How Smart is Smart?

[TheNeil]

I've just spent less than rivetting 20 minutes on the phone listening to my brother yammer on about whatever it is that he yammers on about (cars I think but I switch off) but he did ask me a question that had me a little bit stumped: How smart is smart?

 

Apparently his son's teacher had commented that J was 'bright' and should maybe look at having is IQ properly tested (I wish I understood the rationale behind this but...whatever). In my brother's head this is something that I should know about (God knows why )(then again, he regularly loses arguments with glasses of water ) so does anybody have any ideas? How smart does someone need to be to join MENSA?

[pearl]

I suppose you need to be smart enough to pass the MENSA tests

[Mumble]

I suppose you need to be smart enough to pass the MENSA tests

How smart (and what is 'smart'?) is that?

[pearl]

Dunno. I'm not smart.

[TheNeil]

Dunno. I'm not smart.

Neither am I - that's why I wondered if anyone here knew

[Kazzen161]

In my experience of schools, they would only suggest this if they thought he was very bright (gifted).

[Tally]

I graph of IQ forms a "bell curve," with most people falling in the middle, and few people at either end. 90% of people have an IQ between 90 and 110, so anything above 110 is in the top 5%. The further you deviate from the middle, the fewer people there are. I don't know specifics, but it very quickly tapers off and once you get into the 120s, that becomes quite unusual.

 

You can take an online test on the Mensa website which could indicate whether you might be eligible. If you pass that, they can send you a written test. You have to pay for this to be marked. If you get a satisfactory score, you can take an exam at a local test centre. There are two papers. You have to pay for this also. If you score in the top 2% in at least one of the two tests, they will invite you to join Mensa. They do not give you an IQ score though.

 

You can also apply to join Mensa with IQ test results from a proper psychologist. This is normally how children end up joining.

 

There are a lot of online IQ tests, but they are notoriously unreliable. I have scored between 115 and 154 on them. 154 really would be some kind of super-genius, and I am confident I am not one of them.

Edited September 11, 2008 by Tally

[Flora]

Seems to me like a proud parent wanting to share some nice news with his son'e uncle. Doesn't take much of an IQ (mensa standard or otherwise) to work that out

 

Flora

[Enid]

Anyone can take a mensa test, and if they get a good score, they`re smart! simple really, not the people taking the test, although that would be a matter of opinion Enid

[TheNeil]

My brother will probably struggle to spell MENSA () but I suppose if I point him in the direction of the MENSA website then that should shut him up. Whether it's worth joining or not though is another matter - would being labelled a 'genius' be a help or a hinderance? Oh well, his decision I suppose.

[Tally]

Well, you don't have to tell anyone if you don't want to.

[pearl]

Hey, according to all that info I'm smarter than I thought

Now, how best to use this gigantic brain power, mwahahahahaha ....

[TheNeil]

Seems to me like a proud parent wanting to share some nice news with his son'e uncle. Doesn't take much of an IQ (mensa standard or otherwise) to work that out

My brother doesn't do that - his autistic traits mean that he doesn't understand the concept of 'nice news' (everything is merely facts to him - in that respect he's even more extreme than me). IQ doesn't come into it

[Mumble]

I graph of IQ forms a "bell curve," with most people falling in the middle, and few people at either end. 90% of people have an IQ between 90 and 110, so I would say that anything above 110 is above average. The further you deviate from the middle, the fewer people there are.

 

Not quite. Intelligence is through to be normally distributed (although this can be debated), resembling over the total population (which must thus be defined) a normal distribution with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15. Thus, an average 'intelligence', falling within two standard deviations of the mean falls between 70 and 130.

 

You can take an online test on the Mensa website which could indicate whether you might be eligible. If you pass that, they can send you a written test. You have to pay for this to be marked. If you get a satisfactory score, you can take an exam at a local test centre. There are two papers. You have to pay for this also. If you score in the top 2% in at least one of the two tests, they will invite you to join Mensa.

