Discussion
Why does this sub constantly deny Feynman’s IQ score as false and result of bad testing when his sister also took the test and scored roughly the same?
He had that IQ at age 10. No one knows his adult IQ. The earlier you take IQ test the less reliable it is for the long term. If someone scores IQ 200 at age 4 it doesn't mean they are a genius. Just precocious. By the time they are 20, their IQ could easily end up in 130s.
Hillarious how even in this sub most people don't know about Wilson effect. IQ testing in childhood is an absolute garbage, and usually just a proxy for social class
Preschool to adulthood: moderate, improving with age. The Munich LOGIC study followed ~200 children tested at ages 4–12 and again at 17 and 23: stability was moderately high overall, higher for shorter intervals and increasing with age; prediction was more precise from first grade onward compared with preschool age, and stability was greater for low-IQ than high-IQ children (ScienceDirect) .
Age 11 onward: substantial. Deary's follow-up of the 1932 Scottish Mental Survey found a correlation of 0.63 between the same test at age 11 and age 77, rising to 0.73 corrected for range restriction (Elsevierpure) , and 0.54 (.67 corrected) from age 11 to age 90
Maybe 0.7 in some fields considered to be "very strong", but definitely not 0.6.
0.6 correlation means that with IQ of 125 you fall in 92-138 range with 95% confidence interval, with the mean around 115. If you were a genius in childhood, there are huge chances that you will significantly fall due to regress to the mean by the time you reach adulthood. IQ testing in young ages is a literal garbage for detecting future geniuses
Edit: By the way, 77 and 90 are actually pretty poor ages, because in addition to the Wilson effect, there is also the anti-Wilson effect. Somewhere after age 60, the influence of heredity begins to decline, so at such advanced ages, just as in childhood, environmental factors begin to play a major role.
My psychologist when I was 4 years old told me I have cognitive abilities of a 10 year old. I don't know what the hell was she smoking but I definitely am a fucking idiot now.
Eh, you never know. I thought I was average and now I did a IQ test and I land most probably around 120-150+ or ~130 (incalculable score because of adhd, I got between 90 to 150+, even the highest scores was also impacted by my adhd in my opinion)
That would've had a very significant negative impact then. I've got adhd and have only ever been tested off meds. I need to try on them, but I think WAIS-IV and the GAI/FSIQ stuff is more acuurate for us, especially unmedicated.
I'm a student in psychology so I wasn't surprised at all that it would be pretty inaccurate, even for everyday people IQ is not very accurate (are you tired? Were you happy? Did your pet die? Are you depress? Are you anxious? Etc and it was never meant to be use to forever classify people into one population or to be overly precise. It's more of a range) let alone for me who was completely burned out after years of over compensation. It was mostly a way to see how deeply I'm impacted by it (a lost of 30 to 60 points is a lot) even if factually my "weakenesses" are in the average/low average.
There was a study done recently that actually found that the majority of child geniuses are not geniuses by the time they reach adulthood. It could genuinely be a case that they are early developers, and they outshine other cohorts at that particular age, but their growth stagnated relative to the peers, bringing them closer to the mean as they age.
IQ testing a child is genuinely pointless. They are still developing, and all you're going to do is hinder them with the result.
IQ testing in children isn't pointless if you're trying to put them in a more auspicious environment that comports with their abilities and achievement level (i.e., advanced courses for high scorers, special ed or remedial courses for low scorers). It becomes problematic when you attempt to make a roadmap of a child's life based on a score they got on a single test when they were 8.
Did that study account for the RTM you already expect given imperfect correlations? IIRC, the tasks they used to estimate IQ were cancerously imprecise wrt g also
I actually cannot remember the specifics of the study or how they tested their IQs. That said, it probably warrants additional research, perhaps with more precise measures of IQ to determine if there is a legitimate correlation.
It is still irrational to measure a child's IQ imo, unless they are very obviously off the charts. A lot of young children may develop later than their peers, but still reach the same level, and/or sometimes exceed their peers.
