The median IQ of this board has got to be at least 130, right?

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jackzack87 said:
Slightly on topic, how does one get his IQ tested? Not a cheezy online score from a advertisement, but the real deal.
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I participated in a clinical trial once that administered a real, proctored IQ test. You can schedule a proctored exam through Mensa.
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Related question, but what is the variance of an individual's IQ score? Meaning, if they took non-identical but still standardized IQ tests over a few days, would their score vary by a few points? +/- 10 points? 5 points? etc.
 
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sliceofbread136 said:
Sounds like a whole lot of trouble for something of zero value...
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I was compensated for my participation in the trial, and the test was just a part of it.

Edit: Oh, you meant scheduling a test. Well, if it's important to you or you have money and time to blow and are curious I don't see what would be wrong with it.
 
jackzack87 said:
Slightly on topic, how does one get his IQ tested? Not a cheezy online score from a advertisement, but the real deal.
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When I was looking around for a high school to attend, I took a LONG standardized entrance exam for a private school. ( I think the test was call "Omaha"?) The test results had an IQ score. The school seemed to give the test a lot of weight.
 
plumazul said:
When I was looking around for a high school to attend, I took a LONG standardized entrance exam for a private school. ( I think the test was call "Omaha"?) The test results had an IQ score. The school seemed to give the test a lot of weight.
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well don't leave us hanging?
do you have an iq of 130?
 
gettheleadout said:
It's ironic to me that you ascribe achievements to this hypothetical person in response to a high IQ but you're unwilling to do the reverse. I think you're being way too generous with what a 130 is and I think you're assuming way too much about "smart" people. So a person is extremely intelligent, does that mean we can assume he/she will be a "stand-out student" beyond good grades/test scores? Of course not, and it doesn't even mean we can expect them to perform well academically (though in general, intelligence does facilitate academic success.)

Accolades don't come with intelligence, they come with hard work. Intelligence is only part of what makes one successful.
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Yeah, you're right. I was just giving examples of what a well-motivated 130 IQ person could achieve. Obviously there are underachievers as well, and people run the whole spectrum of personalities. Also, I'd be surprised if there wasn't some minimum IQ floor to winning Goldwater in the hard sciences, or, say, Rhodes or Marshall. I'm just guessing it's about 130. Also, we're just talking about the 130 range. The Putnam is a whole other story, and I'd bet money Putnam fellows would consistently score 145-160+ on any good test.

Narmerguy said:
I think we'll have to take into account that they have 5 different levels of genius...I hardly think that, when most of us say "genius", we are referring to the lowest group (145).
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Most of us probably have not met anyone higher than 145. I'd say we are talking about 145, maybe 160, when we describe prototypical "geniuses" in undergrad or med school.

theseeker4 said:
Related question, but what is the variance of an individual's IQ score? Meaning, if they took non-identical but still standardized IQ tests over a few days, would their score vary by a few points? +/- 10 points? 5 points? etc.
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My guess is a good test would put you to within a range of 5 or so points. I.e., if you've always scored 110, you should score between 108 and 112. Conversely, if the test is well-normed and so on and you score 110, you should expect to score very close to that in future tests.

Gigantron said:
I agree with this, which is why I tend to think that the Physics Forum would have an average of IQ of that amount or higher. Definitely not SDN.
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No, I think PF is probably very similar to SDN. Again, the only groups where I'd reliably expect an average score of 130 are top professors in the hard sciences, and probably some of the blokes at Google, etc. and the guys doing quantitative stuff at hedge funds (and there are probably tons of other places; these are just the ones I know). I'm not saying there aren't 130+ people who don't do these things--there obviously are--but if you asked for 130 average from a group of 1000 people, those places are where I'd place my bets. Definitely not any internet forum.
 
