Why does IQ cluster around 100 points?

[Jokodo]

The point being that we may accept that intelligence is theoretically limited; But there's no reason at all to imagine that we are even 1% of the way to that limit.

I couldn't point you to anything that proves this empirically, but to me the shape of the curve as well as the raw physics of genetics suggests that there is a very real, hard limit.

Even if the curve were the product of objective measurements on an absolute scale, it would suggest no such thing. If anything, it would suggest we're far from any hard limit.

- IQ measures problem solving ability, and at some point the real, material problems of the world don't require more fire-power, and instead one could argue that many jobs have as much of a social component as they do a problem solving one. Consider a person with an average IQ, and a normal temperament, vs another with an IQ of 160 who is completely socially maladjusted (I saw a couple of these people in college).

Chances are the reason you noticed and remember those people because either a) confirmation bias, or b) because socially competent high IQ individuals would know when not to boast, or a combination of both.
Beyond anecdotes, there appears to be in fact a positive correlation between IQ and social competence. This paper lists correlations of 0.17 to .44 between various measures of social competence and IQ, with the more reliable measures having the stronger correlation.

In terms of life outcomes the person with an average IQ will have more career and reproductive success, because they can talk to people and build a network.

You seem to be saying IQ isn't everything. Can a person with average IQ have more success than a person with high IQ and low social competence? Sure. Can we expect a person with high IQ to have low social competence, making this a valid generic statements about high/average IQ individuals? Not according to the evidence.

 

[Jokodo]

Back to OP to sidestep this fruitless discussion with the impersonation of dunning-kruger:

You mean like somebody who thinks the normal distribution is artificially created?

When all tests produce a normal distribution when sufficiently powered.

Tests that are specifically designed to produce a normal distribution in fact produce a normal distribution?

That's about as informative as "grass is often grass-colored"

 

[rousseau]

The 60s brought down traditional values. The result was increased STD, drug abuse, tearing part of families, single parent families, and so on.

Was making drugs mains teat an intelligent thing to do?

IQ measures some general capacities related to problem solving. It says nothing about rationality. The Nazis were great problem solvers. The terrorists who figured out how to make IEDs in Iraq using technology were very intelligent.

Well, there's two issues there, and one of them might strike at the core of this thread.

The first is that IQ doesn't necessarily imply rationality because the brunt of the curve is inherently not very rational, or even interested in being rational, or even aware that rationality is some kind of end goal. Those who have rationalized their life and experience and developed their own principles to live by are an exceedingly small portion of any group of people.

The other thing is that there is a distinction between problem solving ability and experience. For example, I'm a pretty smart guy, but any wisdom I do have comes from significant post-secondary education, wealth to self study, and so on. What my IQ measures is my propensity to be able to make deductions and learn from these experiences, rather than just bouncing around trying to survive.

So to say that IQ doesn't imply anything about rationality, that may be true, but I don't see why that's any type of indictment of it. It's just that in practice people's real problem solving ability is so low that it's more secondary to how we achieve reproduction/survival.

Maybe it's that most of us are more oriented toward action than reflection. We're people who don't think, we just do, which more often than not results in kids.

Ok, but my point is IQ only relates to a narrow scope. Being good at objective problem solving like software or electronics design does not infer generalized problem solving, like our current political crisis. If we were all that intelligent we would not be in the mess we are in. A lot of people in Congress are high IQ types who went to top tier schools.

As for being smart I always looked to others around me to get a sense of where I stood. I would not usually refer to myself as smart. Too easy to get carried away with yourself.

Yebbut I think you have your definitions crossed: IQ does infer generalized problem solving, but the shape of the curve and the characteristics of people at certain points on the curve imply that most of us aren't good at generalized problem solving. Which was the point of the thread.

I'd go further and argue that most politicians reach that status because of things other than IQ, which is why they're usually meddling at generalized problem solving - they have a solid IQ but not a systems level IQ. That and the incentives to actually make good decisions aren't always there.

 

[rousseau]

It clusters around 100 per definition.

I'm going to re-word the question so it's more clear:

Why is the real problem solving skill of the people who fall around the average of the IQ curve not very good, and why is it that most people have this level of skill?

