> Remember... 50% of the general population have an IQ < 100.
Could you give a cite for that please? Why do you think that that is
true? Supposing that the average IQ is in fact 100 [1] why do you
think that the median IQ is also 100?
Andrew "wobegon" Archibald
aarc...@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
[1] The Church of Sc**nt*l*gy administers free IQ tests; they claim
that the average IQ is about 115. There are many definitions of IQ;
do all of them normalize 100 to the average human IQ?
all...@hedgehog.globalserve.net says...
> [1] The Church of [deleted] administers free IQ tests; they claim
> that the average IQ is about 115. There are many definitions of IQ;
> do all of them normalize 100 to the average human IQ?
Then their IQ tests are crap, unsurprisingly. By definition, an IQ test
produces an average figure of 100 when given to bignum punters.
An interesting question, of course, is whether older IQ tests show any
general trend in IQ -- are we, as a race, getting more intelligent over
time?
Alexis "The average IQ of afu posters is, of course, much, much higher"
Manning
>aw...@five.in.the.morning (David Soul of %1110) writes:
>
>> Remember... 50% of the general population have an IQ < 100.
>
>Could you give a cite for that please? Why do you think that that is
>true? Supposing that the average IQ is in fact 100 [1] why do you
>think that the median IQ is also 100?
>
Under the impression that IQ follows a biological distribution spread
most people in the 80-120 section and tailing in both directions
beyond this. The highest anyone has ever maxed on an IQ test is about
225.
Of course, scores dependent on testing methodology used - most seem to
have a vicious right-brain bias.
: Under the impression that IQ follows a biological distribution spread
Ummm. What precisely *is* a "biological distribution spread"?
: most people in the 80-120 section and tailing in both directions
: beyond this.
The Standard Deviation on a Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale - Third
Edition is 15, and the Mean is 100. Roughly two thirds of people tested on
the WAIS-III score between 85 and 115, and 95% obtain scores in the 70-130
range.
: The highest anyone has ever maxed on an IQ test is about 225.
What test would that be? I *know* it's not the WAIS, and rather doubt it's
the Binet.
: Of course, scores dependent on testing methodology used - most seem to
: have a vicious right-brain bias.
So does Western life, ducks.
Madeleine "IQ tests do not assess emotional intelligence or creativity,
and are not designed to do so" Page
Followups restricted to alt.folklore.urban, to cut down on crossposting
>aw...@five.in.the.morning (David Soul of %1110) writes:
>
>> Remember... 50% of the general population have an IQ < 100.
>
>Could you give a cite for that please? Why do you think that that is
>true? Supposing that the average IQ is in fact 100 [1] why do you
>think that the median IQ is also 100?
Easy. Use a definition of IQ such that the distribution is symmetrical
(Gaussian). Then mean=median=mode.
>Andrew "wobegon" Archibald
>aarc...@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
>
>[1] The Church of Sc**nt*l*gy administers free IQ tests; they claim
>that the average IQ is about 115. There are many definitions of IQ;
>do all of them normalize 100 to the average human IQ?
I thought that mean=100 was generally true by definition, but this
isn't rocket science.
Joe
Alexis Manning wrote:
> Then their IQ tests are crap, unsurprisingly.
Or their sample is biased. Or their IQ tests are deliberately tweaked to
flatter their newbies and lure them into the fold.
Lara "AFU newbie-tests tweaked contrariwise?" Hopkins
> aw...@five.in.the.morning (David Soul of %1110) writes:
>
> > Remember... 50% of the general population have an IQ < 100.
>
> Could you give a cite for that please? Why do you think that that is
> true? Supposing that the average IQ is in fact 100 [1] why do you
> think that the median IQ is also 100?
Why do you think that it isn't true?
From Encyclopædia Britannica:
"Intelligence test scores follow an approximately "normal"
distribution, with most people scoring near the middle of the
distribution curve and scores dropping off fairly rapidly in frequency
away from the curve's centre. For example, on the IQ scale about 2 out
of 3 scores fall between 85 and 115 and about 19 out of 20 scores fall
between 70 and 130. A score of about 130 or above is considered
gifted, while a score below about 70 is considered mentally deficient
or retarded."
Hence the mean, median and mode will all coincide.
--
Brian
>aw...@five.in.the.morning (David Soul of %1110) writes:
>
>> Remember... 50% of the general population have an IQ < 100.
>
>Could you give a cite for that please? Why do you think that that is
>true? Supposing that the average IQ is in fact 100 [1] why do you
>think that the median IQ is also 100?
Because it's designed that way.
NEXT!
--
Dan Hartung | "I believe we can fly
dhartung (at) wwa (dot) com | on the wings that we create"
http://www.wwa.com/~dhartung/ | -- M. E.
One might keep the phrase "true by definition" in mind.
By design, any valid IQ test MUST show a median of 100, and a standard
deviation of 15 points. That said, I actually do not know whether the
MEAN actually must be 100 as well. It would seem that however you
normalized the test it would still have a theoretical bottom limit, but
no such top limit. If so, that would almost suggest a more Poisson
distribution than Gaussian... and by implication, presumably a mean
slightly above 100.
Then again, a whole lot of genuine natural phenomena (as opposed to the
nonsense that is IQ tests) have a lower limit or zero also, without that
fact much affecting the actual distribution (for example, size and mass
of things).
Yours, Lulu...
--
quilty _/_/_/_/ THIS MESSAGE WAS BROUGHT TO YOU BY: \_\_\_\_ n o
@ibm. _/_/ Postmodern Enterprises \_\_
net _/_/ \_\_ d o
_/_/_/ IN A WORLD W/O WALLS, THERE WOULD BE NO GATES \_\_\_ z e
> An interesting question, of course, is whether older IQ tests show any
> general trend in IQ -- are we, as a race, getting more intelligent over
> time?
I don't think you can draw any useful conclusions that way from IQ
though. IQ tests are not meant to show how "smart" you are on an absolute
scale. An IQ test is "graded on the curve" and the curve is (supposed to
be) the set of your contemporaries. Trying to extrapolate to how you
would look in comparison to someone else from another time is futile.
In general though, I think it can be argued that humainty, taken as a
whole, is accumulating more information over time. I'm not sure if the
information we're accumulating translates into an equal gain in knowledge
(defined by me as "generally-useful information") though. And I don't
have any idea how the rate of increase in knowledge compares to that of
the population, so it's possible that while humanity as a whole is getting
smarter, humans on average are not keeping up. -- Joe
--
Joe Thompson | http://kensey.home.mindspring.com/
fbi...@orion-com.com | PGP key: Finger joe-...@mindspring.com
AFU Axolotl of Scorn | 0- He-Who-Grinds-the-Unworthy
"a llama two sheep and a weasel" -- ehmunro, #userfriendly
:> An interesting question, of course, is whether older IQ tests show any
:> general trend in IQ -- are we, as a race, getting more intelligent over
:> time?
: I don't think you can draw any useful conclusions that way from IQ
: though. IQ tests are not meant to show how "smart" you are on an absolute
: scale. An IQ test is "graded on the curve" and the curve is (supposed to
: be) the set of your contemporaries. Trying to extrapolate to how you
: would look in comparison to someone else from another time is futile.
Ahem. I'm about to talk about stuff that I don't know enough about to talk
about. (See? Even my language skills desert me).
Let the hand-waving begin.
Let's suppose that a popular metric of intelligence was the NAIF (New
Adult Intelligence Fingumibob). Scores for the last edition of the NAIF
were developed by using a very large statistical sample and norming
responses by age so that the average NAIF IQ score was 100. Over the next
ten years, it was found that the average NAIF IQ score, on an equally
large sample, was now 110. When the NAIF is revised, and becomes the WAIF
(Wevised Adult Intelligence Fingumibob), the new test is normed with
another sodding great statistical sample so that the average WAIF score is
100.
Conclusions: intelligence, at least as measured by IQ tests, has crept up
in the past ten years; someone who scored 130 on the old test will score
120 on the new; and something else I can't think of.
Madeleine "oh, yeah, ObWittgenstein: "Whereof I know not, thereof should I
speak not"." Page
It is not caused by changes in the test. When children were given the old
test, the average score was still 115.
As many score below 115 as score above 115. Similarly, half of all
physicians were in the lower 50% of their medical school classes.
