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Pumpkin Person

~ The psychology of horror

Pumpkin Person

Monthly Archives: November 2016

The autism-schizophrenia continuum

30 Wednesday Nov 2016

Posted by pumpkinperson in Uncategorized

≈ 322 Comments

Commenter Philosopher has been talking a lot about the autism-schizophrenia continuum so I wanted to talk a bit about the basis for this theory and some of the challenges.

The notion that autism and schizophrenia are opposite extremes of the same continuum was perhaps first proposed  by Bernard Crespi, an evolutionary biologist at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, and Christopher Badcock, an Emeritus Reader in Sociology at the University of London.  They proposed that just as autism is thought to be an extreme male brain, schizophrenia is an extreme female brain.  The idea is that human neurology forms a bell curve, where normal (neuro-typical people) are in the middle and autistics and schizophrenics are at the extremes.

The role of race

Then in 2014 and 2015, Pumpkin Person argued that the autism schizophrenia continuum was part of Rushton’s r-K evolutionary continuum, where r populations are those that evolved high reproduction rates, low survival rates, and K populations evolved low reproduction rates and high survival rates.  This seemed to explain why schizophrenia was high in blacks and high in the lower social classes, while autism was higher in the upper classes, and perhaps in East Asians.  The notion that blacks are more likely to be schizophrenic may seem incompatible with the idea that schizophrenia is an extreme female brain, since blacks are arguably the most masculine race with perhaps the highest testosterone levels, however physical and temperamental masculinity should not be confused with cognitive masculinity (Steve Sailer made a similar point).

Coolness vs nerdiness

r and K seems to correspond with the stereotypical idea of “coolness” vs “nerdiness” with blacks stereotyped by the U.S. media as the cool race, and East Asians stereotyped as the nerdy race, and whites being the perfect balance between both extremes.

But it’s too simplistic to say that autism is just extreme nerdiness.  For one thing, nerds tend to have high IQs and successful lives (i.e. Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg) so if autism were merely extreme nerdiness, you’d expect autistics to have even higher IQs and even more successful lives.  Instead, autistics are often mentally retarded and require lifelong supervision.

Yet we know autism is related to nerdiness because nerds (i.e. people in STEM fields) are more likely to have autistic relatives, though this could partly be because they have children late, thus increasing the mutation load, and not entirely because STEM genes are intrinsically autistic.

However my tentative hypothesis is that as humans migrated out of the tropics and into the colder climates of Northern Europe and especially Northeast Asia, they not only needed higher global IQ, but a different cognitive profile.  While Theory of Mind IQ was crucial in the tropics to gain status and attract mates, in the freezing ice age, women didn’t have the luxury of choosing the guy who most charmed them.  They had to go with the best survivor, so men with primarily technological smarts won out over men with mostly social smarts.

Further, the ice age selected for obsessive focus (an autistic personality) because you had to be in love with only one woman to raise a stable family, and you had to focus on building shelter and clothing before it got too cold.

A Northeast Asian focusing on what matters & not getting distracted

A Northeast Asian focusing on what matters & not getting distracted

By contrast in the tropics, social IQ was more important that technological IQ, because almost all modern humans have enough to technical savvy to survive in warm climates, but only those with the Theory of Mind to manipulate women and undermine their male competitors could reproduce prolifically.  And with so many women to reproduce with, the guy who obsessively focused on just one, lost out genetically to the guy who got distracted by every pretty young thing that walked by (a schizophrenic personality).

50822248-dancing-african-american-guy-with-dreadlocks

tropical peoples love to have fun

 

Shifting to a two-dimensional spectrum

But while autism and schizophrenia are opposites in where they fall in the male > female, K > r, nerdiness > coolness, ice people > tropical people, continuum, it’s an over-simplification to say they are opposites completely.

On the contrary, schizophrenia and autism are both pathological, both found in many of the same families, and both partly caused by some of the same genetic variants.  So instead of just thinking about a single spectrum, I’ve argued that we need to think in two dimensions, and realize that while autistics and schizophrenia are at opposite extremes on one axis, they are at the same extreme on another.

The dimension on which the two conditions share the same extreme is executive function, a vaguely defined part of intelligence described by Wikipedia as “a set of cognitive processes – including attentional control, inhibitory control, working memory, and cognitive flexibility, as well as reasoning, problem solving, and planning – that are necessary for the cognitive control of behavior: selecting and successfully monitoring behaviors that facilitate the attainment of chosen goals.[1][2][3] ”

Although executive functioning is underrepresented on most IQ tests, it is crucial to how I love to define intelligence: The mental ability to adapt: to take whatever situation you’re in and turn it around to your advantage.

