re: Some thoughts on IQ

quote:

---

Is IQ measurable at birth/infancy?

---

No, my model assumed the difference between someone who achieved a IQ of X (e.g. 70) having had a net sum zero benefits vs drawbacks from Birth till 25. (which really means they had a prenatal negative event, as it doesn't seem normal brains can get to 70 without negative events.)
Vs that same Person if they had only had the most positive events, (e.g. Home-schooled with paid specialist tutors, perfect Nutrition, Music classes)

It's not a straight add as some of those benefits wouldn't really apply to someone who was starting out with a neural connection deficiency. So the model weights benefits in things like memory which can be trained vs abstract thinking which will likely suffer in a neural connection deficiency.

So a 95 IQ person who was "moved up" from 70 would be min/maxed differently than a naturally 95 IQ person, they would have some extreme strengths, and some strong weaknesses as discussed.

In the same vein, I asked AI to identity attributes associated with high IQ that are often overlooked or misunderstood:

Here are several attributes commonly associated with high IQ that are often overlooked or misunderstood as unrelated to intelligence—or even misinterpreted as flaws:

?

1. High Sensitivity to Boredom
• Misunderstood as: Laziness, impatience, or lack of discipline
• Reality: High-IQ individuals often crave novelty, complexity, or stimulation and may disengage when tasks feel redundant or overly simplistic. It’s not apathy—it’s unmet cognitive demand.

?

2. Overthinking / Rumination
• Misunderstood as: Anxiety, indecisiveness, or neuroticism
• Reality: High-IQ individuals often hold multiple possible outcomes in mind and mentally simulate them before acting. This can look like “analysis paralysis” but reflects deep cognitive modeling.

?

3. Dark or Unconventional Humor
• Misunderstood as: Inappropriateness or social awkwardness
• Reality: Intelligence often correlates with the ability to hold multiple meanings and subtexts in mind—this can show up in layered or ironic humor that flies over most heads.

?

4. Low Need for Social Validation
• Misunderstood as: Aloofness, arrogance, or antisocial behavior
• Reality: High-IQ individuals may not require as much external affirmation, leading them to opt out of groupthink or social rituals others depend on for belonging.

?

5. Discomfort with Hierarchies or Arbitrary Authority
• Misunderstood as: Rebelliousness or insubordination
• Reality: A high-IQ person may quickly spot flawed logic or inefficiency in hierarchical systems and find it intellectually offensive to comply with irrational orders.

?

6. Nonlinear Thinking
• Misunderstood as: Lack of focus, daydreaming, or being “scatterbrained”
• Reality: The mind jumps across categories, seeing connections others miss. What looks like distraction is often lateral ideation or advanced associative thinking.

?

7. Emotional Intensity or Existential Angst
• Misunderstood as: Moodiness or depression
• Reality: High-IQ individuals often engage with abstract, philosophical, or moral questions more deeply than average—leading to internal storms mistaken for emotional instability.

?

8. Extreme Precision in Language
• Misunderstood as: Nitpicking, pedantry, or being “too literal”
• Reality: Precise word choice reflects cognitive clarity. For high-IQ minds, vague or imprecise language is frustrating because it obscures meaning and logic.

?

9. Hyperfocus or Obsession
• Misunderstood as: OCD tendencies or rigidity
• Reality: When interested, high-IQ individuals can develop deep, sustained attention far beyond average—sometimes dismissed or pathologized as fixation.

?

10. Frequent Contrarianism
• Misunderstood as: Being argumentative, contrarian, or difficult
• Reality: High-IQ individuals often arrive at unconventional conclusions through independent reasoning. They may reject consensus—not for attention, but for intellectual integrity.

?

Would you like a version of this formatted as a printable handout, infographic, or LinkedIn post?

This discourse made bee think about something that was referenced a lot when I started teaching elementary school. It’s called the 30 million word deficit. There is a commonly cited study by Hart and Risley in the 1990s suggesting a significant difference in the number of words children are exposed to based on their socioeconomic background. This study estimated a gap of approximately 30 million words heard by children from lower-income families compared to those from more affluent homes by the age of three. According to the study, this variability in early language exposure was correlated with differences in children's language skills when they started kindergarten and had a direct impact on their early school performance.

Having a robust vocabulary is a universally agreed upon sign of intelligence. In the context of nature vs nurture, this points to IQ being more dependent on environmental factors than genetics, right?

But I guess someone could “catch up” in terms of vocabulary.. idk. This thought seemed more coherent before I put my kids to bed but I’m leaving this post in case it sparks another interesting point from someone else.

You are too stupid to argue with. If you could actually read, you would understand that I said SES is an index of income, income is a proxy for occupation, and occupation is correlated with IQ. Hence SES is not a purely environmental variable. No wonder you go to UNO.

You are willfully ignorant, a true pseudointellectual who posts pop psych bullshite as if it were cutting edge science. The board is dumber for your presence.

quote:

---

You are willfully ignorant, a true pseudointellectual who posts pop psych bullshite as if it were cutting edge science. The board is dumber for your presence.

---

This. Most of her points come from pure emotion. It's a bad place to start if you want to appear to be an intellectual.

quote:

---

Yes it can, and does.