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theseeker4 said:
Related question, but what is the variance of an individual's IQ score? Meaning, if they took non-identical but still standardized IQ tests over a few days, would their score vary by a few points? +/- 10 points? 5 points? etc.
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From http://www.mensa.org/about-us :
mensa said:
The term "IQ score" is widely used but poorly defined. There are a large number of tests with different scales. The result on one test of 132 can be the same as a score 148 on another test.
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Mensa accepts a lot of scholastic tests as intelligence tests. The GMAT and the LSAT for instance. However they do not accept MCAT score as a demonstration of raw intelligence. Maybe because the MCAT really is more a measure of hard work?

As a quick analysis, Mensa accepts the upper 5% on professional aptitude tests to be the equivalent to the upper 2% of the general population, given the higher caliber of test taker for professional tests. The 5 percentile mark for the MCAT is 35+. And finally the upper 2% of the population has an IQ score of... 131 or higher.

Hmm.

Refs:
Mensa qualifying tests and scores: http://www.us.mensa.org/AML/?LinkServID=005EB3F7-B83A-44BA-B4FFD5114A1AC31D
MCAT percentiles: https://www.aamc.org/students/download/85332/data/combined08.pdf
 
synthmonsterjax said:
Yeah, you're right. I was just giving examples of what a well-motivated 130 IQ person could achieve. Obviously there are underachievers as well, and people run the whole spectrum of personalities. Also, I'd be surprised if there wasn't some minimum IQ floor to winning Goldwater in the hard sciences, or, say, Rhodes or Marshall. I'm just guessing it's about 130. Also, we're just talking about the 130 range. The Putnam is a whole other story, and I'd bet money Putnam fellows would consistently score 145-160+ on any good test.
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I still think productivity, academic performance, and commitment/interest in research (the factors at play in winning Goldwaters, for example) don't necessarily lend themselves to a minimum IQ level. Though no doubt there is a historical minimum IQ for winning any such award, it just happens to be whatever the lowest IQ of those of the winners was. :laugh:


Most of us probably have not met anyone higher than 145. I'd say we are talking about 145, maybe 160, when we describe prototypical "geniuses" in undergrad or med school.
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I have, and neither does he consider himself a genius nor does anyone else. I tend to ballpark high 160's as genius level just based on standard deviation, but I've never met anyone I would consider a genius. I think of a genius as the type of person whose intelligence just leaves you awestruck, someone who grasps things so easily and exercises critical and multilevel thinking with such ease that it doesn't even compare. I would love to meet such a person, and I'm confident there are a fair number of them.
 
gettheleadout said:
I still think productivity, academic performance, and commitment/interest in research (the factors at play in winning Goldwaters, for example) don't necessarily lend themselves to a minimum IQ level. Though no doubt there is a historical minimum IQ for winning any such award, it just happens to be whatever the lowest IQ of those of the winners was. :laugh:
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I think there's a feedback loop. You have to start at a minimum level of raw ability in order to quickly understand hard science research at a high level, without having years of prior training. The most impressive thing about undergraduate research awards is that the winners get up to a high level within 1 or 2 years of starting undergrad. Someone who can just step into a research lab and get up to speed very quickly (i.e. within a few days) is going to be positively reinforced by their progress, the feedback of their PI and so on. It's like putting two rats in a maze where one of them has extraordinary "maze-solving ability" and the other one doesn't. Within the first 30 seconds, the one with the latent ability figures out that it's on the right track because there are flashing green arrows along the pathway it walks and people are throwing a party and encouraging it to "keep going!" 🙂D). Whereas, the less talented one spends an inordinate amount of time just screwing around without a sense of overall direction. It may never even finish.

I guess what I'm saying is, for the majority of people, there isn't going to be motivation, productivity, and high-performance unless there was already some positive reinforcement somewhere down the line because of their initial/previous performance. It's very rare for a person that fails to still have the motivation and energy to go on. Of course, there can be a multitude of reasons why that person fails, and in science it very often isn't about ability. But when we're talking about undergraduates working with PI's and lab groups on established projects and who have an established direction to follow, I think the main thing that keeps the engine running is the quickness with which they can assimilate results and generate new ideas. Because of direction from the PI, I wouldn't expect the kind of "failure" where you had an incorrect hunch and were working all alone (or your hypotheses failed to be refuted by a colleague, etc.).


