I think a big part of theoretical difficulties with looking at intelligence is assuming people are smarter than they are.

Very few people are all that smart. I don't think anybody is living an optimal life, and I don't think anybody has optimal "meta" considerations.

Although, even if somebody were living an optimal life, that wouldn't imply that they had n-order knowledge of that, or any knowledge of that. Somebody might live a perfectly optimal life and yet believe that they have made many mistakes in the past.

I'd rather live optimally and not know that I'm living optimally than live poorly and know exactly why I'm living poorly.

This is a model for concluding on observation:

1. define the problem
2. find a correlation
3. look for causation
4. test causation for common laws (most general laws of thermodynamics, law of conservation of energy)
5. draw conclusion

don't know what is the whole dialog about, if your not doing above on the subject you're just wasting time...

It depends on what study you look at, but r=0.4 (in other words about 16% of the variation is explained by IQ) is about average among the studies that have been done.

And that is a statistical anomaly. It is only the outliers on the very low end that makes it as high as it is. In other words, the truly stupid have low incomes nearly always (hard to make loads of money whilst living in a group home). Apart from that, the relationship is nearly non-existent.

Your parenthetical is utterly untrue. In fact, it is the opposite of true. When you control simply for parental SES, the variation explained by IQ drops to about 12%. Controlling for location drops it further. This should be obvious if you think for a bit.

Unlike what madnak said, there are much stronger correlates in the social sciences. Specifically for income. Correlation between parental SES and income (not wealth) is about 0.55.

I'd not make bets on correlations as low as this.

Nothing wrong with being results oriented* as long as it is done in a proper bayesian fashion, which eliminates your second sentence from consideration.

Of course, most people are poor bayesians.

*In fact, one should be purely results oriented if one can do it correctly. It is only the results that matter in life. One obviously shouldn't come to the conclusion that deuce-ten is a great nlhe hand because it worked out well once or twice in the past though.

Not making any bets, observing the result is well within the range expected and disputing your claim that it looks low.

Its a good nitpick but they ignore most results so its nothing much like being a baysian. Occasionally the two approaches collide but its an accident.

I'm fairly result orientated, basically because I'm very naive about a lot of things and much of the information I collect in-field is all I have to go by. I'm starting to gain a fair amount of analogies to decipher the world, so my thought process is more complex now, basically looking for contradictions amongst my mental representation of how the world works and what I'm observing. I understand what you mean by result orientated, but many people don't really think much nor have the mental capacity to figure out the more complex stuff, so I'm not sure how bad it actually is on there part, I suppose if they practiced they'd be better + my system could be pretty bad, I am always paranoid my database is biased by selective memory :s

Isn't 3 done by 4? And than what happens when there is no rule for it established yet?

I showed the results in picto-graph form and they are pretty ugly.

Dumb as a brick = no money.

Not dumb as a brick = ??? money.

You really should read up on behavioral economics. You'd like it.

I think I mentioned that people are generally poor at looking at the world through bayesian-tinted glasses.

I saw the results, well within what we should expect if we've met people. Only some wierd bias about what smart people should do could cause a problem.

You had to read that in a book iI seriously doubt we have ever disagreed about that.

Far more interesting is how to do it well and in gambling/trading terms how it can be exploited. I find very little non-trite work on this.

I suppose I'll take your word for it since it'd be harder to dig around on my own. That is significantly lower than I thought, but still more than strong enough to support the hypothesis that IQ is a main determining factor in income. It's a very strong relationship.

Seriously? I'm looking right at the graph you yourself posted, and I can eyeball the linear regression. You can just look at the >100 side of the graph and clearly see the relationship. You can cut the graph off at 85 and 115 and it's still obvious. The upper right quadrant is considerably denser than the upper left quadrant. And the data set only spans -2 to +2 sigmas, there aren't any real outliers here at all, so they certainly can't.

(Also, given the data set, outliers on the low end aren't particularly capable of having that kind of effect - you can't go below 0 income.)

This I'm not taking your word for one little bit. I'll need to see a source before I'll believe this for half a second, I suppose I'll look around for something to support my assertion here. A couple of Google Scholar queries don't seem to support your point here at all. Stuff like this and this and this (yes I know you hate Murray, but he keeps showing up in the results) seem to contradict you, though obviously they don't directly address the issue. They do show that controlling for SES can increase the predictive value of IQ in some contexts, which is something.

I'm sure I once read an article saying that IQ is a predictor of social mobility among low-income children, but I can't find it unless it's one of these papers I can't access.

I thought it was 0.65, and no there aren't many stronger correlates than 0.65. If it's actually 0.4 then I'd call it strong but not "one of the strongest," no. My mistake on the actual correlation, I need some work eyeballing graphs, but I'm not mistaken on R > 0.65 being very rare in the social sciences.

(Nor did I say that there were no stronger correlations with income than IQ, for that matter - educational achievement and parental income are two that I would have expected to be extremely high.)

