Circa 2013, Jonathan Wai reported that Harvard undergrads had a mean SAT of 1490 which at the time equated to an IQ of 145. Meanwhile Wai reported that Harvard Law students had a mean LSAT score of 173.5 which also equates to an IQ of 145.
However by definition, elite students over perform on the very test used to recruit them, because one of the things they’re recruited for is “good luck” on the admission test. Thus it’s interesting to ask how Harvard students perform on a random test (not used in the selection process)
As I’ve noted many times the best data on the subject was obtained by Harvard scholar Shelley H Carson and her colleagues who had an abbreviated version of the WAIS-R given to 86 “Harvard undergraduates (33 men, 53 women), with a mean age of 20.7 years (SD 3.3)… All were recruited from sign-up sheets posted on campus. Participants were paid an hourly rate…The mean IQ of the sample was 128.1 points (SD 10.3), with a range of 97 to 148 points.”
Note: The actual scores were 99 to 150 but Carson reduced them by 2 points because it’s known in the literature that the abbreviated version yields IQs 2 points lower than the full-scale IQ. However she can’t just assume measurement error favours the full-scale, so I am going to return these 2 points and say the full-scale IQ was 130.1.
It should be noted however that the WAIS-R was published in 1981, and that the norms were collected from 1976 to 1980. Carson’s study was published in 2003, so presumably the test norms were 25 years old.
James Flynn cites data showing that from WAIS-R norms (circa 1978) to WAIS-IV norms (circa 2006) the vocabulary and spatial construction subtest (used in the abbreviated WAIS-R) increased by 0.53 SD and 0.33 SD respectively. These gains would result in the composite score of the abbreviated WAIS-R becoming obsolete at a rate of 0.26 IQ points per year, meaning the Harvard students’ scores circa 2003 were 6.5 points too high. This reduces the mean IQ of the sample to 122.6 (U.S. norms).
Also recall that this was an abbreviated version of the WAIS-R and thus only correlates about 0.9 with the full version. Dividing the number of IQ points above 100 by 0.9 raises their IQ from 122.6 to 125, a good estimate of how they would have scored on the full test.
It should also noted that this was a psychology study, and thus a disproportionate number of psych students likely took part. Realistically, us psych majors are not as bright (on average) as harcore STEM majors. Add to this the fact that the abbreviated WAIS only had a ceiling of 150, likely preventing some participants from showing their full potential. Given these two facts it seems reasonable to round up the mean score to 130.
Still, 130 is only 66% as extreme as their 145 IQs derived from the SAT. But as Jensen noted, except when content and format is very similar, different IQ tests only correlate 0.66 with one another so this is the expected result. One might ask why I’m regressing to the U.S. mean and not the mean of SAT takers. The answer is that virtually 100% of gifted American teens have taken the SAT, so regressing them to the SAT population would be redundant.
How would Harvard Law students scores on the WAIS?
To my knowledge there have been no studies of Harvard Law students taking any version of the WAIS, but if there were, I’d expect them to also regress to the mean . However unlike the SAT, we can’t assume that virtually all smart young American adults have taken the LSAT and thus we can’t regress them to the U.S. mean. We can however assume that virtually all Harvard Law students become get their degree, and the average IQ of Americans with professional degrees is about 125 so instead of regressing to the U.S. mean of 100, they’d regress to the professional mean of 125.
But given that correlations are lower in a restricted sample like professionals (say 0.56 instead of 0.66) we’d expect their WAIS IQs to be:
145 – 125 = 20(.55) + 125 = 136.
Conclusion
Even though Harvard undergrads and Harvard Law students both score IQ 145 on their respective admission tests, their actual IQs are likely 130 and 136 respectively. This is not to say that the WAIS is necessarily more accurate than the SAT or LSAT; rather it’s to say that the IQ of a group should never be measured by the very test that selected them, because by definition, they likely overperformed on that.
Pumpkin Person 
did you read what i wrote over [redacted by PP so Mug of Pee doesn’t harass there, 2022-11-13] Pumpkin? i think that finding a job so difficult in this market especially ones that dont involve sales. (i have a finance degree from a solid business school despite what Mug says)
i have never said anything about you LOADED.
you need to see a psychiatrist.
your mother happened to say a lot about me though Mug. did she ever tell you?
“The actual scores were 99 to 150 but Carson reduced them by 2 points because it’s known in the literature that the abbreviated version yields IQs 2 points lower than the full-scale IQ. However she can’t just assume measurement error favours the full-scale, so I am going to return these 2 points and say the full-scale IQ was 130.1. However she can’t just assume measurement error favours the full-scale, so I am going to return these 2 points and say the full-scale IQ was 130.1.”
“Also recall that this was an abbreviated version of the WAIS-R and thus only correlates about 0.9 with the full version. Dividing the number of IQ points above 100 by 0.9 raises their IQ from 122.6 to 125, a good estimate of how they would have scored on the full test.”
So first you ignore what’s known about the differences in average scores between the two tests, then you get the same result anyway through obscure reasoning?
Normally when something isn’t perfectly correlated with something else, one’s score would tend to regress towards the mean on the other thing. In other words, normally you would multiply by 0.9, not divide. Explanation?
Any data on what HLS students scored on the SAT/ACTs as undergrads, since that wouldn’t be a test on which they were selected to HLS on?
And presumably the WAIS-R gives scores 2 points higher rather than lower than the normal test, otherwise why would she reduce the score by 2?
PP do you love me are you ridin’…..MeLo do you know the lyrics to this song? (obviously a parody but whatever)
Normally when something isn’t perfectly correlated with something else, one’s score would tend to regress towards the mean on the other thing. In other words, normally you would multiply by 0.9, not divide. Explanation?
When we are predicting Y from people who are SELECTED to be high on X, we multiply the correlation. In this case people are selected based on high SAT and people with high SAT regress to the mean on the full WAIS and regress even further on abbreviated WAIS (because abbreviations correlate less with everything). Since we already know how they score on abbreviated WAIS, we can reverse engineer their full WAIS score (dividing is reverse multiplying)
Any data on what HLS students scored on the SAT/ACTs as undergrads, since that wouldn’t be a test on which they were selected to HLS on?
