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by osigurdson 591 days ago
Take height for example, which largely follows a normal distribution. The 7 ft tall person can reach items on the shelf that are simply inaccessible to someone who is 5ft tall. This represents an infinite difference in "raw capability" yet the underlying distribution is still normal.
1 comments
aydyn 591 days ago
Height may be normally distributed but that doesnt mean intelligence is. IQ is normally distributed because its transformed to be so; similarly, "being able to reach things" is not a natural transformation with sufficient explanatory power of what could be considered the "underlying distribution". Like IQ its a transformation of height.

If you look at any intellectual skill or ability, the most raw and natural measuremnt is not normal. Going back to chess, if you look at ELO, you might be persuaded that chess ability is normally distributed. But thats wrong because ELO, like decibel, is a log transformation of the underlying measurement. We take logarithms when the the raw thing we are looking is so variable it spans orders of magnitude. So in reality the underlying distribution of chess ability is extremely skewed with a heavy right tail. It spans orders of magnitude.

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osigurdson 591 days ago
I think the mistake you are making is transforming the distribution to another one and drawing conclusions from that. For instance, the win rate in the shelf reaching game becomes a Dirac delta function at the right tail of the normal distribution.
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aydyn 591 days ago
I think either you are not reading my post or I'm not explaining myself well.

What Ive been trying to do is make the argument why an exponential-like distribution is a more natural representation of intelligence and therefore what the "underlying distribution" looks like.

Clearly, a delta function against a shelf game is not a natural or useful representation of height so I think that counterpoint to your argument is obvious.

According to you, what is the underlying distribution of intelligence and why?

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osigurdson 591 days ago
>> According to you, what is the underlying distribution of intelligence and why

I think intelligence is normally distributed, like all other human characteristics. When transformed to win rates based on intelligence that becomes a different distribution. Your argument is centered on the 2nd distribution.

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aydyn 590 days ago
> I think intelligence is normally distributed, like all other human characteristics.

My question was why do you say it is normally distributed? where is your evidence?

> When transformed to win rates based on intelligence that becomes a different distribution.

You dont have to look at just competition, but other mental skills too. Most any application of intelligence is not normally dostributed. Why is this fact not a natural reflection of the underlying distribution?

I am struggling to see any support for your position. Help me out.

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