An even-money bet is +EV with any positive correlation, so that's just a statement about your risk aversion. Personally I would always take even-money bet that a randomly-selected person making $100,000 has an IQ > 100. You want to take the other end of that? I don't think you do too well taking the other end of that.

Doesn't say anything about whether it's a strong correlation.

What is the mean income at IQ 80? IQ 100? IQ 120? Are you claiming the mean at 120 is not significantly higher than the mean at 100? Are we looking at the same graph?

I know the accepted definition but I don't agree with it at all.

The thread's point was using the definition of intelligence, the definition doesn't make sense. Its kinda the point of 'god' in some people views I think, we either need a separate entity to say 'oh you are the smart ones' or we need to look at each other and say 'oh you're smart' ' oh you're because I'm smart'...the 2nd of which I'm suggesting we've incorrectly.

This is just our culture talking though isn't it. Intelligence could possibly be shedding your life and moving to a monastery or something.

your assuming a very nailed down definition of the word here.

this has huge assumptions in it to because maybe its impossible to live optimal or maybe its impossible not to etc.

this is kind of a paradox because if it was optimal you would expect to be happy but I think for sure you wouldn't be happy because you would likely always be trying to live optimally?

you would expect this to be temporary, but peace would be living any way and thinking you are living optimal. Some say thats intelligence and only that?



you got this model after humans defined intelligence...we can't use this model for our answer. We have nothing to define it with thats the dialog.

I just wish we had a definition where people would stop calling Hitler a genius....seems ridiculous to me.

I don't think there's any such thing as "smart" like that.

It's just a label people throw at each other, roll with it.

As far as this whole intelligence vs income thing I remember reading articles saying the correlation between financial success and intelligence aren't nearly as correlated as people think. I would have to agree in terms of the world being full of very intelligent unsuccessful people. Hell, who doesn't know plenty of them?

Just Googling "Intelligence and income" will get quite a few interesting theories, this one is pretty interesting arguing a NEGATIVE correlation :

"But why is there a negative correlation for people with only bachelor’s degrees? The obvious conclusion is that what a person majors in at college is far more important in determining future income than how smart the person is. We can also conclude that as intelligence increases, a student is more likely to choose a less financially rewarding major.

This makes sense if you think about it. People of average intelligence who attend college are only attending for the practical benefits of a better career. People of average intelligence don’t appreciate college as a learning experience.

People with higher intelligence enjoy learning, and because of this they may choose a major that seems intellectually interesting (like Roman History or 19th Century English Literature) yet has no practical use.

This negative correlation surely indicates that young people are getting bad career advice from their parents and schools. If there was an efficient system for sorting young people into appropriate majors, surely the more intelligent students would be directed towards fields where their intelligence would most benefit society. "

Being intelligent is one thing, but without desire and work-ethic, what good is it? It's just another wasted talent.

I'd theorize that the biggest factor in the idea of intelligent people having money is the use of investments. You can make the same or even quite a bit less than another person but if you invest well you can surpass the other person by a wide margin through savings and investments if they do not.

%s add up to quite a bit over time.

see you're comparing the two but whats your definition of intelligence? you are inferring that its about academics. Many rich people and others would say if you are poor your are not intelligent....so then the correlation would be perfect right? And success has the same problem...what is success? Smart people being unsuccessful is commenting on two things that have no clear definition isn't it?


Many believe intelligence is to be without desire and there is nothing that can be wasted.

intelligence may lose to more corrupt people or lose more to cut throat and driven or survival of the fittest type. Also you could say someone could have financial intelligence but be stupid in every other way.


The reason this distinction would be important is we don't know if the cutthroat rise the ranks approach is intelligence or maybe the opposite...we get it confused with success and not even a proper definition of success but success defined to us in school and by society.

All your points are arguable in a philosophical sense, but if we look at it from societal norms, then I'd say the things you are arguing against are generally right.

In general, a rich person is looked at as more successful than a poor or middle class person. In general, a person who does well academically is looked at as more intelligent than a person who doesn't do as well academically.

If you aren't using definitions in terms of how society deems it, then what you're saying is the definitions are wrong. The problem with that is what is the most widely accepted definition? You can argue being fulfilled in your career of helping others while making very little money is more rewarding than looking at financial figures and making much more money, but if most people would disagree with you, then what good is it?

Oh so people who major in a art degree are more intelligent than those who major in a science degree?

Not perhaps because they were conforming to a social role, realised it wasn't for them, completed a bachelors degree and left perhaps?

[ ] A high proportion of those who really enjoy learning leave college with a bachelors degree

[ ] Money made is a accurate representation of how much the individual has benefited society

[ ] Intelligent people are looking to maximize the amount of money they make and consequently, need better advise as to what major they should study because they aren't smart enough to figure it out by themselves

Optimizing their lives perhaps?


I don't think you quite understand how society manipulates it's culture to benefit itself and how people rush to capitalize on the said niches; they're not called cogs just because of their behaviour, generally speaking one's behaviour, thoughts and emotions are aligned with each other, if one is present so is the other generally.

Many people also believe intelligence to be a state of utter submission to the holy lord; point being?