The Average

[Godavari]

I have numerous problems with your IQ assessment.

1) The average IQ is, by definition, 100. Regardless of how high a person's IQ is, the average is always set to 100.
2) The majority of Americans are not absolutely retarded. You just think that because of stereotypes and highly memorable experiences with stupid people.
3) Your IQ test sucks. IQ is a measure of how easily one absorbs new information and concepts. All you asked were general knowledge questions, which people can get wrong and still have a high IQ. Also, many of the answers were ambiguous. Is there actually a general consensus on how many people were killed in the Holocaust? I haven't seen any.
4) Where the hell did you get 12% perfect? Only 3/100 people got question 8 right, so that's 3% at best, but more likely it's 0%.
5) Just because you know the answers to these questions, it doesn't make you a genius. You specifically chose questions you knew the answers to. It wouldn't make sense to administer a test where you couldn't tell if the answers were right.

[/rant]

 

[Julianking93]

I have numerous problems with your IQ assessment.

1) The average IQ is, by definition, 100. Regardless of how high a person's IQ is, the average is always set to 100.
2) The majority of Americans are not absolutely retarded. You just think that because of stereotypes and highly memorable experiences with stupid people.
3) Your IQ test sucks. IQ is a measure of how easily one absorbs new information and concepts. All you asked were general knowledge questions, which people can get wrong and still have a high IQ. Also, many of the answers were ambiguous. Is there actually a general consensus on how many people were killed in the Holocaust? I haven't seen any.
4) Where the hell did you get 12% perfect? Only 3/100 people got question 8 right, so that's 3% at best, but more likely it's 0%.
5) Just because you know the answers to these questions, it doesn't make you a genius. You specifically chose questions you knew the answers to. It wouldn't make sense to administer a test where you couldn't tell if the answers were right.

[/rant]

For the last fucking time, its not an IQ test, just a list of random questions!!!

I'm not considering myself a genius because I know these questions, I'm just smart enough to know where the fucking country I live in is on a map

 

[asinann]

This is something that has been bothering me for a while now. Its the "average" of certain things. Some things that claim to be the average of a country (we'll use America for this) just don't seem right at all.

[b/]First Example[/b]: Weight

Average weight- Most people know that America is one of the fattest (if not [i/]the[/i] fattest) country in the world. This is no secret, yet the average weight for a 5'8 male in America (last I checked) was 160lbs and the average for a 5'4 female is 120 lbs.

Needless to say that this is a fairly low weight for a male and female and I find it extremely hard to believe this is the correct average. What's strange about it is that I remember reading a statistic back in 2002 that said the average weight was 140 for females and 190 for males (that seems about right) and I know for a fact that American's aren't getting thinner.

Just look at this random picture of a crowd sitting and try to find anyone who looks to be 120-160.

[spoiler/][img/]http://cache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/recess_03_18/r10_18254641.jpg[/img][/spoiler]

[b/]Second Example: IQ[/b]

Okay, now most people here one the Escapist agree (including myself) that the IQ test for the most part is bullshit, that being said, I'm going to take it as a real test.

According to the statistics, the average IQ for an American is 100, so if I am to believe this is true, why are the majority of Americans absolutely retarded? To do my own experiment, me and my friends took 100 people and gave them a simple quiz/survey. It consisted of general knowledge questions that got progressivly harder. It was 10 questions. 3 easy, 3 medium and 4 difficult.

Here is the quiz:
[spoiler/]1. Where is America on this map? (It had just a blank image of a map) Only 30 of all people got it right.

2. Who painted the Mona Lisa? 16 people got this right.

3. Who won the Super Bowl of 2004? 98 people got this right.

4. What is 8*7? 27 people got this right.

5. Where is the Vatican Located? 43 got this right

6. How many people were killed in the Holocaust? 12 people got this right

7. Who was the first person to land on the moon? 32 got this right.

8. Who discovered the Black Hole? 3 people got this right.

9. What is the Parthenon? 4 people got that right.

10. Where is France on this map? 21 people got this right.[/spoiler]

So, out of the 100 people surveyed, only 12% got a perfect score.

And if I'm to believe that this is an average IQ, I'm a fucking genius compared to these people. There is no way that the average IQ is this high when the majority of people are idiots.