>In general though, I think it can be argued that humainty, taken as a
>whole, is accumulating more information over time.
Can one perhaps also complementarily argue that each individual is in
possession of a smaller percentage of that information and that we are
proportionately less informed? Or, to cruelly oversimplify, as the world
gets smarter we're each getting dumber?
I've no idea if the basic concept is even true, but I liked the idea.
Deborah Stevenson
(stev...@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu)
> all...@hedgehog.globalserve.net says...
> > [1] The Church of [deleted] administers free IQ tests; they claim
> > that the average IQ is about 115. There are many definitions of IQ;
> > do all of them normalize 100 to the average human IQ?
>
> Then their IQ tests are crap, unsurprisingly. By definition, an IQ test
> produces an average figure of 100 when given to bignum punters.
Not really. Back when the IQ test was defined, a correction factor
was selected which meant that the median result on the test was 100.
However, this factor isn't changed, though the average score on the
test /has/ changed. So an IQ test on bignum random people is no
longer expected to give a median score of 100.
> An interesting question, of course, is whether older IQ tests show any
> general trend in IQ -- are we, as a race, getting more intelligent over
> time?
Since the 1950s, the average person taking an IQ test has been more
and more likely to achieve a higher result. As a race we seem to be
getting better and better at doing IQ tests.
Simon.
--
No junk email please. | What a story !
<http://www.hearsay.demon.co.uk> | I can't wait to embellish it.
| -- Elaine from _Ally McBeal_
Are you telling me that IQ is no longer normalised to 100? Really? Do
you have any sources for this -- I'm genuinely interested.
Ta.
Alexis "IQ too low for good internym" Manning
>Let's suppose that a popular metric of intelligence was the NAIF (New
>Adult Intelligence Fingumibob). Scores for the last edition of the NAIF
>were developed by using a very large statistical sample and norming
>responses by age so that the average NAIF IQ score was 100. Over the next
>ten years, it was found that the average NAIF IQ score, on an equally
>large sample, was now 110. When the NAIF is revised, and becomes the WAIF
>(Wevised Adult Intelligence Fingumibob),
Let me guess. Tonstant Weader fwows up?
Phil "mmm, spam" Edwards
--
Phil Edwards http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/amroth/
"Everything you know is wrong is something you know, you know"
- Paraic O'Donnell
>The Standard Deviation on a Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale - Third
>Edition is 15, and the Mean is 100. Roughly two thirds of people tested on
>the WAIS-III score between 85 and 115, and 95% obtain scores in the 70-130
>range.
>
>: The highest anyone has ever maxed on an IQ test is about 225.
>
>What test would that be? I *know* it's not the WAIS, and rather doubt it's
>the Binet.
>
>: Of course, scores dependent on testing methodology used - most seem to
>: have a vicious right-brain bias.
>
>So does Western life, ducks.
>
>Madeleine "IQ tests do not assess emotional intelligence or creativity,
>and are not designed to do so" Page
>
Don't you mean 'left brain bias' - the test is biased towards left brain
thinkers.
Jim "Let me draw you a pitcher" Jones
Even if two $80,000 otters were consumed within minutes of being released,
think of that as $160,000 towards the killer whales....
(It) really isn't that much when you think about it. Especially when Exxon is
paying half. - Derek Tearne on A.F.U.
>An interesting question, of course, is whether older IQ tests show any
>general trend in IQ -- are we, as a race, getting more intelligent over
>time?
A quick check shows that there are more readers of TV Guide today,
more readers of the Saturday Evening Post in the 1950s, and more
readers of Colliers in the 1920s. I'd say no, we aren't.
>Alexis "The average IQ of afu posters is, of course, much, much higher"
>Manning
Well, can't argue that.
deacon "especially THIS thread" b.
>In alt.folklore.urban Sod Enfopol98 <flat...@freeuk.com> wrote:
>: Under the impression that IQ follows a biological distribution spread
>Ummm. What precisely *is* a "biological distribution spread"?
I think we need to go out behind the garage, so I can demonstrate this
one.
deacon "unless your husband/father/brother is in the NRA" b.
> In <fbi.gov-1104...@user-37ka4iv.dialup.mindspring.com>
fbi...@orion-com.com (Joe Thompson) writes:
>
>
> >In general though, I think it can be argued that humainty, taken as a
> >whole, is accumulating more information over time.
>
> Can one perhaps also complementarily argue that each individual is in
> possession of a smaller percentage of that information and that we are
> proportionately less informed? Or, to cruelly oversimplify, as the world
> gets smarter we're each getting dumber?
If the population is increasing faster than our collective store of
knowledge, then yes, on average we are getting dumber.
Or as a bumper sticker I saw said: "There has been an alarming increase in
the number of things you know nothing about." -- Joe
> If the population is increasing faster than our collective store of
> knowledge, then yes, on average we are getting dumber.
>
> Or as a bumper sticker I saw said: "There has been an alarming increase in
> the number of things you know nothing about." -- Joe
> [...]
Little reason to be concerned that this might be the case. But see Science Mar
19 1999: 1832-1834 for Ingrid Wickelgren's News Focus piece:
Nurture Helps Mold Able Minds. Especially this paragraph:
--------
If school does influence IQ, it might help explain something called the Flynn
Effect after its discoverer, political scientist James Flynn of the University
of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. In 20 countries to date, Flynn has documented
a rise of about 20 IQ points every 30-year generation--a trend obscured by the
fact that the major IQ test manufacturers renorm their tests every 15 to 20
years, resetting the mean to 100. However, if everyone who took an IQ test
today was scored using the norms set 50 years ago, more than 90% of them would
be classified as geniuses, with IQs of about 130 or higher, depending on the
test. Similarly, if our parents' or grandparents' IQ scores circa 1949 were
measured using today's norms, over 90% of them would be labeled "borderline
mentally retarded," with IQs below 70 or so.
--------
Wickelgren attributes this increase to more schooling. But Christopher Wills
in his book, Children of Prometheus: The Accelerating Pace of Human Evolution,
suggests another mechanism for the Flynn Effect--heterosis. That is, hybrid
vigor, resulting from the genetic mixing of previously more isolated
populations of humans.
Phillip "on my way to borderling mental retardation" SanMiguel
>On 11 Apr 1999 15:10:13 GMT, Madeleine Page <mp...@panix.com> wrote:
>>In alt.folklore.urban Sod Enfopol98 <flat...@freeuk.com> wrote:
>>: Under the impression that IQ follows a biological distribution spread
>>Ummm. What precisely *is* a "biological distribution spread"?
>I think we need to go out behind the garage, so I can demonstrate this
>one.
You're Jicksma's protege, right? How else to explain your savoir-faire,
your smoothness, your way with the ladies? Many a stomach^Wheart will be
throbbing on your account before the night is done.
>deacon "unless your husband/father/brother is in the NRA" b.
I don't think you're going to get off quite that easily.
Ulo Melton
> Deacon B. wrote:
> >On 11 Apr 1999 15:10:13 GMT, Madeleine Page <mp...@panix.com> wrote:
> >>In alt.folklore.urban Sod Enfopol98 <flat...@freeuk.com> wrote:
> >>: Under the impression that IQ follows a biological distribution spread
> >>Ummm. What precisely *is* a "biological distribution spread"?
> >I think we need to go out behind the garage, so I can demonstrate this
> >one.
> You're Jicksma's protege, right? How else to explain your savoir-faire,
> your smoothness, your way with the ladies? Many a stomach^Wheart will be
> throbbing on your account before the night is done.
You've obviously failed your relevant anatomy courses...
Brian "quickest way to a woman's heart, etc" Yeoh
Before moonlit nights
Sakura flower and fall.
I lie, beneath them.
-- 21/03/1999
I have long used a definition of advancement in scientific knowledge as
"becoming increasingly precise in defining exactly what it is you don't know"
Let me guess; they then tell you they are measuring your 'potential'
IQ, if only you could get rid of the pesky inner beings that are
stifling your true abilities. And for a down payment of two-fifty ...
--
John "Smarter than a bucket of three-toed sloths" Francis
(totally ripped off http://www.lspace.org/books/pqf/equal-rites.html)
"While I'm still confused and uncertain, it's on a much higher plane,
d'you see, and at least I know I'm bewildered about the really fundamental
and important facts of the universe."
