२४ जुलै, २०२३

"Keep a wide berth from people who obsess about their IQs. 'People who boast about their IQ are losers,' Stephen Hawking once told the New York Times."

"See, for example, Donald Trump. The only thing Trump seems to love more than making creepy comments about his daughter Ivanka is boasting about how high his IQ is. He’s referenced his IQ at least 22 times but the most memorable instance might be when he tweeted: 'Sorry losers and haters, but my IQ is one of the highest – and you all know it! Please don’t feel so stupid or insecure, it’s not your fault.' An IQ score is a flawed measurement of intelligence – but boasting about one is a failsafe way to show people you’re a dimwit."

That's point #5 in "Want to quickly spot idiots? Here are five foolproof red flags" by Guardian columnist Arwa Mahdawi.

1. It's a red flag to believe your red flags are foolproof

2. It's a red flag that you go directly to the most obvious target of just about everything these days, Donald Trump.

3. It's a red flag you seem to have missed all the humor and lightheartedness of "Sorry losers and haters, but my IQ is one of the highest – and you all know it! Please don’t feel so stupid or insecure, it’s not your fault."

4. It's a red flag that you don't know — or won't admit — that Joe Biden has also boasted about his IQ — and without any humor: "I think I have a much higher I.Q. than you do...."

5. Boasting about IQ is a bad idea and educated, affluent people who do it are embarrassing, but there are other people who maybe deserve a little empathy, and it's a red flag that you reject them out of hand. 

९४ टिप्पण्या:

Jaq म्हणाले...

What the writer is saying is “Hey everybody who matters and controls my career, I am perfectly willing to write the stuff you want me to write and I even stop myself from thinking too much so that I can authentically believe it!”

Goldenpause म्हणाले...

I note she uses Donald Trump as her example of someone boasting about his IQ. I seem to recall an infamous video clip of Joe Biden on the presidential campaign trail falsely boasting about his intellectual powers (including his IQ) while attacking someone who had the temerity to ask him a tough question. Funny how she didn’t use that much more on point and readily available example.

Maynard म्हणाले...

When people tell you what their IQ is, ask them how it was determined.

There is a standard practice for determining IQ with a licensed psychologist, almost always using the WAIS and far less frequently the Stanford-Binet.

BTW, didn't Joe Biden famously boast on camera that his IQ was much higher and that he was the only scholarship student in his Law School?

Quaestor म्हणाले...

"An IQ score is a flawed measurement of intelligence – but boasting about one is a failsafe way to show people you’re a dimwit."

That's a comforting claim for all the sub-100s out there.

Enigma म्हणाले...

The members of Mensa International "the high IQ society" have routinely made pr*cks of themselves because they obsess about being smarter than others, and without irony. Another large group of jerks includes many Ivy League grads, Stanford U grads, and half of the PhD grads in the world. Plus, employees of the consulting firm McKinsey & Co. They do not realize that wealth, luck, blue-blood connections, and stubbornness are not proof of intelligence or superiority.

Trump ran into trouble on IQ not because of humor, but he said Maxine Waters was "a low IQ individual." She is not smart for sure, but he stepped all over racial stereotypes and taboos... He knew none of them. He knew nothing about the power of nuclear weapons. Etc. He said the Emperor had no clothes, so the establishment's entourage (this post) continues to defend its stained honor.

Kate म्हणाले...

"Gazpacho police" is hilarious.

I'm sorry this writer finds so little humor in the foibles of humanity.

Jaq म्हणाले...

Especially since Joe Biden flunked the third grade. Not sure that late onset high IQ is a thing.

mccullough म्हणाले...

Insecurity is annoying and relatable. Many of us strive a bit for status even though we understand the striving is a bit of a flaw.

Quaestor म्हणाले...

Maynard writes, "BTW, didn't Joe Biden famously boast on camera that his IQ was much higher and that he was the only scholarship student in his Law School?"

Yep.

Dave Begley म्हणाले...

Within the past 12 months I've had cases opposite two Omaha lawyers who list their MENSA membership on their websites.

This quack lawyer beat both MENSAs.

