Reader Request: Explaining my intelligence ranking

10/25/2010

A few readers have claimed that my having placed 74th in the world on Facebook's intelligence test is not a good measure of intelligence That is false.

In the interest of saving space on this blog page, I address the issue here:

http://nosuchthingasanopinion.weebly.com/iq-results.html

33 Comments

Paul Seigle link

10/25/2010 11:30:34 am

I understand you ranked 74th in the world in intelligence based on a test given one day on Facebook. That means there are 73 people in the world (with access to a computer and who have a Facebook page) who are smarter than you. I want to hear from one of them.

NoSuchThingAsAnOpinion link

10/25/2010 11:36:05 am

Paul,

You can't always get what you want! lol I'm glad you have a sense of humor.

I would be curious, however, to see how many of those 73 people agree with me on many issues!

Fletcher

10/25/2010 04:24:12 pm

First: If you have to explain to everyone how smart you are, you probably aren't as smart as you think you are. If your only credential is a high score on an IQ test on facebook, that just means you have a higher IQ than most people who wasted their time taking an IQ test on facebook. That is assuming the test is even a valid IQ test (which it probably isn't by clinical standards). Furthermore, intelligence by itself in no substitute for experience, which you seem to lack based on your naive expectations for this blog.

Second: Your premise for this blog is absurd. Of course their is such a thing as opinion. Your conservative opinions show through very clearly. The fact is, some issues are very subjective. Or perhaps you've invented a system for objectively evaluating art based on logic?

NoSuchThingAsAnOpinion link

10/25/2010 04:40:21 pm

Fletcher,

perhaps you didn't read my posts, which rebuff many of your points.

First, I don't have to explain to everyone how smart I am. Why would you think that? I included an explanation because there were a few people that challenged the validity of the ranking. For all I know, 97% of the readers may have understood it's validity and hence, why would they complain about it?

Also, I was forward thinking. I anticipated that some people would not understand the test’s validity, and I countered that.

I don't know why you think my only credential is the Facebook score. The post you are responding to lists several others!

And it's certainly not a waste to take a test that measures aspects of intelligence that are proven to be aspects of intelligence, and to have them compared against a very large sample size.

You question the validity of the intelligence test. Well, to do that, you'd have to show that math, memory and spatial ability are not aspects of intelligence, and that the test doesn’t measure those traits. I guarantee you that you can't do that.

The better IQ tests measure something called “g”, or general intelligence. I guarantee you that math, memory and spatial ability are aspects of g.

And you are just plain wrong about your claim that intelligence by itself is no substitute for experience. In fact, "The Bell Curve" shows how intelligence is related to many traits in life, from income to the odds of getting arrested. In terms of workforce training, it's actually been shown that experience has a near ZERO correlation with success!

You call my blog expectations naive. However, you don't explain.

You claim there is such thing as an opinion, which is ABSURD! If that were the case, more than one truth could be true of something!

Art is not subjective. If you define the descriptive words to a micro enough degree, you will have an objective definition, and if you get to a word that is truly subjective (like good or bad), even that is not subjective, because if you were to take a poll to determine the majority's opinion of the word's definition, then that means a body of evidence favors one view over another, meaning it's not a 50/50 subjective split.

I’m sorry to see that apparantly you commented without bothering to read the post!

Jason

10/25/2010 06:33:29 pm

The depth of your delusion is fascinating.

SoggyToast

10/26/2010 05:36:28 am

What makes you think that an outcome has to be 50/50 for it to be considered subjective?

Fletcher

10/26/2010 05:45:24 am

"Perhaps this blog will provide the advertising I need to get noticed by the right people."
If you think anyone but a child would take you seriously based on this blog than you really are delusional. In fact, if I had to guess I'd say you were a child. Precocious, maybe, but immature enough to be obsessed with your own intelligence and believe your views are logically infallible.
I don't want to argue with you, because that's clearly pointless. Suffice it to say I think you are wrong about most of the topics you've addressed here.

