• NigelFrobisher
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    10 months ago

    This made me think about when you hear about someone who has a really high genius level IQ in the 180s or whatever; statistically, there must be someone somewhere who has an IQ as far below the average of 100 than the genius IQ is over it.

    • Dicska@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      That’s not necessarily how averages work. 80, 80, 80, 80, 100, 180.

      The average is 100, but there is no “counterpart” to the 180 at the end.

      EDIT: note that my sample size is way to small to perfectly describe the human population, and variance distribution is also impossible to represent with a sample size of 6. Obviously there ARE people way below 80 IQ; I’m just saying you can’t say for sure that there must be a person around 20IQ just because one with 180 exists.

      • sus@programming.dev
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        10 months ago

        technically, IQ is by definition normally distributed with 100 as the center. But by the definition there would only be about 500 people in the world with an IQ of 20 or lower, so it breaks down because of the amount of people in an unrecoverable coma and such

        • Klear@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Also I’m pretty sure an IQ of at little as 20 would probably be impossible to measure.

          • Gabu@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            “Can they in any way hold the paper or make marks to it (despite a functioning motor system)? No? Mark as anything below 50, nobody’s gonna know”

        • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          I question how you can even design a test such that the result has a normal distribution around a specific score without testing everyone and applying some kind of bell curve to the overall results. Especially when you want to boil intelligence down to a single dimension. Even if that one number is based on a composite of others, that complicates the turning it into a bell curve, which makes designing a test to target a specific average even harder.

          And add to that average intelligence itself being a moving target. Someone of above average intelligence in the middle ages might be considered below average today.

          • sus@programming.dev
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            10 months ago

            as far as I know, yep fitting the “raw score” of a test to a bell curve is exactly how it’s done. And often the score is sort of “localized”, for example only other scores from the same country and done in the same year are compared.

            (one related example is the flynn effect)

            IQ is in reality a very rough metric, I think the only widely accepted practical use is to detect developmental or mental issues (often associated with an IQ below 70), and even then you need to consider that eg. someone who never received adequate education may score lower than what they “should”

    • WIZARD POPE💫@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      The problem with that is the lower under 100 you go, the less functional the person is. People with such low IQs would barely be able to understand what the hell sovcits are about not to mention standing no chance to come up with such ideas.

      • falsem@kbin.social
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        10 months ago

        People with such low IQs would barely be able to understand what the hell sovcits are about

        Oh, the rest of you understand these guys?

        • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          They are people who think that successful people follow different rules but that those rules are fair and available to everyone if they know to use them. It’s a weird combination of not believing the system is fair but also believing that it is but on a different level. And if they can figure out the magical combination of words, they can outsmart the people who usually enforce rules and laws. They think legalese has some kind of occult truth and meaning to it, rather than being shit we made up over the years. They think that law enforcement being inconsistent with following or enforcing rules is actually because they follow a secret set of rules to the letter.

          They also think that since money doesn’t follow the gold standard, nothing backs it, therefore anything can be currency since currency doesn’t need any backing anymore (which is just a misunderstanding if what money actually is).

          And another group of people goad them on with bullshit, either to make money conning them or to sow civil unrest (because now cops need to deal with people confidently asserting that they aren’t driving but traveling, which doesn’t require a driver’s license, debt collectors need to deal with people essentially trying to issue their own currency to pay their bills, and judges need to deal with people who think they can opt out of following laws while still living in the country).

    • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Statistically, when you are in a group of average people, e.g. in a mall or on a motorway, half the people around you have an IQ of 100 or less.

      • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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        10 months ago

        Unless there’s far more stupid people around you than intelligent people which is fairly likely.

        Massive dumbass are a far more common than geniuses so there’s a bunch of idiots running around that are pulling the average down.

    • hglman@lemmy.ml
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      10 months ago

      That’s not what this is and your insulting people who have severe disabilities.

      • t3h_fool@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        I don’t know why you are downvoted. Delusional people can be pretty intelligent by some measures.