Ann Althouse म्हणाले...

The point about Joe Biden is #4 on the list in my post and the main reason I wrote the post.

mxgreen म्हणाले...

Your link doesn't work (at least it didn't for me).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1j0FS0Z6ho

Tina Trent म्हणाले...

I think Trump is joking a lot of the time when it sounds as if he is exaggerating something.

The first time I saw him live, the thing that struck me was his amused self-depreciation. The second thing that struck me was his amused self-awareness. It wasn't at all what I was expecting.

I walked out thinking that this man was going to be president if enough people could meet him in a way unmediated by the media.

Big Mike म्हणाले...

2. It's a red flag that you go directly to the most obvious target of just about everything these days, Donald Trump.

Not to mention Marjorie Taylor Greene. Her name has become a dog whistle to liberals that it’s time to start drooling and slobbering in raw hatred. Whether Greene is any crazier than Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez and the rest of The Squad, or Maxine Waters, well, she seems considerably more sane than any of those examples.

Jaq म्हणाले...

The first law of propaganda is to project your side’s flaws onto the other side, example number umpteen thousand and twenty four.

chuck म्हणाले...

It's a red flag to read the Guardian, the New York Times, or the Washington Post. The Daily Mail is OK.

tommyesq म्हणाले...

Another sign of an idiot - demanding that you be referred to as "Dr. Jill Biden" when you simply have a doctorate in education.

rehajm म्हणाले...

The Mensas are at best a mixed bag on Jeopardy! The chat segment shows same with life…

Leland म्हणाले...

Listicles are red flags for low IQ clickbait.

Ron Winkleheimer म्हणाले...

I remember some comedian, can't recall which one, joking about Mensa being full of people who want others to know they are smart, but don't have jobs that show that they are smart. Its full of bartenders and waitresses, but Stephen Hawking didn't see a need to join.

Big Mike म्हणाले...

As others have pointed out upthread, the world is full of people with high IQs who have never amounted to much, and in my experience commentator Enigma is right about Ivy League graduates who assume (wrongly) that they can coast along for the rest of their lives on their degree and demand the most interesting assignments — without actually have to do the work on those assignments.

And there are people with all sorts of athletic talent who lack the self discipline and work ethic to succeed at high levels. We call them “busts” in the sports world. There are plenty of them in the world of people who work with their minds, too.

rcocean म्हणाले...

Part of Trump's charm is his blustery exaggeration and sales puffery. His "Boasting about his IQ" is also part his strategy in dealing with his critics. The standard MSM attack on Republicans is to call them stupid. Cf: Reagan, Ike, Bush, etc.

And Trump always counterattacks. In fact, part of the media game with Trump is to do this:

1. MSM attacks Trump
2. Trump defends by counter-attacking.
3. MSM reports Trump counter-attack as a stand-alone statement.
4. MSM attacks crazy,Trump's stand-alone statement.

As for Slow Joe. Biden has consistently lied about his IQ and Academic record for 30 years. I don't really care. As President's and Senators go, he's average at best, but he's always been senstive about his obvious lack of smarts.

William म्हणाले...

The players union should only allow lifetime .300 hitters to vote on the union contract. These are the best players and clearly know the most about baseball. In fact, these are the players that should be deputized to negotiate the contract.

Mike (MJB Wolf) म्हणाले...

NOBODY in public life has bragged about their high IQ than Joe Biden. NOBODY. At the same time few senators who've ever served were as dumb as Biden either, including perhaps Kamala. Joe's unreal braggadocio is a chimera a mythical thing from another time. It's a washington paradox, an illusory object that can only exist in the rarefied atmosphere of DC.

Kirk Parker म्हणाले...

#6: You're writing a listicle.

Sebastian म्हणाले...

"An IQ score is a flawed measurement of intelligence"

Without more, this is a stupid claim.

"3. It's a red flag you seem to have missed all the humor and lightheartedness"

Yes, but progs don't do humor. No red flags needed.

"4. It's a red flag that you don't know — or won't admit — that Joe Biden has also boasted about his IQ — and without any humor: "I think I have a much higher I.Q. than you do...."