That would be very interesting.
I see.
About those 2 IQ points though, did she really assume something if it’s known in the literature?
“it’s known in the literature that the abbreviated version yields IQs 2 points lower than the full-scale IQ. However she can’t just assume measurement error favours the full-scale”
It’s known in the literature that people on average score 2 points higher on the abbreviated version than on the full version. She’s assuming this means the abbreviated version is 2 points too high. But it could mean the full version is 2 points too high.
I see.
I guess the abbreviated WAIS is not just a subset of the full WAIS then, since in that case they would not need different norms.
The abbreviated version is indeed just a subset of the WAIS, but for whatever reason, the sample used to norm the WAIS did better on the test as a whole than on the 2 subtests used in the abbreviation, relative to people who have since taken the WAIS. But we can’t necessarily infer from that they underperformed on those 2 subtests making the abbreviation 2 points too generous. Maybe they overperformed on the rest of the test. I agree error is more likely on the composite of just 2 subtests than on the composite of all 11, but I’m not sure that justifies changing the norms of the short form.
Mug is so annoying and relentless with his writings. i am glad you redacted what you did Pumpkin i was thinking about how all the good spots on the Internet have not been ravaged by him and his followers as well as the fellow white supremacists.
my followers?
so you are schizo. sad.
wow peepee has no idea what correlation means. sad.
she thinks people who score high on the SAT AND get into harvard are dumber than people who score high on the SAT AND don’t get into harvard…what an utter retard!
she thinks people who score high on the SAT AND get into harvard are dumber than people who score high on the SAT AND don’t get into harvard…what an utter retard!
Your robotic AI mind is not subtle enough to grasp these concepts.
It has nothing to do with going or not going to Harvard.
your mother is my slave Mug. what do you think of that?
speaking of which i wonder how great humanity wouldve been if white people were kept as slaves. with all this talk about tech progress and stuff from Lurker and his denial that whites exploited other races he should look in the mirror and ask….what if the Jews or the blacks or the Pakistanis or whatever race he is most paranoid of actually decided to enslave me and then just used me for my intelligence?
would make his very fragile head explode!
I already mentioned how low IQ use high IQ people for their intelligence like a month or two ago, in response to PP’s claim that higher IQ races exploit lower IQ ones. So what? You just got the idea from me or someone else.
Also, you whiny retard, I never said whites never exploited other races, but that it is not nearly as one-sided as a lot of media makes it, and that people in general were savage at different points in time, and that whites were not at all out of the ordinary in savagery, but seem to be out of the ordinary in overcoming savagery. But I respect a lot of cultures either way for their positives. My point is that whites were not especially exploitative nor do they owe anything (as a group), many others WOULD and HAVE done similar things to whites. What part can’t you get you midget?
Do you expect whites to apologize to random commenters like CNN or Black Panther says? You are braindead.
that’s because it doesn’t have anything to do with anything and you’re retarded.
the correlation is 0.9 between SAT and WAIS peepee-tard, NOT 0.5. UNLESS spearman’s law.
but muh selection, i’m tarded.
what you think you understand, you DON’T, because tarded.
cue peeepee trying to explain something she thinks she understands but doesn’t because tarded.
the correlation is 0.9 between SAT and WAIS peepee-tard, NOT 0.5. UNLESS spearman’s law.
Dear God you’re an idiot. The true correlation is nowhere near 0.9. I never said 0.5 but I did say 0.66 or roughly 0.7 if you round up. There are virtually no studies correlating the SAT with the full WAIS but there have been 5 studies correlating the full ACT (very similar to the SAT) with the full WAIS and these have ranged from 0.56 to 0.87, with a mean of 0.74. In other words, roughly 0.7.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0887617703000921#:~:text=The%20WAIS%20Similarities%20score%20correlated,with%20the%20SAT%20Quantitative%20score.
Of course all these studies are based on college students (probably all within the same college). The correlation would likely be lower in a more educationally diverse sample where preparation levels were more uneven.
in SDs 122.5 vs 145 is correlation of 0.5.
apologize for your low IQ immediately!
also peepee has no memory and still doesn’t unnuhstan what correlation means.
1-s2.0-S0160289608000603-gr1.jpg
the only explanation is spearman’s law.
in SDs 122.5 vs 145 is correlation of 0.5.
Did you miss the rest of the article where I gave all the reasons why the 122.5 should not be taken at face value and their actual WAIS IQ was 130? In SD units 130 vs 145 is almost 0.7 correlation.
apologize for your low IQ immediately!
Apologize for your impaired reading comprehension and rock bottom verbal SAT immediately.
the only explanation is spearman’s law
That’s a mirage.
This research examined the predictive validity of the SAT (formerly, the Scholastic Aptitude Test) for high and low ability groups. SAT scores and college GPAs were obtained from the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Subjects were classified as high or low ability by g factor scores from the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery. SAT correlations with GPA were higher for high than low ability subjects. SAT g loadings (i.e., SAT correlations with g) were equivalent for both groups. This is the first study to show that the predictive validity of the SAT varies for ability groups that differ in g. The results contradict a presumption, based on Spearman’s Law of Diminishing Returns, that a test’s predictive validity should be lower for high ability subjects.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3090148/
OMG i’m retarded. — peepee
g vs SAT correlation 0.9.
g vs ACT correlation 0.92.
BOTH based on subtests of the WAIS. MORE than the harvard sample.
for RESTRICTED range of students at a university in texas.
g vs SAT correlation 0.9.
g vs ACT correlation 0.92.
How could i forget that you’ve only posted it a dozen times? But the SAT being super g loaded in some highly controlled academic environments (University of Texas), does not negate the fact that the average of all studies show the SAT only correlating around 0.7 with WAIS. In order to be compelling, one must look at the TOTALITY of the data (Rushton, 1998). One can pretend to debunk any theory by cherry picking.