I think combining the executive function spectrum with the nerdiness spectrum better explains autism and schizophrenia than a one dimensional spectrum could. Below is a first draft of the two-dimensional model

low nerdiness normal high nerdiness
high executive functioning Oprah, Bill Clinton, Jesus, the prophet Muhammad typical high achiever Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Albert Einstein
normal Charles Manson average person typical nerd
low executive functioning schizophrenia typical low achiever autism

 

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Converting the new GRE to IQ

28 Monday Nov 2016

Posted by pumpkinperson in Uncategorized

≈ 108 Comments

Commenter “purpletigerbot” asked me to investigate the new GRE.  Here are the means and standard deviations (SDs symbolized as σ) of the verbal and quantitative sections of the people who take this test:

newgredescr

The distribution appears to be fairly Gaussian.

In a normal curve, we expect people who are 2 SDs above and below the mean to be in the top and bottom 2% respectively, and that’s more or less true of new GRE takers, on both Verbal and Quantitative sections:

grepercentiles

Self-selection among new GRE test takers

In order to convert the GRE scales to IQ equivalents, we need to know how self-selected new GRE takers are.   The average GRE IQ of people who took the old GRE was about 114 with an SD of about 15.  We know this because we can compare their verbal GREs with the verbal GREs of the subset of test takers who also took the verbal old SAT,  and the verbal old SAT can be converted to an IQ scale (and then equated to old verbal GRE scores) since special studies have administered it to the general U.S. teenaged population.

In other words, people who took the old GRE were about as smart as the average college grad of that era.  It’s a bit surprising that such a restricted population would have an SD as large as the general U.S. population SD (15 on the IQ scale) but that’s what the data seems to show and it may reflect the diversity of graduate level majors different students pursue, and it also may reflect the fact that some GRE takers go on to get a PhD, while others don’t even finish their undergrad, and took the test on a lark.

If people who took the old GRE were as smart as the average college grad, those who take the new GRE are probably likewise, but because the average college grad has become dumber (compared to all Americans) since the 20th century, their average IQ would now be about 111, though presumably the SD of the GRE takers is still 15.

Converting verbal, Quantitative, and Composite new GRE scores to IQ equivalents

Converting the new verbal GRE to IQ (U.S.) norms is simply a matter of calculating the verbal new GRE Z score with respect to the new GRE population, and then calculating what IQ that Z score equates to in the new GRE population’s IQ distribution:

Verbal IQ (U.S. norms) = [(New verbal GRE score – 150.22)/8.45](15) + 111

And similarly for the new math GRE:

Math IQ (U.S. norms) = [(New Quantitative GRE scores – 152.47)/8.45](15) + 111

To convert the new GRE V + Q composite into IQ, we must determine the mean and SD of the composite in the GRE population.  The mean can be determined simply by adding the mean V and mean Q, which gives 302.69.  To get the SD of the composite, we must know the correlation between these subscales.  Among the subset of people who took the old GRE after also taking the SAT, the correlation was 0.56.  If we assume the correlation is the same for all GRE takers, and also for new GRE takers, then we can apply the following formula to get the SD of new GRE V + Q composite:

formula

r is the correlation between the two tests that make up the composite and σ is the standard deviation of the two tests.

The above formula gives an SD of 15.35 for the new GRE V + Q composite.  Thus:

Composite IQ (U.S. norms) = [(New GRE VQ composite – 302.69)/15.35](15) + 111

 

Ceiling and floor of the combined V + Q new GRE

What the last formula tells us is that a perfect V + Q combined score of 340 on the new GRE equates to an IQ of 147 (U.S. norms) or 146 (U.S. white norms).  If all American young adults took the new GRE (instead of just the educated), we’d expect only one in 1,157 to hit the ceiling on both V and Q and only one in 924 white American young adults to do so.

The formula also tells us that someone who obtained the minimum score of 130 on both V and Q, for a combined score of 260, would have a composite IQ of 69 (U.S. norms) or 65 (U.S. white norms).  If one considers college admission tests to be valid IQ tests, and if the person who obtained such a score was an American born English first language speaker who was motivated to do well, such a low score would indicate Educable (mild) Mental Retardation or a learning disability of some kind.

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Three types of power in America

27 Sunday Nov 2016

Posted by pumpkinperson in Uncategorized

≈ 126 Comments

Commenter JS wrote:

American proles define status with lifestyle only, the more money = the more hedonism = hence the more status. Ivy League Investment bankers party with state college-frat boys. It’s all about the money. Lion is wrong about Proles vs SWPLs.

And about the Ivy League, its graduates don’t care for learning, they want money, no questions asked!

