[clarkm]

Not true - there are tons of studies that show otherwise, so I have no idea how this myth still exists.

An IQ of 120 is the top ~10%. Here's a 25 year longitudinal study [1] of over 1,500 students that were all in the top 1% and it shows significant differences between the lowest and the highest quartile (who were in the top .01%):

> Ability Differences Among People Who Have Commensurate Degrees Matter for Scientific Creativity > ABSTRACT: A sample of 1,586 intellectually talented adolescents (top 1%) were assessed on the math portion of the SAT by age 13 and tracked for more than 25 years. Patents and scientific publications were used as criteria for scientific and technological accomplishment. Participants were categorized according to whether their terminal degree was a bachelor’s, master’s, or doctorate degree, and within these degree groupings, the proportion of participants with at least one patent or scientific publication in adulthood increased as a function of this early SAT assessment. Information about individual differences in cognitive ability (even when measured in early adolescence) can predict differential creative potential in science and technology within populations that have advanced educational degrees.

This is just one example, but the results seem to be pretty consistent.

[1] https://my.vanderbilt.edu/smpy/files/2013/02/ParkPsychScienc...

[tokenadult]

I know David Lubinski, one of the investigators in that correlational study, reasonably well. (He and I are alumni of the same school district and same undergraduate university, and have many mutual friends besides meeting each other in conferences from time to time.) It's important to distinguish the claim about the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth (of whom my son is one participant) and my claim about mathematical "genius" in general. The claim you cite is that frequency of eminent accomplishment in that study population increases as SAT scores at age twelve increase. That may be. My claim is that the threshold IQ score for eminent accomplishment in mathematics and other domains that recognize "genius" is no higher than 120, and I have Arthur Jensen and Hans Eysenck and the Terman longitudinal study on my side as I make that claim.

[clarkm]

My understanding was that many of the claims of threshold effects at least partially stemmed from the imprecision of many tests, even at the 1.5-2 sigma levels.

Would you be able to send me some more info? Email's in my profile.