IQ

I’m an IQ blogger, obviously. But there are fundamental questions to be asked that don’t ever seem to be. For example, why would anyone administer a WAIS instead of Ravens Progressive Matrices when the former takes far longer? There must be more potency. But I don’t know that there is, and if so, to what degree. Pumpkinperson said he was going to write a brief post on this soon. I look forward to that. Another to be asked is why do IQ pundits reportedly accept results far out on the tail (e.g. 190+?) It doesn’t make sense. Surely they must understand that tests such as the Mega haven’t been normed sufficiently in order to produce a full distribution of results? And even if they were, being that they’re open-source, there is an indefinite amount of time to work on them. Pumpkinperson argues that tests such as the Mega are more akin to graduating at the top of your class in a Harvard physics graduate program. Obviously not a formal IQ test, but a task that simply cannot be completed below some threshold of cognitive ability. The problem is, it’s not universally understood to be true that most people couldn’t complete it fairly well in a given amount of time. I don’t think they could, but to ascribe IQ scores to a certain amount of questions completed accurately when there simply haven’t been that many people tackling it is profoundly anti-scientific. And this is what happens with people like Chris Langan.

There are some extremely cognitively gifted individuals that are known in the public sphere for reasons other than their intellectual prowess. Like Terence Tao. Though I do not understand it, his work in mathematics is regarded as brilliant. And he’s obviously smart, but that’s besides the point. Pumpkinperson calculated his “math” IQ to be 180. This raises some questions: why are we even assigning a math IQ when g is understood to be measured by either fluid or crystallized intelligence? On the Weschler scales, these are respectively measured as Performance IQ and Verbal IQ. The final score is a composite of both. It isn’t that I feel the Weschler scales are perfect, because I don’t. (I’ll address this later.) But Pumpkinperson so frequently gauges IQ off this type of assessment, so I can’t see why he would give Tao a pass and assess him off his math ability.

But let’s imagine that Tao’s math IQ, whatever that is, can assume the place of “performance IQ” on the WAIS. The verbal score is in need of measurement, and Pumpkinperson claims to have figured that one out as well. He came up with a score of 135, although one commenter noted that the score Tao achieved as a youngster isn’t very distinguishable from sheer guessing. No matter. But if we combine his two major subtests, we are left with a composite score of 156.5. Why, then, do so many people cite an IQ of 200+ for him? Jordan Peterson likes to say that as IQ increases, the scatter between different types increases. That may well be true, but on Weschler scales you don’t just get to overlook any aspect of it. The far end of the distribution doesn’t just get a pass. Maybe that’s why he claims a 150+ IQ, when his GRE scores indicate the contrary. If everyone played to their strengths, everyone would get an IQ boost. It just doesn’t work like that.

The Characteristics of Gamers

People gravitate toward games they are good at, I think. There are other factors to consider, such as what their general circle of friends play, but often there isn’t much dissent among friends. Anyways, there is an ever persistent rift among fans of first person shooters: that of the Call of Duty and Halo franchises. To be sure, there is overlap between the two, but frankly no one gives a shit about similarities.

Lest I mislead any readers, I should point out that COD is significantly more popular than the Halo franchise. I used popular as a reference of how many people play it, and not how much people enjoy it. On some level this is to be expected, as the Halo series is largely praised for its plot, whereas COD is a multi-player powerhouse. But both of them have a campaign mode and multi-player compatability.

Although Halo’s plot is masterful, I won’t be discussing it. Instead I am curious about the gaming dynamics of the multi-player experience in both games.

My first experience playing Halo was at my cousin’s house when I was in about the fourth grade. At the time he had but an original Xbox, along with the first and second games of the franchise, released in 2000 and 2003-4 respectively. I was appropriately hooked, as it was quite a pleasure absolutely dominating my younger brother at the game and stalemating my cousin. Time went on and I surpassed my cousin in skill, and the perpetual stalemate lay between my cousin and brother. When the relatively recent time came to play Call of Duty, I fatally assumed that my Halo competence would extend to broadly defined first-person shooters. It didn’t, not at all. The game dynamics were so vastly different despite the shared characteristic of blazing gunfire. The fundamental difference between the two is that COD relies far more heavily on processing speed, reaction time, and accuracy, whereas Halo games select for anticipation of where your opponent is going to be next. The latter operates at a slower pace, so it is less of a burden to make sure you hit your opponent right away. However, this grace period extends to your opponent as well, so it really isn’t any easier. But it was far more easy for me to pick up on the second one, and much more fun as well. Even the best players at COD know that you scarcely have time to move around the map; in Halo, you have plenty of it.