Americans are class unaware. People marry up or marry down, because they want money.

I’ve never found the concept of social class as traditionally defined, particularly useful for describing America, mostly because social class is all about inherited status, old money and sophistication, and America’s greatest heroes are rags to riches success stories and plain spoken people who can relate to the common man.  And although America has less economic mobility than other developed countries, Americans like to see themselves as the land of opportunity, and actively reject the idea of a caste system or monarchy.

One of the reasons Hillary lost the election is people don’t want the Clintons or anyone else to become a political dynasty because that goes against everything America likes to think it stands for.  One of the reasons Trump won is that despite his wealth, he reflected the populism and vulgarity of the common man.

Also, if you look at America’s most successful demographic (Ashkenazi Jews), they came to the United States with very little wealth, and only achieved their current status within the last several decades.

Thus instead of the idea of social class, I’ve repeatedly argued that what best explains the American hierarchy are three types of power: popularity, intellectual influence, and money.  Whoever has the highest Z score on a composite of all three are the “winners” in America. These three types of capital are not mutually exclusive and one type can be exchanged for another type: Giving billions of dollars to charity, as Bill Gates did, decreases his economic capital (money) but increased his political capital (popularity).  Giving speeches to Wall Street, as Hillary did, cost her political capital, but increased her wealth.

Popularity: The ability to win hearts

This type of power is exemplified by sitting U.S. presidents who are virtually always the most worshipped man in America, other high profile politicians, and First Ladies.  Surprisingly, with the exception of Oprah, and sometimes Ellen and Angelina Jolie, celebrities generally don’t show up that much when Americans are asked (without prompting) to name who they most admire.  Also interesting is the fact that blacks are dramatically overrepresented in this type of power, especially after controlling for IQ.  This might be because blacks are genetically better at more charismatic occupations like politics, entertainment and sports, as part of an evolved strategy for getting numerous mates (J.P. Rushton argued blacks evolved to have higher birth rates at the expense of survival rates), or it could be because they carry a certain moral authority because of slavery, or perhaps blacks are promoted to more visible positions as a form of tokenism.  Likely all three factors play a role.

Interestingly, Jews tend to be quite unexceptional on this type of power after controlling for IQ (Bernie Sanders being a notable exception) either because they lack charisma, anti-Semitism, or because the don’t want to be the public face of power, preferring instead a behind the scenes role.

People who are considered proles also can also do extremely well at this type of power (Sarah Palin and perhaps even Trump, being the most obvious examples).

Intellectual influence: The ability to win minds

This type of power is exemplified by columnists for The New York Times, members of Thinktanks who shape government policy, and professors who write policy books that are read by Senators and Presidents.  Ashkenazi Jews are DRAMATICALLY overrepresented in this type of power, even after controlling for IQ.  Despite being 2% of America they are 50% of the most influential pundits.  By contrast blacks are 13% of America, but only 2% of the most influential pundits.  Proles virtually never achieve this type of power.

Money: the ability to win wallets

This type of power is self-explanatory.  The richest people wield incredible power because they can buy politicians, media outlets, and Think Tanks.  Once again, Ashkenazi Jews are dramatically overrepresented , (36% of the 400 richest Americans despite being 2% of America) and blacks have probably never been more than 0.5% of the Forbes 400, despite being 13% of America.  This might be because prehistorically, economic success was all about having the adaptability to acquire enough resources to survive, but according to Rushton’s theory, blacks evolved a strategy where survival rates were sacrificed to increase birth rates. By contrast nerdy guys like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckergberg, who prehistorically would not have got the most mates, evolved because they were so good at surviving that they were the only ones left to mate with.

Of course IQ alone can’t explain the extreme disparity we see in racial wealth; differences in ethnic networking likely also play a part.  It could be that blacks, being the World’s oldest phenotype and lineage, are the most genetically diverse, and thus have the least in-group favouritism (look at all the black on black crime).  By contrast, Ashkenazi Jews, being an extremely new race, are much more genetically homogenous, allowing more in-group altruism.  See ethnic genetic interests.

 

 

 

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More thoughts on the rarity of a 2400 old GRE score

24 Thursday Nov 2016

Posted by pumpkinperson in Uncategorized

≈ 216 Comments

In light of the fact that the most prolific and horrific commenter on this blog (Mugabe, aka chocolate babies)claims to have scored 800 on all three sections of the old GRE, I wanted to explore this test further.  Some people believe him; others are very skeptical.  Some ask why I tolerate him at all.  The reason is I’m a horror fan, and thus have high tolerance for freakish behavior.  The other reason is I LOVE HIS AVATAR!

mugabe

It’s hilariously ironic to have someone with the avatar of a black man expressing such aggressively alt-right opinions, and even though there’s the stereotype of blacks being less smart, the particular black avatar he chose looks fiercely intelligent, and I’ve finally figured out why.  It’s because it looks like a black Ben Stein, who is rumoured to have a freakishly high IQ.

ben

Enough about Mugabe.  Let’s talk about the GRE.