Would this not mean that it is in their interest for you to pass? Or am I being too cynical - if they can make money from you passing, it seems to me that there is 'room for manoeuvre'.

[Tally]

Intelligence is through to be normally distributed (although this can be debated), resembling over the total population (which must thus be defined) a normal distribution with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15. Thus, an average 'intelligence', falling within two standard deviations of the mean falls between 70 and 130.

Well, I have yet to see a graph of IQ results that matches what you are saying. All the ones I have seen form a distinctive bell curve with 90% of the population falling between 90 and 110.

 

And no, it is not in Mensa's interests to admit anyone as a member. It would defeat the whole object of Mensa as "the high IQ society" to admit people who do not pass the exams. I don't believe they profit from the membership fees, simply cover their costs.

[Mumble]

Well, I have yet to see a graph of IQ results that matches what you are saying. All the ones I have seen form a distinctive bell curve with 90% of the population falling between 90 and 110.

Will This One do?

[Tally]

It is distinctly bell-shaped, though slightly less so that the others I have seen. However, it does refer to only one specific type of test. Perhaps that is why.

[Mumble]

It is distinctly bell-shaped, though slightly less so that the others I have seen. However, it does refer to only one specific type of test. Perhaps that is why.

 

The Normal Curve is a representation of population distribution. Where kurtosis is not zero, a platykurtic (flat) or leptokurtic (pointy) distribution will arise. Similarly, if the data results in a cluster of frequency scores at one end, it will give a skewness that deviates from zero (positive or negative). These will then not be normal, i.e. they will deviate from the normal distribution. Simply looking at the shape of the curve can give an indication as to its normality (axis scale needs to be considered) but a statistical test of normality must be conducted to ascertain whether a data set is likely to have a normal distribution.

 

The normal distribution ("Bell Curve", although useful in considering the shape, has racist undertones relating to a book of the same name whereby statistics were 'manipulated' in order to attempt to convince people that black people were/are less intelligent than white people - this work has been wholly discredited) is specifically constructed so that the same percentage of the population fall within particular standard deviations (SD) (a measure of data spread) from the mean (arithmetical average) - approximately 68% fall within 1 SD and 95% within 2 SD of the mean. 3 SD will encapsulate all but the fringes (about 0.15% at the top and the same again at the bottom) of the population. Standard deviations vary, but these percentages are set - anything quoting other percentages is not using a standard statistical measure)

 

IQ (well what is measured by an IQ test), has been found for the population to have a standard deviation of 15 IQ points. Thus, with a mean of 100, 68% of the population will have an IQ in the range of 100+/-15 = 85 - 115 IQ points. Further, 95% of the population (this obviously includes the previous 68%) have an IQ in the range of 100+/-30 = 70 - 130 IQ points. 5% of the population will have an IQ outside of these bounds, and because this is a normal distribution and hence symmetrical, 2.5% will have an IQ below 70 and 2.5% an IQ above 130.

 

It is probably easier to see this pictorially (the graph I linked to earlier also does this), and as this is an ASD forum, the Cambridge Annual Disability Lecture seems a sensible reference. On this website, if you scroll right down to the bottom, you will find details of Professor Baron-Cohen's lecture "Is Aspergers Syndrome Necessarily a Disability?" - if you click on "The Powerpoint slides of the '05 lecture are available" and open this file, slides 4 and 5 explain this well.

 

I hope this explains things a little better - the 'problem' with statistics is that by their very nature they try to generalise and make complicated pictures simple - but then this leads to misunderstandings in what they are trying to say as people over-generalise further.

[TheNeil]

The Normal Curve is a representation of population distribution. Where kurtosis is not zero, a platykurtic (flat) or leptokurtic (pointy) distribution will arise. Similarly, if the data results in a cluster of frequency scores at one end, it will give a skewness that deviates from zero (positive or negative). These will then not be normal, i.e. they will deviate from the normal distribution. Simply looking at the shape of the curve can give an indication as to its normality (axis scale needs to be considered) but a statistical test of normality must be conducted to ascertain whether a data set is likely to have a normal distribution.

