How smart is average?
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OK, so 100 is the average intelligence. Without really thinking about it, one kind of assumes that average is... well, you know - meh, average. Not smart, not stupid, just... average. But actually, has anyone done any studies to really get a handle on just what average intelligence amounts to? (Other than answering IQ tests...) 'cos I think it's probably pretty damned stupid. I'm asking this in all seriousness - not trying to have a rant. What **is** average intelligence - just how smart (or dumb) is someone with an IQ of 100? For example - how would such people fare in: applications to an average university a course to become an airline pilot learning to program in C# studying law running for public office (ha ha just joking with that one!) ..this sort of thing... [edit] just to be clear: I am not looking for a scientifically rigorous answer - the question doesn't have one, I know that. Just.. as the title says: how smart is average?
"I'm never quite so stupid as when I'm being smart." - Linus van Pelt. "If you were as smart as you think you are, you wouldn't think you were so smart!" - Charlie Brown.
Back in my college days I ended up taking a whole bunch of different IQ tests and got the same, normalized, score on all of them! I kept getting 139 which, while it pleased me to be above the 100 average, it also annoyed me in that they told me that a score of 140 or above is "genius" level and I couldn't quite make it! A friend cheered me up by having a T-shirt printed for me with "One point short of a Genius" on it. However, although she meant well, the word "Genius" was spelled "Genuis" which rather spoiled the effect! :laugh: I recently did an on-line IQ test and scored 144 so my incredible age must have counted for something!
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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OK, so 100 is the average intelligence. Without really thinking about it, one kind of assumes that average is... well, you know - meh, average. Not smart, not stupid, just... average. But actually, has anyone done any studies to really get a handle on just what average intelligence amounts to? (Other than answering IQ tests...) 'cos I think it's probably pretty damned stupid. I'm asking this in all seriousness - not trying to have a rant. What **is** average intelligence - just how smart (or dumb) is someone with an IQ of 100? For example - how would such people fare in: applications to an average university a course to become an airline pilot learning to program in C# studying law running for public office (ha ha just joking with that one!) ..this sort of thing... [edit] just to be clear: I am not looking for a scientifically rigorous answer - the question doesn't have one, I know that. Just.. as the title says: how smart is average?
"I'm never quite so stupid as when I'm being smart." - Linus van Pelt. "If you were as smart as you think you are, you wouldn't think you were so smart!" - Charlie Brown.
"Think of how smart the average person is. Now realize that half of them are dumber than that." -- St. George (Carlin) (Yes, I know that's technically the median, not the average, but the average idiot doesn't know what a median is)
Proud to have finally moved to the A-Ark. Which one are you in?
Author of the Guardians Saga (Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels) -
Well, I realise that - it's also multi-dimensional/faceted... I'm not really after a definitive scientific answer....
"I'm never quite so stupid as when I'm being smart." - Linus van Pelt. "If you were as smart as you think you are, you wouldn't think you were so smart!" - Charlie Brown.
Wombaticus wrote:
- it's also multi-dimensional/faceted
To the point of being unanswerable in my opinion.
"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment "Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst "I don't drink any more... then again, I don't drink any less." - Mike Mullikins uncle
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"Think of how smart the average person is. Now realize that half of them are dumber than that." -- St. George (Carlin) (Yes, I know that's technically the median, not the average, but the average idiot doesn't know what a median is)
Proud to have finally moved to the A-Ark. Which one are you in?
Author of the Guardians Saga (Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels)And (subject to your caveat) half are also smarter....
"I'm never quite so stupid as when I'm being smart." - Linus van Pelt. "If you were as smart as you think you are, you wouldn't think you were so smart!" - Charlie Brown.
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Back in my college days I ended up taking a whole bunch of different IQ tests and got the same, normalized, score on all of them! I kept getting 139 which, while it pleased me to be above the 100 average, it also annoyed me in that they told me that a score of 140 or above is "genius" level and I couldn't quite make it! A friend cheered me up by having a T-shirt printed for me with "One point short of a Genius" on it. However, although she meant well, the word "Genius" was spelled "Genuis" which rather spoiled the effect! :laugh: I recently did an on-line IQ test and scored 144 so my incredible age must have counted for something!
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
Meh, I've taken plenty of IQ tests, both official and online... They all put me in the 185-200 range... Except when I was really bored and decided to join Mensa... I took their admission test (Didn't have any of the paperwork from the few of those IQ tests that were "official"), and missed qualifying by one point. (In my defense, their "Which of these things is not like the other?" questions were really "Which of the several obvious answers to this is the one we decided is correct?", and I lost time on the math section because I hadn't done long multiplication/division by hand in years) So to summarize, I'm pretty sure all intelligence testing is complete crap... And to summarize the summary of the summary, as DNA said, people are the problem.