I’m curious to what extent selection has played a role in both games. Obviously, they’re both diluted significantly because people don’t gravitate solely towards the games they’re good at. But it would be interesting to see.

Lack of Data

My recent posts don’t include data, like I wanted them to. This is due to the time constraints of school. I’m really not even a huge scholar, and there are students that juggle sports, Advanced Placement classes, and jobs while making time for something not so profoundly boring. It’s unfortunate for me that I have to sacrifice the last two in order to barely maintain this blog. I’m really just a lazy motherfucker. I used to view my peers with such disdain; not so much anymore. Even my teachers see my classmates as relatively dull. Some are, but on tests of nonverbal ability (math) they tend to hold up fairly well. But I digress.

Not posting scientific content hasn’t had me too unhappy, though. I like to write, and when I don’t include data I don’t fall prey to the constraints of research and analysis. Though I might hope to be analytical in my anecdotal content, I must practice what I preach, and anecdotes are not data. Besides, any readers I have probably want to learn something. It’s obvious that you don’t learn a damn thing in non STEM fields. An exaggeration, but a meager one.

Shapiro and JBP on the Rubin Report

It was mediocre by their own lofty standards. There was a point when the Rubin Report was characterized by, and heavily criticized for incessant bashing of the postmodern left. And the criticism was not misplaced. It isn’t as if I don’t giddly enjoy watching the left burn itself through use of identity politics, because I do. But Dave Rubin capitalized on that far too much and the show began to regress. He responded by deliberately shifting away from that robotic algorithm for his show, but the underlying theme remains. That’s fine though. Recently however, the repetition lays in the constant circlejerk of himself and other prominent intellectuals; namely, Sam Harris, Jordan Peterson, and Ben Shapiro. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy listening to all of them, but many times I tune in to a podcast or show, it is partitioned into two parts. The first half is general fawning over how they came together to have a civil intellectual conversation, and the latter half is true content. They probably know what they’re doing, if not solely masturbating their egoes. The adoration of their meeting probably makes the average person tuning in feel that much more rational and intelligent. I’m skeptical, and I feel one benefits far more in terms of aggregate volume of knowledge retained by merely reading. Like, if you transcribed their video, you’d realize not only how short their conversation really is, but how few novel ideas were actually discussed.

They are the best public intellectuals out there for the average person, though. I think really smart people read more of Chomsky, Dershowitz, and the like. And though I love to bash the left I sorrowly concede that there are far, FAR more intellectuals on the left and almost no right leaning intellectuals match their depth. Realistically the proportion of intellectuals across the political dichotomy is probably 95-5. You can name a few outliers, sure, but they don’t quite compare. If the left gives you Paul Krugman, the right responds in kind with Ron Paul. I like Ron Paul, but really? The former won a Nobel Prize in economics while the latter has a layman’s understanding of libertarian principles. That doesn’t mean Krugman is always correct, nor does it mean the philosophy he promulgates is the best one. But Ron Paul shouldn’t be the best the right has to offer. Or even Thomas Sowell, for that matter.

The Fallacy of High IQ Techies

I’m fully aware that social science can be understood as the summation of correlations, trends, and proxies. In this respect, almost every stereotype has some fundamental truth to it (although this is self evident as I knew this even before I was familiarized with the social sciences.) But some trends and the causes behind them aren’t fully obvious to me. One of the most prominent might be the ostensible stereotype of intelligence and information technology. For relative outliers, like those that far surpass my own prowess and understand programming in depth, I understand this stereotype. But for the average layman with quick typing ability and command of basic computer functions, I do not understand it. At my school, it seems that most people cannot equal my own typing speed. Assuming a normal distribution, I’m not surprised- I’ve passed 100 WPM on brief ten second trials. On longer sixty second trials, I regularly hit the 98th percentile. This is in spite of the fact that those that care to measure their typing proficiency are above average for the general population, if only slightly, and statistically speaking there will be some hackers/cheaters the tilt the distribution to the right. This is mediated a bit considering that my generation/cohort is also more adept with computers than the general population.

Still, many peers seem to be impressed with my typing speed, along with my general speed and prowess with browsing the web. Personally, I know there are many STEM inclined individuals that have better command of basic functions, but I guess I hold up pretty well. My point is really that these functions are rudimentary at best. I’m not some programming wiz that’s synthesizing Java and C++ to rapidly sift through search results. And I don’t know why some of what I do is so difficult for people of otherwise average intelligence.