Correct. Not only did he boast dimwittedly, well before his current decline, he shoveled the BS in the context of obvious lies.

"5. Boasting about IQ is a bad idea"

Yes, but progs implicitly boast about it when they flaunt their "elite" education or the superiority of "experts." IQ used to be an explicit part of the prog project, back when "meritocracy" was still a thing. Though IQ boasting is now raaacccist, the prog project still depends on the boast that We Know Better.

Sally327 म्हणाले...

Joe Biden and Donald Trump are so similar it doesn't seem to matter which one is in office. We get the same narcissistic, deluded and insufferable geriatric either way.

"I know I am intelligent because I know that I know nothing". -- Socrates

Sometimes it's best not to have the really smart people in charge. The Best and The Brightest. The Great and the Good. They have a tendency to f*ck sh*t up for the rest of us.

Jupiter म्हणाले...

Now tell me that tall people aren't really tall.

Michael K म्हणाले...

The classic Biden video.

Narr म्हणाले...

My IQ is only important to me because it seemed very important to the teachers whose classes I schlubbed through with minimal effort.

They never gave me a number, just hints about it; my friend Bobby looked up the numbers for himself and his friends and enemies when he worked in the school office in the 8th or 9th grade. (Two proofs of his high-IQ: he got the job and he hoovered up as much info on others as he could.)

Joe Biden is of middling intelligence at best. Outside the bureaucracy itself, the US Senate is the best environment possible for not very intelligent, uncreative plodders like him to get on the escalator to influence and power ($$$$$).

A small, corrupt man to represent a small, corrupt state; now representing (he sure ain't governing) a large, corrupt and flailing empire.

farmgirl म्हणाले...

My IQ is so high, I prefer shoveling heifer excrement into a wheelbarrow, struggle to push it &finally heft it on its head to dump the load in the gutter. Heifer excrement is heavy sh”t!

Nah, I wouldn’t know my IQ. I don’t care! There’s just too much work to do and that takes more than a brain. I thank G*d most for a strong back and a healthy work ethic ;0)

Narayanan म्हणाले...

And there are people with all sorts of athletic talent who lack the self discipline and work ethic to succeed at high levels.
=======
is TRANS = MENSA?

William म्हणाले...

It's unsettling to observe how often smart people are wrong, even about things in their own field of expertise. Einstein went down a rabbit hole and stayed there for decades. I tried to set him straight on quantum physics, but he just wouldn't listen. Newton managed the mint and established a sound currency in England but lost his shirt in the South Sea Bubble....I'd much rather be good looking or athletically skilled than to be smart. The pay offs for good looks or athletic ability are far more predictable and easier to quantify and, by and large, you have a better sex life.

JK Brown म्हणाले...

Don't know about Trump's IQ, but his Media Quotient (MQ) is through the roof. No one plays the media like Trump. Whether you like Trump or not, you watch him in the media because is it a pleasure to see a virtuoso make his instrument of choice do things unimagined by normal people.

TomHynes म्हणाले...

People who mention their IQ are losers. Unrelated, would anybody like to know my LSAT score from 1975?

Greg the Class Traitor म्हणाले...

5. Boasting about IQ is a bad idea and educated, affluent people who do it are embarrassing, but there are other people who maybe deserve a little empathy, and it's a red flag that you reject them out of hand.

It's certainly no worse than boasting about your "educational" certificates ("I have a Ph.D. in X from Harvard").

And it's far better than claiming that people should listen to you and do what you tell them to do because you're an "expert"

Kit Carson म्हणाले...

nicely done, professor.

rhhardin म्हणाले...

The article is written for low IQ people.

gilbar म्हणाले...

How's THIS, for the actions of a high IQ man?
https://nypost.com/2023/07/23/hunter-biden-put-then-vp-dad-joe-on-the-phone-with-business-associates-at-least-2-dozen-times-ex-partner-devon-archer-to-testify/
Hunter Biden put then-VP dad Joe on the phone with business associates at least 2 dozen times, ex-partner Devon Archer to testify before Congress this week..
..the context, that three days after the speakerphone call, the then-vice president, who was the Obama administration’s point man for Ukraine, was due to fly to Kyiv to address the Ukrainian parliament, known as the Rada, on Dec. 9, 2015, about the “poison of cronyism, corruption, and kleptocracy.”
By then, Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin was investigating Burisma for corruption and, within two months, on Feb. 2, 2016, would seize four houses in Kyiv, two plots of land and a Rolls-Royce belonging to Zlochevsky, who was living in exile in Dubai.