I have, and neither does he consider himself a genius nor does anyone else. I tend to ballpark high 160's as genius level just based on standard deviation, but I've never met anyone I would consider a genius. I think of a genius as the type of person whose intelligence just leaves you awestruck, someone who grasps things so easily and exercises critical and multilevel thinking with such ease that it doesn't even compare. I would love to meet such a person, and I'm confident there are a fair number of them.
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I've met one person who probably could probably score at least 160 on any test. Without giving away too much, this person demonstrated extremely high levels of achievement at a very young age and was a Putnam fellow multiple times. As a child, I think s/he scored over 200. S/he is now very well-known in the field. There's immediately something different about these people, definitely. This person in particular was very excitable and seemed to have the ability to process multiple stimuli at once. You could always tell there were a huge number of mental processes always running the background. That's all I could glean, anyway.

I haven't met anyone else close to that range. Some of my friends and professors might be 120-130, and I'm about 115.
 
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gettheleadout said:
I think of a genius as the type of person whose intelligence just leaves you awestruck, someone who grasps things so easily and exercises critical and multilevel thinking with such ease that it doesn't even compare. I would love to meet such a person, and I'm confident there are a fair number of them.
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I used to work with people like this in my first career. I would walk into a meeting and clearly be the dumbest person in the room. By a long shot.

I used to interview prospective employees, and when I ran out of regular material I would ask them to solve an essentially unsolvable problem that I kept tucked away for just such emergencies. The solution didn't really matter, of course, I just wanted to see their thought process. The fact that I even asked them the question meant I was going to recommend a hire.

One day I'm interviewing a kid from Cal Tech, and he proceeds to solve the entire damn thing in 45 minutes on my whiteboard. The problem that nobody could solve for 7 years. :wow: I called up his recruiter and demanded that we hire this guy at any price because we couldn't afford to have him work for a competitor. He wound up working for me.

From what I understand from my industry contacts, those kinds of people work for google now.
 
It depends on what you are measuring. If you're using tests that measure 'G-Factor,' which is reasoning, problem solving, knowledge, memory, and successful adaption to one's surroundings. There are many different kinds of intelligences you can measure.

On that note, it is said that the average undergraduate that completes their degree has an IQ of 115.

On a side note: med school doesn't require significant cognitive work, but rather memorization and easy application of that knowledge (from what I understand). At least, that's what my friend, who's been a doctor since 1988, says! 🙂
 
the closest person I've met to a genius was my own cousin. He could read fluently at a very young age and had one of the most creative minds I've ever witnessed. People keep talking about geniuses as they exist in science but he hated science.

In late elementary/early middle school he was reading Steven King in a matter of a night/few nights and could summarize the book back to you in explicit detail. He took the SAT in 7th grade and scored a 1450 (old SAT). Just an all around brilliant person. I imagine he was probably sitting around an iq of 125-130. I'm average.

Sadly, he dropped out of university and now works a factory job. ******* should have wrote a book.
 
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synthmonsterjax said:
Most of us probably have not met anyone higher than 145. I'd say we are talking about 145, maybe 160, when we describe prototypical "geniuses" in undergrad or med school.
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"Maybe 160"? You realize the difference between a 145 and a 160 is massive. 145 is not all that remarkable. These kinds of people are clearly "smarter" than the vast majority of us, but not genius.

When I think Genius, I think of a guy I met a little while ago that graduated from college when he was 15 and then a prestigious law school by age 20 (with work experience in between). That's genius.
 
I don't really consider any of the aforementioned accomplishments signs of genius.

Feynman is genius.

