https://nautil.us/your-iq-matters-less-than-you-think-237214
Psychology
Your IQ Matters Less Than You Think
- In studies of children and historical figures, IQ falls short as a measure of success.
By Dean Keith Simonton 3:00 PM CDT on October 2, 2018
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Problem #1: The Intelligence-Eminence Correlation
The relation between IQ and achieved eminence is not huge or even large. Most statisticians would classify it as a “moderate” relationship. In practical terms, that means that there’s ample room for exceptions at either end. The highly eminent can have IQs lower than average and supremely high IQs can be associated with relative obscurity. I’ve already given three examples of the former, so who illustrates the latter? How about Paolo Sarpi, the Venetian historian? Although his estimated IQ was as high as 195, making him one of the very brightest among the 301, his eminence ranking put him in the lower 20 percent, that is, 242nd!
A more contemporary example is Marilyn vos Savant, who was once listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as having the highest recorded IQ. Reportedly, she had taken a revised version of the Stanford-Binet when she was just 10 years old, and got a perfect score! Although there’s some debate about how best to translate that performance into a precise IQ estimate, it is certainly arguable that she is more intelligent than the brightest Termite and any member of Cox’s 301. Yet what is her main accomplishment? Becoming famous for her super-high IQ! Exploiting that distinctive status, she writes the Sunday column “Ask Marilyn” for Parade magazine. That column doesn’t come close to the writing in Don Quixote or On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres, which her two intellectual inferiors, Cervantes and Copernicus, managed to pull off! An extra 60 IQ points or more didn’t buy her any creative edge at all.
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I wonder about the Placebo ① and Nocebo ② Effects?
What would happen if we told children that they were, or were not, very smart? We have some anecdotal evidence: Thomas Edison’s mom was told he was too stupid for school. We know that Hallucinations, Delusions, and Cognitive distortions all exist.
Without doing further searches, I think we can take with a grain of salt anything we are told about IQ or how “smart we are”.
It has no bearing on reality and it may hurt you if expectations don’t match accomplishments.
“(There’s) no such thing as a stupid question” is a common phrase that states that the quest for knowledge includes failure and that just because one person may know less than others they should not be afraid to ask rather than pretend they already know. In many cases multiple people may not know, but are too afraid to ask the “stupid question”; the one who asks the question may in fact be doing a service to those around them.
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① That’s the idea that people can be more likely to experience a benefit from a medication or other intervention if they expect it to help. Even if it’s not a valid treatment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo
② The nocebo effect is a phenomenon where people experience very real negative effects from a medical intervention if that’s what they expect going in. It’s all about the power of suggestion. https://health.clevelandclinic.org/nocebo-effect
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