The GRE and the SSS (the super self-selected)

During the late 20th century, Americans who took the SAT, were self-selected to have an above average IQ (108; U.S. norms),  but those who were academically ambitious and confident enough to take both the SAT, and then several years later, the GRE, appear to have been far more self-selected for IQ than I could have ever imagined.  Indeed based on their verbal SAT distribution (see image below), they had a mean IQ of 120 and an SD of 14, compared to the general U.S. distribution with a mean of 100 and an SD of 15. I will refer to this group as the super self-selected (SSS).

gredata

Perfect verbal score on old GRE = IQ 158 (U.S. norms); IQ 157 (U.S. white norms)

Now among the SSS, the GRE verbal (circa 1990) had a mean and SD of 510.1 and 107.7 respectively (see image above), so assuming a normal curve, only one in 261 of these highly self-selected people would score a perfect 800 (a Z score of 2.69 with respect to the SSS).  But because the SSS has a mean IQ of 120 and an SD of 14, a Z score of 2.69 equates to an IQ of 2.69(14) + 120 = 158 (U.S. norms)

Perfect verbal score AND perfect quantitative score on old GRE = IQ 162 (U.S. norms); IQ 161 (U.S. white norms)

Now of those one in 261 SSS who scored 800 on the GRE Verbal (Z = 2.69), how many would score 800 again  on the GRE Quantitative?  Well, given a 0.56 correlation between GRE V and GRE Q in this population, the expected Q score of someone with a Z score of 2.69 on V, would of course be 0.56(2.69) = 1.51 (standard error = 0.83).

Given that the GRE Q has a mean and SD of 573.4 and 125.6 respectively in this  population, a score of 800 has a Z score of 1.8, which is 0.35 standard errors higher than the expected Q score of an 800 V, which means that only one in 2.71 of them should repeat their 800 on the Q section.  Since scoring 800 on V is already a one in 261 performance (in the SSS), getting another 800 on Q becomes a one in 261(2.71) = 707 performance.

Assuming a normal curve, one in 707 is an incredible three standard deviations above average, but because the SSS has a mean IQ of 120 and an SD of 14, it equates to an IQ of 3(14) + 120 = 162 (U.S. norms)

Perfect score on ALL THREE SECTIONS of the old GRE = IQ 164 (U.S. norms); IQ 165 (U.S. white norms)

Now of the one in 707 SSS who scored 800 on both GRE V and GRE Q, how many did it yet again on the analytical section?  Given that the correlation, in the SSS, between GRE V and GRE A is 0.65, and the correlation between GRE Q and GRE A is 0.73, and the correlation between GRE V and GRE Q is 0.56, the following multiple regression equation can be derived:

Expected Z on GRE A = 0.53(Z on GRE Q) + 0.35(Z on GRE V)

Applying this formula to someone with a perfect V (Z = 2.69) and a perfect Q (Z = 1.8), gives:

Expected Z on GRE A = 0.53(1.8) + 0.35(2.69)

Expected Z on GRE A = 0.954 + 0.942

Expected Z on GRE A = 1.9 (standard error = 0.62)

Now in the SSS, the GRE A has a mean of 579.7 and an SD of 117.6, so a score of 800 has a Z score of 1.87, which is 0.05 Standard errors below the expected score of someone who scored 800 on V and Q.  What this means is that of the one in 707 SSS who scored perfect on BOTH V and Q, one in 1.9 would also score perfect on A.

Thus, those who achieve the perfect trifecta have a rarity of one in 707(1.9) = 1,343, within an already highly filtered group.  In a normal curve, one in 1,343 is 3.17 standard deviations above the mean, but because the SSS has a mean IQ of 120 and SD of 14, it equates to:

IQ = 3.17(14) + 120

IQ = 44 + 120

IQ = 164 (U.S. norms)

In theory, if all American young adults in the late 20th century had taken the GRE, only about one in 100,000 should have scored perfect on all three sections, and only about one in 136,000 white American young adults should have done so.

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Converting the old GRE to IQ

23 Wednesday Nov 2016

Posted by pumpkinperson in Uncategorized

≈ 48 Comments

Commenter Mugabe (aka chocolate babies?) has claimed to have scored a perfect 800 on all three sections of the old GRE.  Some commenters, such as “Deal with it!” believe him, others are deeply skeptical.

