First of all, thank you, 9eB1. This is exactly the kind of a charitable, informed, and thoughtful response I was hoping for. I appreciate your feedback. Also, you clearly know more about psychometrics than I do, so I will tread carefully in response.
The tallest player to ever play in the NBA was Gheorghe Mureșan, who was 7′7“. He was not very good. Manute Bol was >almost as tall and he was good but not great. By contrast, the best basketball player of all time was 6′6” [citation needed]. In >fact, perhaps an athletic quotient would be better for predicting top-end performance than height, since Jordon, Lebron and >Kareem are all way more athletic than Muresan and Bol.
Not sure this is true. The average great athlete is probably around average height. And there are only a few of those in the NBA.
That said, NBA teams are pretty savvy about breaking down the specific characteristics that lead to NBA success. Not just height, but speed, quickness, vertical leap, ability to jump up and down multiple times, wingspan, shooting ability at different distances. There is plenty of specificity in NBA talent analysis. Height matters, but other factors matter, too. And those factors can and have been quantified.
Cardio ability and muscular strength are at odds, so that would be at least two plausible stable factors. This argument is on >Wikipedia here. Personally, in light of the dramatic differences there are between the different parts of an IQ test battery, I >find this fact surprising and underappreciated. Most people do not realize this, and the folk wisdom is that there are very >clear different types of intelligence.
I agree that IQ is plenty interesting by itself. My goal with this article was to explore the boundaries of that usefulness and explore the ways in which the correlations break down. And your feedback helps me a get a better sense of where those areas are.
To be honest, I very much doubt that actual IQ researchers would disagree with your second thesis. My argument would be >that for most fields there is enough randomness that you would not expect the most intelligent person to also be the most >lauded. Even Einstein had to have the luck to have the insights he did, and there were undoubtedly many people who were >just as smart but had different circumstances that led to them not having those insights.
I agree that luck plays a huge role in Einstein being Einstein. But I also think that to achieve the top levels of success at any specific endeavor, other factors besides IQ matter a lot, too. Hard work, intransigence, contrarianism—these personality characteristics were probably determinative in him becoming who he was.
That said, NBA teams are pretty savvy about breaking down the specific characteristics that lead to NBA success. Not just height, but speed, quickness, vertical leap, ability to jump up and down multiple times, wingspan, shooting ability at different distances. There is plenty of specificity in NBA talent analysis. Height matters, but other factors matter, too. And those factors can and have been quantified.
I think basketball players are mainly judged on playing basketball, not wingspan, etc. Gheorghe Mureșan and Manute Bol are interesting not because they are tall, but because they started playing basketball in their mid to late teens. At their various stages of recruitment, they were probably judged differently than their competitors. Their competitors were probably judged by success on the court, while they were probably judged more on basics like wingspan, because they were expected to progress more than other players.
Added: people selected for being tall will be taller than they are good at basketball, while people selected for good at basketball will be better than they are tall.
I agree that IQ is plenty interesting by itself. My goal with this article was to explore the boundaries of that usefulness and explore the ways in which the correlations break down.
The Big 5 personality traits have a correlation with some measures of success which is independent of IQ. For example, in this paper:
Consistent with the zero-order correlations, Conscientiousness was a significant positive predictor of GPA, even controlling for gender and SAT scores, and this finding replicated across all three samples. Thus, personality, in particular the Conscientiousness dimension, and SAT scores have independent effects on both high school and college grades. Indeed, in several cases, Conscientiousness was a slightly stronger predictor of GPA than were SAT scores.
Notably, the Openness factor is the factor that has the strongest correlation with IQ. I’m guessing Gwern has more stuff like this on his website, but if someone makes the claim that IQ is the only thing that matters to success in any given field, they are selling bridges.
First of all, thank you, 9eB1. This is exactly the kind of a charitable, informed, and thoughtful response I was hoping for. I appreciate your feedback. Also, you clearly know more about psychometrics than I do, so I will tread carefully in response.
Not sure this is true. The average great athlete is probably around average height. And there are only a few of those in the NBA.
That said, NBA teams are pretty savvy about breaking down the specific characteristics that lead to NBA success. Not just height, but speed, quickness, vertical leap, ability to jump up and down multiple times, wingspan, shooting ability at different distances. There is plenty of specificity in NBA talent analysis. Height matters, but other factors matter, too. And those factors can and have been quantified.
Based on my quick research, I’m not sure that it is true that cardio and muscular strength are at odds.
I agree that IQ is plenty interesting by itself. My goal with this article was to explore the boundaries of that usefulness and explore the ways in which the correlations break down. And your feedback helps me a get a better sense of where those areas are.
I agree that luck plays a huge role in Einstein being Einstein. But I also think that to achieve the top levels of success at any specific endeavor, other factors besides IQ matter a lot, too. Hard work, intransigence, contrarianism—these personality characteristics were probably determinative in him becoming who he was.
I think basketball players are mainly judged on playing basketball, not wingspan, etc. Gheorghe Mureșan and Manute Bol are interesting not because they are tall, but because they started playing basketball in their mid to late teens. At their various stages of recruitment, they were probably judged differently than their competitors. Their competitors were probably judged by success on the court, while they were probably judged more on basics like wingspan, because they were expected to progress more than other players.
Added: people selected for being tall will be taller than they are good at basketball, while people selected for good at basketball will be better than they are tall.
The Big 5 personality traits have a correlation with some measures of success which is independent of IQ. For example, in this paper:
Notably, the Openness factor is the factor that has the strongest correlation with IQ. I’m guessing Gwern has more stuff like this on his website, but if someone makes the claim that IQ is the only thing that matters to success in any given field, they are selling bridges.