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Thanks to Andrzej Figurski and Joe Chieffo
I want to specially thank and
recognize Andrzej Figurski for having
found an error in my reasoning. I had concluded that the 6 top scores on
the Mega Test would account for "440,000,000
of the 200,000,000 adults in the United States". I arrived at this
by estimating that the top 3 scorers (raw score: 47 = 190 IQ) would account
for 110,000,000 people each, or 330,000,000 people in toto. Then I argued
that the 3 individuals who scored 46 (= 186 IQ) would account for another
30,000,000 each, for an additional subtotal of 90,000,000 more members
of the population, accounting for a grand total of 440,000,000 people.
Andrjez pointed out that the three individuals who ostensibly earned IQs
of 186 on the Mega Test could have been included as a part of the sample
of 330,000,000 required to support the three "testees" who allegedly earned
IQ scores of 190 on the Mega Test. I made a mistake when I added the 90,000,000
and the 330,000,000 numbers together.
I should also observe that, although
I know that Chris Langan and Rick Rosner are U. S. citizens, I don't know
the name of the third individual who rated a 47 on the Mega Test. The third
high-scorer could have been from another country. If so, the number could
be as low as 220,000,000. Beyond that, I'm thinking that it might be possible
that the U. S. has an enriched population because of the "brain drain"--the
large number of brilliant immigrants that the U. S. has attracted since
the 30's. I still feel that these Mega-equivalent IQ's are too high simply
because there are too many of them. I suspect that there are other, equally-intelligent
individuals in the U. S. who didn't take the Mega Test (although I can't
be sure). At the same time, I don't doubt that all of the high scorers
on the Mega Test are supernally brilliant. I can believe that the smartest
person in the U. S. could easily be among them.
Andrzej also suggests that "the
IQ increase can be ascribed to our ever changing view of what intelligence
actually is and therefore to various tests which reflect our conceptions."
And of course, that may well be. That's the view of James Flynn, the discoverer
of the Flynn Effect.
Andrzej finds it hard to believe
that women score as far below men at the highest IQ levels as is claimed.
And I have problems with this, too, as is mentioned in the Gender
Differences in IQ discussion.
I, and I'm sure, Andrzej, will believe it if it's true, but it's the sort
of thing that one is led to question twice.
Here's the full text of Andrzej'
original email:
Congratulations! I find your website pretty interesting
and stimulating. I drop in to check your updates as often as I can and
I always find something for me.
Two subjects have caught my special attention: The
Flynn Effect and the ceiling on the Mega Test (as well as men's versus
women's IQ destribution).
As to the first one, I believe that so called The
Flynn Effect is a mere indication of IQ tests misinterpretation and that
it questions their validity. I also agree with Ulf Norlinger (http://home8.swipnet.se/~w-80790/Q&A/Q&A.htm)
who states that the IQ increase can be ascribed to our ever changing view
of what intelligence actually is and therefore to various tests which follow
our conceptions. I presume it is so, because if we agree upon impossibility
of improving our intelligence (just like we cannot change our eye color,
unless we use color contact lenses ;-) we are obliged to conclude that
IQ tests from the beginning of the century, on which we score much higher
right now, don't actually measure our intelligence but for example certain
algebraic skills which are teachable.
The Mega Test problem - I agree with you that the ceiling 190+ is probably too high, but I cannot agree with the way you arrive at this conclusion. OK, you need about 300 million testees to find three persons with 190 IQ. But how did you do it that you need 420 million of them to have 3 with 186, and 3 with 190? In my opinion, if you give 300 million people an IQ test you will have about 10 people with a deviation IQ of 186 or above, which means that we can have for example 3 persons with 186, 4 with 187 and 3 with 190. I guess there is something wrong with the method you chose: when we count "backwards" 3 * 110 million (190 IQ) + 4 * 40 million (187 IQ) + 3 * 30 million (186 IQ) we'll get 580 million; but if we count "upwards", we'll get 10 * 30 million (186 IQ or higher), 7 * 40 million (187 IQ or higher) and 3 * 110 million (190 IQ or higher), then everything is allright - we can even have one person with an IQ of 193. If you count the scorers "backward" and separetely you forget that those with 190 IQ also belong to the group which score 186 or higher. Consider a theoretical situation when all humankind is given a test. We know that the score of 196, with the SD 16 can be obtained by only six people since the world population is just over 6 billion. If we counted all of those who scored 100 or less (that would be about 3 billion) and we added these six with an IQ of 196 we would already have 9 billion and we would still have those between 100-196 to count. Don't you agree?
The final issue: men's and women's IQ destribution. My country - Poland - has about 38 million citizens. The highest possible IQ is 186 for about 30 million adult people. When I apply the suggested ratio for male and female SD which was about 1.2:1 (you considered that "the standard deviation for women's IQs is of the order of 5/6ths of the standard deviation for male IQ's") I will arrive at the conclusion that the highest possible score for women is about 170 ( or 173 according to Dr. Gina Losasso's value of 13.6 points of IQ for the standard deviation for women) since there are less than 15 million adult women in my country. If that was true, then in the group of 187 people with the IQ of 170, 186 of them would be men and we would have only one woman - I just cannot believe it.
These were my comments. Keep up the good work - I
am definitely going to be your regular guest and see what's new. Best wishes
to you and your wife Tommie Jean.
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Andrzej Figurski Andrzej lives in S. E. Poland near the beautiful Labunka River. |
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