Maybe this will help?

Another alternative:

Why are people with an average IQ not great at solving complex problems, and why is this true for a majority of people?

 

[Jokodo]

It clusters around 100 per definition.

I'm going to re-word the question so it's more clear:

Why is the real problem solving skill of the people who fall around the average of the IQ curve not very good, and why is it that most people have this level of skill?

Maybe this will help?

Another alternative:

Why are people with an average IQ not great at solving complex problems, and why is this true for a majority of people?

You picked out the most uninteresting part of my response. Well done.

 

[rousseau]

It clusters around 100 per definition.

I'm going to re-word the question so it's more clear:

Why is the real problem solving skill of the people who fall around the average of the IQ curve not very good, and why is it that most people have this level of skill?

Maybe this will help?

Another alternative:

Why are people with an average IQ not great at solving complex problems, and why is this true for a majority of people?

You picked out the most uninteresting part of my response. Well done.

Dude it's 9:10 am on a Thursday morning, I can't write a novel.

 

[bilby]

It clusters around 100 per definition.

I'm going to re-word the question so it's more clear:

Why is the real problem solving skill of the people who fall around the average of the IQ curve not very good, and why is it that most people have this level of skill?

Maybe this will help?

Another alternative:

Why are people with an average IQ not great at solving complex problems, and why is this true for a majority of people?

So, to summarise your summary, the core question you intended to ask in the OP is:

Why are most people so stupid?

To which I can only say that I could explain it to you, but you probably wouldn't understand.

 

[untermensche]

Back to OP to sidestep this fruitless discussion with the impersonation of dunning-kruger:

You mean like somebody who thinks the normal distribution is artificially created?

When all tests produce a normal distribution when sufficiently powered.

Tests that are specifically designed to produce a normal distribution in fact produce a normal distribution?

That's about as informative as "grass is often grass-colored"

If I create a random trivia test it will produce a normal distribution.

The normal distribution just pops out on it's own if there are enough people and enough questions.

Nobody needs to create it.

 

[Jokodo]

Tests that are specifically designed to produce a normal distribution in fact produce a normal distribution?

That's about as informative as "grass is often grass-colored"

If I create a random trivia test it will produce a normal distribution.

The normal distribution just pops out on it's own if there are enough people and enough questions.

Nobody needs to create it.

If you create a random trivia test heavily loaded with Game of Thrones/Baseball questions, you'll get a bimodal distribution.

 

[Jokodo]

It clusters around 100 per definition.

I'm going to re-word the question so it's more clear:

Why is the real problem solving skill of the people who fall around the average of the IQ curve not very good, and why is it that most people have this level of skill?

Maybe this will help?

This Shows teachers are underpaid what else it shows I don't know.

Another alternative:

Why are people with an average IQ not great at solving complex problems, and why is this true for a majority of people?

Because we wouldn't call those problems "complex" otherwise?

 

[ronburgundy]

IQ is not problem solving skills. IQ is one particular scale to express problem solving skills, one that happens to be calibrated on the distribution in the population. The fact that the median is is (close to) 100 and the standard deviation (close to) 15 literally only tells us that the people who shipped the latest series of tests did their job right....

There is no reason sores on a test should be a normal curve.

Why just one peak, not two, or three or fifty?

That is the point of the OP.

When there are many basically random factors involved you get a bell curve as the result. Many genes control intelligence, that gives you a bunch of random factors and thus a bell curve is to be expected.

Correct, and almost all measurable traits (both physical and psychological) that can have a range of possible values are the result of many basically random factors. Thus, almost all measurable traits with a range of possible values will produce a normal distribution.

Non normal distributions are rare and typically indicate something unusual going on. For example, a bi-modal distribution with two humps indicates that your sample is comprised of multiple qualitatively distinct subpopulations who do not share the same basic underlying factors giving rise to the observed variable. A skewed distribution where most values are at one extreme end with a long tail towards the other end typically indicates poor imprecise measurement where the measurement method produces an artificially constraint on how high or low one can score and thus fails to capture variance between people at that end (such as a test that is too easy or too hard).