So what does the Escapist think of this? I personally think that the averages are tipped in favor of what the government [i/]wants[/i] people to be and if people see the average IQ/weight, they'd say "I should get smarter" or "I should lose some weight"

What do you think? And sorry for the Wall of Text.

Also, for more discussion, what did you get on the test I made?

Some of those questions aren't general knowledge, the basic geography and the math yes. But Who won the super bowl isn't, you have to be interested in most of that subject matter to get all of those right. And an IQ isn't what you know, it's how much and how fast you can take in and process information.

 

[Doc Incognito]

And the weight thing is stupid, your BMI is not always accurate. I'm 6 foot exactly and weigh 200 pounds and my BMI chart says I'm overweight. Looking at me you would be like WTF, overwight?

Same here. I'm 6'1 and 175 and my BMI says i'm "obese". Seriously? Obese at 175?

What? no.

That's because the BMI is a really outdated, really idiotic system. It isn't accurate because it doesn't take into account muscle mass; it assumes that everything in you that isn't an organ or blood is fat. I believe there is an alternative system that actually works, but I can't remember it. We're all better of just ignoring BMI.

 

[AvsJoe]

I got numbers 6 and 8 wrong on the questionnaire and I had to guess number 3. I guess that means I'm of average intelligence...

But I doubt it. I freely admit that I'm below average intelligence. I'm knowledgeable, sure, but actually intellectual? Not really, no.

 

[Phyroxis]

I got most of them right. 'cept for the Super bowl and the black whole. All of the rest of em right if you accept vague estimates for the Holocaust one (the reflex answer in my brain was 12 million ish) and a "its an ancient structure in Greece" for the Parthenon.

 

[Phyroxis]

The more important question is, is 100 people enough to get an accurate statistical reading?.

The correct answer is no.

Not true.. If you randomly sample over a large enough area (since you're trying to generalize to the entire country) you can get a half-decent CI.

It wont be anything more than a "hey things may kind of sorta be like this.." but its better than dirt.

I doubt the OP actually randomly sampled, so its statistically invalid.. but its still interesting to think about, despite being unrepresentative of the population its talking about.

 

[Julianking93]

2. Who painted the Mona Lisa? 16 people got this right.

3. Who won the Super Bowl of 2004? 98 people got this right.

4. What is 8*7? 27 people got this right.

5. Where is the Vatican Located? 43 got this right

6. How many people were killed in the Holocaust? 12 people got this right

7. Who was the first person to land on the moon? 32 got this right.

8. Who discovered the Black Hole? 3 people got this right.

9. What is the Parthenon? 4 people got that right.

10. Where is France on this map? 21 people got this right.[/spoiler]

So, out of the 100 people surveyed, only 12% got a perfect score.



Also, for more discussion, what did you get on the test I made?

Where did you get your numbers for the Holocaust? An exact number has never been released it's all been estimates and theres several disagreeing sources.

Some scholars maintain that the definition of the Holocaust should also include the Nazis' systematic murder of millions of people in other groups, including Catholics, ethnic Poles, the Romani, Soviet civilians, Soviet prisoners of war, people with disabilities, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, and other political and religious opponents.[3] By this definition, the total number of Holocaust victims would be between 11 million and 17 million people.[4] - Wikipedia

Honestly your test seems irrelevant to someones IQ.

I don't know what the Parthenon is, Do you know how the routing protocol BGP works?

Now tell me which one is more Relevant the Parthenon or BGP? I'll give you a hint. You posted on this forum using one of them.

That's what I did. I counted people who guessed from 12-18 million. Most people either didn't know what the Holocaust was or they thought it was just about a thousand people.

 

[McHanhan]

The more important question is, is 100 people enough to get an accurate statistical reading?.

The correct answer is no.

Not true.. If you randomly sample over a large enough area (since you're trying to generalize to the entire country) you can get a half-decent CI.

It wont be anything more than a "hey things may kind of sorta be like this.." but its better than dirt.

I doubt the OP actually randomly sampled, so its statistically invalid.. but its still interesting to think about, despite being unrepresentative of the population its talking about.

That's what I meant. Unless you're assuming 100 people to be the equivalent of a large enough area. Which it isn't!.