A month later, Shokin was fired, after Joe Biden threatened to withhold $1 billion in US aid to Ukraine.

Remember? Joe Biden REPEATEDLY said, that he'd "NEVER talked with Hunter about his business"

Jeff Vader म्हणाले...

Anyone reading the Guardian in Ernst is a glaring sign of an idiot

MalaiseLongue म्हणाले...

"Keep a wide berth from people who obsess about their IQs."

Isn't the idiom actually give a wide berth to . . . ?

Jersey Fled म्हणाले...

Joe boasted that Hunter was “the smartest guy I know”.

Joel Winter म्हणाले...

I've long been suspicious of those who either make claims about their own intelligence, or who revere the intelligence of others. It seems to me that if you're stupid you expose yourself by either thinking everyone else is smarter (true, but not a good reflection on you) or you think you're smarter than others (since you're stupid you don't know any better).

If you're *truly* smart, you ought to know the limited value of intelligence and you're only either highlighting your own "superiority" by your ability to assess and judge others' intelligence or highlighting your own shortcomings by in/correctly evaluating their intelligence with respect to your own.

And then there's me. Super smart....

JPS म्हणाले...

In my field, and I think in many, there's a certain threshold of intelligence you have to clear to get anywhere. I see very little correlation between how far above it individuals are, and how successful they are in the long run.

There may be something similar in the Army. You need a minimum General Technical score of 110 to become an officer. The Army mostly doesn't care how far above that score you are, just what you can do with it. I've seen no reason to believe they should care more than they do.

I really cringe for Biden in that "compare IQs" riff. The insecurity behind it is something special.

stlcdr म्हणाले...

Boasting about ones own IQ can be used as an opening to insult, and put the person being insulted off-guard. It can be done well, as Trump does it - and everyone knows it! - or poorly, when one is playing a defensive (Biden).

It's fairly easy to counter - if you are smart, and/or aware of the game being played. As we see, the democrats and media are neither smart, nor aware.

Mike (MJB Wolf) म्हणाले...

Somehow talking about how beautiful Ivanka is seems to be worse than showering with his teenage daughter like Biden did. There is nothing so durable as progressive privilege.

MikeD म्हणाले...

1)It's a red flag for people who read the Guardian
2)It's a red flag for people who read opinion columns in the Guaerdian

narciso म्हणाले...

hasn't arwa beclowned herself eternally, as for steve hawking, was it epsteins' brilliance that kept him coming back

Ironclad म्हणाले...

We have a movie this week - Oppenheimer - that illustrates that high intelligence usually doesn’t come with common sense. Oppie was brilliant but like most academics ( then and now) are so smart they can delude themselves into thinking the most insane doctrines are brilliant and noble - Communism then, CRT and woke now. That and usually the morals of an alley cat with the opposite sex.

IQ just measures academic ability ( and it works). Nothing about emotional intelligence, musical ability, physical prowess or inspirational output which are the other measures of an individual. Sadly education today denies IQ is a valid tool for placing students for maximum education.

Mike (MJB Wolf) म्हणाले...

Sally wrote Joe Biden and Donald Trump are so similar it doesn't seem to matter which one is in office.

And then amazingly followed it up with this: They have a tendency to f*ck sh*t up for the rest of us.

The problem in her assertion, as I see it, is "they." When Trump was president sh*t was NOT f*cked up as it is now. GDP growth was 6% not hovering at 1, wages were up not down relative to inflation, border was secure, belligerent adversaries were quiet, no shortages of anesthetics baby formula and antibiotics, no supply chain crisis, no Ukraine war.

Freeman Hunt म्हणाले...