Fletcher

10/26/2010 05:46:15 am

NoSuchThingAsAnOpinion link

10/26/2010 10:40:37 am

Soggy,

I'm glad you commented on that. As I wrote that 50/50 comment, I thought someone might challenge that, since I didn't explain further.

When I say that a 50/50 split is subjective when it comes to evidence, what I mean is this:

If the balance of evidence supports opposing sides equally, then there is no view that is more greatly supported. Therefore, one could consider it subjective as to which view has the most evidence, and hence which view they which to argue in favor of, because they are equally well supported.

I contrast that with objectivity (in the context of supportive evidence): If the evidence supports one view over another, then the most objective thing to do would be to support the view with the most evidence.

I realize the terms objective and subjective might not typically be used in this context, but I'm trying to foster an environment where people realize that although they may think they their opinion on something is as good as the next person's, the truth is that the evidence almost always favors one view over an opposing view.

That doesn't mean the balance can't shift, and the minority view can't become more well supported, but a basis of opinion can only go with what is most logical at the time, the most supported view.

The hard part is figuring out what the most supported view is! Oftentimes, the view that's supported by the majority of PEOPLE is NOT the view that's supported by the MAJORITY of evidence and logic!

Alice O. Nunez

10/26/2010 11:42:14 am

There's no such thing as "evidence" of a statement that is false. There are merely things that look like evidence, misinterpreted by people who don't know better.

NoSuchThingAsAnOpinion link

10/26/2010 11:51:06 am

Alice, of course there is. Evidence either supports, unsupports, or doesn't exist in answer to any question.

Ie. Is my website nosuchthingasanopinion.weebly.com? Yes. Evidence supports it. You can go to the website and also find the domain name registered.

Fletcher

10/26/2010 12:12:51 pm

Unless you're living in 1984 "unsupport" is not a real word. Also, that is a stupid example.
Is Ansel Adams a better photographer than Edward Weston? If your theory is correct surely there must be an objective answer to that question.

NoSuchThingAsAnOpinion link

10/26/2010 12:52:55 pm

Fletcher,

I know that unsupport is not a real word. However, unsupportive IS a real word. I figured people would understand what the point I was trying to make. I figured the only people that would comment would be troublemakers who had previously made arguments that I discredited.

There is an objective answer as to whether Ansel Adams is a better photographer. The evidence either supports him being better, or it doesn't.

You have to define the word "better". You take a poll and find out how the majority of people define it. Once you get the definition, some of the definitions may be objective, and some may seem subjective, so you poll the subjective issues for the majority position.

Mike

10/26/2010 02:01:45 pm

In your reply to Fletcher, you concluded by misspelling "apparently."

NoSuchThingAsAnOpinion link

10/26/2010 02:30:10 pm

Mike,

I know how to spell apparently. I spelled it correctly on these other posts:

http://nosuchthingasanopinion.weebly.com/1/previous/3.html

And what's the point of pointing out a misspelling anyway? Did you not understand the intent of the word? Do you like to act condescendingly towards people?

Why would you want to point out an error, especially knowing that it doesn't mean the person didn't know how to spell it!

James Turner link

10/26/2010 07:37:42 pm

NoSuchThingAsAnOpinion link

10/26/2010 07:55:37 pm

I said I placed 74th in the world on facebook's test, i pasted a picture of that claim.

If you were intelligent enough, you would perhaps realize that those who took the test on facebook are likely much more intelligent than the typical member of society, and hence although my % ranking may be 99.9962 among facebook, it may be 99.999999 among the overall population.

Also, even the .9962 may be underrepresented in relation to the facebook sample...i mentioned that 1,000,000 is likely the smaller end of a range that is plausible to be 5,000,000.

It would be more productive for you to be less hateful and to spend less time making arguments that you are going to lose.