Treatle nodded. "I hadn't looked at it like that," he said, "But you're
absolutely right. He's really pushed back the boundaries of ignorance."
-- Discworld scientists at work (Terry Pratchett, Equal Rites)
^^^^^^^^^^[1]
They both savoured the strange warm glow of being much more ignorant than
ordinary people, who were only ignorant of ordinary things.
-- Discworld scientists at work (Terry Pratchett, Equal Rites)
Brian "says it all, really" Yeoh
[1] Wizzzards[2], actually.
[2] Well, wizards. The Great Wizzzard wasn't there for that one.
That is a misconception. The SATs have been bouncing around for
the last 20 years. The real decline came in the 60's and 70's.
Since 1980 the national average on the SAT has ranged from 890
(verbal plus math) to 915 (old scale). In that period there have
been times of increase and times of decrease. Most recently the
scores have been increasing (I think). They did "recenter" the
scale, but that wasn't in direct response to recent trends, but
had as much to do with the large differences in the Verbal and
Math scales.
Also, the SATs aren't IQ tests, nowadays they aren't even
aptitude tests.
David "part of the great decline" Martin
--
For the alt.folklore.urban FAQ: http://www.urbanlegends.com/afu.faq/
For those without web access, send email to: get...@urbanlegends.com
>>If school does influence IQ, it might help explain something called the Flynn
>>Effect after its discoverer, political scientist James Flynn of the University
>>of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. In 20 countries to date, Flynn has documented
>>a rise of about 20 IQ points every 30-year generation--a trend obscured by the
>>fact that the major IQ test manufacturers renorm their tests every 15 to 20
>>years, resetting the mean to 100.
>
> How then do you explain that scores on SATs have been falling
> for about 25 years? So much, in fact, that the tests have had to
> be recalibrated to keep 500 (?) as the "average" score.
By two things:
1 - The SAT is not an IQ test. IQ tests are supposed to measure
intelligence; the SAT is meant to measure one's mathematical
and verbal abilities. These are partially due to intelligence,
but training is also involved. (That is, you may have very
high native intelligence, but if you've been deprived of
opportunities to go to school, you won't do well on the SAT.)
2 - IQ tests are calibrated by using random samples of the
population; the SAT is not. The SAT's "sample set" is self-
selecting -- it consists of those people who are intending
to go to college and chose to take the SAT (instead of, say,
the ACT). Twenty-five years ago, a smaller segment of the
population went on to college than does today, and that
segment generally had very good educational opportunities.
Today, people are taking the SAT who, twenty-five years ago,
would almost certainly not have taken it.
(ObUL, possibly true -- studies show that the single factor which best
predicts how well someone will do on the SAT is their parents' income.
Anyone have any cites for this?)
--
|\ _,,,---,,_ Travis S. Casey <efi...@io.com>
ZZzz /,`.-'`' -. ;-;;,_ No one agrees with me. Not even me.
|,4- ) )-,_..;\ ( `'-'
'---''(_/--' `-'\_)
>"While I'm still confused and uncertain, it's on a much higher plane,
>d'you see, and at least I know I'm bewildered about the really fundamental
>and important facts of the universe."
Isn't that a clunky rephrasing of a rather elegant remark made by
Fermi to Heisenberg? Or possibly to Fermi by Heisenberg?
Phil "and can we determine both origin and voracity?" Edwards
>On 11 Apr 1999 15:10:13 GMT, Madeleine Page <mp...@panix.com> wrote:
>
>>What precisely *is* a "biological distribution spread"?
>
>I think we need to go out behind the garage, so I can demonstrate this
>one.
You go behind that garage, you'll find out why-a-no-chicken.
Phil "and you might be some time" Edwards
>>[1] The Church of Sc**nt*l*gy administers free IQ tests; they claim
>>that the average IQ is about 115.
>
>They would, wouldn't they? They also have an exhaustive personality
>test which turns up "what you need is $c**nt*l*gy" in every case.
*Love* the spamblock, Sam.
I remember reading a story by a Manchester journalist who put himself
through the D**n*t*cs personality test in the interests of research.
After the test, the earnest young woman who administered the test
disappeared into the back room and came back with a result sheet. The
results weren't good - he was going to need a lot of therapy. "It's
*very* accurate," the volunteer said, handing our man the sheet and
looking at him soulfully. "My results were just the same."
Our man looked at the sheet.
It was a photocopy.
Phil "it's uncanny" Edwards
I think the actual statistic is more complicated than that, but, to
answer your question: A change in the sample. The average SAT score
measures the average SAT-taking-ability of people who take the SAT. We
are now encouraging a much large percentage of the population to go to
college, so a much larger percentage of the population takes the SATs.
25 years ago, only "smart kids" took it. Now "merely average kids"
take it.
Brett "Statistics don't lie, but interpretations of statistics do"
Frankenberger
--
- Brett (bre...@netcom.com)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
... Coming soon to a | Brett Frankenberger
.sig near you ... a Humorous Quote ... | bre...@netcom.com
I am not sure if this was suppose to be a true story or not, but if it was
could you provide a (Lasnerian) date. It is more than possible using a
modern, well maintained photocopier to produce copies that are practically
identical to the original. It can be very difficult to tell the two appart.
What about the possibility that it was not a photocopy, but rather a super
accurate, highly scientific computer generated analysis that was printed
on laser printer in need of maintenance.
-Dave "the original" Tarkowski
--
"Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball" -SNL
> Allover Stripes <all...@hedgehog.globalserve.net> wrote previously:
> |> Remember... 50% of the general population have an IQ < 100.
> |
> |Could you give a cite for that please? Why do you think that that is
> |true? Supposing that the average IQ is in fact 100 [1] why do you
> |think that the median IQ is also 100?
>
> One might keep the phrase "true by definition" in mind.
I was. (Something about that approacthing statistics final...).
Specifically, as I understand it, IQ distributions are (or were once)
normalized so that the arithmetic mean is 100. The median could be
anything, especially with the highly skewed distribution that seems
likely. In particular, it seems to me that very high IQ (>140) are
much more common than simlarly low IQs (<60). Then if the mean IQ
were 100, the median would prbably be slightly lower.
> By design, any valid IQ test MUST show a median of 100, and a standard
> deviation of 15 points. That said, I actually do not know whether the
> MEAN actually must be 100 as well. It would seem that however you
> normalized the test it would still have a theoretical bottom limit, but
> no such top limit. If so, that would almost suggest a more Poisson
> distribution than Gaussian... and by implication, presumably a mean
> slightly above 100.
It's not clear whether IQ tests designed today should agree with the
original IQ tests, have a mean of 100, a median of 100, or in fact
whether all of these are the same. Some evidence seems to exist that
original mean IQ scores are increasing.
> Then again, a whole lot of genuine natural phenomena (as opposed to the
> nonsense that is IQ tests) have a lower limit or zero also, without that
> fact much affecting the actual distribution (for example, size and mass
> of things).
I think it's more a question of "statisticians ignore the difference"
than "there is no difference". In fact, sometimes people take the
logarithm before assuming a normal distribution.
Andrew "usenet != study" Archibald
aarc...@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
> Many a stomach^Wheart will be
> throbbing on your account before the night is done.
I think we had all better keep our respective throbbings to ourselves, as
this is a family forum. -- Joe
> Could you give a cite for that please? Why do you think that that is
> true? Supposing that the average IQ is in fact 100 [1] why do you
> think that the median IQ is also 100?
Another question about IQ: does IQ tests really measure intelligence
(as most people seem to suppose on this thread) ? Or does it measure
some combination of training (in that kind of visual immediate logic),
social class (for this kind of abstractions) and actual intelligence
(but only a precise type of logic) ? Is it a valid test to measure
intelligence as a whole ? Personnaly I don't think so. I suppose that
other tests based on other kinds of intelligence (verbal fluency, or
mental representation of space, or memory, for instance) would give a
totally different result... But I'm not at all a specialist, so I would
be interested by what you think of this tests.
Nph
NB: And in addition, everytime I had such kind of tests my results
improved. Am I becoming more intelligent everytime ?
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
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Nepharite wrote in message <7euvm2$fn7$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>...
Another possibility is that the world isn't getting smarter at all.