Proud to have finally moved to the A-Ark. Which one are you in?
Author of the Guardians Saga (Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels) -
OK, so 100 is the average intelligence. Without really thinking about it, one kind of assumes that average is... well, you know - meh, average. Not smart, not stupid, just... average. But actually, has anyone done any studies to really get a handle on just what average intelligence amounts to? (Other than answering IQ tests...) 'cos I think it's probably pretty damned stupid. I'm asking this in all seriousness - not trying to have a rant. What **is** average intelligence - just how smart (or dumb) is someone with an IQ of 100? For example - how would such people fare in: applications to an average university a course to become an airline pilot learning to program in C# studying law running for public office (ha ha just joking with that one!) ..this sort of thing... [edit] just to be clear: I am not looking for a scientifically rigorous answer - the question doesn't have one, I know that. Just.. as the title says: how smart is average?
"I'm never quite so stupid as when I'm being smart." - Linus van Pelt. "If you were as smart as you think you are, you wouldn't think you were so smart!" - Charlie Brown.
There is very little in our world that cannot be done, to some degree or another, by people with an IQ of only 100, so they would be able to do all of your examples. Your score on an IQ test doesn't make you good at something, it merely means you score well on IQ tests. What you do with your intelligence is the thing that matters. Put another way, scoring high on IQ tests isn't a very marketable skill :)
We can program with only 1's, but if all you've got are zeros, you've got nothing.
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Meh, I've taken plenty of IQ tests, both official and online... They all put me in the 185-200 range... Except when I was really bored and decided to join Mensa... I took their admission test (Didn't have any of the paperwork from the few of those IQ tests that were "official"), and missed qualifying by one point. (In my defense, their "Which of these things is not like the other?" questions were really "Which of the several obvious answers to this is the one we decided is correct?", and I lost time on the math section because I hadn't done long multiplication/division by hand in years) So to summarize, I'm pretty sure all intelligence testing is complete crap... And to summarize the summary of the summary, as DNA said, people are the problem.
Proud to have finally moved to the A-Ark. Which one are you in?
Author of the Guardians Saga (Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels)I was invited to join Mensa when I was working in London. I went to one of the monthly social get-togethers. I didn't know what to expect but it turned out to be a p*ssing competition as to who got the highest score for entry. Also, I found out that the Mensa "IQ" score is 20% higher than most others. In other words if an IQ test says a person has an IQ of 150, the same person should obtain a score of 180 using the Mensa test. Considering the social skills, or lack thereof, of the people at the meeting, I declined the invitation and the test.
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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There is very little in our world that cannot be done, to some degree or another, by people with an IQ of only 100, so they would be able to do all of your examples. Your score on an IQ test doesn't make you good at something, it merely means you score well on IQ tests. What you do with your intelligence is the thing that matters. Put another way, scoring high on IQ tests isn't a very marketable skill :)
We can program with only 1's, but if all you've got are zeros, you've got nothing.
Perhaps I shouldn't have brought up IQ tests, as we all know they're pretty arbitrary and useless... what I'm after getting a handle on is just how smart is the average human being? Or, as I titled the post: how smart is average?
"I'm never quite so stupid as when I'm being smart." - Linus van Pelt. "If you were as smart as you think you are, you wouldn't think you were so smart!" - Charlie Brown.
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OK, so 100 is the average intelligence. Without really thinking about it, one kind of assumes that average is... well, you know - meh, average. Not smart, not stupid, just... average. But actually, has anyone done any studies to really get a handle on just what average intelligence amounts to? (Other than answering IQ tests...) 'cos I think it's probably pretty damned stupid. I'm asking this in all seriousness - not trying to have a rant. What **is** average intelligence - just how smart (or dumb) is someone with an IQ of 100? For example - how would such people fare in: applications to an average university a course to become an airline pilot learning to program in C# studying law running for public office (ha ha just joking with that one!) ..this sort of thing... [edit] just to be clear: I am not looking for a scientifically rigorous answer - the question doesn't have one, I know that. Just.. as the title says: how smart is average?
"I'm never quite so stupid as when I'm being smart." - Linus van Pelt. "If you were as smart as you think you are, you wouldn't think you were so smart!" - Charlie Brown.
I know some people who are not that smart but have made a lot of money. I know some really smart people that have no idea how to boil an egg. It's all relative.
