What do you think the average IQ of this forum is?

[Beamin]

There is this one youtuber that says in a uneducated accent "I'm not a dumbass."

There is a guy I see at the rugby who has a very broad West Country accent - he sounds like a farmer.

He is a noted professor of archeology with an international reputation.

Agree it wasn't until I lived in a southern sate when I learned that but:
My point was that you can tell people are not just ignorant but stupid from their limited use of language. Sure some will surprise you but most talk that way for a reason. This guy's catch phrase was "I'm not a dumbass"; he keeps trying to reassure himself over and over; saying it enough will make it true in his feeble mind. A lot of stereotypes are true.

[coppice]

The average IQ will be around 100. Take any reasonably large group, even one with an intellectual skill at its core, and the average will still be around 100.

Not if there is a selection bias in operation. For instance, the average IQ of university students is often quoted as something in the range 120-130. The group 'university students' is large, much larger than the group 'EEVBlog members', and by your thesis ought to come out at an IQ of 100, but does not because there is a selection bias inherent in 'university students'.

I poorly worded what I said. A hard selection will bias the average IQ. 120-130 for university students seemly optimistically high, in an age when so many go to university. I suspect that is a historical figure. It should be well above 100, though.

EEVblog membership has not particular IQ bias for its membership. It is selected by area of interest, and electronics interests people across a wide IQ spectrum.

The average IQ of graduate students in engineering is about 125: http://www.randalolson.com/2014/06/25/average-iq-of-students-by-college-major-and-gender-ratio/
(Theoretical) physics and mathematics is pretty much the high end of IQ in graduate programs, which is perhaps not discussed here at all though.

The plot on that page is very interesting. The majors with a high average IQ on that plot are ones which represent a small part of the student pool, so the average of all students will be well below the centre of the range that's shown. It looks like it would be in the 110 to 120 range. Its sad to see education as a major as low as 110. Hopefully that's the average across all students preparing for teaching jobs, and the ones heading for science classes are somewhat better. I was lucky enough to have pretty sharp science and maths teachers at school.

However I personally think that a forum like EEVblog will score above average. I think having an interest in technology and how the world works "beats" many other people even if electronics is just a recreational hobby. It doesn't have to be your job , because that could be decided on many other things, including your fortune in youth (US college = expensive), stress tolerance, area, etc.

But it is proven that there is a significant positive correlation between IQ and chosen college major (e.g. engineering vs psychology), then I think it is fair to suggest that a similar correlation could exist between IQ and chosen hobbies/interests.

In general, the technicians in an electronics company have an average IQ well below the graduate engineers. Many of the questions and responses on this forum suggest a lot of technician grade people are here. My experience with amateurs interested in electronics is the interest spreads across all IQ levels, and there seems to be a high proportion of amateurs here.

[mc172]

The whole IQ thing is a load of bollocks, but to answer the question I would have thought around 125. There's some pretty clever people here.

[Beamin]

The whole IQ thing is a load of bollocks, but to answer the question I would have thought around 125. There's some pretty clever people here.

For now its the best thing we have like democracy.

[Vtile]

The whole IQ thing is a load of bollocks, but to answer the question I would have thought around 125. There's some pretty clever people here.

For now its the best thing we have like democracy.

Like a sliced bread.

The interesting part is what kind of monotone circle jerk stamp it is.

I assume my IQ is more than 80, since I managed to open the computer. Btw. I do recognize it indicates something in statistical and scientific way, but in the meantime it definitely doesn't give the whole picture.

[Bud]

I don believe in it either.

[Harb]

I'd say the average could be lifted with a few button presses by the mods............

[wraper]

 And since this forum is smarter then the average forum ...

If you leave out the idiots who can't work a computer and the really smart people who don't waste their time on internet forums I think you'll find this forum is pretty close to average.

I doubt this. One doesn't need to be very smart to be interested electronics, however those with low IQ (like those ~15% below 83) are certainly cut off. Not only they are not able doing jobs which require a tiny bit of intelligence, they are barely capable of using internet, yet finding this specialized forum. Also high IQ does not mean those are busy scientists. Many people with high IQ don't bother to use it in practice like this guy with 200 IQ:

[SL4P]

My spin for many years, is that IQ should really be ICQ (long before the internet!)
Interface Context Quotient - How well you acquire, assimilate and respond to stimuli in “the prevailing context”... i.e. language, culture etc.