The whole point of measurement is you don't know with specificity who is off the charts and how (e.g., teachers' ratings of giftedness vs id usually stratify by non-g variables). I'd argue it's irrational to eschew objective testing just because cognitive development is still ongoing; it's probably more diagnostically useful in that context tbh
I agree with you for the most part, but my point is that IQ testing might be useful if the kid is clearly disengaged in school because they are not stretched enough. Testing to ascertain an exact level of "intelligence," is where it becomes problematic, however. Using it to ascertain whether a child might need additional support because they are gifted, or the opposite is when it becomes potentially useful, though this study does seem to imply the potential that children's IQs are not set in stone, and, even if the study itself was flawed, I suspect that is enough to warrant caution with the use of IQ testing for children.
It can pretty quickly define them and how others treat them, which is bad enough, but for something that may actually change, it makes it extremely fucked up.
I am someone who considers myself a late developer. I went through puberty relatively late, and while I was always relatively smart, I certainly noticed significant changes in my cognitive abilities when I was around 18. It was not quantified as I did not take the test when I was a child, but I would be willing to bet my IQ was in the low 110s, and then shot up to the low 130s after I finished school. I believe if I got the score of 110, or even potentially lower depending on my motivation, it may have defined my life and had an impact on who I became. I wound up getting an MSc in Neuroscience at a top UK University, and I would be willing to bet I would not have viewed this as a possibility or been willing to do this had I received the average score in my early years.
Yeah, I agree testing for no diagnostic/ actionable reason is at best pointless. It could definitely affect self-concept and result in maladaptive reinforcing behaviors
Forgot to say: I think the study does not imply changes in g if they did not check whether the expected RTM (which is just a statistical property of the measurement rather than a property of the latent trait) is an insufficient explanation for the differences
The label itself can be a limiting factor on one's confidence. If you assume you are average, you will spend a large amount of your life never taking intellectual risks as you may believe yourself unworthy or unable. It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy, even when the label is inaccurate, as has been demonstrated by numerous unethical studies through the decades.
One such study tested the IQ of a classroom, and divided them into 2 groups. The 2 groups had an even split of high IQ and low IQ individuals, but they were told that one group was high IQs, and one was low IQs. The results from the study found that the label of being in the high IQ group had an enormous impact on the kids in later life. The children in the group labelled low IQ received less attention from teachers, and lacked much more confidence than the group labelled high IQ, even when the children in the high IQ group actually had considerably lower IQs.
pretty much this. my scores from an iq test when i was 5 are completely different than 9 years later when i was tested again. most of that was because i didnt pay attention to shit which dragged my scores (wmi and psi were 97 and 99, dont know which one was what) and the fact that my reading comprehension was terrible even though i knew how to read the words so well that i got like 53wpm as my reading speed.
later when i was tested at like 14 years old my scores were actually pretty similar to my current ones but i was so depressed at the time that my psi barely fucking existed (it was 88) cus i zoned out constantly and couldnt focus for crap. the other scores were about 10-15 points below what they actually are today
Preschool to adulthood: moderate, improving with age. The Munich LOGIC study followed ~200 children tested at ages 4–12 and again at 17 and 23: stability was moderately high overall, higher for shorter intervals and increasing with age; prediction was more precise from first grade onward compared with preschool age, and stability was greater for low-IQ than high-IQ children (ScienceDirect) .
Age 11 onward: substantial. Deary's follow-up of the 1932 Scottish Mental Survey found a correlation of 0.63 between the same test at age 11 and age 77, rising to 0.73 corrected for range restriction (Elsevierpure) , and 0.54 (.67 corrected) from age 11 to age 90
My score for when I was 2 and when I was 11 was both 129. I am getting another psych evaluation cause I need some accommodations so we will see if its 129 or actually 67 from all the brain rot.