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OK, so 100 is the average intelligence. Without really thinking about it, one kind of assumes that average is... well, you know - meh, average. Not smart, not stupid, just... average. But actually, has anyone done any studies to really get a handle on just what average intelligence amounts to? (Other than answering IQ tests...) 'cos I think it's probably pretty damned stupid. I'm asking this in all seriousness - not trying to have a rant. What **is** average intelligence - just how smart (or dumb) is someone with an IQ of 100? For example - how would such people fare in: applications to an average university a course to become an airline pilot learning to program in C# studying law running for public office (ha ha just joking with that one!) ..this sort of thing... [edit] just to be clear: I am not looking for a scientifically rigorous answer - the question doesn't have one, I know that. Just.. as the title says: how smart is average?
"I'm never quite so stupid as when I'm being smart." - Linus van Pelt. "If you were as smart as you think you are, you wouldn't think you were so smart!" - Charlie Brown.
How would you measure average IQ other than having lots of people taking IQ tests? It is what it is. One metric amongst many. Probably not much use for anything other than applying to Mensa these days. Very few education systems bother to measure it any more. Based on thousands of the tests, average is simply the peak of the bell curve which arises from the results. That score is then normalised to 100 for the assessment of future tests. It is not an absolute, by any means. The Mensa qualification requires a score which places you in the top 2% of the population. The score required is probably very different now from when I took the test in 1984 (yes, I passed, though I've never been an active member).
I am not a number. I am a ... no, wait!
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OK, so 100 is the average intelligence. Without really thinking about it, one kind of assumes that average is... well, you know - meh, average. Not smart, not stupid, just... average. But actually, has anyone done any studies to really get a handle on just what average intelligence amounts to? (Other than answering IQ tests...) 'cos I think it's probably pretty damned stupid. I'm asking this in all seriousness - not trying to have a rant. What **is** average intelligence - just how smart (or dumb) is someone with an IQ of 100? For example - how would such people fare in: applications to an average university a course to become an airline pilot learning to program in C# studying law running for public office (ha ha just joking with that one!) ..this sort of thing... [edit] just to be clear: I am not looking for a scientifically rigorous answer - the question doesn't have one, I know that. Just.. as the title says: how smart is average?
"I'm never quite so stupid as when I'm being smart." - Linus van Pelt. "If you were as smart as you think you are, you wouldn't think you were so smart!" - Charlie Brown.
Since in the Netherlands we approximately sort people by their IQ (really by learning ability, but it's strongly correlated) in different categories with their own school type, we can track this sort of thing. Someone with an IQ of 100 would probably go to Vmbo-KB or -GL. Where do these people end up? as Mediocre Office Drone, in distribution, doing manual labor (where they are then of above average intelligence), that sort of thing. * applications to an average university: hell no, they automatically don't meet the requirements by having done the wrong type of school. * a course to become an airline pilot: would fail miserably * learning to program in C#: they actually do this, on the level of "code monkey". Apparently those are in demand though. * studying law: yep, but on the level with which you become an office drone with some knowledge of the law. * running for public office: We give Geert Wilders shit for having done MAVO (vmbo before the name change), but his IQ is not officially known as far as I could find. Some other fun bits: - They're listed here[^] as "can reach learning objectives thanks to the structure offered by the teacher", "can follow instructions for 10 minutes", "limited planning ability", "cooperation only under supervision" - What they learn in 4 years is assumed to be known by VWO students after their introductory year where you don't learn anything. - They consume more alcohol, drugs and tobacco than VWO students and start younger. - They learn math by memorizing a lot of examples and get confused if the same question is asked with different numbers.
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How would you measure average IQ other than having lots of people taking IQ tests? It is what it is. One metric amongst many. Probably not much use for anything other than applying to Mensa these days. Very few education systems bother to measure it any more. Based on thousands of the tests, average is simply the peak of the bell curve which arises from the results. That score is then normalised to 100 for the assessment of future tests. It is not an absolute, by any means. The Mensa qualification requires a score which places you in the top 2% of the population. The score required is probably very different now from when I took the test in 1984 (yes, I passed, though I've never been an active member).
I am not a number. I am a ... no, wait!
Yes, but as I've said elsewhere, I'm not after a handle on IQ per se, but on just what it means, non-scientifically, to say someone is of average intelligence. Linguistically it wouldn't be a dreadful insult to call someone average, but actually perhaps it is...
"I'm never quite so stupid as when I'm being smart." - Linus van Pelt. "If you were as smart as you think you are, you wouldn't think you were so smart!" - Charlie Brown.