Also, from the same article you ignore figure II which shows the g loadings derived from a far bigger sample taking a much larger battery of the tests. Perhaps because they don’t fit your narrative:
g vs SAT correlation: 0.78
g vs ACT correlation: 0.75
One reason the SAT-IQ correlation might be particularly low for Harvard students is that they’re also selected for being studious. Since being studious is more of an advantage for a test like the SATs that you study for than it is for IQ tests like the WAIS.
0.78 x 3 > 1.5
doesn’t fit your black narcissism.
“0.78 x 3 > 1.5”
Except as I explained in the article, 1.5 likely increases to 2 when you adjust for ceiling bumping, the WAIS being abbreviated, & the sample being psych majors.
Also, 0.78 is the correlation with g among teens who take the SAT The correlation with the WAIS among ALL U.S. teens might be somewhat lower.
im glad no one can understand Mug. he is too dumb to exist. a very non-neurotic type though with Pill being the same way.
but men are more neurotic according to them than women so i dunno what is true and whats not.
Plot
Jerry is a freshman attending an all-boys Catholic high school called Trinity while coping with depressive feelings and existential questions…
he meets Roland “The Goober” Goubert, a fellow freshman and instant friend.
Jerry = LOADED; Goober = magic negro rapper
Archie concocts a showdown: a boxing match at night between Jerry and Emile. On the football field, the match is watched by all students, who can select which blows will be laid during the fight through a randomized lottery system; however, the fight ends when a teacher shuts down the electrical power on the field, and Jerry is brutally injured in the ensuing darkness. Half-conscious, he tells The Goober that there was no way to win and he should have just complied, conceding that it is best, after all, not to “disturb the universe.” Though Archie is apprehended as the mastermind of the fight, Brother Leon intervenes on his behalf and privately praises his efforts in the unprecedented success of the chocolate sales.
I’m not sure I would trust the WAIS scores as much in this context. There is a powerful incentive in standardized tests like the SAT and lsat that doesn’t exist for the wais. Most Harvard students probably have silly liberal ideas about iq and may have intentionally flubbed it. Standardized tests equal placement and scholarships, while wais equals nothing but pride. They may have given a small financial incentive to take it too.
Also, I would be cautious in applying the Flynn effect. How well is it understood how it varies across different social strata? It may be mostly from lower educational groups.
the Weschler has gotten a bad name because of people like Pumpkin but honestly its a way better test than the SAT.
i did well on standardized tests they measure education more than anything but im trying to take the Weschlers now. i took the SAT and had a score of over 2000 when the writing portion was a thing!
this is not to say the Weschlers is a great test but its thorough and quirky enough to actually measure intelligence way more accurately!
I’m not saying the sat is a better test, but that incentive plays a role in how people do on these tests. In that Harvard sample there is simply not a strong incentive for the students to perform to the top of their ability, whereas the professional tests are extremely high stakes.
As to the validity of the welcher wais, etc, I can only go by the literature because I haven’t taken the tests, not really know much about them. I do have some reservations though. Isn’t some of the assessment subjective, determined by the administrator, such as how well the subject knows a particular word? This is a source of subjectivity and bias. Also, these tests are a patented consumer product. Their acceptance has something to do with the popularity of whomever is profiting from them. Think about what I’m saying here. I have the same reservations about the MAT, which has fallen in popularity a lot.
I’m not saying the sat is a better test, but that incentive plays a role in how people do on these tests. In that Harvard sample there is simply not a strong incentive for the students to perform to the top of their ability, whereas the professional tests are extremely high stakes.
The question is not whether Harvard students are more motivated when they take the SAT than when they take the WAIS. Of course they are. The question is are they more or less motivated than the norming sample of each test because that’s who they’re being compared to. The IQ is based on comparing with people taking the same test, so whether its high stakes or low stakes is largely controlled. We see similar regression to the mean when Harvard undergrads take the LSAT even though that too is a high stakes test.
And this is not a criticism of Harvard students. Any society that selects people based on test X will see precipitous regression to the mean on test Y, unless test X and Y are nearly perfectly correlated.
We see even more severe regression when it comes to real world achievements. People who are one in a thousand level in financial success will typically only be in the top 10% in IQ.
Gary Kasparov was one in a billion at chess, but “only” one in a 100 in IQ.
Michael Jordan was one in a billion at basketball but only maybe one in a thousand at baseball etc
Oh, you make excellent points, but I still think that most people taking the wais welcher are more motivated in their circumstances than these students were. That would take some examination and in truth many students who take act/sat are not very motivated either, and both tests reflect scholastic motivation over the years. Most people who take the lsat are extremely motivated and understand precisely what the score will mean for them down the road, so in this sense it may be the most valid. It’s a tangled issue, but you’ve reassured me your method is correct, or at least okay.
I would like a collection of data that compares pre recent reed sat, lsat, and income after 30 among law students. That would be interesting!
No, I’m not saying you have any personal bias against the Harvard students, I’m just analyzing the data. I like thinking about these things. Maybe I want to see the sat “win” or something bc that’s what I did the best on, but everybody has their biases. Truthfully, I don’t feel you can accurately measure iqs above 120 or so. You can just say “very high.”
Maybe I want to see the sat “win” or something bc that’s what I did the best on,
And of course I don’t have any bias against the SAT either, that just happens to be the test used for selection by colleges. Among kids selected for gifted classes we’d see the opposite pattern. They’d have a Wechsler IQ (used to select them) of perhaps +3 SD and an SAT IQ (not used for selection) of “only” +2 SD. In their case, it’s the SAT that would be the accurate test and the Wechsler which would be inflated by selection bias.
peepee: OMG. muh selection. muh luck. you’re so dumb. you don’t unnuhstan.
mugabe: that’s because there’s nothing to understand because you’re retarded.
