Commenter Neandercel said the following about the -0.08 correlation between IQ and weight/height ratio:
PP, please come to the southern US for a month.
-0.08 seems unbelievably low to me. I wonder whether the correlation would have been stronger had waist:height ratio (or some combined index of waist:height ratio and waist:hip ratio) been used as a proxy for corpulence in place of BMI.
Given that I derived my -0.08 figure from a study with over 6000 people, I’m pretty confident in it and that confident is affirmed by data from Kanazawa (2013) (bottom of page 438) who also used massive samples to show the correlation between IQ and BMI in adulthood ranged from -0.096 to -0.124.
In other words, a correlation of about -0.1 is well replicated, at least in the UK.
However there is reason to think these correlations are underestimates. The -0.08 figure I calculated came from a study which used the NART as a proxy for IQ however the NART only correlates 0.69 with the gold standard WAIS-IV. To crudely correct for this, let’s divide -0.08 by 0.69, strengthens the correlation to -0.12.
The other problem is BMI data is self-reported and people lie about their height and weight. In one study, the Pearson correlation between self-reported and objectively measured BMI was 0.75. Correcting for this further strengthens the correlation to -0.16.
Pumpkin Person 
Yea Mann et al (2007) have citations on self-reported weight and conclude that self-reported weight is unreliable.
peepee deleted my comment saying the same thing…
the correlation varies by time and place.
in shithole countries the fat pipo are richer and therefore higher mean IQ score.
so let’s talk about mugabe’s prejudice.
mugabe’s prejudice is that morbidly obese people are stupid and that scrawny people are stupid and that short people are stupid and…
tall people with an athletic body are the smartest. but not too tall.
and gorilla juiceheads are stupid.
when i see a guy who looks like he spends all his time lifitng weights i think, “what a moron.”
the ONLY reason to expect the correlation to be the same everywhere is if you still don’t unnuhstan that…
CORRELATION != CAUSATION
I never said it was causal or that it should be the same everywhere. Why do you always over-interpret people?
an irishman says:
here is taubes:
there are carbs and there are carbs. if the carbs are coming from broccoli vs from bananas for example. from tomatoes vs coke.
the only people who have “refuted” him are dumb people.
One doesn’t have to be well rounded to score high on the SAT since it basically just tests 2 of the 11 original WAIS subtests: vocabulary & Arithmetic.
One does have to be well-round to score high on the actual WAIS though but only because ceiling bumping prevents lop-sided geniuses from scoring high enough on their talents to compensate for their weaknesses.
i agree the SAT isnt as holistic as the WAIS but the point i would like to make is it cant simply be reduced to just two categories of subtests because the SAT factors in other subtests with a lesser emphasis but still with a strong presence in any regard!
for example the vocab portion of the SAT can factor in similarities through asking for words that would make a complete sentence in a very specific fashion. or information because to apply the right word would mean a coherent understanding of the other portions of the sentence.
obviously this can be extended to anything that is considered a legitimate form of intellectual interpretation but i think it sticks well for the SAT to not reduce it just two terms of vocab and arithmetic its a bit more than that even if its not a considerable amount more than that!
Good points. I recently took the old SAT and thought it was a very good test, though I found the math section biased against people who didn’t study math in high school.
the dumb people “refute” him by thinking they understand what he’s saying (when they don’t) and refuting their own misunderstanding (=strawman).
Conclusions: Alcohol consumption reduces the incidence of T2D, however, binge drinking seems to increase the incidence. Acute intake of alcohol does not increase risk of hypoglycemia in diet treated subjects with T2D, only when sulphonylurea is co-administered. Long-term alcohol use seems to be associated with improved glycemic control in T2D probably due to improved insulin sensitivity.
this is because EtOH has a glycemic load and insulin index of 0. yet has calories.
in other words, EtOH is good for you until it isn’t. and each person has to find that point for himself…it varies.
and its ill effects are specific to it.
for pill, another gay man tells it like it is:
EtOH’s effects vary by gender, age, body size, physical activity level, and genetics.
i recommend rr go on the all alcohol diet (+vitamins) for a week and see what happens.
mugabe’s theory is: given some +’s in the above variables it is possible to consume half a cup of pure EtOH per day with no measurable ill effects.
social norms are always changing. what was once acceptable is not acceptable anymore and what was once unacceptable has been accepted.
being able to adapt to new social norms or un-program previous ones that are obsolete is a trait of adaptation probably the most complex one we humans come across.
for this very reason i think if Pumpkin is to keep at the notion that adaptation as an ability is intelligence he needs to keep this in mind and say that social methods of adaptation we have are the best proxies for what adaptation may be at a human level!
Hi PP,
I don’t question the validity of the/your conclusion given the data, but only whether BMI is the best proxy for corpulence. It seems to me that waist to height ratio has a few advantages over BMI.
1. It’s a dimensionless quantity
2. It closely matches our common sense idea of fatness
3. It reduces to two simple measurements with minimal room for error in each case
4. It doesn’t ‘unfairly’ penalize the muscular or reward the exceptionally tall (isn’t biased against men)
5. It’s an appropriate measure for men and women both young and old
I agree waist to height ratio is a better measure of corpulence but it’s a poor proxy for muscle mass
Definitely.
I assumed that you wanted to determine the correlation between intelligence and corpulence rather than the correlation between intelligence and ‘weightiness’. My disagreement was premised on a misunderstanding.
It would be interesting to know the correlation between corpulence and intelligence. I don’t think it’s entirely coincidental that as the US has gotten dumber, it has also gotten fatter.