Fletcher

10/27/2010 07:51:04 am

No one is impressed by your scores on this facebook intelligence game. Not one commenter buys that it is a reliable indication of your intelligence. You try to lend it veracity by calling it an IQ test and explaining the different "sub-tests." Great. That doesn't change the fact that you're placing greater importance on the game than it's intended to have. No where in the description of the game does it claim to be a legitimate IQ test. In fact, IQ is not even mentioned, and the "sub tests" you refer to are actually called minigames. One look at the garish cartoons and childish puzzles in this game tells any reasonable person that it is not meant to be taken seriously. If you can provide definitive proof to the contrary (not your own "logic" which has already been called into question) than be my guest. To see if I'm right, I've asked the makers of the game if they intended it to be an accurate measure of intelligence (This is called research, you should try it). My bet is that they'll say no, it is just a game.
And to pre-empt you, I know you mention other, traditional test results. Yet it all becomes very vague when you talk about non-facebook credentials. You say the school you went to "has been considered Ivy League." What does that mean? It either is or isn't, why not just say the name of the University? You say you scored over 100 on one test. Big deal. Without any context that doesn't have much weight. You also say you "beat" everyone else. Well, a test is not a race. It is possible for more than one person to have the same score. Do you know for a fact that you had the highest score?
Even if you are a math genius, that does not mean your logic is infallible, nor does it qualify you to make unsubstantiated statements like there's no such thing as an opinion. Without the basic ability to realize that broadcasting your own intelligence is tactless you will almost certainly not be taken seriously by anyone who could help put you in a position to make a difference in the world.

NoSuchThingAsAnOpinion link

10/27/2010 09:38:45 am

Fletcher,

I'm sorry to see that you aren't capable enough to understand. But I'm more sorry to see that you keep attempting to outdo me no matter how many times I beat you in a debate!

You claim that none of the commentators on my blog claim that my test is a reliable measure. That's to be expected! Because the majority of people who probably DO realise it's a reliable measure wouldn't have the motivation to write in! After all, most people realise that if someone scores 74th out of 1,000,000 people on a test that includes math, memory and spatial skill, they must be pretty intelligent. Let me explain this further for you in case you don't understand the concept. When a war is occurring, people protest against it. But you rarely see people protest FOR it. Why? Because they are already in support of the current situation, there's nothing to complain about!

I only called it an IQ test instead of an intelligence test in one place, on my header. I did that to save space. I went out of my way to call it an intelligence test so that it wouldn't be misinterpreted as a traditional mainstream IQ test that measures verbal abilities. The one I took tests non-verbal abilities only.

I don't NEED to provide definitive proof to you or anyone. I’ve provided plenty of evidence already. (btw, what aspect of my calculations and logic do you disagree with?) You seem to ignore the points I’ve made, revert to making new points yourself, and when I debunk those you ignore it and return with another attempt to outdo me. Common sense dictates that if someone scores 74th out of 1,000,000 people on a test that includes math, memory and spatial skill, they must be extremely intelligent. And outside of common sense, I've researched intelligence and the "g" concept extensively, in school and outside school, and I know what I'm talking about. But apparently you don’t believe that math, memory, mental speed and visual spatial ability are main components of intelligence. If that’s the case, it may be unlikely for someone to ever convince you.

You claim that I should do research? Why do you say that, have you been able to find a single flaw in my logic? Oh, that’s right. You haven’t. Now, let's compare that to you, how many errors (or lies, perhaps?) in your posts have I pointed out? I can think of three off hand, the Ansel Adams point and the "unsupport" point and your claim that intelligence is no substitute for experience. The latter point is supported by tons of evidence, including the book "The Bell Curve" by Murray and Herrnstein, as well as, if I remember the title correctly, the book "Understanding the Management Practices of the Pacific Rim". The latter is where it showed that experience is a near zero predictor of job training success. OOPS. Looks like YOU made the comment about experience without doing any research…

You may think you're smart. Perhaps, although I doubt it, you have a 130 IQ. However, the person that appeared on 20/20 (promoted as the smartest man in the world) says that when there is an IQ difference of 40+ points between people, they can't communicate. Clearly, my IQ is at least 40 points higher than yours.