In one study, the quantitative GRE correlated 0.71 with WAIS-R full-scale IQ, though the sample was small and restricted.

wais

So the question becomes, if the GRE is considered equivalent to an IQ test, what IQ did a perfect 2400 GRE equate to?

For decades people have been given GRE subscale scores (verbal, math, analytical) and the percentiles that go with them, but had no idea how to interpret their COMBINED GRE scores.  In order to interpret any standardized test score, the first thing you want to know is the Z score, and in order to know the Z score, you must know the mean and the Standard Deviation (SD).  According to one source, the means and SDs (in parentheses)  for 1.1 million people taking the GRE from 1994 to 1997 were 474 (114) for the verbal, 558 (139) for the Quantitative, and 547 (130) for the analytical.

However knowing your Z score tells you little, if you don’t know anything about the population from which your Z score was derived.  A low Z score from brilliant population could be more impressive than a high Z score from a low IQ population.  Thus instead of using the data on 1.1 million GRE takers of unknown intelligence, I am going to use GRE data from a smaller sample of GRE takers with known SAT scores:

gredata

The above table was poorly formatted, but what it shows is that in a sample of people who took both the GRE and the SAT (circa 1990), the mean GRE verbal was 510.1 (SD = 107.7), GRE Quantitative was 573.4 (SD = 125.6) and the GRE analytical was 579.7 (SD = 117.6).  Moreover, in this sample, the correlation between V & Q scores was 0.56, V & A scores 0.65, and Q & A scores 0.73.

Armed with these means, SDs, and correlations, we can estimate the mean and SD of the COMBINED GRE score (V + Q + A)

According to commenter Mugabe:

var(X+Y+Z) = var(X) + var(Y) + var(Z)+2*(sigma(X)sigma(Y)rho(X,Y) + sigma(X)sigma(Z)rho(X,Z) + sigma(Y)sigma(Z)rho(Y,Z))

Mugabe advises us not to use this formula because the math subscale has a low ceiling, but let’s be rebellious and use it anyway, substituting V, Q, and A for generic X, Y, and Z(note variance equals squared standard deviation):

var(V+Q+A) = var(V) + var(Q) + var(A)+2*(sigma(V)sigma(Q)rho(V,Q) + sigma(V)sigma(A)rho(V,A) + sigma(Q)sigma(A)rho(Q,A))

var(V+Q+A) = 11,599.29 + 15,775.36 + 13,829.76 + 2*(107.7)(125.6)(0.56) + (107.7)(117.6)(0.65) + (125.6)(117.6)(0.73)

var(V+Q+A) = 41,204.41 + 15,150.37 + 8,232.59 + 10,782.51

var(V+Q+A) = 75,369.88

Taking the square root of the variance, tells us that the SD of the combined composite (in our sample) should be 274.53, and of course the mean of the composite is simply a matter summing the sample’s mean on each of the three sub-scales (1,663.2).

Thus Mugabe claims to have scored 2.68 SD above our sample GRE takers.

But in order to assign that an IQ, we need to know how talented the sample was.  Their pre-1995 verbal SATs have a mean of 518 and an SD of 104.7 (which on the IQ scale equates to a mean of 120 (SD 14.14)(U.S. norms)).  If we assume they were as self-selected for combined GRE talent as they were SAT verbal talent, then being 2.68 SD above them on the combined GRE equates to an IQ of:

2.68(14.14) + 120 = 158 (U.S. norms) or 157 (U.S. white norms)

However because of ceiling bumping, this is a very conservative estimate, but the g loading of the GRE, especially at high levels, has not been well researched, and some researchers question the validity of g as a measure of intelligence (but that’s a whole other post).

 

 

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The alt-right celebrates Trump victory

22 Tuesday Nov 2016

Posted by pumpkinperson in Uncategorized

≈ 163 Comments

In light of white nationalist Richard Spencer holding a meeting in Washington on Saturday to celebrate Trump’s victory, the media has been talking a lot about the alt-right.  I could not believe that mainstream media like CNN were giving them so much attention, but perhaps they see it as a way of undermining Trump through guilt by association.

I was sad that such a major white nationalist meeting could have occurred in Washington in 2016, but as a serious amateur journalist, I knew it was my responsibility to cover it, so I listened to the event on youtube as I lay down on the pillow to sleep.

I had previously written a blog post fearing Richard Spencer could one day run for President, and perhaps with the election of Trump, he now feels emboldened to play a larger role in public life. Spencer is very  articulate and polished in interviews, but aside from a few terrifying applause lines (referring to the mainstream media as the Lügenpresse and yelling “hail Trump” ) his speech dragged on a bit.