We (in the industrialized nations) are merely moving from a world
where skills were of primary importance into a world where information
is of primary importance.
If we are thirsty now, all we need to know is how to turn the handle
on the tap. We don't need to know how to determine if stream water is
safe to drink or how and where to dig a well. Someone else takes care
of that for us. Two hundred years ago, if you needed a shirt, someone
in your immediate family would need to prepare fibers for weaving
(different skills depending on the material the shirt was to be made
of), spin the fiber into thread, possibly dye it, weave the thread
into cloth, and sew the cloth into a shirt. Nowadays, some people
still sew, but with purchased materials. Those who weave are even
fewer and almost always make rugs and/or wall hangings, not cloth for
garments. Dyeing, spinning, retting, carding, combing, and so on are
skills only kept alive in specialized museums. Most shirts are made
by machines, and the people who work those machines know how to do
their particular part of the job - not the whole thing from start to
finish. It isn't necessarily that we need to know *more* now - just
that what we need to know is different.
- Cindy Kandolf, certified language mechanic, mamma flodnak
flodmail: thefl...@ivillage.com flodhome: Bærum, Norway
flodweb: http://www.nethelp.no/cindy/
Nepharite wrote:
>
> > Could you give a cite for that please? Why do you think that that is
> > true? Supposing that the average IQ is in fact 100 [1] why do you
> > think that the median IQ is also 100?
>
> Another question about IQ: does IQ tests really measure intelligence
> (as most people seem to suppose on this thread) ? Or does it measure
> some combination of training (in that kind of visual immediate logic),
> social class (for this kind of abstractions) and actual intelligence
> (but only a precise type of logic) ? Is it a valid test to measure
> intelligence as a whole ? Personnaly I don't think so. I suppose that
> other tests based on other kinds of intelligence (verbal fluency, or
> mental representation of space, or memory, for instance) would give a
> totally different result... But I'm not at all a specialist, so I would
> be interested by what you think of this tests.
The measure of screening test is predictive validity. That is
does better results on the test correlate to better success. If
you a screening for medical school candidates, does the test
success correlate
with success in the school?
Intelligence tests do have predictive validity.
Change subject, do intelligence measure all innate human
intelligence? I doubt it. We not even sure what encompasses all
of human intelligence. Can't measure what you can't define.
David
Copiers can indeed produce pages that look for all the world like they
are fresh out of the laser printer, and have been able to do just that
for about the last ten years. [1] Likewise, laser printers can have
"background" or various other imperfections like you would get from a
copier making poor quality copies.
"Wet" [2] copiers, and a variety of other, now mostly out of use
photocopying methods do indeed produce copies that are quite
distinctive. [3]
1: Guessing, however I do work in the service department of an office
equipment company. I have seen a great many copiers that are ten (l)
years old spitting out nice crisp copies that could have easily come off
the laser printer. I'm not an expert on the history of photocopying.
2: Machines that use a liquid toner/developer process.
3: I am aware that these methods are still in use, still have
applications etc; However they seem to have passed out of the typical
office enviorment.
--
Don M.
---------------------------
http://www.seidata.com/~donm/
> Twenty-five years ago, a smaller segment of the
> population went on to college than does today, and that
> segment generally had very good educational opportunities.
> Today, people are taking the SAT who, twenty-five years ago,
> would almost certainly not have taken it.
Thank you for pointing this out. This should be remembered in
comparisons of such test country vs. country as well. ("This" being
the set of people who are taking the test or being compared.)
Barbara N.
Reply to need...@cvconline.com
> How then do you explain that scores on SATs have been falling
> for about 25 years? So much, in fact, that the tests have had to
> be recalibrated to keep 500 (?) as the "average" score.
My mother and my grandmother used to argue about this.
My late mother's theory:
In 1975, you only took the SAT if you were heading for a private
college. You took the ACT if you were headed for a state university -
which usually was because state universities *had* to accept you, and
private colleges did not. And many people took neither, but hoped to
get a good job at General Motors or International Harvester. And you
had a higher drop-out rate in the past, as students who were "not
college material" were harassed out of high school.
If you compare the SAT scores of the top 10% of each class, the
numbers would probably bounce around a little randomly, rather than
show a downward trend.
My late grandmother's theory:
In a one-room schoolhouse, you learned things three times. You got a
preview as older students learned the material. Then you learned the
material when it was your turn. Finally, you ended up helping younger
students when it was their turn. This meant that it tended to soak in
well.
Modern schools are based on the idea that students of identical age
have the same rate of learning, which is preposterous on its face.
Thus, if the teacher focuses on the C students, the A students are
hopelessly bored and cause disruption in the classroom, while F
students are hopelessly lost and cause disruption in the classroom.
Each generation is taught by the generation ahead of it, so the first
generation taught in grade schools got teachers taught in one-room
schoolhouses, the second generation got teachers taught by teachers
taught in one-room schoolhouses, and so forth, producing a
ratcheting-down of academic accomplishment.
deke
>In particular, it seems to me that very high IQ (>140) are
>much more common than simlarly low IQs (<60).
Isn't this due to the Lake Wobegon effect?
deke
>In 1975, you only took the SAT if you were heading for a private
>college. You took the ACT if you were headed for a state university -
As it was explained to me, in the late '70s(L), the usage of SAT
and ACT were geographically fragmented, rather than funding
fragmented. I forget the direction, but I think it was that the
SAT was commonly required in the eastern US and the ACT was more
common in the west.
Some school applications that I recall (I graduated from high school
in 1980) called for one or the other, both if you had them.
Drew "never took the ACT" Lawson
--
|Drew Lawson | Of all the things I've lost |
|dr...@furrfu.com | I miss my mind the most |
|http://www.furrfu.com | |
> slavins.at.hearsay.demon.co.uk@localhost says...
> > So an IQ test on bignum random people is no
> > longer expected to give a median score of 100.
>
> Are you telling me that IQ is no longer normalised to 100? Really? Do
> you have any sources for this -- I'm genuinely interested.
Pondering on why I'd assumed what I wrote above, I came up with
the following questions:
When you take an IQ test and are told the result, do they give
you the year it's corrected to ? Should it be quoted by the
year that you take the test or the year of your birth ? How do
they prepare a correction factor when the year isn't over yet ?
Simon.
--
No junk email please. | What a story !
<http://www.hearsay.demon.co.uk> | I can't wait to embellish it.
| -- Elaine from _Ally McBeal_
>On Tue, 13 Apr 1999 00:46:22 GMT, Phil Edwards <amr...@zetnet.co.uk> wrote:
>>It was a photocopy.
>
>I am not sure if this was suppose to be a true story or not, but if it was
>could you provide a (Lasnerian) date. It is more than possible using a
>modern, well maintained photocopier to produce copies that are practically
>identical to the original.
All right, "it was an nth-generation photocopy". Or, less elaborately,
"it was visibly a photocopy"; "it was obviously a photocopy"; "our man
could tell at a glance that it was a photocopy".
This seems a strange nit to pick. If I'd told the opposite of that
story - "she came out with a brand new results sheet, leaving our man
wondering how it had been printed so quickly" - this kind of was-it,
wasn't-it, could-it-have-been-given-the-technology-of-the-time
discussion would be quite appropriate. But the story is that it *was*
a photocopy - or rather, it was *recognised as* a photocopy.
What are you actually arguing with?
Phil "I'm curious" Edwards
There's one thing about IQ's that, unless my newsfeed has barfed
again, no-one has mentioned yet, and that is their origin.
Binet, working for the French Ministry of Public Instruction, put
together tests which he hoped would measure children's
'intelligence'[1]. The impetus was to study procedures for the
education of mentally handicapped Paris children. He noticed that (as
one would expect) 5-year-olds averaged a given score, 6-year-olds
averaged a given higher score, etc., up to about 15 or 16, where the
scores levelled off.
He then came up with the idea of measuring the 'mental age' of the
subject; that is, if you scored the same as the average X-year-old on
the test, then your mental age was X.
He then noticed in longitudinal studies that the ratio of mental age
to chronological age tended to remain relatively constant as children
aged. So he came up with the 'intelligence quotient' (hence IQ),
where you divide the subject's mental age by their chronological age
(and multiply by 100 just for convenience).