[Nusa]

My spin for many years, is that IQ should really be ICQ (long before the internet!)
Interface Context Quotient - How well you acquire, assimilate and respond to stimuli in “the prevailing context”... i.e. language, culture etc.

By that description, the people who win in boxing tournaments are geniuses! So are cats who are particularly good at catching mice.

[SL4P]

Exactly.
How good are you at boxing?
Catching mice?
Skills and understanding/ expertise are not always transferable, they are only relevant in context.

[Cerebus]

What a lot of people miss is that IQ was devised by educational psychologists to give them a metric for assessing the intellectual development of children. The question it was supposed to answer was "Is little Johnny developing normally, quickly or slowly?".

Hence the basic IQ formula of IQ= 100% * developmental_age/chronological_age. It's quite obvious that once one has reached the age where basic mental development stops, that formula becomes nonsensical as one's chronological age will keep increasing but one's developmental age becomes fixed. Extending IQ into adulthood, and repurposing it as a measure of 'G' (general intelligence) has methodological problems, as should be obvious, but until someone comes up with a better measure of 'G' it's all we've got.

I've generally found that those who are derisively dismissive of IQ as a measure have taken a test (possibly not a good one) and scored more poorly than they'd like, and those who are fans are people who've been given a high IQ score.  People who score more highly than 3 standard deviations out are likely to be smart enough to be somewhat sceptical of the merits of IQ testing and are also likely to keep quiet about their score - they are likely to have acquired it early in education, been labelled 'gifted' and know what unrealistic expectations and pressures to 'achieve' come with other people knowing what it is. I've watched the latter from the outside and it can often turn out badly.

I prefer people to form a balanced view of each other's capabilities and not get into a game of IQ 'top trumps' - I've seen that happen too. Leave IQ scores where they belong, in an educational psychologist's office.

[raptor1956]

I'm sure the range is from well below average to well above average with the median being somewhat above average.  I can't be more specific than that!

One thing that I've always found interesting is the fact that nearly every profession has savants that should not be able to perform based on standard measures of intelligence but nonetheless manage incredible feats.  We are an interesting species. 


Brian

[retrolefty]

I have never taken an IQ test so don't have a clue on what my score might be. However at the ripe age of 70 I have learned that assholery exits for all IQ values, no matter how low or high, so doesn't measure what I would like to know about a person.   

[SL4P]

... I have learned that assholery exits for all IQ values...

Ahh, maybe that's called 'compensating!

[MT]

I am really curious. For the most part I is like a very smart person. I done real good like with my book learnin'. At the risk of sounding really arrogant I'm usually the "smartest person in the room" (Enron movie reference: when I was younger without a conscious I was on track to end up like those people, got my series 7 63 etc etc) Amazing how you can give up being rich for being nice.

IQ is like EQ some bands are tuned up some bands down while it depends on how many bands
a individual have and of what kind of music played in brain. (EQ= Emotional Intelligence).

Btw psychopaths who by default always believe they are above everybody else has zero EQ.

So the question are, does a criminal have high IQ? Yes in current society/culture criminality is regarded an asset
by common people who obviously have lower IQ else they would have been successful criminals with lots of cash
that does not say common people are nice, to the contrary, perhaps because they are not successful in scrambling
together cash to be rich.........What was your question again?

[Gregg]

What a lot of people miss is that IQ was devised by educational psychologists to give them a metric for assessing the intellectual development of children. The question it was supposed to answer was "Is little Johnny developing normally, quickly or slowly?".
I prefer people to form a balanced view of each other's capabilities and not get into a game of IQ 'top trumps' - I've seen that happen too. Leave IQ scores where they belong, in an educational psychologist's office.

And----since the pseudo-science of psychology was “invented” by an admitted cocaine addict, where is the relevance of these biased tests to actual practical intelligence? I would like to emphasize the practical aspect; there are a lot of supposedly smart people that have a hard time functioning in the real world and lack real world skills.