"The best way to spot an idiot is to “look for the person who is cruel”, Pritzker says. “When someone’s path through this world is marked with acts of cruelty, they have failed the first test of an advanced society. They never forced their animal brain to evolve past its first instinct … Over my many years in politics and business, I have found one thing to be universally true – the kindest person in the room is often the smartest.”"

Lol

Anthony म्हणाले...

People who think they know everything really bug those of us who really do.

Jaq म्हणाले...

Next we will have a color blind writer criticizing Trump's taste in neckties.

Rusty म्हणाले...

I don't brag about my IQ, but I will state with confidence I'm a shitton smarter than 81 million of my fellow citizens.

rcocean म्हणाले...

I've always hated this dumb worship of Scientists. If Stephen Hawkings is talking about some science subject that he specializes in, he is an authority and i will listen. If he talks about anything else, his "High IQ" is worthless and his words don't carry anymore weight than anyone else. Probably a lot less.

His views on politics, Legal matters, Economics, Religion, Sports, Culture, and even the Merit of IQ tests are no more valid than mine. And may be even less, if he KNOWS less. "High IQ" doesn't mean knowledgable, experience, or wise. That's particularly true of Science nerds like Einstein and Hawkings, who spent all their time thinking about abstract physics.

Finally, most subjects require only a certain amount of IQ to get good at. Einstein, assuming he learned to do it, couldn't fix a car any better than a 100 IQ experienced mechanic. The point is his suppposed extra 50 IQ points, would've resulted in marginal imporvement. You don't have to be super-smart IQ 150 to be a HS teacher, lawyer, or engineer. I doubt Lincoln or Eisenhower were super-smart and having 30 extra IQ points would not have helped them.

phantommut म्हणाले...

Intelligence is one of those "Show, don't tell" things.

TaeJohnDo म्हणाले...

I'm smart enough to know that....er, I'm average enough to know that many "Math Smart" people are "Life Stupid." My ex-neighbor's sister had a MS from MIT, and was amazed that when ever she was traveling in a ski boat the direction of the wind was always blowing in her face.

Lloyd W. Robertson म्हणाले...

One of the best documentaries I've seen was about people in Mensa. The high IQ people who can all tell you their IQ. I think the filmmakers were surprised at what an unimpressive lot they were--not only in the lack of white collar or high paying careers, but in their sort of crazy listlessness. One guy was a bouncer in a bar. "You're obviously aware of better jobs, better paying jobs; have you considered going to college?" "I've always known a bunch of idiots who went to college, so I wasn't impressed. So one day I finally got around to doing the paperwork, but I screwed up somehow and didn't get in. So that's that."

And yes, Trump jokes where Biden doesn't joke. "I've gone to better schools than many of the media people who criticize me, I've had better jobs and made more money, and lived in nicer places. The place where I live now (of course, the White House) isn't so bad." When some heckler called Biden stupid, it just pushed a button: a river of lies about his law school record, and then boasting about his IQ. This was long before the internet, so enterprising reporters (of which there were quite a few) called up and got Syracuse Law records, talked to profs etc. One prof I believe had retired and he said: Biden was a marginal student at best. I have no idea how he graduated; he certainly flunked my class. And Biden brought all this on himself with his lies. And this was before he had dementia.

Rocco म्हणाले...

Tina Trent said...
"I think Trump is joking a lot of the time when it sounds as if he is exaggerating something. The first time I saw him live, the thing that struck me was his amused self-depreciation. The second thing that struck me was his amused self-awareness. It wasn't at all what I was expecting."

This. I've been around enough men (and occasionally women too) with those personality traits that I immediately got those aspects of his persona. I'm amazed that there are people who still don't get that.

Rocco म्हणाले...

Greg the Class Traitor said...
"It's certainly no worse than boasting about your "educational" certificates ('I have a PhD in X from Harvard')."

Whenever I hear anyone boasting about a prestigious university, I always remember that Jethro Bodine attended Oxford.

Sebastian म्हणाले...

"little correlation between how far above it individuals are, and how successful they are in the long run"

But there's a lot of research on the relationship between cognitive ability and productivity/performance. Lots of the usual caveats apply, of course, but as I recall, the link is pretty strong--suggesting, back when I read it, that on the whole smarter people are also better at simple tasks where you'd think a threshold is all you need.