*Then*, after he came up with that and did a bunch of measurements, he
noticed that the distribution of intelligence quotients followed a
Gaussian distribution, with a mean of 100 (duh, given the original
definition of the whole concept) and a standard deviation of 15 or so.
(The bell curve tended to be a little higher on the low end, actually,
which is attributed to subjects who are of subnormal mental ability
due to accident [brain injury, anoxia during birth, etc.] rather than
due to genetics or less traumatic environmental factors.)
Since then, the cart tends to come before the horse. That is, an
intelligence test is scored by *defining* the mean at 100, *defining*
the st.dev. at 15 or so, and then letting subjects fall on the bell
curve where they may. (And, in fact, this is the *only* way you can
assign an IQ to adults; 30-year-olds aren't twice as smart as
15-year-olds, occasional anecdotal evidence notwithstanding.)
Anyhow, I hope y'all now have a better understanding as to why the
'IQ's all average 100' concept isn't just a myth.
Not sure what this all has to do with UL's, I remain, your humble
Arctic correspondent,
Robert "of course Inuktitut has words for brown; that's what colour
caribou are" Slaven
**********************************************************************
Robert & Linn-Marie Slaven www.yellowknife.com/slaven
...with Stuart, Rebecca, Mariann, Kristina, Elizabeth, and Robin too!
'Man is that he might have joy--not guilt trips.' (Russell M. Nelson)
>
>
>> Could you give a cite for that please? Why do you think that that is
>> true? Supposing that the average IQ is in fact 100 [1] why do you
>> think that the median IQ is also 100?
>
>Another question about IQ: does IQ tests really measure intelligence
>(as most people seem to suppose on this thread) ? Or does it measure
>some combination of training (in that kind of visual immediate logic),
>social class (for this kind of abstractions) and actual intelligence
>(but only a precise type of logic) ? Is it a valid test to measure
>intelligence as a whole ? Personnaly I don't think so. I suppose that
>other tests based on other kinds of intelligence (verbal fluency, or
>mental representation of space, or memory, for instance) would give a
>totally different result... But I'm not at all a specialist, so I would
>be interested by what you think of this tests.
>
>Nph
>
I think most people get confused with how IQ tests are measured. Your
answers are corellated with the answers given by others of shown high
intelligence and ability, the more they match the higher your IQ.
This does not necessarily mean that you need to get all the answers
correct, just that if you think in the same way and at the same speed
as a traditionally intelligent person, then in all likleyhood you have
roughly the same IQ.
T.
I think I'm with you now. What you were saying was that given that IQ
scores increase over time, unless the test that you are taking has been
renormalised very recently, the average score will be some figure greater
than 100, with this figure being approximately 3 IQ points per ten years
of age of the test. Right?
Alexis
People can be trained to run faster, but not many of them will ever be
as fast as Linford, or have as big a dick.
> >Another question about IQ: does IQ tests really measure intelligence
There's no satisfactory definition of intelligence. IQ tests measure
some stuff which is vaguely interesting, but nobody pretends it's the
whole picture. Some total fuckwits are members of Mensa - I have in
mind a certain person who insists on posting racist drivel to
uk.org.mensa and cam.misc......
Both forces are at work (i.e., geographic and funding). The SAT
is the test of choice on the coasts and much of the southeast US.
The ACT is the test of choice in the central states, particularly
the upper midwest. Some states are evenly split in numbers of tests
given. I believe that Texas has nearly as many ACTs administered
as SATs. If you live in the midwest, the primary reason you would
take the SAT would be to go to an exclusive private school, or
failing that, one of the Ivies.
David "never sat for SAT" Martin
int a = 10;
int b = 20;
int c;
c = a;
a = b;
b = c;
Now do the same without using c.
Deacon B. wrote in message <37139902...@news.earthlink.net>...
>On Mon, 12 Apr 1999 20:37:51 GMT, Ok...@spamfree.com (G E M) wrote:
>
>> How then do you explain that scores on SATs have been falling
>> for about 25 years? So much, in fact, that the tests have had to
>> be recalibrated to keep 500 (?) as the "average" score.
>
>My mother and my grandmother used to argue about this.
>
>My late mother's theory:
>
>In 1975, you only took the SAT if you were heading for a private
>college. You took the ACT if you were headed for a state university -
int a = 10;
int b = 20;
int d;
d = a;
a = b;
b = d;
--
Jeffrey Davis <da...@ca.uky.edu>
Thank you, Madam, the agony is somewhat abated.
> Allover Stripes <all...@hedgehog.globalserve.net> wrote previously:
> |> Remember... 50% of the general population have an IQ < 100.
>
> By design, any valid IQ test MUST show a median of 100, and a standard
> deviation of 15 points. That said, I actually do not know whether the
> MEAN actually must be 100 as well. It would seem that however you
> normalized the test it would still have a theoretical bottom limit, but
> no such top limit. If so, that would almost suggest a more Poisson
> distribution than Gaussian... and by implication, presumably a mean
> slightly above 100.
There are several IQ tests out there and I don't know how they are
scored but, at least two of them do not have 100 as perfect score. The
stanford-Binet has 180 as a perfect score I think. Some young dude
just recently got a perfect score and it was in the papers.
Now as to whether they mean anything or not. I scored 173 on the
Stanford-Binet while I was in the VA hospital. I did somwhere along
those lines in high school too and yet I'm dumb as a rock. I attended
high school for five years before giving up and joining the Navy. I'm
not going to sum up my life's history but, it sure doesn't add up go
genius level.
> Ok Smarty Pants,
>
> int a = 10;
> int b = 20;
> int c;
>
> c = a;
> a = b;
> b = c;
>
> Now do the same without using c.
Okay, I'll try.
#!/usr/local/bin/perl
($a, $b) = (10, 20);
($a, $b) = ($b, $a);
print "$a, $b\n";
Brian "Oh, you meant C?" Yeoh
Before moonlit nights
Sakura flower and fall.
I lie, beneath them.
-- 21/03/1999
Trooper wrote:
> In article <7euvm2$fn7$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, on Tue, 13 Apr 1999
> 08:36:19 GMT, Nepharite <neph...@lyons.crosswinds.net> wrote:
>
> >Another question about IQ: does IQ tests really measure intelligence
> >(as most people seem to suppose on this thread) ? Or does it measure
> >some combination of training (in that kind of visual immediate logic),
> >social class (for this kind of abstractions) and actual intelligence
> >(but only a precise type of logic) ? Is it a valid test to measure
> >intelligence as a whole ? Personnaly I don't think so. I suppose that
> >other tests based on other kinds of intelligence (verbal fluency, or
> >mental representation of space, or memory, for instance) would give a
> >totally different result... But I'm not at all a specialist, so I would
> >be interested by what you think of this tests.
The issue of general versus specific intelligence has been debated
nearly as long as we have had intelligence tests. If you are really
interested you can look at the Spearman (general ability - g) versus
Thurstone (primary abilities) debates. Binet, the guy who started the
problem, created an instrument that implies a general ability. I'm
not sure if there is agreement today as to what intelligence is. It's
like pornography, we all know it when we see it.
> I think most people get confused with how IQ tests are measured. Your
> answers are corellated with the answers given by others of shown high
> intelligence and ability, the more they match the higher your IQ.
> This does not necessarily mean that you need to get all the answers
> correct, just that if you think in the same way and at the same speed
> as a traditionally intelligent person, then in all likleyhood you have
> roughly the same IQ.
Huh? If I can make the same mistakes as a smart person I'm smart,
too? Hey, Dr. Nyork. Could you tell us how you make mistakes. I
want to be smart like you.
David "my mistakes are dumb" Martin
Alexander "usenet never ceases to surprise me" Supertramp
>Ok Smarty Pants,
>
>int a = 10;
>int b = 20;
>int c;
>
>c = a;
>a = b;
>b = c;
>
>Now do the same without using c.
I don't see what this has to do with the previous post, but here's how to
transfer values between two variables without a third, in pretty much any
programming language:
a = a + b
b = a - b
a = a - b
This gives us, with a2 being the new value of a and b2 the new value of b:
a2 = (a + b) - ((a + b) - b)
= b
b2 = (a + b) - b
= a
Thus, after this sequence, b holds the value that a used to hold, and a
holds the value that b used to hold.