No you’re retarded which is why it’s taken you 7 years to still not understand that people who score +3 SD on the SAT only average about + 2 SD on the WAIS. And Spearman’s law of returns has not a damn thing to do with it.
what are your Big 5 scores Pumpkin? i bet im way more open minded than anyone who reads this blog (yes you read that correctly) even more than meLo who i think can compete with me there.
extroversion im really high in agreeableness as well. its crazy that people will only look at your positives when it benefits them and until then they just focus on your negatives.
disturbing behavior.
There is another study with students from harvard and the university of toronto that has similar results.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/6194035_Prefrontal_Cognitive_Ability_Intelligence_Big_Five_Personality_and_the_Prediction_of_Advanced_Academic_and_Workplace_Performance
I think this one is better because you can compare the sat with the WAIS more directly since you have the average sat of the sample.
Thanks. I’ll check it out.
Lurker i got no ideas from you. i dont like to read into your comments much surface level i will take a glance but i dont really care to examine your philosophies on life.
whites lost out buddy boy just admit it and move on!
thing about sailer and shoe is they’re just DUMB.
sailer ACTUALLY wrote:
…but lately I’ve been fortuitous in my semi-random sports choices…
IQ test question: why does the above prove steve sailer is DUMB?
They’re not dumb at all, but the answer you’re looking for is he said “fortuitous” when he could have just said “lucky”
Communication would be boring without synonyms. Mugabe wants everyone to sound the same because he’s a bot.
Mugabe doesn’t even believe in HBD. Why the fuck would you want to read Sailer in that case?
Mug doesnt deserve to have an internet connection so he can cope with his terrible life.
Mel Gibson should be canonised by the church.
Trust Mugabe to know what transubstantiation means.
i dont trust Mug to know anything. nor do i trust you Pill.
https://www.gannett-cdn.com/authoring/2016/03/30/NREP/ghows-OH-72b19521-4da1-4dcf-b23c-0e4f4d5e9628-37fe5a84.jpeg?width=1200&disable=upscale&format=pjpg&auto=webp
Melo, RR and Loaded.
First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me
RR was walking down the street one day feeling like a badass for having a HBD blog. Then a white van suddenly pulls up beside him and men in dark suits and sunglasses bundle him into the van and drive off.
Exactly 5 days later the van pulls up at the exact same location and RR gets thrown out the back of the van. RR stands up looking very confused and sheepish. RR is now woke.
more likely:
1. rr got his 23andme back and he was 50% jewish, 50% albanian, 0% italian.
2. rr has profound feelings of inferiority, thus the bodybuilding. so he needs something to belong to. when the alt-right rejected him he joined antifa.
rr’s has gone off the deep end. now he’s saying if you were a nobel laureate in physics like johannes stark, a great mathematician like teichmuller, or werner von braun, then your science is wrong because you were a nazi or merely lived in nazi germany. this is psychotic shit.
Mug you are insane lol 😂
Mugabe your comments are very enjoyable when you aren’t accusing people of being PP
Lurker you lack perspective honestly.
tonight this guy said, “bannon is my guru.” try to be more like him.
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/288377-hindu-american-emerges-as-trump-mega-donor/
von braun was a party member just because that’s what you did. teichmuller and stark were ENTHUSIASTIC nazis.
BUT THEIR SCIENCE IS STILL TRUE!
even in the woke academy, uber-nazi carl schmitt is revered as a very important political theorist.
denying genius because the genius is a flawed human being is DUMB!
True but the way you put it is just plain inane
Do you love Tina Turner as well? Whitney Houston? I’d say if you like Oprah you like these 2 as well?
They’re making a movie about Whitney and they show the jewish producer Clive Davis picking her to fame. I’ve heard rumours that Clive told black male rappers to suck his dick to get a contract.
Do you love Tina Turner as well? Whitney Houston? I’d say if you like Oprah you like these 2 as well?
Nope, only Oprah.
I’m into Canadian music:
But you worship anyone thats black and successful and a woman.
Nope. Only Oprah. Because brain size
Whitney Houston benefitted from AA less than Oprah.
No Whitney benefited more from AA. She was handpicked by a Jewish guy looking for black talent & that’s what made her a star. Oprah on the other hand was fired from news and put on a morning talk show to run out her contract. Only because that show became an unexpected hit did her broadcasting career take off.
Pumpkin i am not sure whether you listen to the songs i post but you should listen to this one and keep an open mind.
i like this one a lot since it shows that even people from the hood can learn to be better people: aka adaptation especially when life pushes you to the edge.
Wow, there’s never been a song or any form of media with a similar narrative.
i mean i respect your response Lurker and i acknowledge it but one thing youre failing to do is understanding where these people come from.
its not easy for a top name rapper who came from the hood to actually quit abusing drugs like he is talking about and stuff so if that makes sense to you it will start to make sense to me!
True, I empathize greatly with people who came from poverty and overcame substance abuse, I just don’t think it makes rap special or original. But of course it’s a good message that resonates with people so I won’t knock that.
MeLo this is a must listen. real shit.
Favorite line: “i dont have a right to vote i dont play politics they say im crazy and i might be a lil bit but you all voted for Herschel Walker you idiots!”
hahahah this song will be a classic. mark my fucking words!
If the IQ gap is true, percentile selection being almost the same (99%, 1515 SAT and 172/173 LSAT) at both schools, it means that the average undergraduate candidate to law school has just 6 more IQ points than the average high school candidate to college.
Given the difference in numbers, 40% take the SAT, versus less than 4% take doctorate or professional degree tests (Gre, gmat, mcat or lsat), i guesstimate the gap among the two groups average would be 15 points if it were totally correlated with IQ.
At 6 points, it gives you a nice 40% correlation with IQ just for folks trying those upper tests …
in which war were white men NOT disproportionately killed?
who has the highest suicide rate?
answer: white men!
that obese white trash plumber whose butt crack shows when he bends over…HE IS WHY THERE IS CIVILIZATION!
