Comment on brains!
blandfordforever@lemm.ee 3 weeks agoI have to disagree.
IQ as a measure of intelligence doesn’t work that way. The number can’t just get higher and higher because a person is really smart. A supreme, godlike intelligence doesn’t have an IQ of say, a million. IQ has a statistical definition.
If there are about 8 billion humans, then 1 of them is “the smartest” in some way. 1/8,000,000,000 is 1.2x10^-10, this has a z score of 6.33.
The current smartest person will have an IQ of (6.33x15)+100=195. No one has an IQ of 200. This isn’t because a person can’t be any smarter, it’s because this is how IQ is defined. If a pure, perfect, godlike intelligence exists in our current human population, their IQ is 195.
Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I linked to a list of many examples
Only if normal distributions are assumed. Clearly this assumption is incorrect.
But we do agree that a negative IQ is impossible?
blandfordforever@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
You provided a link to reader’s digest. It’s not the most credible reference.
A negative IQ score and an IQ score above 200 would be possible with larger populations.
Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I’m struggling to see how a negative IQ can be practically assessed.
blandfordforever@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
I think the confusion is that IQ is not an objective measurement. It’s subjective.
Its not like say, height, where you can have a normal distribution and then a statistical outlier.
The IQ point isnt a constant, tangeable unit of measure, like an inch. Intelligence isn’t something you can put a ruler up to and say, oh that’s weird, this person with an iq of 300 is a statistical outlier.
IQ is defined statistically. You use some method of claiming that each person has a certain ranking of intelligence. Then you use a defined mean and SD to determine what IQ value that corresponds to, in the context of everyone else in the population.