[G0HZU]

Many years ago I took an intelligence test when I was a student to see if I would be suitable to become a computer programmer. There were about 300 people in the test room and I scored third highest. The two people that beat me were twice my age and looked like professors. So imagine my surprise when I went for my post test interview to find that I had failed the test. There were too many questions in the exam for anyone to complete in the time and I chose the questions that got me the most marks in the allotted time. But these weren't the questions (or the expected score) that fit their profile of a programmer. I was told I scored too highly and was too intelligent to be a programmer and advised to 'do something else'

[amspire]

I have always had a distaste for IQ tests as I think the IQ test techniques can be learnt, they are culturally biased and they are only measuring a fraction of a person's capability.

Apparently the great physycist Richard Feynman was not a genius at all - he only had a 125 IQ! That makes him just an average university graduate.

I remember back in university in the 1970's, I did a short psychology general studies course and were shown part of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale test. In one test, were were shown a line drawing sketch of a fenced backyard where everything was covered in fresh snow except for a log lying on the ground and we were asked what was wrong with the scene. From memory, no-one in the class on university undergraduates was sure what was wrong as none of us in Sydney ever lived in snow conditions. We didn't know if snow would fall off a log or thaw off a log. We were looking for something definitely wrong, and to us, it wasn't the log. It would have been very obvious for people living in snow conditions, I guess.

Years later, for some reason, I was getting another Wechsler test from a psychologist and exactly the same drawing came up. I told the psychologist that I knew the answer because I had seen it before and I thought it was a very stupid test - he was really unhappy. I think I invalidated the whole test results.

[xrunner]

What do you think the average IQ of this forum is?

I see what you're doing. That question is itself one of those IQ test questions! So I think that since I recognized that fact, I should get my IQ score rasied. 

[wraper]

What a lot of people miss is that IQ was devised by educational psychologists to give them a metric for assessing the intellectual development of children. The question it was supposed to answer was "Is little Johnny developing normally, quickly or slowly?".
I prefer people to form a balanced view of each other's capabilities and not get into a game of IQ 'top trumps' - I've seen that happen too. Leave IQ scores where they belong, in an educational psychologist's office.

And----since the pseudo-science of psychology was “invented” by an admitted cocaine addict, where is the relevance of these biased tests to actual practical intelligence? I would like to emphasize the practical aspect; there are a lot of supposedly smart people that have a hard time functioning in the real world and lack real world skills.

Ad hominem fallacy.

[Cerebus]

What a lot of people miss is that IQ was devised by educational psychologists to give them a metric for assessing the intellectual development of children. The question it was supposed to answer was "Is little Johnny developing normally, quickly or slowly?".
I prefer people to form a balanced view of each other's capabilities and not get into a game of IQ 'top trumps' - I've seen that happen too. Leave IQ scores where they belong, in an educational psychologist's office.

And----since the pseudo-science of psychology was “invented” by an admitted cocaine addict, where is the relevance of these biased tests to actual practical intelligence? I would like to emphasize the practical aspect; there are a lot of supposedly smart people that have a hard time functioning in the real world and lack real world skills.

I presume you're referring to the oddly sexual obsessive psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, who neither invented psychology (the science of mind) or educational psychology (the science of mental learning processes). He practised a form of psychiatry, treating mental disease, which is a very different kettle of fish from psychology, which is trying to figure out how the mind works (which can in some cases be very proper hard science - hard in the sense of 'hard' versus 'soft' sciences). It's rather like tarring Chemists and Physicists with the same brush because they both study matter. Just because psychiatrists and psychologists both study mind doesn't mean they are the same thing.

If you're going to rant, know what you're ranting about...

[hamster_nz]

It is nice to be smart, but I think it is smarter to be known for being nice.

Has anybody else here read 'Flowers for Algernon'? (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flowers_for_Algernon)

[sibeen]

I'd hazard a guess and say that I suspect the percentage of people who frequent this forum and have read Flowers for Algernon would be higher than the percentage of the general public who have read it

For those of you who have never read the story do yourselves a favour and track it down. You will appreciate it and strengthen my theory at the same time.

[Ampera]

-2.63267 * 10^(2563^63)

Because of me.

Sorry.