Open thread, Dec. 21 - Dec. 27, 2015

MrMind

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If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

Notes for future OT posters:

1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag.

2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one. (Immediately before; refresh the list-of-threads page before posting.)

3. Open Threads should be posted in Discussion, and not Main.

4. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.

What makes you so confident that your model is correct, instead of the data disproving it?
No sarcasm, it's a honest question.

I look at the IQ results for the survey every year. A selected handful of comments:

Karma vs. multiple IQ tests: positive correlation (.45) between self-report and Raven's for users with positive karma, negative correlation (-.11) between self-report and Raven's for users without positive karma.

SATs are very high: 96th percentile in the general population is lower quartile here. (First place I make the Harvey Mudd comparison.)

SAT self-report vs. IQ self-report: average SAT, depending on which one you look at and how you correct it, suggests that the average... (read more)

3IlyaShpitser10y

Because I hung out with some top academic people, I know what actual genius is like. ---------------------------------------- Incidentally, when I talk about people being "very smart" I don't mean "as measured by IQ." As I mentioned lots of times before, I think IQ is a very poor measure of math smarts, and a very poor measure of generalized smarts at the top end. Intelligence is too heterogeneous, and too high dimensional. But there is such as thing as being "very smart," it's just a multidimensional thing. So in this case, I just don't think there is a lot of info in the data. I much prefer looking at what people have done as a proxy for their smarts. "If you are so smart, where are all your revolutionary papers?" This also correctly adjusts for people who actually are very smart, but who bury their talents (and so their hypothetical smarts are not super interesting to talk about).