioned immediately before the section on 'grammar school', or middle school, implying that the 'school IQ test' was done well before he entered high school, putting him at much younger than 15. (15 is important because Feynman had mastered calculus by age 15, Gleick says, so he wouldn't be asking his father why algebra is useful at age >15.)
  • Given that Feynman was born in 1918, this implies the IQ test was done around 1930 or earlier. Given that it was done by the New York City school district, this implies also that it was one of the 'ratio' based IQ tests - utterly outdated and incorrect by modern standards.
  • Finally, it's well known that IQ tests are very unreliable in childhood; kids can easily bounce around compared to their stable adult scores.

So, it was a bad test, which even under ideal circumstances is unreliable & prone to error, and administered in a mass fashion and likely not by a genuine psychometrician.

Comment author: jimrandomh 06 January 2011 09:33:00PM 0 points [-]

This seems awfully hostile for a reply to a post that's more than two years old.

Comment author: thomblake 06 January 2011 09:35:39PM 1 point [-]

and originally posted to a different site

Comment deleted 06 January 2011 09:36:29PM [-]
Comment author: gwern 06 January 2011 10:26:34PM 2 points [-]

I would hope that incredibly sloppy thinking, manifested in such things as posting confidently as a knockdown argument a proposition that is anything but and can be revealed as such with just a tiny understanding of psychometrics, is why Caledonian was so often downvoted and criticized by OB/LW - and not because we didn't like his haircut.

Comment author: jimrandomh 06 January 2011 10:34:55PM 0 points [-]

OB didn't have downvoting.

Comment author: gwern 06 January 2011 10:41:27PM 0 points [-]

LW, fortunately, does. And I think Caledonian ultimately wound up being banned, which is a rather extreme downvote from my point of view.

Comment author: ata 06 January 2011 11:10:04PM 0 points [-]

I don't think he was ever banned (though his comments were sometimes edited and sometimes deleted). In fact, he stuck around on LW for a while, under the username "Annoyance".

Comment author: gwern 06 January 2011 10:25:01PM 5 points [-]

Stupidity is stupidity regardless of whether it was posted 2 seconds or 2 years ago. Funnily enough, people (like me) are still reading old posts...