Readering म्हणाले...

These days it's hard to have a conversation about idiots without the name Donald Trump coming up. And that's been the case in the tri-state area for many decades.

Known Unknown म्हणाले...

Taking Trump seriously or literally? Fool's errand.

LinSee127 म्हणाले...

It is empirically well-documented that professionally measured IQ is the strongest predictor of individual life outcomes, for better or worse. That it is stronger than family socioeconomic status is the thesis of "The Bell Curve."
Murray and Herrnstein declared themselves "resolutely agnostic" on the question of whether race differences in measured IQ were genetic, but their book was published in the '90s, before the human genome was fully mapped. More recently, genome-wide association studies have demonstrated that educational attainment (e,g, probability of graduating from college) can be predicted at birth, provided that the researchers have access to both the genomes and the educational records of at least a million ethnically similar people. "Prediction" refers to a statistical likelihood, not an individual's prospects.
The people at Johns Hopkins who have been studying cohorts of exceptionally gifted children for decades, have demonstrated that there is no threshold effect for IQ. This won't be obvious in a given workplace, where IQs are likely to be sufficiently restricted in range that other personal characteristics will predominate.
If your only experiences with Mensans outside Mensa is that they are always talking about how smart they are, you have no way of identifying the Mensa members who never mention that fact outside Mensa gatherings. (Many members don't.) Within Mensa, such talk is rather infra dig.

LinSee127 म्हणाले...

It is empirically well-documented that professionally measured IQ is the strongest predictor of individual life outcomes, for better or worse. That it is stronger than family socioeconomic status is the thesis of "The Bell Curve."
Murray and Herrstein declared themselves "resolutely agnostic" on the question of whether race differences in measured IQ were genetic, but their book was published in the '90s, before the human genome was fully mapped. More recently, genome-wide association studies have demonstrated that educational attainment (e,g, probability of graduating from college) can be predicted at birth, provided that the researchers have access to both the genomes and the educational records of at least a million ethnically similar people. "Prediction" refers to a statistical likelihood, not an individual's prospects.
The people at Johns Hopkins who have been studying cohorts of exceptionally gifted children for decades, have demonstrated that there is no threshold effect for IQ. This won't be obvious in a given workplace, where IQs are likely to be sufficiently restricted in range that other personal characteristics will predominate.
If your only experiences with Mensans outside Mensa is that they are always talking about how smart they are, you have no way of identifying the Mensa members who never mention that fact outside Mensa gatherings. (Many members don't.) Within Mensa, such talk is rather infra dig.

Rocco म्हणाले...

Jeff Vader said...
"Anyone reading the Guardian in Ernst is a glaring sign of an idiot."

True, especially if they don't speak English. I would expect papers like Die Rheinpfalz and Die Welt, to be more popular there.

James Graham म्हणाले...

There are different IQ tests with different scores.

A 120 IQ on one test may be equivalent to 150 on a different test.

What's a braggart high-scorer to do?

Cite your percentile.

A 99th percentile score will impress those people smart enough to know what it means.

rhhardin म्हणाले...

Graduated in the top 99% of his class.

Free Manure While You Wait! म्हणाले...

"It's certainly no worse than boasting about your "educational" certificates ("I have a Ph.D. in X from Harvard")."

My oldest brother turned down a full-ride at Harvard, because he felt getting a Ph.D. from Harvard in chemistry would likely limit him to a career in academia, which didn't interest him. Instead, he went somewhere else and the work he did there won the Nobel Prize. Today, he's extremely successful in a job that takes him all over the world.

Turning down Harvard because it was inadequate? And being right about it? Now THAT'S smart.

Free Manure While You Wait! म्हणाले...

"IQ just measures academic ability ( and it works). Nothing about emotional intelligence, musical ability, physical prowess or inspirational output which are the other measures of an individual."

Plato said that a well-rounded person is one who strives to master these four disciplines: math, music, poetry and gymnastics.

madAsHell म्हणाले...