The big star of this disturbing event was Kevin MacDonald who some describe as the intellectual Godfather of the alt-right.

 

In a very provocative speech, MacDonald expressed hope that Trump could be a hero to his white people, but fears that Trump’s administration is being hijacked by Zionists that will pursue Israel’s interests at the expense of America’s and worried that pro-Israel elites have brainwashed too many Christians into becoming Christian Zionists.

It’s a bit of misnomer to call these people the “alt-right”.  They’re certainly far right on cultural issues , but on foreign policy they’re just incredibly anti-neocon.  Spencer for example is a huge critic of the Iraq war, opposes support for Israel, and even supports the Iran nuclear deal, though all of this takes a back-seat to being anti-immigration, which is their number one issue.

And although some of the rhetoric at the event sounded disturbingly anti-Semitic to me, I felt so much better when I learned that some Jews were there, such as twitter star “the reactionary Jew”.  Although the alt-right has criticised Jews for pushing immigration on Western countries while supporting extreme nationalism in Israel, the reactionary Jew feels that all peoples have the right to be as nationalist as Israel is.

The real takeaway from all this is that Trump is the first internet President.  For all the talk that Obama used social media to get elected, his 2008 victory was really the result of support from traditional media (Oprah in the Democratic primary, the cable pundits and print media in the general election).

By contrast, Trump was incredibly opposed by the traditional media in the general election, but the power of his internet support completely overwhelmed them.

We are living in scary times.

Such scary times that Peter Beinart has a provocative article in The Atlantic arguing that Trump’s presidency is so dangerous, the electors should use their constitutional power to overturn it.

 

 

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Simple formula for converting 1970 to 1994 SAT into IQ equivalents

21 Monday Nov 2016

Posted by pumpkinperson in Uncategorized

≈ 26 Comments

[NOTE: Pumpkin Person does not endorse the SAT (old or new), as a great measure of IQ, BUT, if one wants to express their old SATs on the IQ scale, here are simple ways of doing so]

I have previously cited a rare study showing that if all American young adults (in the early 1970s) had taken the old SAT (pre-1995), not just the college bound elite, the mean verbal score would have been 368 with an SD of 111, and the mean math score would have been 402 (SD = 112).

satnorms

Thus converting old SAT verbal and math scores into IQ equivalents (U.S. norms) was simply a matter of converting them to Z scores, then multiplying by 15 and adding 100.

So,

formula 1:

verbal IQ (U.S. norms) = [(verbal SAT – 368)/111][15] + 100

formula 2:

math IQ (U.S. norms) = [(math SAT – 402)/112][15] + 100

Now what happens if you want to convert the composite old SAT score (verbal + math) to IQ.  Well we know the mean score if all Americans had taken the test would have been about 770 (the mean verbal + the mean math), but we don’t know the standard deviation.

On page 779 of the book The Bell Curve by Herrnstein and Murray, they cite the formula for calculating the standard deviation of a composite score.

formula

r is the correlation between the two tests that make up the composite and σ is the standard deviation of the two tests.

Herrnstein and Murray also claim that for the entire SAT population, the correlation between SAT verbal and SAT math is 0.67.  Of course we’re interested in the correlation if ALL American young adults had taken the old SAT, not just the SAT population.  If they had, it’s possible the correlation would have been higher than 0.67 given less range restriction in the general population compared to the college bound population.  On the other hand, the college bound population had studied verbal and math skills more diligently during high school, thus perhaps inflating the correlation.  Assuming these two factors cancel out, and the correlation was probably the same for the college bound population as for the general population, then applying the above formula gives a general population combined standard deviation of 203.77.

So,

formula 3:

full-scale IQ (U.S. norms) = [(combined SAT) – 770)/203.77][15] + 100

This formula appears to give fairly good results, at least up to the mid 1550s.  For example, scholar Ron Hoeflin claimed that out of a bit over 5,000,000 high-school seniors who took the SAT from 1984 through 1988, only 1,282 had combined scores of 1540+.

Hoeflin has argued that even though only a third of U.S. teens took the SAT,  virtually 100% of teens capable of scoring extremely high on the SAT, did so, and whatever shortfall there might be was negated by bright foreign test-takers.

  Thus, a score of 1540+ is not merely the 1,282 best among 5 million SAT takers, but among ALL fifteen million Americans who were 17 years-old anytime from 1984 through 1988.  In other words, 1540 was a one in 11,700 score, which on the normal curve, equates to an IQ of 157 (sigma 15).

Using formula 3, 1540 also equates to exactly IQ 157.