The total number of American personnel who were KIA or died non-hostile deaths, were enlisted personnel with a casualty number of 50,441. The total number of officer casualties, commissioned and warrant, are 7,877. The following is a chart of all casualties, listed by race, and in descending order. [90]
White Black Hispanic Hawaiian/Pacific Islander American Indian/
Alaska Native Non-Hispanic
(other race) Asian
49,830 7,243 349 229 226 204 139
The ONLY people to INDEPENDENTLY create civilization are Middle Easterners & Native Americans.
Was ancient china not an independent civilization?
It’s generally considered one of the 6 independent civilization, however given the proximity of these civilizations, it’s arguable that only 2 were truly independent.
Native Americans never developed civilisation. It means inventing the wheel at a minimum.
The wheel is only one of many criteria for civilization. Native Americans achieved extremely complex societies created completely independently.
It wasn’t complex. I think they still might have practiced cannibalism.
Baker outlined 21 criteria for civilization:
1. In the ordinary circumstances of life in public places, they cover the external genital organs and the greater part of the trunk with clothes.
2. They keep the body clean and take care to dispose of its waste products.
3. They do not practice severe mutilation or deformation of the body, except for medical reasons.
4. They have knowledge of building in brick or stone, if the necessary materials are available in their territory.
5. Many of them live in towns or cities, which are linked by roads.
6. They cultivate food plants.
7. They domesticate animals and use some of the larger ones for transport (or have in the past used them), if suitable species are available.
8. They have a knowledge of the use of metals, if these are available.
9. They use wheels.
10. They exchange property by the use of money.
11. They order their society by a system of laws, which are enforced in such a way that they ordinarily go about their various concerns in times of peace without danger of attack or arbitrary arrest.
12. They permit accused persons to defend themselves and to bring witnesses for their defense.
13. They do not use torture to extract information or for punishment.
14. They do not practice cannibalism.
15. Their religious systems include ethical elements and are not purely or grossly superstitious.
16. They use a script (not simply a succession of pictures) to communicate ideas.
17. There is some facility in the abstract use of numbers, without consideration of actual objects (or in other words, at least a start has been made in mathematics).
18. A calendar is in use, accurate to within a few days of the year.
19. Arrangements are made for the instruction of the young in intellectual subjects.
20. There is some appreciation of the fine arts.
21. Knowledge and understanding are valued as ends in themselves.
Baker found that Caucasoid populations developed all 21 components of civilization in four independent places:
1) The Sumerian in the valley of the Tigris and the Euphrates
2) The Cretan
3) The Indus Valley
4) Ancient Egypt
East Asians also scored a perfect 21, in China’s Sinic civilization. The Native Americans achieved roughly half of the 21 criteria in the Maya society of Guatemala and almost as much in the Inca and Aztec societies.
Virtually none of the 21 criteria for civilization were achieved by sub-Saharan Africans or Australian aborigines.
I agree with Baker’s conclusions.
what are your thoughts on Australian Aboriginals?
They never achieved civilisation however they did not evolve to have crazy high testosterone levels like the blacks.
more or less intelligent?
PP that’s ridiculous. The Maya most definitely are an independent civilization. I haven’t read Baker’s book in a while, though. I don’t remember what he said about the Maya and wheels, but they quite obviously knew of the wheel’s existence since they used them on children’s too but they didn’t use them in daily life since they weren’t condivce to their cobbled stone roads. PP do you have a reference foe that or is it from his book?
Philosopher, what studies show “crazy high testosterone” for blacks and what do you think “crazy high testosterone” is?
My reference is Rushton’s book & his reference must have been Baker’s
condivce?
covfefe?
I haven’t read Baker’s book in a while, though.…because i never read it because i can’t read.
https://i.imgflip.com/711olu.jpg
still waiting for rr to criticize brahminical racism.
there are these total douches in india and the anglo-sphere in general who think the only reason they don’t rule the world…yet…is because oil drilling.
About five years ago, some researchers used lidar technology and found that Mayan civilization was more prolific and complex than previously believed.
https://lidarmag.com/2020/12/04/lidar-shows-mayan-civilization-in-a-new-light/
Your ‘Theory of Progressive Evolution’ would imply that Native Americans have the highest potential IQs. I think this research bolsters that point. It’s absolutely astounding how a society this large was able to flourish in a region so inhospitable. And if it’s truly independent in the sense that they had no other neighbors to borrow from, then that is even more impressive.
Not to shit on Baker, but I’m going to have to agree with RR. Some of these requirements are ridiculous. Like, you can’t get tattoos or piercings, you can’t torture people, no cannibalism (even if it’s for religious reasons), etc. Those seem to be moral judgments and not objective criteria for what is considered a civilization. Two of those would exclude western civilization right off the bat.
Melo that’s really interesting. When I was a kid I read a book called The Mayan Prophecies by Gilbert and Cotterel. I recall being astounded by the theories in the book, though it’s been so long (about 25 years) since I’ve read it. The Maya were extremely knowledgeable on the cosmos, had an extremely accurate calendar, has a concept of “0” independently, had an independent writing system (though I do believe they did borrow from the Olmec and Toltec, although my memory is hazy on this).
I saw a show on Nat Geo I think a few years back where they argued that the cause of the downfall of the Maya was warring with other Maya city states, but this was indeed driven by climate cycles that caused mega-droughts in the region. They did have stored water just in case this occurred, but of course the longer the drought, the less water they ad over time.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/why-did-the-mayan-civilization-collapse-a-new-study-points-to-deforestation-and-climate-change-30863026/
It is mind-boggling to think about how their astronomy could be so precise thousands of years ago. How did they know what they knew? The Gilbert and Cottrell book has some theories, and they have a solid discussion of Hernan Cortez and others’ thoughts on the Maya civilization, but I don’t remember enough of their theories to have a solid opinion on the matter.
It’s sad how most of the Codices were burned by Roman Catholic priests in the 1560s, though only 4 remain (the Dresden book is the most-talked about I think), although the authenticity of the 4th book in Mexico is currently disputed. We could have learned so much more about the thought processes of these people, their ideas, and how they came to form them. I would love to know how they formed these ideas and what led them to their beliefs.