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OK, so 100 is the average intelligence. Without really thinking about it, one kind of assumes that average is... well, you know - meh, average. Not smart, not stupid, just... average. But actually, has anyone done any studies to really get a handle on just what average intelligence amounts to? (Other than answering IQ tests...) 'cos I think it's probably pretty damned stupid. I'm asking this in all seriousness - not trying to have a rant. What **is** average intelligence - just how smart (or dumb) is someone with an IQ of 100? For example - how would such people fare in: applications to an average university a course to become an airline pilot learning to program in C# studying law running for public office (ha ha just joking with that one!) ..this sort of thing... [edit] just to be clear: I am not looking for a scientifically rigorous answer - the question doesn't have one, I know that. Just.. as the title says: how smart is average?
"I'm never quite so stupid as when I'm being smart." - Linus van Pelt. "If you were as smart as you think you are, you wouldn't think you were so smart!" - Charlie Brown.
Nobody knows, so what they do is give the test to a whole lot of people, and then by looking at the "average" of the number of correct answers, that determines what gets assigned as "100." Of course, that average has undoubtedly been going down as technology and our education systems dumb down people. Marc
Imperative to Functional Programming Succinctly Contributors Wanted for Higher Order Programming Project! Learning to code with python is like learning to swim with those little arm floaties. It gives you undeserved confidence and will eventually drown you. - DangerBunny
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OK, so 100 is the average intelligence. Without really thinking about it, one kind of assumes that average is... well, you know - meh, average. Not smart, not stupid, just... average. But actually, has anyone done any studies to really get a handle on just what average intelligence amounts to? (Other than answering IQ tests...) 'cos I think it's probably pretty damned stupid. I'm asking this in all seriousness - not trying to have a rant. What **is** average intelligence - just how smart (or dumb) is someone with an IQ of 100? For example - how would such people fare in: applications to an average university a course to become an airline pilot learning to program in C# studying law running for public office (ha ha just joking with that one!) ..this sort of thing... [edit] just to be clear: I am not looking for a scientifically rigorous answer - the question doesn't have one, I know that. Just.. as the title says: how smart is average?
"I'm never quite so stupid as when I'm being smart." - Linus van Pelt. "If you were as smart as you think you are, you wouldn't think you were so smart!" - Charlie Brown.
My experience is that intelligence is wide spread. Some who are good in logic and mathematics, are really bad in art, sports or craftmanship. I dont like people who got an attest about 130++ and think other people are stupid. X|
Press F1 for help or google it. Greetings from Germany
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Since in the Netherlands we approximately sort people by their IQ (really by learning ability, but it's strongly correlated) in different categories with their own school type, we can track this sort of thing. Someone with an IQ of 100 would probably go to Vmbo-KB or -GL. Where do these people end up? as Mediocre Office Drone, in distribution, doing manual labor (where they are then of above average intelligence), that sort of thing. * applications to an average university: hell no, they automatically don't meet the requirements by having done the wrong type of school. * a course to become an airline pilot: would fail miserably * learning to program in C#: they actually do this, on the level of "code monkey". Apparently those are in demand though. * studying law: yep, but on the level with which you become an office drone with some knowledge of the law. * running for public office: We give Geert Wilders shit for having done MAVO (vmbo before the name change), but his IQ is not officially known as far as I could find. Some other fun bits: - They're listed here[^] as "can reach learning objectives thanks to the structure offered by the teacher", "can follow instructions for 10 minutes", "limited planning ability", "cooperation only under supervision" - What they learn in 4 years is assumed to be known by VWO students after their introductory year where you don't learn anything. - They consume more alcohol, drugs and tobacco than VWO students and start younger. - They learn math by memorizing a lot of examples and get confused if the same question is asked with different numbers.
Interesting - thanks. >> •They learn math by memorizing a lot of examples and get confused if the same question is asked with different numbers. When I did maths at school our teacher always made us (as part of our coursework) define things in at least three ways - eg a equilateral triangle is one that has all its sides the same length; has all its angles the same; is symmetric about the bisector of any of its angles. That sort of thing. Good mental exercise, I always thought.
"I'm never quite so stupid as when I'm being smart." - Linus van Pelt. "If you were as smart as you think you are, you wouldn't think you were so smart!" - Charlie Brown.
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OK, so 100 is the average intelligence. Without really thinking about it, one kind of assumes that average is... well, you know - meh, average. Not smart, not stupid, just... average. But actually, has anyone done any studies to really get a handle on just what average intelligence amounts to? (Other than answering IQ tests...) 'cos I think it's probably pretty damned stupid. I'm asking this in all seriousness - not trying to have a rant. What **is** average intelligence - just how smart (or dumb) is someone with an IQ of 100? For example - how would such people fare in: applications to an average university a course to become an airline pilot learning to program in C# studying law running for public office (ha ha just joking with that one!) ..this sort of thing... [edit] just to be clear: I am not looking for a scientifically rigorous answer - the question doesn't have one, I know that. Just.. as the title says: how smart is average?