My non-Facebook credentials are vague? What's vague about saying that I placed first on several exams? If I provided you the name of the school, you wouldn't be able to verify my scores anyway.

I didn't provide the name of the school because I haven't decided to release my identity to the public yet, so the less identifying information out there, the better (to a reasonable degree).

The school has been considered Ivy League. I used that wording because some people disagree with that, some agree. It’s not one of the schools universally considered Ivy League, like Harvard.

You say that getting 105% on a math exam at a school some consider Ivy League is not a big deal without knowing the context. Pardon me? Are other readers laughing you at right now? What context do you need? How many people do you think get 105% on ANY university exam?

Now you question whether I beat everyone else! Well, earning 100% plus getting the bonus question correct means, by definition, that I earned the highest grade. It’s impossible to be the case otherwise.

You ask me if I know whether I had the highest score. Yes, I do know. I did have the highest score; otherwise I likely wouldn't have made the claim, no? After all, I haven’t made any other claims that I haven’t supported well.

You are still claiming that my claim that "there's no such thing as an opinion" is an unsubstantiated statement. First, you've offered no logic (no debunked logic, at least) to support your claim, while I have.

CONTINUED below

NoSuchThingAsAnOpinion link

10/27/2010 09:39:16 am

continued from above

Second, most people wouldn't be too concerned about the strictness of whether that claim is correct. Most people understand the intention of the claim, which is to state that people often think they are entitled to a position on a topic when in actuality the consensus among experts is that the topic has been settled and is not debatable.

It's too bad you continue with your comment about me broadcasting my intelligence. Strange thing to say, considering that I only broadcasted it in the About Me section.(or have you hallucinated and seen it elsewhere?) Strange to say that my broadcasting, however limited, is tactless, considering that my use of that term is a clever way to get the attention of readers that might not otherwise become aware of the blog. Or perhaps you don’t agree that getting one’s attention (as I did with you) would increase readership?

I appreciate the opportunity to again refute your every point. It's fun. Normally I don't like to speak with a bit of a stern tone, but in your case, since you're a troublemaker, it's acceptable.

Why don't you go ahead and write something else for me to refute. Do you enjoy wasting time writing only to see every point of yours debunked?

Luigi

10/30/2010 02:02:08 am

Hi number 74, if you are happy to be a number, everybody's happy.
By the way, try n.1 in something...
Don't you think you clearly overrate IQ?
Intelligence unfortunately is a machine as any other, by thermodynamics, can't give more order than the disorder it creates, which is so little!
Anyway regarding trade deficit you missed the point, one can increase his wealth by trade deficit if buy durable products and sell renovable, if you buy agricultural fields and sell food, your wealth increase anyway, unfortunately it seems China understood this not USA, not even his 74 most intelligent among those that took your test…

NoSuchThingAsAnOpinion link

10/30/2010 09:41:57 am

Luigi,

I don't overrate IQ. The last time I checked, the importance of IQ was settled in the scientific community.

"The Bell Curve" in the 1990s linked IQ to multiple human traits, including the chance of getting arrested, having a baby out of wedlock, income, and many others.

In fact, it was so settled that dozens of the top experts in the world took out a full page ad in a newspaper (Washington Times, I believe?) to clarify controversy and agree on a statement of dozens of facts about IQ, including the fact that IQ is about 40 to 80% heritable (genetic) and that IQ is linked to human behavior.

Intelligence is a machine? Huh? Intelligence is perhaps best described as the ability to navigate obstacles life throws at you, and mainstream test results correlate with traditional measures of success in life.

I never disagreed with the concept that you can have a trade deficit and still increase the wealth of the country. In fact, I specifically implied this when I mentioned that purchases of non-consumable goods as imports often don't decrease the wealth of the country, since their value doesn't disappear by consumption.

My point was that it's UNLIKELY for a country with a large trade deficit to simultaneously increase it's overall well, due to the likely large percentage of imports that are consumables.

