[txutxu]

Is IQ everything that counts?

Does the family's social class count or not? Does the socioeconomic situation of the state, country, neighborhood count or not? Does fashions, wars, crises, recessions, mass layoffs, drugs permitted by states, industrial changes, friends, political changes, city councils, police and judges, corruption, monetary funds, teachers, management of study centers, laws, banks and what not... count?

Living in Spain, more than 20 years working with Linux (self-learned from magazines, books, and modem-internet in the 90's), could not get a degree (by family situation, did start to work in fields unrelated to technology at 16's)... have found many persons with a degree and very low IQ in my career.

Still, interesting article. Here, even basic education is 100% worse than it was 20, 30, 40, 50, etc years ago.

[nextlevelwizard]

You come out guns blazing about how IQ isn't the only thing, but then get twisted about "working with Linux" somehow being any way related to degrees and then claim to have found many degree havers to be very low IQ.

Kind a think you should take stock again and reconsider what you think IQ is and what it means. Hint: it has nothing to do with using Linux.

[txutxu]

Sorry for the misunderstanding

In my time (20 years ago) computer related Degrees didn't teach Linux (again, here in Spain).

I, years after leaving formal education, without any degree, have been giving talks at universities to engineering students.

My reference to linux was not 100% related to the IQ... but I did want to talk about working in tech and degrees, which I think, depending on the company/industry, may be a signal for me (rather than be 8 hours screwing the same screw in a car chain). By that I don't mean there is not people with a high IQ in a chain (even there is lot of people with a degree in car chains).

Of course, maybe I'm totally wrong, thanks for pointing that.

Update: To complete... what may affect IQ? education changes? can a person educated one way or another, develop different IQ? physiological (ADN, etc) changes? can mutations over generations change the medium IQ? social changes? can the environment, habits and traditions during the formative stage of a person affect the IQ? I think so... maybe I should start by asking: what doesn't affect the IQ of a person?

[kcatskcolbdi]

It seems like they are just giving background on what they do for a living for added context before stating that they have encountered low IQ people with degrees in their field.

How you got that somehow they are comparing Linux to IQ is above me; perhaps I am just too low IQ to understand.

[logtempo]

It's a measurement of cognitive performance, nothing more. It does not tell if you can do a good job or not.

I think it's a good tool when looking a two groups or looking at performances over time.

But it could be biased, for example when he say PhD IQ fall when enrollment is higher, measuring the quality of the work would've been better.

Also IQ don't give you any hint of causation. Maybe IQ drop because of school quality? Screen time? Physical activity drop? Some widespread chemical? Lack of oportunity given the world environmental crisis?

There are many factors that could play a role.

[bell-cot]

> Is IQ everything that counts?

H*ll, no...but it's an easily obtained, one-dimensional number. Which pushes lots of people's buttons. So it's near-perfect if you want people to pay attention to your pretty graphs and glib conclusions.

I suspect a better number (for "good prospect for college?" questions) would be some measure of how willing & able a student is to sit and study (vs. be physically active, do real-world work, and interact socially). At least back when I went to college, there were lots of brilliant flakes. Their HS grades and admission test scores made them look like potential Ph.D's. But their inability to really study, for college-level classes, meant that they flunked out in a year or two.

[LudwigNagasena]

You don’t have to suspect! There is probably a bazillion of papers that study how conscientiousness (ability to “sit and study”) and other traits relate to grades, how they interact with IQ and so on. Here is one I just googled: https://www.mdpi.com/2079-3200/11/7/146

[coolThingsFirst]

Not impressed at all that someone works with Linux.

[txutxu]

Not trying to impress at all... see the rest of the sentence and paragraph, its just background of the environment where I did meet people with a degree and low IQ

For the comments... it's clear I did choose a bad word here. Should I have say computers, all known programming languages, Microsoft, cisco, or whatever in 20 years... if linux was so easy for everyone 20 years ago.

Didn!t mean that I've high IQ just because I use Linux or something like that... neither i'm looking for congratulations.

My only point is that having a degree may not be only related to a high IQ and the other way around.

[coolThingsFirst]

Yet all statistical data on this proves you wrong. STEM degree holders have high IQs, no need to get insecure over it.

[txutxu]

Maybe because statisticians (with their degree and correspondent IQ) never did reach really clever persons without a degree that I've known to perform an IQ test... or because they didn't choose some of the STEM degree holders, authors of real horror histories at work, or with the brain of a vegetable, that I did know.

Who knows :)

Anyway, don't want to discuss about if I'm wrong or insecure, but about the topic, have a nice day!