"I'm never quite so stupid as when I'm being smart." - Linus van Pelt. "If you were as smart as you think you are, you wouldn't think you were so smart!" - Charlie Brown.
Wombaticus wrote:
just how smart (or dumb) is someone with an IQ of 100? For example - how would such people fare in: applications to an average university
I suspect a lot of people would have difficulty just filling out the form.
Wombaticus wrote:
running for public office (ha ha just joking with that one!)
Bill Maher's Religulous[^] has the answer to that one.
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Perhaps I shouldn't have brought up IQ tests, as we all know they're pretty arbitrary and useless... what I'm after getting a handle on is just how smart is the average human being? Or, as I titled the post: how smart is average?
"I'm never quite so stupid as when I'm being smart." - Linus van Pelt. "If you were as smart as you think you are, you wouldn't think you were so smart!" - Charlie Brown.
What are smarts good for, actually? Near as I can tell, they help you grasp situations faster, and to see more deeply into them. The problem is, that training and experience make a bigger difference. A really smart person may be able to perform better than most people on a larger variety of tasks, but they will be unlikely to perform better than an experience average person on a given task. So maybe that's the answer you're looking for -- smarter people can perform adequately on a larger variety of tasks.
We can program with only 1's, but if all you've got are zeros, you've got nothing.
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OK, so 100 is the average intelligence. Without really thinking about it, one kind of assumes that average is... well, you know - meh, average. Not smart, not stupid, just... average. But actually, has anyone done any studies to really get a handle on just what average intelligence amounts to? (Other than answering IQ tests...) 'cos I think it's probably pretty damned stupid. I'm asking this in all seriousness - not trying to have a rant. What **is** average intelligence - just how smart (or dumb) is someone with an IQ of 100? For example - how would such people fare in: applications to an average university a course to become an airline pilot learning to program in C# studying law running for public office (ha ha just joking with that one!) ..this sort of thing... [edit] just to be clear: I am not looking for a scientifically rigorous answer - the question doesn't have one, I know that. Just.. as the title says: how smart is average?
"I'm never quite so stupid as when I'm being smart." - Linus van Pelt. "If you were as smart as you think you are, you wouldn't think you were so smart!" - Charlie Brown.
I'd say politicians would be a good measure of average.
New version: WinHeist Version 2.2.2 Beta
I told my psychiatrist that I was hearing voices in my head. He said you don't have a psychiatrist! -
Yes, but as I've said elsewhere, I'm not after a handle on IQ per se, but on just what it means, non-scientifically, to say someone is of average intelligence. Linguistically it wouldn't be a dreadful insult to call someone average, but actually perhaps it is...
"I'm never quite so stupid as when I'm being smart." - Linus van Pelt. "If you were as smart as you think you are, you wouldn't think you were so smart!" - Charlie Brown.
Surely your first problem is not to define 'average' but to define 'intelligent'. What do you class as intelligence? The world is full of people stuffed with book-learning who get lost coming out of Woolworths. When I taught briefly in the 80s I had a class full of kids who'd probably never get any kind of formal qualification but could all take apart a radio or a TV set and make incredible things from the parts. When the BBC's Horizon team interviewed new physics graduates in the 90s they discovered that something like 3/4 of them couldn't use a battery and a piece of wire to illuminate a lightbulb! And a Huffington Post poll in 2013 found that college graduates were equally as likely to believe that aliens had visited Earth as their non-academic contemporaries.
I am not a number. I am a ... no, wait!
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OK, so 100 is the average intelligence. Without really thinking about it, one kind of assumes that average is... well, you know - meh, average. Not smart, not stupid, just... average. But actually, has anyone done any studies to really get a handle on just what average intelligence amounts to? (Other than answering IQ tests...) 'cos I think it's probably pretty damned stupid. I'm asking this in all seriousness - not trying to have a rant. What **is** average intelligence - just how smart (or dumb) is someone with an IQ of 100? For example - how would such people fare in: applications to an average university a course to become an airline pilot learning to program in C# studying law running for public office (ha ha just joking with that one!) ..this sort of thing... [edit] just to be clear: I am not looking for a scientifically rigorous answer - the question doesn't have one, I know that. Just.. as the title says: how smart is average?
"I'm never quite so stupid as when I'm being smart." - Linus van Pelt. "If you were as smart as you think you are, you wouldn't think you were so smart!" - Charlie Brown.
Ian Anderson (Jethro Tull) put the answer to your question ever so wisely: "Thick as a Brick"
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error." - Weisert
"If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010