 

[untermensche]

Tests that are specifically designed to produce a normal distribution in fact produce a normal distribution?

That's about as informative as "grass is often grass-colored"

If I create a random trivia test it will produce a normal distribution.

The normal distribution just pops out on it's own if there are enough people and enough questions.

Nobody needs to create it.

If you create a random trivia test heavily loaded with Game of Thrones/Baseball questions, you'll get a bimodal distribution.

A multiple choice test?

How many answers?

 

[ronburgundy]

If anything, selection is working in the opposite direction, such that below average intelligent people are having more kids, which would drive the average down, if not for the general improvement in environmental conditions .
It takes very little intelligence to reproduce. The hard part is surviving to do so and keeping one's offspring alive. But even that has been made quite easy by modern societies where simply doing what you are told ensures survival, and even that isn't required when there are strong safety nets. In this context, one actually has to have the intelligence to avoid reproducing, otherwise it is likely to happen.
And the biggest determinant is desire to reproduce at a higher or lower rate. People more likely to form their own views and shun traditions (such as "life is about kids") or who have more fulfilling careers of their choosing will tend to be less motivated to procreate at a high rate. Having more intellectual ability will tend to increase one's likelihood of not just accepting traditional ideas and give one more career opportunities, and thus disincentivize reproduction. Although, these relationships are weaker than often presumed, with virtually zero IQ difference between those on top of the economic ladder versus those at or just below the median. All of the relationship lies in those at the very bottom of the economic ladder being disproportionately below average IQ, and still about 1/3 of them are above average b/c random misfortune plays a huge role in economic outcomes.

I think there's no good reason to assume intelligent people will on average favour eschewing reproduction in favour of other activities in life.

I think myself the two things are essentially unconnected.

What people want is determined by their brain through unconscious processes and is perhaps essentially a matter of their emotional state, most plausibly not of their intelligence.

Your intelligence only affect how you go about doing what you want to do or achieve.
EB

You are not reading carefully. I didn't say that intelligence has a direct impact on choosing to reproduce. It likely to have an indirect effect on reproductive rates by impacting whether you make decision errors that lead to accidentally getting pregnant without intending to, or by its indirect relation to emotional goals. For example, less intelligent people are more likely to find it too taxing and difficult to reason their way to their own conclusions about most things. Thus, they are more likely to defer to authority, tradition, or social norms to decide what they should do. Since the tradition and social norm is that life is about having kids, people that don't deeply and critically question norms (which takes a lot of mental investment) are more likely to adopt this goal that their life is about having kids and thus will have more kids. Also, there is good evidence that strong religious adherence is correlated with lower intelligence. Religious people are less likely to get abortions, so when accidental pregnancies do occur religious people (and thus on average less intelligent people) are more likely to carry it to term.

In addition, all choices are determined by one's options. The more options one has, the less likely they are to pick any one of the options. If you can find enjoyment and happiness from an engaging career of your choosing or from travel and other activities that often require some wealth, then you are less likely to choose the option of having more kids. A person with low intellect has far fewer career options and often no options that are very satisfying, and they are less likely to have the wealth needed to choose travel and forms of consumption that those with means sometimes choose over having kids.

The relation between career options, wealth, and intelligence are not and don't need to be very strong in order for them to have a small but still reliable impact on the reproductive rates of people with higher and lower intelligence.

Related to all this is one's ability to exercise self-control and delay their gratification in favor of more long term goals. Kids often interfere with long term goals that many people have. At the same time, kids themselves can be immediately gratifying, plus the sex that accidentally leads to kids is immediately gratifying. General intelligence and IQ are correlated with impulse control and making decisions that optimize delayed gratification, and have associations with the same brain regions. Thus, even when low and high intelligent people share the same goals of trying to balance gratification from sex, kids, and more long term goals, the more intelligent people will tend to be better able to control their actions to achieve the desired balance and thus not have unwanted kids, kids too young, or too many kids that undermine long term goals.

 

[bilby]

When there are many basically random factors involved you get a bell curve as the result. Many genes control intelligence, that gives you a bunch of random factors and thus a bell curve is to be expected.