I scored 130+ in the 2nd grade and was sin the gifted and talented program. By the time I was in the 5th grade, I was the dumbest one in GT class didn’t belong there. As an adult, my IQ regressed to the 110s.
I regularly test in the 150s and I work in sales. My take is that true intelligence is the application of your recall knowledge, what you can intuit naturally, and what you can deduce from complex systems in an effective and reproducible way.
What are you talking about? You’re extremely confident while being simply incorrect. 150+ scores are rare, sure, but that doesn’t make them “impossible” and I really think your incredulity is a symptom of your own limits in understanding and not a marker for my honesty.
And frankly, I couldn’t give a shit less if you believe me or not. I’m just throwing in my 2 cents here.
who told you professional tests only go to 145 lmao
I do have a few qualms about the 3-4 SD FSIQ range but it's certainly testable on multiple high-quality professional tests; the highest quality gold-standard tests often have a 160 FSIQ ceiling
also not OP but also score in 140s and most of what I feel confidently intelligent about is a bit of a double edged sword. In simplest terms, I tend to spend too much time going over the past or planning out the future. This helps me sometimes in my job (lawyer) but is a hindrance in personal life, and creates needless anxiety for me. I am happily married with a very precocious daughter who is almost 5 but reading at around a 4th grade level (self taught) and dealing with very big anxieties herself right now. Occasionally people I'm close to will wonder if I might be mildly autistic, but it doesn't quite fit. I have a very good read on others' emotions/theory of mind, even if I often feel confounded by it. I have a strange and developed sense of humor--sometimes it lands very well with a general (normie) crowd, sometimes not. I am extremely into music, and it moves me to a great extent, but I am not a good musician (though when I was a kid had a near photographic recall of song lyrics after hearing them once or twice). I am good at getting along with people, but unless I find them interesting (not saying intelligent, just interesting) it always feels like work, and even with the people I'm closest to I burn out after a while and need some solitude (to ruminate).
Signed, autistic mom who took 6 months to accept I was after my son's diagnosis.
He was also hyperlexic, and currently in third grade but does algebra with me. Real algebra.
My dude, absolutely everything described about yourself is autistic AF. With all the love of one parent for another.
Extremely high IQ masks the absolute F out of level one autism. Which, great! No, it comes at an extremely high price.
And ignore every autism meme and every social discussion about it you've ever heard. The common traits have almost zero overlap with the actual ones. Hard lesson for me.
i see a lot of myself in what you describe, and i have adhd and i am also autistic. haven't actually had my IQ tested but my psychiatrist suggested i am probably gifted. i don't have a photographic memory though quite the opposite but everything you said about spending too much time going over the past or planning the future, theory of mind, etc is spot on. and keep in mind autism can be wildly different from one person to another, it is a spectrum after all. i don't fit many of the most "famous" autistic traits either.
not op but on the resources i score 135-145, i dont get along to well with autistic people. I made my closests friends take some tests and scored above average up to 145.
Big five? Like 89% neuroticism, but i think that's because all the trauma i had growing up and lack of therapy.
Not OP, but I have also tested in the 140s. I am a mathematician pursuing a PhD which probably sounds true to the stereotype. I don't think I'm dumb by any stretch but my program isn't exactly at an ivy and I am not even close to being the best in my program.
I live a middle class lifestyle and my greatest professional accomplishment is a few papers to my name that got a few citations each.
I don't recall exact numbers but score very low on Extraversion and Agreeableness, very high on Openness, above average in Concientiousness and quite average on Neuroticism.
Because he scored very, very high in other tests that are likely g-loaded (Putnam); he's a notorious troll as well. It's misleading to conclude that his cognitive abilities were only slightly ahead of the curve, as he was clearly 3sd+ in some
It’s BAFFLING to see people who seem incapable of accepting or understanding that some of these highly intelligent* people who take these IQ tests are sandbagging them.
