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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   6435 thread views

Quality Contributions Report for August 2023

This is the Quality Contributions Roundup. It showcases interesting and well-written comments and posts from the period covered. If you want to get an idea of what this community is about or how we want you to participate, look no further (except the rules maybe--those might be important too).

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Quality Contributions in the Main Motte

@Hoffmeister25:

@lemongrab:

@cjet79:

@ControlsFreak:

Contributions for the week of July 31, 2023

@naraburns:

@ChestertonsMeme:

@pro_sprond:

@raggedy_anthem:

@satirizedoor:

@CrispyFriedBarnacles:

Contributions for the week of August 7, 2023

@charles:

@ymeskhout:

@iprayiam3:

@FCfromSSC:

Contributions for the week of August 14, 2023

@IGI-111:

@hydroacetylene:

@roystgnr:

@Hoffmeister25:

@Soriek:

@ryandv:

@iprayiam3:

@FCfromSSC:

@sodiummuffin:

Contributions for the week of August 21, 2023

@satirizedoor:

@CrispyFriedBarnacles:

@ryandv:

@naraburns:

Contributions for the week of August 28, 2023

@hbtz:

@raggedy_anthem:

@problem_redditor:

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Not this again...

https://www.greaterwrong.com/posts/pJJdcZgB6mPNWoSWr/2013-survey-results

Can we finally resolve this IQ controversy that comes up every year?

The story so far—our first survey in 2009 found an average IQ of 146. Everyone said this was stupid, no community could possibly have that high an average IQ, it was just people lying and/or reporting results from horrible Internet IQ tests. Although IQ fell somewhat the next few years—to 140 in 2011 and 139 in 2012 - people continued to complain. So in 2012 we started asking for SAT and ACT scores, which are known to correlate well with IQ and are much harder to get wrong. These scores confirmed the 139 IQ result on the 2012 test. But people still objected that something must be up.

This year our IQ has fallen further to 138 (no Flynn Effect for us!) but for the first time we asked people to describe the IQ test they used to get the number. So I took a subset of the people with the most unimpeachable IQ tests—ones taken after the age of 15 (when IQ is more stable), and from a seemingly reputable source. I counted a source as reputable either if it name-dropped a specific scientifically validated IQ test (like WAIS or Raven’s Progressive Matrices), if it was performed by a reputable institution (a school, a hospital, or a psychologist), or if it was a Mensa exam proctored by a Mensa official.

This subgroup of 101 people with very reputable IQ tests had an average IQ of 139 - exactly the same as the average among survey respondents as a whole.

I don’t know for sure that Mensa is on the level, so I tried again deleting everyone who took a Mensa test—leaving just the people who could name-drop a well-known test or who knew it was administered by a psychologist in an official setting. This caused a precipitous drop all the way down to 138.

The IQ numbers have time and time again answered every challenge raised against them and should be presumed accurate.

https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/03/17/ssc-survey-2017-results/#comment-476694

We have this argument every year. Points in favor include:

  1. Survey IQs mostly match survey SATs from IQ/SAT conversion tables.
  2. One year we asked ACT and that matched too.
  3. One time we made everybody describe which IQ test they took and in what circumstance, and the subset who took provably legit IQ tests given by provably legit psychologists weren’t any different from the rest.

I don’t doubt that a lot of the overly high numbers are people who took a test as kids which wasn’t properly normed for kids their age or something.

Why isn't it possible that people are biased in whether they report (or even remember) their reputable IQ or SAT scores? The numbers may line up simply because the bias is equal.

I had an hour-long intelligence test (they didn't call it an IQ test but I think it was equivalent) done by a psychologist as part of an experiment when I was 19. She said I was "in the top percentile" (I lost the paper results - maybe I should lose some points for that), which, depending on whether we interpret it as meaning at the top percentile or at the median of the top percentile, would correspond to an IQ of 135 or 139. I've probably lost some IQ points since then.

Maybe this is my ego deceiving me, but I just find it hard to believe I'm dumber than the average person here or on lesswrong. I think we're smart, but probably not quite that smart.

Yeah, this here too. I personally consider myself to have an IQ close to 140 and that's around what I scored when you convert my SAT results, my GRE results and the proctored IQ test I sat once many moons ago, which probably means my true IQ is somewhere close to 135 (I made sure I was prepared and ready to go for all those tests, and we all tell ourselves some comfortable lies), and I certainly think I'm smarter than the average bear who frequents these parts. I'd be very surprised if the average here was actually 135.

I had an hour-long intelligence test (they didn't call it an IQ test but I think it was equivalent) done by a psychologist as part of an experiment when I was 19. She said I was "in the top percentile" (I lost the paper results - maybe I should lose some points for that), which, depending on whether we interpret it as meaning at the top percentile or at the median of the top percentile, would correspond to an IQ of 135 or 139. I've probably lost some IQ points since then.

Maybe this is my ego deceiving me, but I just find it hard to believe I'm dumber than the average person here or on lesswrong. I think we're smart, but probably not quite that smart.

I got a 33 on the ACT, which according to the online tables I can find is between the 98th and 99.8th percentiles. I feel like the average LessWronger was smarter than me, at least before the rationalist diaspora. I fit pretty well around Slate Star Codex, though, and I don't think I am obviously smarter or dumber than the median Motteizen.

Yes, but ACX isn't SSC and theMotte isn't SSC. The NYT incident brought a lot of new people, and that means regression toward the mean. TheMotte doesn't have Scott to bore all the midwits into leaving.

I'd look at the ACX surveys, but I'd need the full dataset; the Google Form simply lists every unique answer without telling me how many chose each, which is pretty useless.

Interesting. Thanks for bringing the receipts.

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