I worked with a Mensa once.

He managed to access a former employers network from his IT job managing the network at his current employer. I don’t recall the game he was playing because he was gone before the end of the day.

What a genius!

Mason G म्हणाले...

"When Trump was president sh*t was NOT f*cked up as it is now. GDP growth was 6% not hovering at 1, wages were up not down relative to inflation, border was secure, belligerent adversaries were quiet, no shortages of anesthetics baby formula and antibiotics, no supply chain crisis, no Ukraine war."

Well, yeah. But aside from all that, everything else was EXACTLY THE SAME. Everybody knows this.

Assistant Village Idiot म्हणाले...

IQ can be estimated with decent accuracy from your standardised test scores. Some people in the upper IQ societies do obsess about how much higher they are than the average, but the majority have a very clear idea of both the value and limitations of that score. They are aware of what it does not measure (and was never intended to) as well as what it does.

There is a floor IQ necessary for nearly all professions and activities, but IQ alone is not a sufficient qualification for anything I can think of.

If IQ pisses you off I consider it a red flag. Though not a foolproof red flag.

ccscientist म्हणाले...

High IQ people can make remarkably dumb mistakes. Often this is due to personality flaws such as the inability to admit being wrong or high levels of anxiety or conformity or etc.

Richard Feynman famously said that the easiest person to fool is yourself. One must not fall in love with one's own ideas so that one can check and test them.

ccscientist म्हणाले...

To understand how much character and beliefs affect IQ output, read Paul Johnson's Intellectuals.
In the famous Terman study of IQ, Terman identified children of high IQ (all middle class kids) and even interfered in their lives with letters of recommendation etc and they all turned out to be successful in a conventional way. No genius outputs at all. Genius requires usually a quirky personality and/or interests. Einstein was weird. He could not get in grad school because he insulted his college physics prof so often. Obsession with chess or numbers or music are usually predictive of high output.
High IQ can make you pretty good at conversing and telling jokes, if you aren't a jerk.
It has been found that at the highest IQ levels, income becomes more divergent with some rich and some quite low income.

Temujin म्हणाले...

In our house my IQ is higher than my dog's. That makes things work around here. Though, somehow she still maneuvers more treats out of me.

My wife just shakes her head when I say something. Either she's blown away by my IQ or she's blown away that she married me. I'm still figuring this out.

People who insist in some way that they are too brilliant for me to debate only make me want to antagonize them more.

gilbar म्हणाले...

Okay, speaking of people with "high IQ's".. Remember when?
Remember when the Smart people were telling us ALL to get Vaxed (and again, and boosted, and again)?
The Smart People told us that it would be "effective", and us dumb people said:
"No, it doesn't look like your 'vaccine' is effective at all!"
???

Well, it turns out; that getting "vaxed" 2x, and boosted 2x.. IS VERY EFFECTIVE!
It's just that it's VERY EFFECTIVE at making sure that you'll get covid over and over (and over (and over))
Vaxxed & 2X Boosted Sen. Durbin is COVID Positive For 3rd Time in a Year.
Democratic U.S. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin – one of the most vociferous advocates of the COVID-19 vaccine and subsequent booster shots – has tested positive for coronavirus for the third time in a year and is self-isolating once again.

Durbin, who tested positive at the end of July last year and once again in March this year, announced on his Twitter account Monday morning, “[u]nfortunately, I tested positive for COVID-19 today
COVID vaccines were found to make the virus “more severe” after vaccination, according to a peer-reviewed study published earlier this year, as well as increasing the risks of autoimmune diseases, myocarditis, and cancer-cell growth.

So see? The "vaccines" ARE effective after all!!

Leland म्हणाले...

+1 phantommut@12:47pm

It is the same point of the original listicle but shows intelligence by refining the thought to as few words as possible.

traditionalguy म्हणाले...

Interesting to see Trump’s best asset systematically being denigrated as election season approaches. This writer probably thinks the same about Oppenheimer’s talents. That man’s intelligence, along with Bill Knudsen’s, was our most important weapon of World War II. Not that anyone likes those high IQ types, because being around them makes us look bad.

