I don’t think IQ is predictive of how much power people have. I don’t think the world is an IQ meritocracy.
Predictive isn’t a binary catergory. Statistically IQ is predictive of a lot of things including higher social skills and lifespan.
Imagine I wanted to be dictator of a first-world country. Is there any puzzle I could solve if I had a gazillion IQ that could achieve that? No. I could read all the books about how to manipulate people and figure out the best things to say and the result would still be that people don’t want to give up their freedom especially not to some uncharismatic fat nerds no matter how excellent sounding things he says.
Bernanke was during his federal reserve tenureship one of the most powerful people in the US and he scored 1590 out of 1600 on the SAT.
But I think the actual data about what 180+ IQ people are doing is on my side here. What is Kasparov doing?
Kasparov is not 180+ IQ. When given a real IQ test he scored 135. Lower than the average of LW people who submit their IQ on the census.
Over 20 IQ points lower than what Bernanke has and given that Bernanke scored at the top and the test SAT isn’t created to distinguish 160 from 180 he might be even smarter.
Bernake’s successor got described in her NYTimes profile by a collegue as a “small lady with a large I.Q.”.
While I can’t find direct scores she likely has a higher IQ than Kasparov.
Top bankers are high IQ people and at the moment the banker class has quite a lot of power in the US.
Banking likely needs more IQ than playing chess.
Bill O’Reilly is with a SAT score of 1585 also much smarter than Kasparov and the guy seems to have some influence in US political discussion.
Statistically IQ is predictive of a lot of things including higher social skills
How? Pretty sure it was the other way around in high school. Popular dumb shallow people, unpopular smart geeks.
I am not 100% sure what is a SAT is but if it is like a normal school test—memorize stuff like historical dates of battles, barf it back—the probably more related to dedication than intelligence.
Popular dumb shallow people, unpopular smart geeks.
That could be a problem of perception. If someone is book smart and unpopular, people say “he is smart”. If someone is smart and popular, people say “he is cool”.
There are sportsmen and actors with very high IQ, but no one remembers them as “having high IQ”, only as being a great sportsman or a great actor.
Do you know how high IQ Arnold Schwarzenegger has? Neither do I. My point is, when people say “Arnold Schwarzenegger”, no one thinks about “I wonder how high IQ that guy has… maybe that could explain some of his success”. Maybe he has much higher IQ than Kasparov, but most people would never even start thinking in that direction.
Also there is a difference between intelligence and signalling intelligence. Not everyone with high IQ must necessarily spend their days talking about relativity and quantum physics. Maybe they just invest all their intelligence into improving their private lives.
Do you know how high IQ Arnold Schwarzenegger has? Neither do I. My point is, when people say “Arnold Schwarzenegger”, no one thinks about “I wonder how high IQ that guy has… maybe that could explain some of his success”. Maybe he has much higher IQ than Kasparov, but most people would never even start thinking in that direction.
The score I find on the internet for him is 135 which puts him on the same ballpark as Kasparov.
Popular dumb shallow people, unpopular smart geeks.
You mistake what people signal with their inherent intelligence. Bill O’Reilly doesn’t behave as a geek. That change that he’s smart.
It’s like the mistake of thinking that being good at chess is about intelligence.
Unfortunately at the moment I don’t find the link to the studies about IQ and social skill, but I think we had previous LW discussions towards IQ positively correlating with social abilities in average society being well established.
I am not 100% sure what is a SAT is but if it is like a normal school test—memorize stuff like historical dates of battles, barf it back
It’s not about having memorized information. SAT tests are generally known to be a good proxy for IQ.
But again that is not power. That is just smart people getting paid better when and if there are enough jobs around where intelligence is actually useful. I think it is a very big jump from the fact that there seem to be relatively lot of those jobs around to saying it is a general world-changing, outcome-generating power. I cannot find it , but I think income could just as well be correlated with height.
If I understand, you are attempting a “proves too much” argument with height, however, this is irrelevant, if height is predictive of income then this is an interesting result in itself* (maybe tall people are more respected) and has no bearing on whether IQ is also predictive of income. I agree that IQ probably doesn’t scale indefinitely with success and power though. The tails are already starting to diverge at 130.
Predictive isn’t a binary catergory. Statistically IQ is predictive of a lot of things including higher social skills and lifespan.
Bernanke was during his federal reserve tenureship one of the most powerful people in the US and he scored 1590 out of 1600 on the SAT.
Kasparov is not 180+ IQ. When given a real IQ test he scored 135. Lower than the average of LW people who submit their IQ on the census. Over 20 IQ points lower than what Bernanke has and given that Bernanke scored at the top and the test SAT isn’t created to distinguish 160 from 180 he might be even smarter.
Bernake’s successor got described in her NYTimes profile by a collegue as a “small lady with a large I.Q.”. While I can’t find direct scores she likely has a higher IQ than Kasparov.
Top bankers are high IQ people and at the moment the banker class has quite a lot of power in the US. Banking likely needs more IQ than playing chess.
Bill O’Reilly is with a SAT score of 1585 also much smarter than Kasparov and the guy seems to have some influence in US political discussion.
How? Pretty sure it was the other way around in high school. Popular dumb shallow people, unpopular smart geeks.
I am not 100% sure what is a SAT is but if it is like a normal school test—memorize stuff like historical dates of battles, barf it back—the probably more related to dedication than intelligence.
That could be a problem of perception. If someone is book smart and unpopular, people say “he is smart”. If someone is smart and popular, people say “he is cool”.
There are sportsmen and actors with very high IQ, but no one remembers them as “having high IQ”, only as being a great sportsman or a great actor.
Do you know how high IQ Arnold Schwarzenegger has? Neither do I. My point is, when people say “Arnold Schwarzenegger”, no one thinks about “I wonder how high IQ that guy has… maybe that could explain some of his success”. Maybe he has much higher IQ than Kasparov, but most people would never even start thinking in that direction.
Also there is a difference between intelligence and signalling intelligence. Not everyone with high IQ must necessarily spend their days talking about relativity and quantum physics. Maybe they just invest all their intelligence into improving their private lives.
The score I find on the internet for him is 135 which puts him on the same ballpark as Kasparov.
You mistake what people signal with their inherent intelligence. Bill O’Reilly doesn’t behave as a geek. That change that he’s smart. It’s like the mistake of thinking that being good at chess is about intelligence.
Unfortunately at the moment I don’t find the link to the studies about IQ and social skill, but I think we had previous LW discussions towards IQ positively correlating with social abilities in average society being well established.
It’s not about having memorized information. SAT tests are generally known to be a good proxy for IQ.
More helpful than single data points, here is a scatterplot of IQ vs income in Figure 1.
But again that is not power. That is just smart people getting paid better when and if there are enough jobs around where intelligence is actually useful. I think it is a very big jump from the fact that there seem to be relatively lot of those jobs around to saying it is a general world-changing, outcome-generating power. I cannot find it , but I think income could just as well be correlated with height.
If I understand, you are attempting a “proves too much” argument with height, however, this is irrelevant, if height is predictive of income then this is an interesting result in itself* (maybe tall people are more respected) and has no bearing on whether IQ is also predictive of income. I agree that IQ probably doesn’t scale indefinitely with success and power though. The tails are already starting to diverge at 130.
*there is a correlation
It’s useful but it’s about comparing people between IQ 100 and 130. If we want to look at the power in society it’s worth looking at the extremes.