 

The normal distribution ("Bell Curve", although useful in considering the shape, has racist undertones relating to a book of the same name whereby statistics were 'manipulated' in order to attempt to convince people that black people were/are less intelligent than white people - this work has been wholly discredited) is specifically constructed so that the same percentage of the population fall within particular standard deviations (SD) (a measure of data spread) from the mean (arithmetical average) - approximately 68% fall within 1 SD and 95% within 2 SD of the mean. 3 SD will encapsulate all but the fringes (about 0.15% at the top and the same again at the bottom) of the population. Standard deviations vary, but these percentages are set - anything quoting other percentages is not using a standard statistical measure)

 

IQ (well what is measured by an IQ test), has been found for the population to have a standard deviation of 15 IQ points. Thus, with a mean of 100, 68% of the population will have an IQ in the range of 100+/-15 = 85 - 115 IQ points. Further, 95% of the population (this obviously includes the previous 68%) have an IQ in the range of 100+/-30 = 70 - 130 IQ points. 5% of the population will have an IQ outside of these bounds, and because this is a normal distribution and hence symmetrical, 2.5% will have an IQ below 70 and 2.5% an IQ above 130.

 

It is probably easier to see this pictorially (the graph I linked to earlier also does this), and as this is an ASD forum, the Cambridge Annual Disability Lecture seems a sensible reference. On this website, if you scroll right down to the bottom, you will find details of Professor Baron-Cohen's lecture "Is Aspergers Syndrome Necessarily a Disability?" - if you click on "The Powerpoint slides of the '05 lecture are available" and open this file, slides 4 and 5 explain this well.

 

I hope this explains things a little better - the 'problem' with statistics is that by their very nature they try to generalise and make complicated pictures simple - but then this leads to misunderstandings in what they are trying to say as people over-generalise further.

Huh? I wish I was smart enough to join MENSA as I might understand what any of that means

[Suze]

Hi The neil, I was lead to believe that an IQ over 135 was classed as genius and eligible for entry to mensa.My sons ed physch told me this , however there are so many differing opinions if you look on the net .

[TheNeil]

Hi The neil, I was lead to believe that an IQ over 135 was classed as genius and eligible for entry to mensa.My sons ed physch told me this , however there are so many differing opinions if you look on the net .

An answer I can understand . Thank you, thank you, thank you

[Mumble]

Huh? I wish I was smart enough to join MENSA as I might understand what any of that means

Sorry, didn't mean to belittle anyone by writing that. It's a big part of one of my obsessions, it's what I'm doing as part of my PhD, and hence something I get over excited and animated about. Sorry

[mossgrove]

Mumble

 

Here goes:

 

Strictly speaking in a normal distribution half of the population is average or above average, whether the mode, the mean or the median is used. You could use the standard deviation test to form an opinion of what constitutes 'high' intelligence but it would not be correct to use this to form a definition of what constitutes 'above average'.

 

Depending on what you want to do with the data it is not absolutely necessary to conduct a formal test for a normal distribution as many of the statistical tests that you might wish to apply are robust to a considerable degree of departure from the normality assumptions, and provided the sample size is sufficiently large the Central Limit Theorem may allow you to assume the data is distributed normally even when it isn't!

 

Having said all that there will always be difficulties in usuing the results of intelligence tests as different tests may produce different results, a random selection of people who have volunteered to take an intelligence test does not necessarily constitue an random sample from which you can make inferences about intelligence the entire population, there is the ever-present danger you are simply measuring who is better or worse at doing tests, and a risk of non-response bias as people who do not feel they are very good at such tests may well be more likely to decline to do them.

 

Phew!