However above 1560, the formula seems to yield IQs that are too low, given their actual rarity.  This is because people who scored above 1560 typically hit the ceiling on the math section and approach the ceiling on the verbal, so people capable of scoring well above 1600 if the test had more hard items, tend to cluster in the high 1500s.

 

 

 

 

 

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Chris Matthews is the best host on cable news

19 Saturday Nov 2016

Posted by pumpkinperson in Uncategorized

≈ 74 Comments

I love Chris Matthews.  He’s  very smart, quick on his feet, aggressive, non-ideological, and passionate about U.S. politics.  He’s also a fantastic interviewer. Unlike other hosts on both the left and the right, who are just trying to push an agenda, Matthews has a genuine love for the ART of politics.  He covers politics the way an obsessive sports fan would cover baseball.  He just loves the game, and keeping score, and it’s a beautiful thing to see.

 

And to his credit, he was one of the few U.S. talking heads with the judgement and integrity to oppose the Iraq war before it began, and he opposed it right from the VERY moment it became a serious idea, yet unlike most white liberals, he’s not preachy and self-righteous.  He comes from a family of Republicans so he’s open-minded enough to see both sides.

The U.S. media is so completely controlled, and the range of acceptable debate is so narrow, that there are so few cable news shows worth watching at all, but within the narrow confines of that controlled debate, Matthews does an excellent job educating his audience and making politics fun.  If MSNBC were smart they’d give him a better time slot.

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Revenge of the “Retarded”

19 Saturday Nov 2016

Posted by pumpkinperson in Uncategorized

≈ 60 Comments

trump__3511154b

Ever since Trump won the election, I’ve heard so many weeping liberals say “I can’t believe this has happened”, and “It’s like a nightmare”, or “it’s like a horror movie”.

Like a horror movie, I thought.  Let’s explore that.  If Trump’s Presidency were a horror film, liberal elites might mockingly refer to it as “Revenge of the Retarded”.

I say that not to diminish Trump, who actually showed a special kind of Genius in outsmarting Ivy League liberal elites like Hillary, Obama, pollsters, pundits, and talking heads, but whether by accident or design, the persona, rhetoric, and speech patterns he displayed on the campaign trail, came across as retarded, as did so many of his followers in the eyes of the heartless elites.

Indeed a commenter who sometimes goes by the name William said that based on education level, he estimated the average Trump supporter has an IQ of 90.  I’m not sure how he arrived at that figure but I agree with it, if we define Trump supporters as the core of his base (those who supported him in the Republican primary and remained with him in the general election).

As Steve Sailer reported back in January, not only is the core of Trump’s base poor, but only 20% have a college degree, compared to 40% for all working age American adults.  That suggests Trump’s appeal selects people who are 0.87 standard deviations less educated than the average American.  If we assume his appeal also selected people who are 0.87 standard deviations less intelligent than the average American, then you’re looking at a mean IQ of 91 (U.S. norms), 88 (U.S. white norms).  But IQ tests are normed for age, and Trump’s base was generally older, and older people are less intelligent, both because of the biological component of the Flynn effect and because intelligence declines after age 25, so in absolute intelligence, Trump’s base is even duller than their IQs would show.

For decades, scholar Charles Murray has been warning us about the cognitive underclass, and the increasingly dysfunctional white cognitive underclass, simply can not adapt to globalism and our increasingly high-tech economy.  They worked loyaly for auto companies, but the CEOS say “you’re stupid, FUCK OFF!.  Any dumb Mexican can do your job for a fraction of the pay so we’re making our cars down there.  BEAT IT!”

One could define intelligence as the mental ability for intentionally useful behavior,  and below IQ 90, people are pretty much useless in a modern industrialized economy so they’re being kicked to the curb like yesterday’s trash.  What some have called, the genetic garbage of society.

Entire towns voting Trump

Entire towns have been devastated by plants closing down, and everyone with a triple digit IQ moves out, leaving only the dullest and least desirable to remain and interbreed.  I’m reminded of the 2006 film The Texas Chainsaw Massacre-The Beginning.  As I’ve explained before, in that film, a small Texas town is devastated when the local meat plant is condemned and everyone with an IQ above 70 leaves the town, leaving only Leatherface and his family.

Texas Town dies, screams the headline of the local paper.

Leatherface is a Trainable (moderately) Retarded man (I estimate his IQ to be in the 40s), whose only talent is violently cutting meat.  If you watch the terrifying start of the film, you’ll see that Leatherface is in denial that the meat plant he works at has closed.  He keeps violently chopping meat, long after the other employees go home.