Melo have you heard the theory that the Aztec originated from somewhere in Utah? I saw a special on this about a year ago. They used their writings (legends) talking about their homeland being north of what is now Mexico with a specific type of bird around the lake (herons). At the conclusion of the show, they state they they did indeed find Aztlan and it was in Utah. I’d be interested in any references you can find on that. Pre-Columbian Native civilizations are so damn interesting with what they did completely cut off from the rest of the world.
I thought the Trump presidency was generally a failure (except for lowering immigration, which it did) but Trump is such a good salesman that he almost convinced me it was a success.
no it didn’t, it was higher than even under Obama
^^^FALSE^^^
correct, he let in more illegals. I voted for him in 2016, not 2020, and probably won’t ever vote again. was the only hope, but a complete failure in the end.
it’s not like you’ll have a choice to vote for someone better. desantis is a corrupt greaseball and the former establishment GOP has no support. trump called their bluff in 2016. this time trump’s primary opponents will be fewer but far better funded. this time trump really will be the populist candidate. he can win the primary and the general easily if he runs to the left on war and health care and homelessness and student loans etc. but he may not know this.
trump = rock star
desantis = cover band
i know, that’s why i’ll probably never vote again. don’t care about desantis at all. Trump won because he ran to the left on all those issues plus economics. that’s why he flipped the rust belt. but he couldn’t govern for shit, couldn’t follow through on any of those issues so I’m done with him, as entertaining as he is. his self absorption and weird thing for israel torpedoed that agenda i guess plus deep state interference
He definitely awakened a lot of people to the corruption and made classic conservative talking points about immigration, foreign policy, a healthy economy, etc. that had been demonized by the leftist media as ignorant/evil back into the “Overton Window”.
I guess the blackpill view is that he made people think these things had a chance of being dealt with while not actually accomplishing much, thereby serving willingly as a useful tool for the neoliberal/neocons while fooling the public. That definitely seems true with regard to certain things like the vax, which he didn’t seem to question at all. And his alliance with Israel through his stepson etc. But although the blackpill view is probably partially true and he was used for their advantage, he did talk about alternative remedies for covid like hydroxychloroquine, and he did bring nationalistic and somewhat HBD-adjacent talking points into the mainstream.
the president is NOT a dictator.
question: how much more COULD trump have accomplished?
my answer: the ONLY way he COULD have accomplished more is if he gave speeches every day calling out the anti-populists in the GOP. he should’ve used the “bully pulpit” to call mcconnell a “loser” every day…every fucking day.
trump has all the right enemies. — victor davis hanson + mugabe
The answer is that BOTH Whitney and Oprah were selected for being black. Oprah and Whitney just happened to also have talent which kept them in the limelight.
Still way harder to be a dark skinned black in Oprah’s day than it was to be white. In 1970 no one would have bet on a black woman becoming the first billionaire broadcaster.
Well some people might say it was harder for an ugly black woman to be a pop singer in the late 80s/90s.
Look at all the black actors they’re pumping into movies and tv. Every single one of them plays a black person. Its so ridiculous. Denzel has played an angry black man 400 times.
I’m guessing that they might even make Will Smith play the angry black man stereotype now that hes come out and been very angry in public before he won his oscar for playing a magic negro.
Basically Will Smith played the only other stereotype of blacks in media – magic negro. Obama played the same role and became president. When will this madness end??
Oprah is a magic negro as well.
Oprah became famous long before that was a thing but once she started seeing other blacks take advantage of that newly emerging trope, she brilliantly filled that niche too. So brilliant & adaptable.
I’d say Oprah is the actual magical negro, while the rest mostly fill that role as actors but can’t actually do it in real life. She’s the one actual exception to it being a trope pushed on us from TV and movies.
Frankly I think being a top singer requires more talent than sitting in a chair and talking to people.
More talent but much less intelligence
Oprah seems really good at very superficial things, but I can’t imagine her having deep thoughts about many things except business/social relationships. She’s kind of like Trump in that way. They’re both probably more introverted than it appears but not that much because they both need a lot of social interaction (at least through the media).
trump’s message was new in at least one respect i noticed, i think…
namely he suggested the death penalty for certain drug dealers as each dealer, he claimed, was associated with 300 deaths from overdose…he went on to explain how china and singapore have no drug problem because death penalty…
people have said his speech was “low energy” and “boring” and “rambling”…
NEIN! it was great except it was half scripted and half extempore…trump sucks at scripted speeches…he rocks at extempore.
those like fuentes and trs who shat on the speech…they’re dumb or bought…UN-serious people…
btw: fuentes is a pure psychopath obviously…look at his interview with patrick little…
I like Fuentes sometimes but I agree he was too hard on Trump. If Trump hasn’t brought up the voter fraud, tech censorship, or Jan. 6th prisoners I don’t think he would right at this point. It’s funny because Fuentes was banned and cancelled for talking about this stuff (and the Jews I guess) but yet he expects Trump to give a speech on it.
Fuentes is weird, it’s not a normal person to be that confident and become so popular at such a young age.
BUT he DID bring up tech censorship and voter fraud. just not in those exact words. fuentes is just a little boy psychopath.
i don’t recall the jan 6 prisoners thing. and i turned off fuentes after he grossed me out.
BUT it is a thing…totally unacceptable behavior by government.
BUT trump’s speech was so long and boring in part because he said so many substantive things…WAY more than the escalator speech.
bernie was anti-idpol until he was abducted…
trump can still be this guy.
asperger was also a nazi…and WAY more…he PARTICIPATED in t4.
is asperger’s not a thing?
maybe.
but it has NOTHING to do with whether asperger was a nazi. NOTHING!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Asperger
i apologize…wikipedia says asperger joined many nazi groups but never the nazi party.
why?
was it lebensraum?
and everyone thought the USSR was weak. not just the german high command.
but “we attacked to pre-empt their attack” was the nuremberg line.
