Boredom and stupidity are linked because curiosity cures both. I just don’t know many dumb inquisitive people. I think many are confused about what it means to be smart today. I hear people speaking often about others being “way smarter than them” based on this or that accomplishment, and I wonder what they mean by that. I also…
10 Interesting Data Points on IQ and Demographics
Gene Expression recently put up a brilliant post showing data on the GSS‘s WORDSUM scores correlated to various demographic data points, such as educational attainment, political ideology, religious preferences, etc. From the post: A few years ago I put up a post, WORDSUM & IQ & the correlation, as a “reference” post. Basically if anyone objected to using…
Add Women to Groups to Make Them Smarter
There’s some fascinating new research showing that adding women to a group of problem solvers makes them more effective. The reason is clear and unsurprising to me: smart men tend to dominate and restrict the flow of ideas, while smart women focus more on sharing and nurturing ideas, which assists the overall progress. :: (thanks to @laurenroth for…
Racism Scopecreep in the Liberal Media
Image from edweek.org I like the New York Times; I think they produce an overall strong product. But sometimes the PC-bend is simply overwhelming. This piece on the New York Firefighters test is a case in point. They argue that the firefighter’s test is racist in hidden, sneaky ways–like in requiring people to be good at reading comprehension.…
25 Facts About IQ You Probably Don’t Accept
One of the things that irks me is really smart people who still deny that the concept of IQ, the fact that it can be quite accurately tested, or it’s usefulness as a predictor of success. As this article lays out pretty nicely, the basic moving parts of IQ and the testing of it have been decently understood…
More Variation in State IQ Scores = A More Democratic State
The wider a state’s intelligence distribution is, the bluer that state tends to be. In addition to inequalities in educational attainment and wealth, inequalities in IQ are also good for the Democratic party. So the party putatively determined to reduce inequality benefits from doing just the opposite, while the party putatively more tolerant of cutthroat competition and the…
Genetics and Prejudice
It seems things are getting more intense on the genetics front, specifically with the implications of being able to clearly identify precisely which groups we fall into. They’ve just found the genes that make white people white, for example, and that keep Asians from sweating as much as other groups. According to this New York Times article many…
Intelligence and Experience
Many define intelligence at least partly as the ability to learn from one’s experiences. If I make a mistake and I’m intelligent I should be able to see what I did wrong, adjust, and avoid the problem in the future. That’s fine, but I have a better definition. I think what’s even more important is the ability to…
IQ Is Real, And It Matters
I was just reading through this list of questions that Microsoft asks applicants and was struck by the thought that we, as a society, should stop pretending IQ doesn’t matter. I’m fairly versed in the perils of confusing causation and correlation, but here are a few things to consider. These aren’t throughly vetted, but rather spewed, so go…