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.
Brutal 