BUT…fact in favor of the official story is germans had already colonized eastern europe…and as far as kazakhstan.
they’re still there apparently. the dark blue.
the trump phenomenon is interesting from the pov of political theory/philosophy…
in the sense that one man CAN ACTUALLY (not faking) Effect more of the will of the people than so many putative representatives of the people.
i’ve heard a few who esteem trump as “they” esteemed a homeless austrian wagnerite post-card painter.
BIG DIFF!
trump is rich.
the US is WAY bigger/more powerful than germany-austria has ever been.
deus caritas est.
chess is a waste of time…so why were the soviets so good at it?
You know the rules of perception – if they are black then it’s a gang, if they are Italian it’s a mob, but if they are Jewish, it’s a coincidence and you should never speak about it.
— Dave Chappelle
damn!
omg!
my lord!
Great joke.
Trump’s speech was ok. It didn’t have any soundbites. He needs to get off the prompter but they were worried about him sounding off on 2020. I would have suggested trump introduce new policy proposals. There were 2 new policies on corruption and drugs but he should have introduced very extreme hardcore policies and got the media to hyperventilate about it. Something akin to the muslim ban would have done the job.
Funniest part of the speech was when Trump said:
“Angelica. Remember Angelica? (before they can answer HELL YES!) No one remembers Angelica.”
You can tell Trump is just bitter that the high IQ Angelica Merkel probably thought Trump was a moron so he’s trying to portray her as a hasbeen.
I remember that part and it was clear nobody in the audience knew who Angela Merkel was. Americans are really stupid in terms of general knowledge. I would bet 50% of americans think Europe is a country.
I will do a full assessment of Trump’s presidency later. The comments above are not reflective of Trump’s work (good and bad).
One nitpick, 1490 is more like 144 than 145 according to this https://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/SATIQ.aspx
My estimate’s probably more accurate than that website.
“Circa 2013, Jonathan Wai reported that Harvard undergrads had a mean SAT of 1490 which at the time equated to an IQ of 145.”
You mean you came up with this estimate, I thought you were taking it from somewhere. In this case, how would you say is your estimate better than that site’s estimation? Is it because the site data is pre-2013?
I came up with my own formula for converting SATs to IQ that was independent & better researched than the formula used by that other website:
https://pumpkinperson.com/2015/11/10/the-new-sat-has-a-higher-ceiling-than-i-thought/
That is an inference from 1996-7. SAT results, at least SAT math results have fluctuated since then.
Your analysis seems deeply flawed. You seem to have modified a previous version of this article to boost the IQ of Harvard students and its not clear why.
I think it’s quite obvious that the full scale IQ test is going to give a better assessment of global intelligence. To question this seems quite bizarre. So no you should not simply reverse her reduction. So we stick with the 128.1 IQ average. This then accounts for the correlation between the abbreviated version and full scale WAIS-R, so that removes your contrived excuse to divide by 0.9 (contrived because, for some bizarre reason, in this revised version of your article/analysis you want to inflate Harvard student IQ scores).
Assuming you have calculated the yearly Flynn effect correctly, then you get an average IQ of 121.6 (128.1 – 6.5). Not sure where you got 122.6 from because even if we started with your spurious figure of 130.1, we still don’t get 122.6.
As mentioned, we don’t need to do the pointless divide by 0.9 thing, because the correlation is accounted for by the 2 IQ point deduction.
You then propose the outlandish increase of average IQ by 5 points, because of a baseless assumption you make about the type of students that took the test. I mean how the hell do you know if they were predominantly psychology students? How do you know what the relative IQ scores of Harvard psychology students are versus STEM students? You present absolutely no evidence to justify that massive increase in IQ. Therefore, I’m afraid we stay at 121.6 as the average IQ of Harvard students.
I know this conclusion might be unacceptable given your biases and world view, but the facts don’t give a damn about any of that. Show some intellectual honesty and just accept Harvard students are simply not as bright as some assume they are.
Your analysis seems deeply flawed. You seem to have modified a previous version of this article to boost the IQ of Harvard students and its not clear why.
I think it’s quite obvious that the full scale IQ test is going to give a better assessment of global intelligence.
The first question is how did they score on the version of the test they took, not which I
version is better. To make an analogy, leg length is an abbreviated measure of height. If your legs are longer than 98% of a sample, should we reduce them to the 97 percentile simply because that sample mysteriously gives most people lower percentiles for overall height than for leg length?
To question this seems quite bizarre. So no you should not simply reverse her reduction. So we stick with the 128.1 IQ average. This then accounts for the correlation between the abbreviated version and full scale WAIS-R, so that removes your contrived excuse to divide by 0.9 (contrived because, for some bizarre reason, in this revised version of your article/analysis you want to inflate Harvard student IQ scores).
No these are 2 different issues. You only subtract the 2 points if you believe the same norming sample somehow underperformed on two subtests but performed correctly on the test as a whole. The 0.9 is to correct for the full test being a better measure than just part of it. The first correction is about the validity of the abbreviated test’s norms, the second is about the validity of the abbreviated test itself.
You then propose the outlandish increase of average IQ by 5 points, because of a baseless assumption you make about the type of students that took the test. I mean how the hell do you know if they were predominantly psychology students? How do you know what the relative IQ scores of Harvard psychology students are versus STEM students? You present absolutely no evidence to justify that massive increase in IQ. Therefore, I’m afraid we stay at 121.6 as the average IQ of Harvard students.
We know from studies at other universities, STEM students are smarter & the fact that this was a psychology study and women participants were overrepresented, it seems reasonable to assume STEM were underrepresented
And another comment: how on earth can you say on the one hand say we can’t assume the measurement error favours the full scale test (so ignore Carson’s attempt to bring the results in line with full scale by dropping 2 IQ points), and on the other say we need to do an operation of dividing the score by 0.9 to apparently bring it in line with the full scale test.
This is totally internally inconsistent.