Trump’s rare combination of being a quick minded information gatherer while being a demanding boss so far outclasses our DC ruling class that he probably is guilty of Conduct Unbecoming a President.

gspencer म्हणाले...

Spotting idiots,

1. Voting Democrat
2. Voting Democrat
3. Voting Democrat
4. Voting Democrat
5. Voting Democrat

Madison Mike म्हणाले...

After graduating with a BS degree, I was in the 95th percentile on my Grad Record Exam (top 5%) yet I couldn't understand Calculus and had gotten a D-. Numbers, yes, abstract........

Jaq म्हणाले...

"Finally, most subjects require only a certain amount of IQ to get good at. Einstein, assuming he learned to do it, couldn't fix a car any better than a 100 IQ experienced mechanic. The point is his suppposed extra 50 IQ points, would've resulted in marginal imporvement."

This is a pretty good explanation of why so many people think that IQ doesn't matter, because in their own domain, it really doesn't.

boatbuilder म्हणाले...

Anything by Arwa Mahdawi is a red flag. She is aggressively ignorant, even by Guardian standards.

FullMoon म्हणाले...

Dropped outa Mensa when they razed membership fee.

Jamie म्हणाले...

g is very very highly correlated with good and high life outcomes, and IQ is highly correlated with g.

That said, there's a lot of play in what you can do with your intelligence. I've kind of wasted what I've got, except insofar as I have chosen a very smart father for our three children and I am an excellent lifelong companion for him because I am interested in things.

OTOH, in my first, very brief, youthful marriage, my then-husband was VERY smart. He may even have scored higher in an IQ test than the one who's lasted 30 years. But he was and is paranoid, embittered, and (importantly, for life outcomes) entirely unable to put his intelligence to productive use. My husband of 30 years is, in addition to being a very intelligent man, a great guy, an exemplary father, and excessively incisive in his work.

GRW3 म्हणाले...

I qualified for MENSA in several ways. I never joined, it just seemed so weird. When asked why, I always said that like Groucho Marx, I wouldn't want to be a member of a club that would have me as member. I also always loved the Dilbert strip where the janitor notes that Dilbert is really smart and asked why he hasn't joined the MENSA chapter. Dilbert asks why he's a janitor if he's a MENSA member. The janitor replies that being smart doesn't have the economic advantage you think it does. LOL.

Big Mike म्हणाले...

Einstein, assuming he learned to do it, couldn't fix a car any better than a 100 IQ experienced mechanic.

@rcocean, do you know for certain whether Einstein could even drive a car?

Gahrie म्हणाले...

Sadly education today denies IQ is a valid tool for placing students for maximum education.

Yes and no. In California at least, IQ tests are used to qualify students for special education (There has to be a discrepancy in your IQ score and your academic performance) and for the gifted and talented education programs (although you can qualify by being gifted in athletics or music among other things).

Except Black kids. By law you cannot give IQ tests to Black kids and have to use alternate measurements.

TexasJohn म्हणाले...

Ex-President Obama regularly claimed to be the smartest guy in the room, and seemed to believe it to be true. I never believed it. When he was speaking without benefit of reading written text off a teleprompter, he sounded like a total idiot. He could not complete a sentence without um or ah every other word. Many of his actions as President did not reflect high intelligence, either.

Narayanan म्हणाले...

Vaxxed & 2X Boosted Sen. Durbin is COVID Positive For 3rd Time in a Year.
==========
if there is no video of vax-shots and boosts >>> could a D be lying?

Rusty म्हणाले...

Readering said...
"These days it's hard to have a conversation about idiots without the name Donald Trump coming up. And that's been the case in the tri-state area for many decades."
I'm laughing. Aren't you the guy that bragged about voting for Biden and are going to vote for him again? Yes you are! Do you remember where you parked your car? Would you like us to phone someone for you so they can come and get you?

Rusty म्हणाले...

FullMoon said...
"Dropped outa Mensa when they razed membership fee."
raised

Tina Trent म्हणाले...

Thanks Rocco.

bagoh20 म्हणाले...

#6 Too many red flags is a red flag.