Why is 100 said to be the average (50th percentile) IQ?

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25 May 2009, 11:15 pm

I really wish I had an average IQ!! ! Mine is in the negative range (even though this is physically impossible), as I don't have a brain. Brain???? Never heard of that before! My pet bird has more brainpower than me. He's cute!

timeisdead
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25 May 2009, 11:31 pm

Quote:

These aren't reputable stats

Similar statistics are found in the books The Bell Curve and IQ and the Wealth of Nations. It is possible for a website to contain both accurate and inaccurate information.

Last edited by timeisdead on 25 May 2009, 11:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

timeisdead
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25 May 2009, 11:35 pm

I don't believe IQ determines intelligence but I do think IQ somewhat correlates with intelligence.

Tahitiii
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26 May 2009, 12:05 am

timeisdead wrote:

Similar statistics are found in the books The Bell Curve and IQ and the Wealth of Nations.

Don't even try. I actually read The Bell Curve (I own it -- it's around here somewhere) and it was nothing like that. It got a bad rap when stuff was taken out of context. Their conclusion was that the modern world is not accessible to ordinary people, but that it could easily be made so if we remove the pointless barriers. That we could make room for everyone.

timeisdead
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26 May 2009, 12:34 am

Tahitiii wrote:

timeisdead wrote:

Similar statistics are found in the books The Bell Curve and IQ and the Wealth of Nations.

My point is that people have been stating a statistical inaccuracy. IQ does not determine success. For example, Nigeria has a lower IQ than Haiti yet is a more successful country comparatively speaking.

timeisdead
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26 May 2009, 1:01 am

IQ can also be influenced by factors other than intelligence such as cultural conditioning, nutrition, and other socioeconomic factors.

ViperaAspis
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26 May 2009, 2:13 am

Quote:

Nigeria has a lower IQ than Haiti yet is a more successful country comparatively speaking

Stop quoting these manipulated statistics from a racist website which deliberately makes predominantly black nations look like they are idiots to promote its agenda of exiling the black race from their country. I'm currently operating under the assumption that you are not part of this hatred and racism, but stumbled across it innocently. If you are deliberately hatemongering for such a disgusting website, I will ask for this post to be pulled and do my best to see that your membership here is terminated.

Hatred is not acceptable, even in the form of slanted statistics. You know where this trash came from now. So knock it off.

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zen_mistress
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26 May 2009, 2:58 am

ViperaAspis wrote:

Quote:

Nigeria has a lower IQ than Haiti yet is a more successful country comparatively speaking

I think this has a point. It is silly to give people in third world countries the same IQ tests you would give in Western countries, it is a completely different way of life, and who is to say who is smart? Who would be better at surviving in the jungle, Bill Gates, or a New Guinea tribesman?

I'd like to see some of those 'Christian' Party members trying to survive in the Sahara...

On Edit, http://christianparty.net/iq.htm had a look through the website in question. It is awful. Seems to be a White Supremacy website.

TPE2
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26 May 2009, 3:40 am

2ukenkerl wrote:

IQ=(MA/CA)*100

Chronoligical age of a 10 year old is ALWAYS 10!
Mental Age of a 10 year old is expected to be 10!

10/10=1
1*100=100

So the average IQ is 100!

If the 10 year old tested as a 15 year old, it would be:

15/10=1.5
1.5*100=150

So a 10 year old that is as smart as a 15 year old has a 150IQ.

Tahitiii wrote:

It sounds like somebody has been mixing apples with oranges.
Garbage in, garbage out.

An IQ is a simple fraction.
Mental age over cronological age, times 100.

A five-year-old who tests like a ten-year-old would have an IQ of 200.
A ten-year-old who tests like a five-year-old would have an IQ of 50.

For decades that IQ is not calculated that way - all this talk about "chronological age" and "mental age" was the way that IQ was calculated in the begginig of last century.

Today, IQ is

IQ = 15*([your pontuation in a test]-[average pontuation in that test])/[standard deviation in the pontuations in that test] + 100

For the matter of this thread, the result is the same: if your pontuation is equal to the average pontuation, your IQ is 100, by definition.

2ukenkerl
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26 May 2009, 5:28 am

pensieve wrote:

Well when I did an IQ test the average was 90.

It isn't possible for 100 to equal 90! Most items in the normal RANGE, by definition, can't be the average.

2ukenkerl
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26 May 2009, 5:48 am

MattShizzle wrote:

timeisdead wrote:

I don't think IQ determines intelligence but it does correlate with intelligence.

Quote:

A five-year-old who tests like a ten-year-old would have an IQ of 200.
A ten-year-old who tests like a five-year-old would have an IQ of 50.

This is one example why IQ tests are flawed. According to this model, a 5 year old with the mental age of 7 would have a 140 IQ whereas a 10 year old with the mentality of a 12 year old would have a 120 IQ. A 12 year old with the mental age of 14 would have a 116 IQ. In all three instances is the same child 2 years ahead of the pack.

Not much of a problem - a 15 year old with the mentality of an 18 year old wouldn't be that big a deal but a 1 year old with the mentality of a 4 year old would be amazing. It's the relative difference not the exact difference that counts - and anyway it hasn't been figured that way in a long time.

But they are different PERCENTAGES! it is more meaningful for a 2 year old to be as smart as a 4 year old than it is for an 18yo to be as smart as a 20 year old.

As for the list of scores? The IQ is supposed to be STABLE and meaningful, wordlwide. It is also supposed to be universal. In an impoverished, starving, uneducated country, one would EXPECT it to be LOWER! The countries claiming to be smarter MIGHT have simply stacked things in their favor, etc.... Some of the low scoring countries may not even bother having standard IQ tests, so the dumbest take them and shove the score even LOWER.

If ALL countries had the same average range for IQ, IQ would mean nothing at all, simply because so many factors affect it.

2ukenkerl
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26 May 2009, 5:55 am

timeisdead wrote:

Tahitiii wrote:

timeisdead wrote:

Similar statistics are found in the books The Bell Curve and IQ and the Wealth of Nations.

How would you know? Nigeria is KNOWN for breaking the law and cheating people.

Hala
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26 May 2009, 6:06 am

I always thought it was simply because they chose 100 to be the average...because it's logical.

Just like when Anders Celsius was determining the celsius degree, he chose 100 degrees celsius (roughly) to be the temperature at which water boils and 0 degrees celsius (roughly) to be the temperature at which water melts, and then calibrated it from there.

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26 May 2009, 7:08 am

Hala wrote:

I always thought it was simply because they chose 100 to be the average...because it's logical.

Exactly. The raw score from an iq test is standardized using μ=100, σ=15 which is arbitrary.

CloudWalker
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26 May 2009, 7:17 am

Oh and that http://christianparty.net/ site stinks of both sexism and racism. They quoted Richard Lynn exclusively while ignoring results to the contrary. How dare they call themselves Christian!

ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo
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26 May 2009, 8:36 am

timeisdead wrote:

Tahitiii wrote:

timeisdead wrote:

Similar statistics are found in the books The Bell Curve and IQ and the Wealth of Nations.

That's idealistic but if you look at the list the countries with the higher IQs are all part of the developed world. They are mostly in Europe, The Americas and Asia. Depends on what you define "smart" as. The countries with the higher IQs have better infrastructure.

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