--
|\ _,,,---,,_ Travis S. Casey <efi...@io.com>
ZZzz /,`.-'`' -. ;-;;,_ No one agrees with me. Not even me.
|,4- ) )-,_..;\ ( `'-'
'---''(_/--' `-'\_)
It's a win-win situation.
No, No, No . . . I shouldn't have used the word correct in my previous
post, as there are generally no correct answers. i.e. in a list of
numbers 1,2,3,4,5 the question would be asked, what is the next number
in the sequence and most people would say 6. It's just a task of
finding a pattern or logical sequence and in this example it is
reasonable to assume that most people would have the same response.
When you get to the more abstract sequences, then different minds
start to find patterns in different ways. A sequence of 2, 12, 5,
30, 1 has a pattern of sorts and the answer could be 6 or it could be
another number depending on the pattern you see. If you see the same
pattern as Einstein, then hey your a genius, if you see the same
pattern as me then you probably in trouble.
Take this over a list of a hundred or so questions and thousands upon
thousands of test cases and correlations start to appear.
T.
>assign an IQ to adults; 30-year-olds aren't twice as smart as
>15-year-olds, occasional anecdotal evidence notwithstanding.)
Of course not.
15-year-olds know *everything*.
Obviously, they get stupider before reaching 30.
Drew "I was so much older then
I'm younger than that now" Lawson
Binet's original test was based on mental age over chronological age
multiplied by 100 to remove the decimal point.
Thus a five year old who performed at an average level of a five year old
had an IQ of 100. A five year old who performed at the level of a ten year
old had an IQ of 200.
Because this was meaningless after about 14 years, later tests were based on
the bell curve (Spearman's g). Someone who scored above a standard deviation
of three would be in the highest .13 of his or her age group and someone
who scored at the average level would, by defintion be above half and below
half. Because the term IQ had come into common use these scores were
translated into IQs for general use. Different tests used different
conversions.
Much of the popular misunderstanding and misuse of the words
"intelligence" (IQ) and "genius" results from using these words which have
an everyday sense for what is not much more than a test of performance on
certain tasks, mostly verbal and mathematical. There is, however, a high
correlation between these results and the abilities needed for highly
complicated intellectual tasks.
If "genius" means creativity and originality, these tests can be misleading.
INTEGER*4 A,B
C
A=10
B=20
C
A=A+B
B=A-B
A=A-B
WRITE(6,*) A,B
Andrew "...if cycles are a lot cheaper than
memory, and you can guarantee no overflow,
and comments don't count." Reid
a ^= b;
b ^= a;
a ^= b;
Ed "old xor-head" Kaulakis
<prostrating oneself before superior knowledge>
Brian "just had a fax[1]" Yeoh
[1] Think Techno-Bob[2]
>Binet's original test was based on mental age over chronological age
>multiplied by 100 to remove the decimal point.
>Thus a five year old who performed at an average level of a five year old
>had an IQ of 100. A five year old who performed at the level of a ten year
>old had an IQ of 200.
That is what I've heard refered to as the "Binet LM test" I think. It's
used for young children with very high and very low abilities. I have a
friend with a child you might categorise as a "genius" (although she
hates the term) - he is 5 years old and can do the maths normally
expected of a 16yo. He got he got the top score on all the other tests
they did, and the Binet LM test gave him a score of 180+, although my
friend says that after about 160, all tests are pretty meaningless (the
psychologist said he was in the 99.99th centile). It was sufficient to
justify her getting special educational help for him, however, and
proved that he was not autistic or emotionally disturbed, just very,
very bright and very, very bored at school (she was advised to home
educate him, with help from the university). She didn't have him tested
just for boastings sake, but because he had a problem.
My friend recommended a book called "Accidently Genius" about a guy
called Michael Kearney, who's story seems slightly similar to her own
child's.
>
>Because this was meaningless after about 14 years, later tests were based on
>the bell curve (Spearman's g). Someone who scored above a standard deviation
>of three would be in the highest .13 of his or her age group and someone
>who scored at the average level would, by defintion be above half and below
>half. Because the term IQ had come into common use these scores were
>translated into IQs for general use. Different tests used different
>conversions.
Which is presumably why psychologists dealing with gifted children tend
to talk in terms of centiles, rather than IQ score. Also, it explains
why I have been advised to have my child tested before 8yo (in order to
assess her educational needs, not because I want to boast either).
>
>Much of the popular misunderstanding and misuse of the words
>"intelligence" (IQ) and "genius" results from using these words which have
>an everyday sense for what is not much more than a test of performance on
>certain tasks, mostly verbal and mathematical.
Hence, the words are definite no-nos on the gifted lists I've been on,
and why they all hate the word "genius". The saddest thing to me is that
rather than celebrating such people, society seems to despise them, and
some of the loneliest people I've met have been profoundly gifted (IQ
higher than 180 as children).
> There is, however, a high
>correlation between these results and the abilities needed for highly
>complicated intellectual tasks.
I was told by my psychologist that jigsaws are one common thing that
very highly intelligent children seem to have a knack for. I have also
learnt, however, that there are two main categories of giftedness:
globally gifted and gifted in a specific area (maths, music, art,
literature etc). Globally gifted children are the all-rounders but it is
possible for a child to be a "genius" at maths, and positively behind at
reading and writing (even without learning disabilities).
A URL I found interesting was:-
http://dent.edmonds.webnet.edu/EEN/
>
>If "genius" means creativity and originality, these tests can be misleading.
Very true, which is why I dislike the way they are used outside the
offices of educational psychologists for what seem trivial reasons. Why
do most of us need to know our IQ? If I decide to get my child tested,
it will be within the context of an entire educational assessment, and
only if we are having difficulties. If she is happy and coping, I'd
rather not know.
PS. There is a support board on the WWW for profoundly gifted children
and their parents called "Precocious and Prodigious" at:
http://disc.server.com/indices/9457.html
I was not wild about it, but it might interest someone.
--
Anna Hayward
There is no need to transfer anything. The simplest program (modulo a
suitable meaning of 'simple') to do the above challenge is:
int a = 20;
int b = 10;
Yours, Lulu...
--
quilty | The specter of free information is haunting the `Net! All the
@ibm. | powers of IP- and crypto-tyrrany have entered into an unholy
net | alliance...ideas have nothing to lose but their chains. Unite
| against "intellectual property" and anti-privacy regimes!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
> When you take an IQ test and are told the result, do they give
> you the year it's corrected to ?
You just touched on one of my pet peeves. I took an IQ test back
in 1946, and nobody would ever tell me what the results were.
Something about it would be harmful for me to find out.
Charles Wm. Dimmick
> > > > Ok Smarty Pants,
> > > >
> > > > int a = 10;
> > > > int b = 20;
> > > > int c;
> > > >
> > > > c = a;
> > > > a = b;
> > > > b = c;
> > > >
> > > > Now do the same without using c.
[...]
> > a ^= b;
> > b ^= a;
> > a ^= b;
How 'bout doing something similar for a Motorola 6800 series uP?
I'm still using
STA somewhere
TAX
LDA somewhere
Regards
Ray
Much the same attitude was still prevalent a decade later. Another
five years led to a more relaxed atmosphere, and I was given a range
(but still no exact figure).
--
John "My figure becomes less exact with every passing year" Francis
> On Tue, 13 Apr 1999 00:46:22 GMT, Phil Edwards <amr...@zetnet.co.uk> wrote:
> >It was a photocopy.
>
> I am not sure if this was suppose to be a true story or not, but if it was
> could you provide a (Lasnerian) date. It is more than possible using a
> modern, well maintained photocopier to produce copies that are practically
> identical to the original.
Are you sure that that particular recruiting station actually wants
people who'd spot and object to the photocopy ? Might have been a
form of negative vetting: if you're smart enough to spot this is
fake we don't want you because you'll be too smart to give up all
your money.
Second possibility: someone high up in the organisation told a
devotee to 'copy out the original by hand'. The devotee knows that
taking a photocopy is faster/easier/more accurate. The boss didn't
think to check up.
Simon.
--
No junk email please. | What a story !
<http://www.hearsay.demon.co.uk> | I can't wait to embellish it.
| -- Elaine from _Ally McBeal_
>>You just touched on one of my pet peeves. I took an IQ test back
>>in 1946, and nobody would ever tell me what the results were.