(Marilyn vos Savant has a very high IQ - well into this bizarre "genius land" - and has achieved nothing meaningful)
 
115 is one standard deviation above normal and corresponds to about 1/6 of the population (including those at the bottom of the IQ scale who may not be able to go to school or finish through 12th grade). An IQ of 130 is roughly two standard deviations above normal and corresponds to about 1/50 of the population (and is only one standard deviation above 115, the average for college graduates). Given this, it's fairly likely that quite a few people holding professional degrees have an IQ of 130 or higher. There will probably be several within a given medical school class. 145 corresponds to roughly 1/1000 people, and 160 is virtually unattainable on modern IQ tests, which ceiling out at around 150-160 (WISC-IV and SB-IV, among others), as these were not normed for extremely low or high ability. The reliability of these tests is generally good, according to psychometric analyses (factor analysis, Crohnbach's alpha...).

Does it really matter for medical school? Well, there will be some people who have a bit of an advantage because of their abilities, but, save for a photographic memory that works on hundreds of pages of text in two weeks, hard work is required of everyone in medical school, regardless of IQ. With respect to MSTPs, IQ differences may hold more weight, as innovative research takes a minimum level of intelligence. With respect to adult eminence in a field (such as medical research), creativity, drive, and divergent thinking seem to make the difference above a certain level of innate ability (Simonton, if you want to look up the study).

Personally, I think hard work trumps innate ability in many fields. I entered PhD coursework in mathematics this year with an almost entirely autodidactic background, and I've worked insanely hard to get up to speed in the different branches of mathematics/computing/quantum physics in the past three years. I probably have spent several thousand hours reading and working problems to get up to speed enough to solve problems involving these branches and their applications. Same with poetry as a young person. It takes dedication, a passion, and perserverance to succeed at anything, no matter a person's intelligence.
 
Narmerguy said:
"Maybe 160"? You realize the difference between a 145 and a 160 is massive. 145 is not all that remarkable. These kinds of people are clearly "smarter" than the vast majority of us, but not genius.

When I think Genius, I think of a guy I met a little while ago that graduated from college when he was 15 and then a prestigious law school by age 20 (with work experience in between). That's genius.
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You're right, there is a large difference. However, 145 is very remarkable; roughly 1/1,000 people have a score this high, and that is on a real test.

The person you're describing is remarkable, and sounds like someone between 145 and 160. There are many people who do college-level work between the ages of 11 and 15. However, you're affirming my view that people don't really know anybody in the real upper echelons. I'm not saying the person you are describing isn't a genius--he probably is. But there are people who really exceed the boundaries of normal description. One such person is Terry Tao, who you've probably heard of. Someone you've never heard of is Vladimir Drinfel'd. The person you're describing graduated college at age 15. At age 15, Drinfel'd scored a perfect score on an international mathematics competition; at 19, he resolved one of the technically challenging conjectures in modern number theory. Almost 40 years later, the work he did between age 17 and 19 still remains one of the most intricate and technical cornerstones of the theory. Work at that level at that age has been essentially unmatched even within the group of mathematicians who study this technical part of number theory (which itself is probably +3SD from the mean).

When we're talking about 160 or 175, that's what I'm talking about. As I've been saying, even really bright college students, premeds, doctors, etc. have never heard of, let alone met, people this like guy. That's why I'm saying you've probably met a 145 or two, but unless you're already part of a highly specialized group of people (note: I'm not part of any such group; I just know about this guy somehow), you haven't met many people above that level (but a 160 is possible if you're part of certain circles). Yes, graduating law school at 20 is extremely impressive. But there are some real monsters out there who exceed the bounds of run-of-the-mill "precocity" like graduating from school early.
 
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seafood92 said:
the closest person I've met to a genius was my own cousin. He could read fluently at a very young age and had one of the most creative minds I've ever witnessed. People keep talking about geniuses as they exist in science but he hated science.

In late elementary/early middle school he was reading Steven King in a matter of a night/few nights and could summarize the book back to you in explicit detail. He took the SAT in 7th grade and scored a 1450 (old SAT). Just an all around brilliant person. I imagine he was probably sitting around an iq of 125-130. I'm average.

Sadly, he dropped out of university and now works a factory job. ******* should have wrote a book.
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I only got a 1250 on the SAT in 7th grade. I guess that puts me around 115.:cry:

Sadpants!
 