You mention China as an example, suggesting that they are able to import things cheap and then export them in a modified form for a higher price. But they are not representative of a typical country (or the USA).

They have a cheap labour supply, which means they earn more profit than others when reselling exported goods. You may counter by mentioning that other countries also have cheap labour-and they do, but those countries aren't representative of the average economy in the world, and China's supply of cheap labour is much greater, in absolute numbers, than other countries with cheap labour.

And, for your argument about China to be true (that their trade surplus results from them being better than the USA at importing items cheaply and reselling them after modification) you'd have to show that the percentage of consumables among their imports is significantly LESS than the levels of consumables among American imports (bceause the less consumable you import, the more non-consumables you import that can be modified for resale). This may be the case, I don't know, I haven't researched it. I know that China imports a TON of oil, whereby the US produces a fairly large chunk of it's own.

But even if China imports much fewer consumables than the USA does, the comparison with the USA (or other world countries) is not valid for the reasons already described (China is very dissimilar than those countries).

And actually, there is one fatal flaw with your error. You suggest that China has a huge trade surplus because it imports goods cheaply and modifies them for resale as higher priced exports. You suggest that's an ideal situation.

well, that actually ISN'T the ideal situation, other things being equal.

The ideal situation is to buy items from your OWN country insted of importing them, and THEN resell them at higher prices as exports.

This way, the wealth stays within the country, instead of buying it from another country!

So, your suggestion that a country import items cheaply from another country is actually not optimal!

So, I doubt that accounts for China's huge trade surplus, especially because China may have trouble buying goods from other countries at prices much cheaper than they could produce themselves (other 3rd world countries may produce goods as cheap or slightly cheaper than China, but then their cost would rise after accounting for shipping).

Likely China just produces it cheaply by buying items from within their OWN country, using their own cheap labour, and then resell the exports at higher prices.

vic

10/31/2010 02:50:46 am

sounds to me like the standpoint that there is no opinion is just that, an opinion. to say "The evidence almost ALWAYS favors one view" is not conclusive in any way because youre saying ALMOST always. besides, it is possible to have opinions on matters of feeling, because i know how i feel, and i can think a certain way about that. youre intellegence may be waranted by a test score, but that doesnt mean you know exactly what youre talking about.

bob

11/2/2010 11:35:40 am

OP IS FAT IRL

NoSuchThingAsAnOpinion link

11/2/2010 01:00:51 pm

vic,

i've addressed your comments about subjectivity earlier in this thread.

I did say "almost" always. Because if you go to enough decimal places, it's extremely likely that evidence will favor one view over another (for example, 50.000000000000000001%)

Anonymous

11/11/2010 02:23:45 pm

You have to remember that the IQ test is a culturally biased test that was created by wealthy white people in the early 20th century to measure what they perceive as intelligence according to what is relevant to the culture they are a part of. You should have learned this fact in the earliest of any anthropology or psychology courses if you took any of them which i recommend for you to take if you didn't. If you don't take that fact that the IQ test is biased into account then your just plainly self absorbed.

I also agree with Jason & SoggyToast.

Anonymous

11/11/2010 02:24:02 pm

i am too tired to make a long example but a simple one can work too. like in the other blog. you see flaws in the IQ test like the one with the dog in some cultures that don't have a dog as a known species in the area they live and when they are made to take an IQ test that was made in their language they wouldn't know what a dog is because they even wouldn't have ever seen one to begin with. there are alot more flaws maybe if im not busy tomorrow i will expand on this to the other flaws in the test that you might not be aware of.

NoSuchThingAsAnOpinion link

11/11/2010 02:24:24 pm

Anonymous,

your points increase the validity of my intelligence ranking, because the test I took involves few, if any, potentially culturally biased questions, since it's mostly math, memory, visual spatial skill.

However, I disagree that mainstream IQ tests are generally culturally biased enough to warrant significant errors in their results. I think the evidence might be clear on this, although I haven't reviewed it in a while.