>>Something about it would be harmful for me to find out.
>>
>>Charles Wm. Dimmick
>
>
>Much the same attitude was still prevalent a decade later. Another
>five years led to a more relaxed atmosphere, and I was given a range
>(but still no exact figure).
In 1972, I moved to Newport, Rhode Island and was tested as part
of entering the school system there (5th grade for me). I was
never told the results. They just put me in the gifted school (so
I guess I did okay).
Drew "though 'I test well' has never helped on my resume" Lawson
I was born and raised in the UK, back in the days when testing was
the norm (Hi, Norm!). Almost everybody took the "eleven plus" exam
to see whether you went to the grammar school or to the secondary
modern. I'm not sure exactly where the cutoff was, but it would have
been somewhere around one standard deviation above the mean. Above
that and you ended up at the grammar school; below that and you got
consigned to the secondary modern (unless you were lucky enough to
live in Kent, or one other county, which had an intermediate stream).
If you failed but came fairly close you could retest at 13.
So passing my eleven-plus exam meant I was at least 1 SD above the
mean (or rather better than that: I took the test a year early, so
that would score me about 10% higher). Some seven years later I
took a rather more competitive exam (to become one of those oft-
discussed Cambridge mathematicians) which has a cutoff closer to
2 SD above the mean (and probably a bit higher than that).
In the meantime, however, I had been tested rather more thoroughly
(long story) and was led to believe that I was in the 3+ SD range.
My closest friend during my first year at university was in the 4+
bracket. At that level the gap between genius and insanity is very
thin - too thin, in his case. And his younger brother was even
smarter, but he managed to fit in to the world rather better.
> >> Allover Stripes <all...@hedgehog.globalserve.net> wrote previously:
> >> |> Remember... 50% of the general population have an IQ < 100.
> >> |
> >> |Could you give a cite for that please? Why do you think that that is
> >> |true? Supposing that the average IQ is in fact 100 [1] why do you
> >> |think that the median IQ is also 100?
Thank you for your excellent explanation of the origin and definition
of IQ tests.
> Anyhow, I hope y'all now have a better understanding as to why the
> 'IQ's all average 100' concept isn't just a myth.
That's a valuable data point. But it doesn't really answer my
question, which is, "are 50% of people below average IQ?". Note that
this is not true by definition; if for example, you had a hundred
people with an IQ of 90 and 50 with an IQ of 120, the average would be
100 with more than half the people below average. This tesnds to
occur when the distribution is noticeably skewed.
> *Then*, after he came up with that and did a bunch of measurements, he
> noticed that the distribution of intelligence quotients followed a
> Gaussian distribution, with a mean of 100 (duh, given the original
> definition of the whole concept) and a standard deviation of 15 or so.
> (The bell curve tended to be a little higher on the low end, actually,
> which is attributed to subjects who are of subnormal mental ability
> due to accident [brain injury, anoxia during birth, etc.] rather than
> due to genetics or less traumatic environmental factors.)
Here you point out that the distribution is in fact somewhat skewed.
To be overly picky, I hsould point out that it's not really a Gaussian
anymore when it's skewed.
> Not sure what this all has to do with UL's, I remain, your humble
> Arctic correspondent,
Well, probably not much, but the fact "50% of people are below
average" is often repeated and rarely questioned. It probably
qualifies as a misunderstanding rather than a legend, but it seemed
interesting to me. Perhaps IQ was a bit of a controversial subject.
Andrew "pedantic" Archibald
aarc...@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
> My closest friend during my first year at university was in the 4+
> bracket. At that level the gap between genius and insanity is very
> thin
cite?
> Anecdotal? I just did. He went over the edge and had a nervous breakdown.
Oh, sorry. I thought you meant that there is some general correlation
between scoring very high on IQ tests and insanity. I'm not saying there
isn't such (though I'm rather sceptical), just interested in the factual
basis.
Yehuda
<snip>
>>Now do the same without using c.
>
>
>int a = 10;
>int b = 20;
>int d;
>
>d = a;
>a = b;
>b = d;
No, no, no, no!
10 a = 10
20 b = 20
30 c = a
40 a = b
50 b = c
60 print a
70 print b
It's so BASIC!
--
James 'Tengu' King -The Magpie of Millennial Madness
"Hello, Mr. Postmodern"
-Lyabibrave referring to me on r.a.a.m.
|Much the same attitude was still prevalent a decade later. Another
|five years led to a more relaxed atmosphere, and I was given a range
|(but still no exact figure).
As an infant and young child, my father was overly enamored with his
psych grad work, and put me through all sorts of IQ tests (and other
such psych tests... is their an MMPI for toddlers?).
So one of my early memories, around the late 1960s or early 1970s, was
being told all my IQ scores on these tests. The scores were generally
pretty high, but over an absurdly large range (like 115-180).
Obviously, the reliabilty of this is ZERO; the range itself indicates
it, and the bias factor is pretty easy to explain.
One of my slightly later childhood memories was thinking about how
utterly idiotic IQ tests were, and how incoherent was what they were
supposed to measure. It seemed evident, by the age of 8, that there was
no Spearman's Q (not thought quite that way at age 8). My poor father
still hasn't gotten over the notion that his child is a genius, because
the IQ tests mean something.
[Snip some moderately interesting stuff]
> Ahem. I'm about to talk about stuff that I don't know enough about to talk
> about. (See? Even my language skills desert me).
>
> Let the hand-waving begin.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
[Snip some moderately interesting and amusing stuff]
> Madeleine "oh, yeah, ObWittgenstein: "Whereof I know not, thereof should I
> speak not"." Page
With all due respect, Maddie, I believe the hand waving has
been going on for quite some time. I do tend to admire truth
in labeling whenever and whenever I encounter it, and I do
appreciate the disclaimer. My own IQ is whatever it is,
high enough to keep me from even doing any hand waving at this
point, not without a bit of research, and maybe not even then.
Can't actually guarantee said research would find anything worth
posting, after all. An interesting subject: at least, I think so.
Casady[1]
1. The first name is not actually supposed to be any real
secret. A search at Dejanews would turn it up with ease[2].
Not using one neatly sidesteps the entire business of
internyms.[3][Richard, if it matters]
2. For some value of 'ease'. Seemed to be something wrong
there, yesterday. Engine said that one regular had about
2500 posts to AFU, and every single one, that I tried to look
at, was alleged to have been canceled. WTF.[4] is going on?
3. The main reason for note 1. is that I just couldn't
bear to post to an IQ thread, without a footnote or two.
I think I could have worked in a good bit of pedantry
if it was not for laziness. Too long? We try.
4. Yeah, I heard of the BOA. Let the flames begin. If you can't
figure it out, trust me, it doesn't really matter.
I was told my childhood IQ tests scored me lower than I "should" have been
because I was afraid to guess an answer if I wasn't 100% sure it was
correct...from a later perspective I realize this comes from being able to
make a valid case for more than one answer to almost all the questions on the
test....
(Was also told last year that when I was tested at age 4, I corrected the
examiner when he wrote down a different response to one of my questions than
what I had answered...here's this guy who does this for a living and the
4-year-old kid across from him is READING his notes on an unfamiliar test
UPSIDE DOWN...by the way, I still feel cheated because they showed me a
picture of a stove to be identified and I didn't recognize it because our
stove didn't have FEET)....r
--
"If you don't mind smelling like a peanut for a few days, peanut butter makes
a darn fine shaving cream" --Barry Goldwater
>Ok Smarty Pants,
>int a = 10;
>int b = 20;
>int c;
>c = a;
>a = b;
>b = c;
>Now do the same without using c.
int a = 10;
int b = 20;
int d;
d = a;
a = b;
b = d;
Furrfu, that was simple!
deke
Anecdotal? I just did. He went over the edge and had a nervous breakdown.
Last I heard (some twenty years later) he was just beginning to make another
attempt at integrating himself with society and living a 'normal' life.
He spent most of the intervening years in squats or in hospital.
"As I was walking among the fires of Hell, delighted with the enjoyments
of Genius; which to Angels look like torment and insanity."
W. Blake (another fine example): "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell"
--
John "see also Oscar Levant" Francis
: a ^= b;
: b ^= a;
: a ^= b;
Which fails if a and b are the same thing, of course.