Because we know a priori that the full-scale is much longer and thus more accurate than the abbreviation, so we can assume unreliability in the latter would cause them to underperform their true ability
However we can’t assume the performance itself was inaccurately measured because even though the abbreviation is a shorter less accurate test, its norming sample is identical
So you say the literature indicates that the abbreviated version gives a 2 point higher score than the full scale on average but when you adjust for the full scale you massively increase the score by dividing by 9 – how can that make any sense?
Because the abbreviated version is only inferior in content not in norming, so it makes sense to assume performance was a flawed measure of overall ability but it does not make sense to assume performance itself was mismeasured
You’re making no sense. If the literature indicates the abbreviated test consistently overstates IQ relative to the full test, how can you inflate the abbreviated test scores even further by dividing by 0.9? You should be reducing the abbreviated test scores to some extent, on the assumption that the full test gives you the most accurate result.
How can you say it does not make sense to assume performance itself was mismeasured, when that’s exactly what you do when you divide by 0.9 to inflate the IQ scores?
How can you say it does not make sense to assume performance itself was mismeasured, when that’s exactly what you do when you divide by 0.9 to inflate the IQ scores?
No when I divide by 0.9 I’m simply estimating how they would have scored on the full test, I’m not questioning their score on the abbreviated test. When Carson subtracts 2 points she is questioning their score on the abbreviated test.
Anyway, I’ll be blogging soon about another study that avoids all the issues you’ve objected to.
“No when I divide by 0.9 I’m simply estimating how they would have scored on the full test, I’m not questioning their score on the abbreviated test. When Carson subtracts 2 points she is questioning their score on the abbreviated test.”
I’m afraid that appears to be a distinction without a difference. I note that you still haven’t explained how you can justify inflating abbreviated test scores, when the literature indicates the abbreviated test scores already inflate IQ scores relative to the full test. You should be reducing abbreviated test scores as Carson did.
“Anyway, I’ll be blogging soon about another study that avoids all the issues you’ve objected to.”
I look forward to it – as I find your blogs interesting. However, I hope the blog article doesn’t also contain unjustified leaps of logic seemingly design to meet preconceived notions of truth. We want cold hard bias-free truth/facts.
I’m afraid that appears to be a distinction without a difference. I note that you still haven’t explained how you can justify inflating abbreviated test scores, when the literature indicates the abbreviated test scores already inflate IQ scores relative to the full test. You should be reducing abbreviated test scores as Carson did.
All 11 subtests (including the 2 used in the abbreviated scale) were given to a nationally representative sample of Americans and Harvard students scored in the top 2% of that sample (for their age) equating to an IQ of 130. We can’t just override that actual data on a properly normed test because the longer version of that test tends to give less generous results. Now if there’s some systematic reason why the short-form would give more generous results (maybe comparing Harvard students to the norming sample on just 2 subtests gives them an unfair advantage because the Harvard students were not tired out by the other 9 subtests and thus had more enthusiasm) then the 2 point deduction would be valid, but if it’s just statistical noise, it’s just as likely that the full-scale is too low as it as that the short-form is too generous.
Now the justification for inflating abbreviated scores is the fact that the shorter the test, the more error, and the more error, the more extreme people (Harvard students, slow learners) regress to the mean. Dividing the deviation from the mean by 0.9 is a way of correcting for that.
I think I trust Carson’s judgement on this issue over yours. It makes no sense to inflate abbreviated test scores, when we know they’re already inflated relative to the full scale scores. It’s clearly not just statistical noise, which is why Carson made the adjustment. I suspect that the reason the abbreviated test gives a higher score than the full test is because it is just objectively easier than the full test for humans in general.
I think any objective person looking at this situation would think your approach is strange. Why should Harvard students break the general pattern observed with other people? Can you give me a reason why the relationship between the abbreviated test score and fhe full test score would be different for Harvard students? Carson couldn’t find a reason and she’s a Harvard academic.
In light of the observed relationship between the abbreviated test score and the full test score, your massive inflation of the abbreviated test results seems unjustified.
“We know from studies at other universities, STEM students are smarter & the fact that this was a psychology study and women participants were overrepresented, it seems reasonable to assume STEM were underrepresented”
I’m sorry but that does not justify bumping up IQ by 5 points. It’s so arbitrary. You simply do not know who took the tests and what subjects they were studying. You just don’t know that. Just because it was a psychology study has absolutely no bearing on the question on what the students were studying. Perhaps Carson only invited students from STEM departments? In fact with know of “psychology studies” carried out by academic psychologists in which the participants from elite universities came predominantly from STEM fields.
The fact girls were overrepresented (whatever that means) does not really allow you to conclude anything about what the students were studying. It’s perfectly possible that most of the female students were studying STEM subjects.
Finally, even if they were psychology students, it is absolutely possible that these students had higher IQs than the average STEM students. For example, they may have taken the test previously or taken lots of other IQ tests and known they had high IQs already and/or benefitted from practice effects and so felt more comfortably volunteering to take the test.
You make so many unjustified and unscientific leaps and assumptions it’s difficult to take what you say seriously.
Nothing you have said so far justifies increasing the average IQ by a massive 5 points and you would be laughed out of any serious academic setting were you to propose this in any study/analysis.
“No these are 2 different issues. You only subtract the 2 points if you believe the same norming sample somehow underperformed on two subtests but performed correctly on the test as a whole. The 0.9 is to correct for the full test being a better measure than just part of it. The first correction is about the validity of the abbreviated test’s norms, the second is about the validity of the abbreviated test itself.”
It’s still not clear to me why you assume (by doing the division by 0.9) that the students’ scores on the full test would be so significantly higher than on the abbreviated test. Please explain this assumption. You suggest the literature has consistently found that students would do less well and come out with a lower score on the full test, yet you are inflating their scores on the abbreviated test.
I have to say, I have seen a number of articles suggesting the abbreviated test inflates IQ scores relative to the full test. Please explain why you are going against the literature on this.