 

 

Simon

 

 

 

 

The Normal Curve is a representation of population distribution. Where kurtosis is not zero, a platykurtic (flat) or leptokurtic (pointy) distribution will arise. Similarly, if the data results in a cluster of frequency scores at one end, it will give a skewness that deviates from zero (positive or negative). These will then not be normal, i.e. they will deviate from the normal distribution. Simply looking at the shape of the curve can give an indication as to its normality (axis scale needs to be considered) but a statistical test of normality must be conducted to ascertain whether a data set is likely to have a normal distribution.

 

The normal distribution ("Bell Curve", although useful in considering the shape, has racist undertones relating to a book of the same name whereby statistics were 'manipulated' in order to attempt to convince people that black people were/are less intelligent than white people - this work has been wholly discredited) is specifically constructed so that the same percentage of the population fall within particular standard deviations (SD) (a measure of data spread) from the mean (arithmetical average) - approximately 68% fall within 1 SD and 95% within 2 SD of the mean. 3 SD will encapsulate all but the fringes (about 0.15% at the top and the same again at the bottom) of the population. Standard deviations vary, but these percentages are set - anything quoting other percentages is not using a standard statistical measure)

 

IQ (well what is measured by an IQ test), has been found for the population to have a standard deviation of 15 IQ points. Thus, with a mean of 100, 68% of the population will have an IQ in the range of 100+/-15 = 85 - 115 IQ points. Further, 95% of the population (this obviously includes the previous 68%) have an IQ in the range of 100+/-30 = 70 - 130 IQ points. 5% of the population will have an IQ outside of these bounds, and because this is a normal distribution and hence symmetrical, 2.5% will have an IQ below 70 and 2.5% an IQ above 130.

 

It is probably easier to see this pictorially (the graph I linked to earlier also does this), and as this is an ASD forum, the Cambridge Annual Disability Lecture seems a sensible reference. On this website, if you scroll right down to the bottom, you will find details of Professor Baron-Cohen's lecture "Is Aspergers Syndrome Necessarily a Disability?" - if you click on "The Powerpoint slides of the '05 lecture are available" and open this file, slides 4 and 5 explain this well.

 

I hope this explains things a little better - the 'problem' with statistics is that by their very nature they try to generalise and make complicated pictures simple - but then this leads to misunderstandings in what they are trying to say as people over-generalise further.

Edited September 12, 2008 by mossgrove

[TheNeil]

Sorry, didn't mean to belittle anyone by writing that. It's a big part of one of my obsessions, it's what I'm doing as part of my PhD, and hence something I get over excited and animated about. Sorry

Oh quit with the 'sorry' - you're an Aspie and this is one of your obsessions. <'>

 

Stats are a foreign language to me so your explanation was 'interesting' and pushed my tiny mind in a new direction (mainly away from work but that's never a bad thing )(I genuinely enjoyed reading what you put ). Pure maths and mechanics, that's where the fun is (or, better still, a good dollop of boolean logic and some gibberish involving algebra )

Edited September 12, 2008 by TheNeil

[mossgrove]

Pure maths is pointless and scary, wheras stats is about the real world (at least some of the time).

 

 

 

Oh quit with the 'sorry' - you're an Aspie and this is one of your obsessions. <'>

 

Stats are a foreign language to me so your explanation was 'interesting' and pushed my tiny mind in a new direction (mainly away from work but that's never a bad thing )(I genuinely enjoyed reading what you put ). Pure maths and mechanics, that's where the fun is (or, better still, a good dollop of boolean logic and some gibberish involving algebra )

Edited September 12, 2008 by mossgrove

[TheNeil]

Pure maths is pointless and scary, wheras stats is about the real world (at least some of the time).

'There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.' - Benjamin Disraeli

 

Statistics shows the extent of a problem...my kind of maths solves the problem

[mossgrove]

Not at all.

 

Consider the story of the maths professor taking his eligible daughter to the ball:

 

He says to the pure maths student and the stats student that whoever gets to his daughter first and asks her for a dance can have her hand in marriage.