David "not value" Scheidt
--
dsch...@enteract.com
Ketchup, therefore, shows both thixotropic and pseudoplastic rheological
properties. -- John Schmitt, in AFU
Took one when I was about 8 (didn't know that's what it was at the
time). A few years later, after finding out that my parents knew what
the IQ of their children (myself included) was, I asked what mine was
... my Mother told me I shouldn't know. (I'd figured out by that time
that I was smart. Would it have really harmed by development to know
how smart?) (I wonder if she'd tell me now. I just don't care. I also
took one in high school[1] --- and got the results that day -- he
scored it while I waited.)
[1] Interesting ethical question: Is it possible to cheat on an IQ
test? One of the portions of the test I took in high school was done
as follows:
1. Examiner lays four cards face down on the table. Each card has a
scene on the front. (I'm not sure he was supposed to do this part.)
2. Examiner turns the four cards over as quickly as possible and
starts a timer.
3. Examinee has [mumble] seconds to arrange the four cards in
chronological order based on the scenes. (For example, a stain on the
floor would come after a full glass near the edge of a table.)
Turns out that the answers (in the form of letters "A", "B", "C", "D",
A being first, etc.) are on the back of the cards. If the examinee
memorizes the letters and then arranges the cards based on that instead
of based on the scenes on the front, is he cheating, or is he merely
getting a higher score by being smarter (which is essentially how an IQ
test is supposed to work, right?)
Brett "The only person you're cheating is yourself" Frankenberger
--
- Brett (bre...@netcom.com)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
... Coming soon to a | Brett Frankenberger
.sig near you ... a Humorous Quote ... | bre...@netcom.com
I think that this was a case of the message getting garbled between its
conception and expression. My point, which I completely failed to make, is
that the story read as an urban legend to me, which I considered odd given
its author. You cited a "journalist" without giving specifics. While there
are good reasons for doing it in this case, it could also be a facet of
false authority commonly seen in urban legends. How many stories are
attributed to "police departments," "hospitals," or "911 workers?" We also
have a slightly objectionable group, you know, "those people" that are
given away by a stupid blunder. The whole thing is slightly humorous and
ends up reassuring us that we would never fall for that, we could all
recognize the photocopy and be safe from the evil people.
I guess that the fact that I choose to harp on the photocopy thing was a
little unfortunate. What I meant to get across was that there are legitamate
reasons for having a photocopy. Most USAn newspapers carry a daily horoscope.
This is basically a personallity profile in which one of twelve profiles is
valid for every single person on earth. It is possible that the people in
question simply had N stacks of write-ups which they matched up to the person.
My personal favorite explanation is that the test was graded by a computer,
producing a highly accurate, scientific, *computer generated* analyisis that
was then printed on a laser printer badly in need of repair.
In short, I am not arguing with anything really. The story caught my
attention and I tried to comment on it. True, I failed miserably, but
I tried.
-Dave "curiouser and curiouser" Tarkowski
It was unf
--
"Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball" -SNL
That is actually an interesting theory of which I hadn't thought.
-Dave "Wants to say more, but thinks it would be off charter" Tarkowski
>As an infant and young child, my father was overly enamored with his
>psych grad work
My word. *These* days, there's a minimum age requirement for psych
grad work.
Lee "hi Maddy!" Rudolph
>You just touched on one of my pet peeves. I took an IQ test back
>in 1946, and nobody would ever tell me what the results were.
>Something about it would be harmful for me to find out.
Well of course. They would have had to kill you.
John "Obvious, innit" Schmitt
"Visitors are requested to keep to the paths and are strictly prohibited from
touching monumental erections, trees, flowers and plants."
Allegedly a sign in a New Jersey cemetery.
The usual disclaimers apply, naturally.
> One of my slightly later childhood memories was thinking about how
> utterly idiotic IQ tests were, and how incoherent was what they were
> supposed to measure.
The only questions I remember from a childhood IQ test consisted of a
bunch of elaborate polygons which had been divvied up into squares. You
were supposed to fold everything into a shape in your mind and then say
what you came up with. It made no sense to me. I saw that since I could
fold it an infinite number of times, the resultant shape was a simple
square. Of course, the "correct" answer was probably something like a
swan or a school house or something. After a couple of those, we moved
on to a different area.
Perhaps coincidentally, I never became the architect I'd always wanted
to pretend to be.
--
Jeffrey Davis <da...@ca.uky.edu>
Thank you, Madam, the agony is somewhat abated.
>On 14 Apr 1999, John Francis wrote:
>> My closest friend during my first year at university was in the 4+
>> bracket. At that level the gap between genius and insanity is very
>> thin
>cite?
I don't know about *his* year at insanity, but at my grade school,
they sat two rows apart.
deacon "but they passed notes anyway" b.
There is a trick you can do using xor to eliminate the temporary
variable, but this lies outside the scope of afu.
Alexis "Left as an exercise for the reader" Manning
No. If a == b:
a ^= b --> a = 0
b ^= a --> b ^= 0 = b
a ^= b --> 0 ^= b = b
-- A.
> I think by "same thing" he means "aliases of the same address", so that
> changing one changes the other...if they're two names for the same variable
> the effect is to set them both to zero....r
If I'd meant *a I'd a said so. And please, _don't_ cite references.
Ed "not a class act" Kaulakis
To say nothing of the age at which he must have fathered me.
Yours, Lulu "damn parataxis" of the Lotus-Eaters...
--
quilty _/_/_/_/_/_/_/ THIS MESSAGE WAS BROUGHT TO YOU BY:_/_/_/_/ v i
@ibm. _/_/ Postmodern Enterprises _/_/ s r
net _/_/ MAKERS OF CHAOS.... _/_/ i u
_/_/_/_/_/ LOOK FOR IT IN A NEIGHBORHOOD NEAR YOU_/_/_/_/_/ g s
>My poor father
>still hasn't gotten over the notion that his child is a genius, because
>the IQ tests mean something.
A common misconception.
Fathers think their children are geniuses, whether or not IQ tests are
administered. It's a far more valid paternity test than this DNA
nonsense.
Intelligence, you see, is inherited from the paternal side of the
family. It's baldness and big penises you inherit from the maternal
side of the family.
deacon "or is that from the milkman side of the family?" b.
>My point, which I completely failed to make, is
>that the story read as an urban legend to me, which I considered odd given
>its author.
Er, thanks. I think.
>You cited a "journalist" without giving specifics.
Actually it was Jon Ronson, in the days when he wrote for _City Life_.
Which gets me into explanations of who Jon Ronson is, what _City Life_
is and why Jon Ronson no longer writes for it, none of which is
germane to the story. That's the only reason I left it out.
>The whole thing is slightly humorous and
>ends up reassuring us that we would never fall for that, we could all
>recognize the photocopy and be safe from the evil people.
Yep, that's about it. With a dash of "cult people are *stupid*".
>I guess that the fact that I choose to harp on the photocopy thing was a
>little unfortunate. What I meant to get across was that there are legitamate
>reasons for having a photocopy.
Yep - and in all probability D**n*t*cs believers sincerely believe
that there are, say, three personality types ("needs D**n*t*cs",
"needs D**n*t*cs badly" and "damn, this person really *is* fucked up,
we shouldn't really be taking their money, but what the hell"). I
guess the point of the story was that the woman was impressing on him
that the profile was the *truth* about *him personally*. Kind of like
going to have your birthchart cast and coming out with a printout
saying "Virgo people are fussy, pedantic and humourless".
Phil "to a fault" Edwards
--
Phil Edwards http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/amroth/
"Ostriopliosis is a problem particularly likely to strike
children who will be the subject of chain letters" - Deborah Stevenson
>Are you sure that that particular recruiting station actually wants
>people who'd spot and object to the photocopy ? Might have been a
>form of negative vetting: if you're smart enough to spot this is
>fake we don't want you because you'll be too smart to give up all
>your money.
Way too sophisticated. Besides, is John Travolta actually stupid?
Phil "no, I don't know either" Edwards
> It seemed evident, by the age of 8, that there was
>no Spearman's Q (not thought quite that way at age 8).
g, shirley?
Phil "your punchline here" Edwards
Oh, I see. In that case, he's completely and utterly correct. :)
Alexis