Frazier said:
Kind of OT, but wasn't there a House episode way back about some patient with an astronomical IQ... He felt weird because he couldn't relate to anyone including his wife, so he proceeded to give himself stupidity drugs. Something like that.

Yep... Umm, /tangent.
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Yeah, he was the guy who took cough syrup and vodka in a certain amount to "dumb" himself down. I remember him saying that there was a 100 point difference in IQ between him and his wife, and said she was closer in intelligence to some simple animal than to him (can't remember which animal).
 
I took a proctored, official I.Q. test in the eighth grade, and scored a 150. I am neither a Rhodes Scholar nor a Putnam Fellow. It doesn't really mean a whole lot.
 
gyropath said:
I took a proctored, official I.Q. test in the eighth grade, and scored a 150. I am neither a Rhodes Scholar nor a Putnam Fellow. It doesn't really mean a whole lot.
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Childhood IQ's often regress towards the mean, with higher scores regressing more. Additionally, the implication is the other direction; Putnam fellow would indicate some minimum, but attaining that minimum doesn't guarantee anything (though it has strong positive correlates, like academic success).
 
flatearth22 said:
It's widely accepted that the average IQ for a college graduate is 115. Now consider that only above average college students carry out their aspirations to become physicians by taking the premed prereqs, the MCAT, and jumping through the hoops by acquiring leadership, volunteering, research, clinical experience, etc....so we'll set the average for this group, conservatively, at 120. Then only above average med school aspirants take the time to actually research med schools and would possibly stumble upon a forum such as this, so let's say that the new average is 125. It's hardly a stretch to say that among the few who stay (ie - aren't intimidated or discouraged by the other high achievers on this board), the average IQ is 5 points higher, or 130.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLUoRXrYhHc
 
There are plenty of idiots out there - just because someone is a premed student, doctor, resident, or attending doesn't mean anything.

Suppose you have person A and person B

They both have the same level of competency in regard to patient care and the same level of interpersonal skills when talking to hospital staff.

Both are EM doctors.

Person A got majored in biology and ended up with a 3.20 gpa. Person B majored in physics and pure mathematics and graduated with a 4.00 gpa.

One day when you are crossing the street a pickup truck slams into you. You are rushed to the ER. Who would your love ones want as the ER doctor? If you think that intelligence and quick thinking will help you in an ER case where every minute counts, of course you are going to choose person B. Who wouldnt?

I guess your take on this hinges on response to does competency == intelligence. But I can't think of any cases where, with two people who have the same personality, intelligence wouldn't help.

Of course the majors and gpas are only examples. My point is that there are some doctors who are smarter than others. The kids you see in college who study for 20 for a test and still make a bad grade are NEVER going to be as smart as the guy who doesnt study and aces his tests. No matter how hard they study.

But what if you are a doctor and you are deemed by some third party to be incompetent? Would you quit the job for the betterment of your patients? Reminds me of the part in Atul Gawande's book Complications where he is talking about the bell curve.
 
Yes the average pre med is smarter than the average college student who is also a little bit smarter than the average person.

No the average IQ on here is not 130.

The problem is, how do you even know IQ accurately reflects your intelligence? Intelligence has so many different categories.... being in medicine you only take use of certain categories of intelligence, so if anything those who are more gifted in certain areas will easily beat out those with "higher overall IQs."

Also, weren't IQ tests designed to seperate the mentally ******ed from those who aren't ?
 
Premeds are some the dumbest people around. Average IQ is higher at walmart.
 
Double Trouble said:
My point is that there are some doctors who are smarter than others. The kids you see in college who study for 20 for a test and still make a bad grade are NEVER going to be as smart as the guy who doesnt study and aces his tests. No matter how hard they study.
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This is a humbling, if not very depressing, truth--especially as I find myself part of the first group more often than not. I guess the main culprit is expectations. When people tell you to have realistic expectations, they're telling you to figure out which group you're part of. But it's harsh reality that you can be a hard-working, good-natured incompetent. I'd guess that such people are weeded out far earlier than the practicing physician stage, usually by the MCAT.
 
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