That's big reason I'm not a fan of comparative IQ results. Certainly, in some instances IQ is a useful clinical guide. But IQ-based expectations (high and low), and IQ pecking order are often ill-serving IRL. At least that's my personal impression dating back to Mensa encounters and other early experiences, and I've seen nothing to change my mind since.

---

Agreed, there are two types of Mensa people I've encountered, those who are accomplished and you don't need to know they are in Mensa to know they are smart and successful, and those who need to tell you how smart they are since nothing in their life says this person is worth a dog fart.

Same with IQ scores, you don't need to know Yan LeCun's IQ or if he is in Mensa to know he is a genius. The man just is, he can do things with his brain many cant.
Terence Tao is another example, an IQ score does not begin to describe his mental capacity.

quote:

---

E.g., Given a 150 IQ label, one wonders if Sam Walton would have been pushed by others expectations to ignore his retail yearnings and prowess, and instead pursue a PhD and work as an academic cog somewhere. The same could be asked of Rockefeller, Carnegie, Ford, or Disney.

---

Agreed, many people who test well move into STEM, where many of them flounder and become small fish in a big ocean.
The higher up one moves in the STEM chain, the smaller and smaller one is compared to the really big fish.

John McWorther and Glenn Lourey mention this often, that it's better to be an A Student at a tier 3 college than to be an F student at a Tier 1 college.

Many rather bright people could do well by not trying to follow the PhD route, their end result may be far worse than if they chose to be great at a less challenging field.

quote:

---

The same is true at the spectrum's opposite end.

---

Agreed fully

quote:

---

Agreed, there are two types of Mensa people I've encountered, those who are accomplished and you don't need to know they are in Mensa to know they are smart and successful, and those who need to tell you how smart they are since nothing in their life says this person is worth a dog fart

---

I wouldn’t even say it has much to do with “accomplishment” as plain old security/insecurity. Secure people don’t need to convince others of their perceived exceptionality.

quote:

---

Many rather bright people could do well by not trying to follow the PhD route, their end result may be far worse than if they chose to be great at a less challenging field.

---

it would depend on what their goals are.

quote:

---

America is such an enormous, stratified country that it seems like these differences would be attributed to environment, too.

---

That is my belief, but you know I believe culture is a far more driving factor than economic status on the brain environment.

quote:

---

illicit Drug Use
• The percentage of people aged 12 or older in 2022 who used illicit drugs in the past year
was higher among Multiracial people (35.1%) than among Black (26.7%), White
(25.8%), Hispanic (23.5%), or Asian people (13.6%). Asian people were less likely to
have used illicit drugs in the past year compared with people in other racial or ethnic
groups including American Indian or Alaska Native people (31.7%).3
• In 2022, the percentage of people aged 12 or older who used marijuana in the past year
was higher among Multiracial people (31.1%) than among Black (23.5%), White
(22.9%), Hispanic (20.3%), or Asian people (11.2%). Asian people were less likely to
have used marijuana in the past year compared with people in other racial or ethnic
groups including American Indian or Alaska Native people (27.3%).3
• The percentage of people aged 12 or older in 2022 who misused opioids in the past year
was higher among Multiracial (4.5%), Black (4.1%), Hispanic (3.4%), or White people
(3.0%) than among Asian people (1.5%). Black people also were more likely than White
people to have misused opioids in the past year.

---

https://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/reports/rpt42731/2022-nsduh-race-eth-highlights.pdf

quote:

---

In Japan, drug use is at 0.4% while it is substantially higher in the USA and the UK at 11.9% and 3.7% respectively
As of the end of 2023, there were 896,000 registered drug users in China, accounting for 0.064% of the total population, according to the China Drug Situation Report 2023. This represents a year-on-year decrease of 20.3%

---

I can reference my earlier post

quote:

---

Severe Illicit Drug Exposure (e.g., crack cocaine, opioids, methamphetamines, severe poly-drug use during critical periods):
Impact: Similar to alcohol, these substances can be directly neurotoxic, disrupting the complex processes of brain development, leading to structural abnormalities, reduced brain volume, and impaired neurochemical pathways.
Effect on Total Intelligence Potential: Can result in permanent impairments to basic cognitive functions and overall potential.
Estimated Change: Loss of 10-30+ IQ points

---

This is a huge systematic difference that correlates with IQ scores reasonably well.

China and Japan have lower hard drug use than America and higher IQs
Asians have higher IQs than White who have higher IQs than Hispanic than have Higher IQs than Black Americans.

Economic reasons are really a more likely statistical chance of occurrence of causational events.
There are a number of low income cultures that have high IQ results.

Additionally Children institutionalized typically wind up with IQs in the mid 80s, the earlier they are placed in foster-care the more these scores are likely to improve.
However upon adoption especially early adoption, the children wind up with scores 3-5 points higher than their biological siblings.

So to note, it is these causational events, not poverty that lowers IQ.

quote:

---

I see. Wouldn’t any descriptor do that same thing though? Someone saying “you’re so creative,” or “you’re just not very bright,” “you’re so analytical,” “you’re bad at math,” etc etc could all pigeonhole someone.

---

It's highly unlikely that anyone making an offhanded comment is nearly as impactful as the cult of IQ is destiny.

quote:

---

It's highly unlikely that anyone making an offhanded comment is nearly as impactful as the cult of IQ is destiny.

---

Not if it’s someone’s parent or sibling saying this sort of thing to a kid repeatedly.