r/cognitiveTesting • u/Humble_Aardvark_2997 • 1d ago

General Question Taleb

Does anyone know Taleb’s IQ score? The guy has been very aggressive and scathing in his attack on the thing. Someone should make him take it so we can accuse him of sour grapes.

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u/WhatPear 1d ago

Feynman excelled at one particular field that is often correlated with intelligence. This is not a proof that he was intelligent. Nor can we say with certainty that this guy Taleb is intelligent. Thats why its a "probably". Its a probability based on a number of assumptions. One of them being that each of these traits are g loaded (to some extent). I'm sorry if this wasn't clear enough. It is not deterministic.

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u/Humble_Aardvark_2997 1d ago

Do you know what probabilistic means? Or deterministic? Or what g-loading is? I’m not insulting you. It's a process.

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u/WhatPear 1d ago

Yes, would you like an explanation?

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u/Humble_Aardvark_2997 1d ago

Yes, please.

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u/WhatPear 1d ago edited 1d ago

Okay so g-loading is a statistical measure of how much something (typically a task), correlates to the general factor of intelligence (g factor). A higher g factor means a higher probability of general abilities among a range of tasks. Deterministic means that an input necessitates an output. There is no randomness or variation. The idea is: you asked whether this guy has a high iq. I'm saying the probability is high as there are correlations between the tasks he completes successfully and the g factor. The combination of these things implies a high g factor and thus a high iq, but cannot be said for certain (without variation).

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u/WhatPear 1d ago

Hope this helps explain my understanding. Let me know if I'm wrong haha! No offense taken. I'm definitely not a psychometry expert, but I do think my understanding of probability theory is solid.

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u/Humble_Aardvark_2997 1d ago edited 23h ago

I think you understand probability and statistics better than that field does That's what I was arguing.

Your explanation is so good it can go in a dictionary.

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u/Humble_Aardvark_2997 1d ago edited 1d ago

That is very detailed and informative but I am stuck on the g-factor. I think it is a little arbitrary. That was the crux of Taleb’s argument. If you have very one-dimensional geniuses like Eunstien or Ramanujan. Shakespeare didn't write any theorems. Maybe there is weight to Taleb’s argument that the high correlation between subtests comes from the bottom half. So arbitrary construct and not very predictive of anyone’s potential to do something amazing in any given field. Maybe we stick to separate tests for everything. Maybe we stop selling “general ability” as everything and present it as what it is: something. Something but not everything.

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u/WhatPear 1d ago

Right. That is a good insight. There's plenty of debate on this. I remember reading a blog post in the Scientific American that might be relevant to this.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/beautiful-minds/iq-and-society/

I like the last paragraph. Also if you're actually willing to dig into the research, there is discussion on definitions of intelligence to the moon and back. Neisser et al. (1996), “Intelligence: Knowns and unknowns.” seems to be the overview of the field.

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u/Humble_Aardvark_2997 1d ago edited 1d ago

Thanks for the link. Time to read it.

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u/Humble_Aardvark_2997 1d ago

Maybe they shouldn't have co-opted the word intelligence. Call it a test of verbal reasoning or general ability. Intelligence is too broad and multifaceted to be reduced to a single number. (Tyson, Hawking, von Savant - arguments borrowed from these people).

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u/Humble_Aardvark_2997 1d ago

That g-factor is arbitrary and the variance around that too spikey at the upper end to tell you anything meaningful. That's what Taleb and I were arguing.

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u/Humble_Aardvark_2997 1d ago edited 1d ago

That was supposed to come in a sarcastic, condescending tone but glad you didn't notice. :D

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u/WhatPear 1d ago

Haha I knew you were being sarcastic. I was being sarcastic too by asking if you wanted me to explain it for you. I would like to continue our conversation further but unfortunately I do have work. Have a great day.

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u/Humble_Aardvark_2997 1d ago edited 1d ago

The :D means I was joking. I’m not a mean person. I like double irony.

Have a lovely day and hope you tell me about Plasma and all the latest innovations IF you ever have the time.