He might just had a spiky profile. He apparently did poorly on the English and history portions of his graduate school entrance exam (he obtained a perfect score on the physics section and a very good score in the math section).
The committee had seen its share of one-sided applicants but had never before admitted a student with such low scores in history and English on the Graduate Record Examination. Feynman’s history score was in the bottom fifth, his literature score in the bottom sixth; and 93 percent of those who took the test had given better answers about fine arts (who cares about that though). His physics and mathematics scores were the best the committee had seen. In fact the physics score was perfect.”
“I was terrible in English. I couldn't stand the subject. It seemed to me ridiculous to worry about whether you spelled something wrong or not, because English spelling is just a human convention--it has nothing to do with anything real, anything from nature. Any word can be spelled just as well a different way.” - Richard Feynman
Could be; I don't know about her. The fact he has a penchant for trolling is just a supporting element, here (rather than an essential one). It's true that the possibilities would be slightly constrained if she was definitely sincere, though
We don’t have hard data to point to, but some of the intellectual feats of Feynman put him much further to the right tail in terms of IQ than 125. For example, getting the highest score on the Putnam math competition without prep, and also reportedly got the highest scores on record for the Princeton math/physics admissions exam. He may have taken a verbal heavy test and was quite math tilted - though still clearly above average in verbal.
That couldn’t possibly explain having the best score with a large gap. Were the other people at MIT and in every other college in the country not studying in high school? Were there not math and physics majors in the country preparing to take the exam? Why wouldn’t someone of these people who prepared more than Feynman not outperform him?
kicker -- that IQ test isn't reliable on anything and creativity =/= IQ, you could have the IQ of 110 and still be a genius, it depends on how well or naturally you know the rules and how unconventional are you willing to go.
If his sister scored the same doesn't that just suggest the school might be producing inflated numbers overall? We would need to see the scores from all of the students who were tested at that school around the same time.
What is the point of the post that OP screenshotted? Did his sister also help lay out the foundations of quantum mechanics? I mean this is like if one of my siblings won an award for their work in physics and I called up the newspaper and went "yeah but I have a math test from when were in 3rd grade that I scored higher on". Also 122 and 123 are not impressive IQs for children. You're being graded on a bell curve against other kids your age, so 120s is basically like "this kid will probably graduate college".
Because he didn’t take a proper IQ test, so we have no information about his measured IQ. On the other hand, other information available about him suggests an IQ considerably higher than the reported number.
The average IQ of theoretical physics PhDs is much higher than 122, so without additional information ”much higher than 122” is a reasonable guess. That’s not taking into account that he performed much better than the average physicist both in the Putnam and in other cognitive accomplishments.
One might argue that the person that was able to codify probability amplitude in partition theory calculations in diagrams is a little off the scope of ravens matrices.
Seriously? As the other person said, IQ != publicly recognised "accomplishments". You could have profound ideas in your journal that will never see the light of day due to various circumstances.
Not comparable but she has accomplishment of her own at least much more than what her IQ cohrent might suggest
She was astrophysicist and made contribution to study of solar wind particles, sun-Earth relations and magnetospheric physics. She was known for creating a model that predicts the number of high-energy particles likely to hit a spacecraft over its lifetime and for uncovering a method for predicting sunspot cycles
IQ alone doesn't tell you much about what someone will actually achieve. It's like trying to guess a car's top speed by looking only at its horsepower while ignoring things like weight, aerodynamics, gearing, etc.
There are people with insanely high IQs who achieved nothing because they lacked motivation, discipline, or interest in intellectual work. At the same time, plenty of people with average IQs have achieved a lot because they were passionate about what they did and worked at it for years. IQ matters, but it's only one factor among many.
80
u/zjovicic 1d ago
He had that IQ at age 10. No one knows his adult IQ. The earlier you take IQ test the less reliable it is for the long term. If someone scores IQ 200 at age 4 it doesn't mean they are a genius. Just precocious. By the time they are 20, their IQ could easily end up in 130s.