Correct, and almost all measurable traits (both physical and psychological) that can have a range of possible values are the result of many basically random factors. Thus, almost all measurable traits with a range of possible values will produce a normal distribution.

Non normal distributions are rare and typically indicate something unusual going on. For example, a bi-modal distribution with two humps indicates that your sample is comprised of multiple qualitatively distinct subpopulations who do not share the same basic underlying factors giving rise to the observed variable. A skewed distribution where most values are at one extreme end with a long tail towards the other end typically indicates poor imprecise measurement where the measurement method produces an artificially constraint on how high or low one can score and thus fails to capture variance between people at that end (such as a test that is too easy or too hard).

This is also what we would see on an absolute intelligence scale, if the idea that we are near to a 'hard limit' on intelligence were true. So if IQ measured absolute intelligence (which it doesn't), then the bell curve would suggest that any such hard limit is a long way from being reached.

If we were close to the upper limit of human intelligence, we should expect to see a 'long tail' of less intelligent people, and a marked absence of people who were as far above the mean as the least intelligent are below it.

 

[ronburgundy]

Tests that are specifically designed to produce a normal distribution in fact produce a normal distribution?

That's about as informative as "grass is often grass-colored"

If I create a random trivia test it will produce a normal distribution.

The normal distribution just pops out on it's own if there are enough people and enough questions.

Nobody needs to create it.

If you create a random trivia test heavily loaded with Game of Thrones/Baseball questions, you'll get a bimodal distribution.

Correct, b/c you are measuring two qualitatively distinct populations, people who watch GoT or baseball and people who do not. Each population is normally distributed, but different populations are not distributed under the same normal curve.

 

[steve_bank]

Ok, but my point is IQ only relates to a narrow scope. Being good at objective problem solving like software or electronics design does not infer generalized problem solving, like our current political crisis. If we were all that intelligent we would not be in the mess we are in. A lot of people in Congress are high IQ types who went to top tier schools.

As for being smart I always looked to others around me to get a sense of where I stood. I would not usually refer to myself as smart. Too easy to get carried away with yourself.

Yebbut I think you have your definitions crossed: IQ does infer generalized problem solving, but the shape of the curve and the characteristics of people at certain points on the curve imply that most of us aren't good at generalized problem solving. Which was the point of the thread.

I'd go further and argue that most politicians reach that status because of things other than IQ, which is why they're usually meddling at generalized problem solving - they have a solid IQ but not a systems level IQ. That and the incentives to actually make good decisions aren't always there.

My experience says otherwise. The stereotypical engineer in my generation who was good at invention and problem solving objective problems were typical lousily at mangement and organization problems. Not entirly true and not entirely false.

On the other hand there are gifted mangers who are high IQ coming out of business schools who are inept at technical problems. Some people have a gift for logistics. An operations guy I worked with before computer manufacturing systems kept track of the status of thousands of parts in his head.

People who cam mentally keep track of complex schedules in their heads. A program manager I knew told me she visualized schedules as intersecting surfaces and cuvees.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

It seems strange to me that if intelligence, reason, and problem solving skill are generally considered positive traits, why the population doesn't drift to the right....

IQ of 100 in 2019 AD might be IQ of around 120 in 1919 AD.

 

[Jokodo]

If you create a random trivia test heavily loaded with Game of Thrones/Baseball questions, you'll get a bimodal distribution.

Correct, b/c you are measuring two qualitatively distinct populations, people who watch GoT or baseball and people who do not. Each population is normally distributed, but different populations are not distributed under the same normal curve.

Because the answers are intercorrelated.

 

[untermensche]

Saying what you will get is one thing.

Actually seeing what you get is another.

Making claims is one thing.

Providing an example where it has actually happened is another.

 

[Jokodo]

Saying what you will get is one thing.

Actually seeing what you get is another.

Making claims is one thing.

Providing an example where it has actually happened is another.

Are you going on record claiming that I can ask a random crowd (ie not specifically GoT fans) a Quiz focussed on GoT and still get a unimodal normal distribution?

Willing to bet this time?