The tests may have been biased earlier on, but I have no reason to conclude they still are.

In fact, The Bell Curve showed that blacks actually performed BETTER on supposedly culturally biased questions than they did on other questions.

Anonymous

11/11/2010 02:24:54 pm

But the thing is that even for example tribal cultures in Africa don't have the same standards of what we have they cannot tell you what a circle is or anything to do with more complex mathematics anything above simple numbers or just adding. This is for the fact that their culture does not require them to know those kinds of things because it has no use for them to survive out there in Africa.
Yes they do try to make it less culturally biased but take this for example a recent IQ test asked which of four fruits was different. It was the one with more than one seed; but what if you were not familiar with these fruits? Obviously this test is culturally biased. You are assumed to have certain knowledge, yet you are being tested for intelligence, not knowledge.
i cant argue with you for the fact i am no expert in the region of psychology but i am just stating what i learned when i first started off at collage. I have nothing against you its just im stating what my professor has taught us about it and she has been one for more than 30 years and it states it in the book too so im going to agree with someone who's an expert in that field. I'm just saying that the IQ test is mostly relevant to Western Civilization or any nation/culture that is industrialized/westernized.
Yes i do realize that the last part of this helps your point for the fact most of the world that has a rather large population will be concentrated in several countries and in tern majority of the world so it can be correct by assuming that but not everyone takes the IQ test and that means there can be alot more people that are far smarter than the 78 that are more "Intelligent" than you or whatever number there is in the normal IQ test or even you might be smarter than some of those people who scored higher because they are good at taking tests naturally.
I read most of your articles, your a pretty intelligent guy, I disagree with you on certain issues but we can try to discredit each-other and pointlessly attack each-others views(That i instigated) but the chances of either of us convincing one another is pretty futile im sorry that i insulted you from the first comment i made. Its pretty much that we can agree to disagree.
Note that i dont look over what i type so if some of what i write is contradictory to one another then at least im admitting it. I just keep typing. haha

NoSuchThingAsAnOpinion link

11/11/2010 02:37:50 pm

Anonymous,

I appreciate the respectful tone. I should point out that academia is known as being very liberal, and I would be hesitant to trust what a professor (or textbook) tells you about anything controversial. Even the APA published information regarding intelligence that experts considered to be false. A group of about 75 experts contradicted them by taking out a full page ad.

You need to research it yourself.

I can't say what mainstream tests have used in Africa, so I can't say whether they are biased or not. The Bell Curve may have addressed this, I don't recall.

I can say, however, that at least half, or so (perhaps more) of the mainstream tests involve questions that have no (or almost no) potential for bias, i.e. math, memory, visual spatial skills and patterns.

I can't comment on the African situation because I don't know what the case is, and I'm certainly not going to believe a professor...given that I've find countless errors in many a professor's thinking.

And you're right that I'm not likely the 74th smartest person in the world. But technically I was able to claim I was 74th in the world on Facebook, which is true, and a good marketing ploy that I don't consider to be disingenous really, since I figure that I placed about 74th out of 1,000,000, which is pretty damn good.

And I thank you for the apology. I do believe that the comment you made did get me a bit testy, and by apologizing you show a LOT of class.

Not Unique Name

11/12/2010 05:40:31 am

74th out of 1,000,000 = 99.9962%

99.9962% of 6,877,695,097 = 531,352th <<---- This number represents you comparing your 74th place to the worlds population... suddenly not so good are you?

Ya.... didn't think so...

Copied the above from James.

Basically, you're only proving his point. How many other people can claim, comparatively, that they are in the top 532,000 of EVERYONE IN THE WORLD?

I consider myself to be of average intelligence, meaning I would be around the 2 billion to 4 billion range, yet NoSuch is in the top 1,000,000. If that plus the other evidence he's presented doesn't really prove his point, then what will?

Do you want to be the one going around to every single person in this world, asking them to take the exam that he did on FB, so that you could attempt to prove him wrong?

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Reader Request: Explaining my intelligence ranking

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