 

The rule was that they must start 10 yards away, walk half the distance towards her, then stop. Then walk half the remaining distance and stop and keep going until they reached her.

 

The pure maths student stood with a smug smile on his face, arms folded. The stats student walked the five yards and stopped.

 

The pure maths student said "I don't know why you bother, if you keep halving the distance you will never reach her".

 

The stats student started walking and said, "But I know that I can get close enough!"

 

 

Simon

 

 

 

'There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.' - Benjamin Disraeli

 

Statistics shows the extent of a problem...my kind of maths solves the problem

Edited September 12, 2008 by mossgrove

[TheNeil]

Not at all.

 

Consider the story of the maths professor taking his eligible daughter to the ball:

 

He says to the pure maths student and the stats student that whoever gets to his daughter first and asks her for a dance can have her hand in marriage.

 

The rule was that they must start 10 yards away, walk half the distance towards her, then stop. Then walk half the remaining distance and stop and keep going until they reached her.

 

The pure maths student stood with a smug smile on his face, arms folded. The stats student walked the five yards and stopped.

 

The pure maths student said "I don't know why you bother, if you keep halving the distance you will never reach her".

 

The stats student started walking and said, "But I know that I can get close enough!"

 

 

Simon

I'm not sure whether that's an insult...or a compliment

[Mumble]

Well Mossgrove, I was going to say that I concurred with your previous post re. large sample sizes, difficulties with 'above average' etc., then I read this...

 

Pure maths is pointless and scary

I'm still shaking in my boots (well shaking in my very fetching furry slippers actually...) - statistics has its basis in pure mathematics...

 

But, despite all this, I'm with TheNeil - give me mechanics - that'll keep me happy and shut me up for hours....

 

*tootles off to the sanctity of the numbers - mmmm, numbers *

[TheNeil]

But, despite all this, I'm with TheNeil

 

Are you sure you're feeling alright? You know that I'm the source of all wrongness in the world and if ever it's anyone's fault, it's nearly always mine

 

I'm not used to this...I'm scared

 

give me mechanics

Is this really the time and place to discuss what type of men you go for?

[Mumble]

So this thread has descended to terrible maths jokes ... excellent :thumbs:

 

Three statisticians go to the archery range.

 

The first man steps up, aims, fires, but it sightly to the left of the bullseye.

 

The second man steps up, aims, fires, but is slightly to the right of the bullseye.

 

The third man cries out, "Bullseye"

 

:lol:

 

(Believe me, I have worse... )

 

 

Are you sure you're feeling alright?

Nope But I'm quite impressed at having scared you

 

Is this really the time and place to discuss what type of men you go for?

:shame: I think you know what type I go for - naked mop-tops, wasn't it?

[TheNeil]

:shame: I think you know what type I go for - naked mop-tops, wasn't it?

"He is gay" - That's was the sentiment on the front of the newspaper if I remember correctly

 

[And I now fully expect to get a damn good kicking from every person who knows what we're on about ]

[TheNeil]

(Believe me, I have worse... )

Why does this not surprise me

[mossgrove]

[[And I now fully expect to get a damn good kicking from every person who knows what we're on about ]

 

That will be you and Mumble then!

 

[mossgrove]

Q: What is the difference between a Ph.D. in mathematics and a large pizza?

A: A large pizza can feed a family of four...

[Enid]

Like that Mossgrove! Enid

[Mumble]

Q: What is the difference between a Ph.D. in mathematics and a large pizza?

A: A large pizza can feed a family of four...

*nods* - How very very true...

[warrenpenalver]

give me mechanics - that'll keep me happy and shut me up for hours....

Does that include fluid mechanics or car mechanics?? If so i know who to call when i need repairs to my car or a few aerodynamic tweaks to go faster

[mossgrove]

Q: Have you heard the latest Stats joke?

 

A: Probably......

[Flora]

Statiticians have proven that birthdays are good for you. Statistically, the more birthdays you cellebrate the longer you live, so it must be true!

 

Flo'