“Tell that oversized retard to go home” screams management at his assistant.  The assistant nervously and gently tries to convince Leatherface it’s time to leave.  When Leatherface ignores him, he panics and calls Leatherface a dumb animal. Big mistake!

After Leatherface kills the assistant, he goes up to management’s office.  Management informs Leatherface that him and his family are the only ones stupid enough to still be in this town. Big mistake!

With the economy completely devastated, and everyone in the town gone, the only way Leatherface and his family can survive is by eating anyone who drives through.

Leatherface and his entire family (the only residents of the town) would have all voted Trump.

leatherface-the-texas-chain-saw-massacre

Texas Chainsaw was just a movie, but in real life Texas, life imitates art.  ABC eyewitness news reports:

Roberts County, in the panhandle, a population of less than 1,000, 95.3% of whom cast their ballots for Donald Trump

Blogger Robert Lindsay writes:

People on the Net are telling stories about towns and cities in the Rust Belt where the plants closed up and went to Mexico and threw thousands out of work. One woman said the plant closed in her Ohio town and 2,000 people were thrown out of work. She said the whole town voted for Trump. Another man spoke of some very real poverty now afflicting parts of rural America, maybe especially in the Rust Belt. He said almost all of these towns have homeless people now, homeless Whites. And they never had that before. Many of the homeless are families with children. One town stopped giving out homework assignments because 20% of the students were homeless. This is an all-White school in an all-White town.

In other words, there is mass homelessness in White rural America now.

It’s as clear as air that neither Obama nor Hitlery nor any Democrat gives 1% of a flying fuck about these people.

Lower class white America has been spit on, and pissed on, for far too long, and they’re taking their revenge.

Michael Moore

Moore gave the single greatest political speech of the 2010s

 

No one summed this up better than Michael Moore, who comes from the Rust Belt, yet was blessed with enough IQ to escape and articulate what they can not:

Whether Trump means it or not is kind of irrelevant, because he’s saying the things to people who are hurting. And it’s why every beaten-down, nameless, forgotten working stiff who used to be part of what was called the middle class loves Trump.

He is the human Molotov cocktail that they’ve been waiting for, the human hand grenade that they can legally throw into the system that stole their lives from them.

And on November 8th, Election Day, although they’ve lost their jobs, although they’ve been foreclosed on by the bank—next came the divorce, and now the wife and kids are gone, the car has been repoed, they haven’t had a real vacation in years, they’re stuck with the shitty Obamacare Bronze Plan, where you can’t even get a FUCKING Percocet—they’ve essentially lost everything they had—except one thing, the one thing that doesn’t cost them a cent and is guaranteed to them by the American Constitution: the right to vote. They might be penniless, they might be homeless, they might be FUCKED-over and FUCKED-up.

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brent-moffatt
retarded

 It doesn’t matter, because it’s equalized on that day. A millionaire has the same number of votes as the person without a job: one. And there’s more of the former middle class than there are in the millionaire class.

So, on November 8th, the dispossessed will walk into the voting booth, be handed a ballot, close the curtain and take that lever, or felt pen or touchscreen, and put a big FUCKING X in the box by the name of the man who has threatened to upend and overturn the very system that has ruined their lives: Donald J. Trump.

They see that the elites who ruined their lives hate Trump. Corporate America hates Trump. Wall Street hates Trump. The career politicians hate Trump. The media hates Trump—after they loved him and created him, and now hate him. Thank you, media. The enemy of my enemy is who I’m voting for on November 8th. Yes, on November 8th, you, Joe Blow, Steve Blow, Bob Blow, Billy Blow, Billy Bob Blow—all the Blows get to go and blow up the whole goddamn system, because it’s your right. Trump’s election is going to be the biggest “FUCK you” ever recorded in human history.

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Megyn Kelly opens up about Donald Trump

17 Thursday Nov 2016

Posted by pumpkinperson in Uncategorized

≈ 104 Comments

Just watched Megyn Kelly being interviewed by Anderson Cooper on CNN, and she’s a very impressive woman, physically, cognitively, and emotionally.

I’ve long had respect for her because she’s one of the few “conservatives” to have opposed the Iraq war before it began, but I also have to admire the courage she’s showing in writing about Trump in her new book.  You would think after the attack Trump unleashed on her when he was just a candidate for the Republican nomination, she’d be terrified of him.  At the time she claims Trump unleashed his army of twitter followers on her, but pretty soon, he’ll have the full power of the Presidency, an institution that has become increasingly powerful in recent years.

On the other hand, standing up to Trump will make Megyn a hero to the millions of Americans who are devastated by him wining the Presidency and could send her book sales through the roof.

 

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