tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post4487301037663324595..comments2024-01-13T18:57:18.243-05:00Comments on Information Processing: The talented 1 in 10,000Steve Hsuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428333897272913660noreply@blogger.comBlogger29125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-16483648111319093412013-04-05T23:41:58.334-04:002013-04-05T23:41:58.334-04:00What happened with me at age 13 was clearly a masc...What happened with me at age 13 was clearly a masculinization of my intellect due to hormones. I'm kind of struck by how this phenomenon doesn't seem all that widely studied.stevesailernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-73548672027167786242013-04-04T11:29:48.402-04:002013-04-04T11:29:48.402-04:00Sadly they stopped using faculty interviewers some...Sadly they stopped using faculty interviewers some years ago. When I was in HS they sent a full professor of experimental high energy physics to interview me and the other applicant from my school. It was the dead of winter in Iowa and I cannot imagine it was anything like a holiday for the professor. <br /><br /><br />Modern science is such a competitive grind that faculty interviews are totallysteve hsuhttp://duende.uoregon.edu/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-76832586526754656202013-04-04T10:50:29.645-04:002013-04-04T10:50:29.645-04:00@LondonYoung that is interesting. I had a Caltech...@LondonYoung that is interesting. I had a Caltech "interviewer" come to my high school years ago, but I was too young/naive to realize/ask if he was a tenured prof (and even if I did know, too naive to realize how unusual that was). That would go a long way towards explaining the type of conversation we had. I was admitted even though I don't think I am 1 in 10,000 ;-) That Richard Seiternoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-85457452429922526232013-04-03T23:23:15.458-04:002013-04-03T23:23:15.458-04:00That's an awesome commitment on Caltech's ...That's an awesome commitment on Caltech's part. I also failed to consider the non-SAT objective test metrics Steve mentioned, I just didn't think the participation rates were that high but ofc they might be at the very top end. Seems reasonable to suppose that if you are 1/10k and conscientious enough to do competitions etc. Caltech will find you. I'm now itching to know how many tractalnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-68906659579990163152013-04-03T22:08:56.211-04:002013-04-03T22:08:56.211-04:00For what it is worth, the last I knew, Caltech fle...For what it is worth, the last I knew, Caltech flew tenured faculty members out to the high schools (no matter how remote) of all applicants they were considering admitting for a pretty serious hour (or more) long conversation with the applicant. So, if you start with the high SAT/GPA applicants, and send the 1 in 1000 quality faculty out to see if they think the applicant is 1 in 10,000 ... LondonYoungnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-25242280267334495152013-04-03T14:47:22.834-04:002013-04-03T14:47:22.834-04:00Not in psychometrics, but this is the basis of the...Not in psychometrics, but this is the basis of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_cognitive_development" rel="nofollow">Piagetian</a> theory of cognitive. Children develop logical thought during the <br />"Concrete Operational Stage" during middle childhood, and then become capable of abstract thought during the Formal Operational Stage in early adolescence. Piagetian Jason Malloyhttp://humanvarieties.org/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-41209094726886213672013-04-03T14:32:25.740-04:002013-04-03T14:32:25.740-04:00Yes, in another paper. The 35 year old Talent Sear...Yes, in <a href="http://pss.sagepub.com/content/17/3/194.abstract" rel="nofollow">another paper</a>. The 35 year old Talent Search sample was compared with graduate students and the general population:<br /><br />Moreover, the mean number of biological children for male and female [Graduate Student] participants was 0.57 and 0.54, respectively; corresponding means for their same-sex [Talent Jason Malloyhttp://humanvarieties.org/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-59114720531137149752013-04-02T11:59:07.674-04:002013-04-02T11:59:07.674-04:00They regressed when taking the SAT at two differen...They regressed when taking the SAT at two different ages because of the imperfect stability of IQ across the life span but they would regress again if they moved from the SAT to an official IQ test. For example harvard students average the IQ equivalent of 143 on the SAT but 128 on an abbreviated version of the WAIS-R. Now the samples might not have been 100% comparable, but my experience is Iamexpertnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-8634720837147363892013-04-02T11:47:31.957-04:002013-04-02T11:47:31.957-04:00Intelligence is only correlated with natural selec...Intelligence is only correlated with natural selection not sexual selection. In ancestral times fitness was determined by natural selection so brain size tripled in 3 million years. Today with a social safety net, fitness is a function of sexual selection (fertility, litter size) so IQ is almost negatively correlated with fitness and we're almost seeing a dysgenic trends.Iamexpertnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-178254395070504452013-04-02T06:50:07.211-04:002013-04-02T06:50:07.211-04:00I've never seen any results on age of onset of...I've never seen any results on age of onset of interest in logic, but your comment raises the point that this study selects for precocity, which is correlated with, but not perfectly predictive of, maximum adult potential. That is, some of the kids who qualified for this study are more exceptional for precocity than for their adult cognitive ability. See the Caltech comments below.steve hsuhttp://duende.uoregon.edu/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-15322155321284137032013-04-02T00:11:45.176-04:002013-04-02T00:11:45.176-04:00This study of 12-year-olds reminds of something I ...This study of 12-year-olds reminds of something I wanted to bring up: I had little interest in logic before age 13. Suddenly, at age 13 (i.e., puberty), I loved logical argument. My wife says the same thing happened to her. Yet, I've never seen this come up in a psychometric analysis.stevesailernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-61734732489229349892013-04-01T20:56:25.516-04:002013-04-01T20:56:25.516-04:00I love that story.I love that story.David Coughlinhttp://twitter.com/dscoughlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-38860704919604496022013-04-01T20:21:29.927-04:002013-04-01T20:21:29.927-04:00Admissions officers have several tests (SATs, some...Admissions officers have several tests (SATs, sometimes math/phys/chem/informatics competitions), grades, evaluations, etc. to go on so they have more (good) data than simply one test at age 12. I'd much rather be in their position to pick winners than just having age 12 SATs.<br /><br />Re: drive and conscientiousness, <br /><br />"You and Your Research: ... At Los Alamos I was brought steve hsuhttp://duende.uoregon.edu/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-21902625091633790792013-04-01T20:10:45.026-04:002013-04-01T20:10:45.026-04:00If that's right either Caltech's admission...If that's right either Caltech's admissions officers are gods of psychometric intuition or the extra-curriculur achievements of the 1/10,000 stand out very clearly from the 1/200. Either way something interesting is going on there. Or conscientiousness is a huge factor even into the stratosphere of STEM PhD achievement, which would also be interesting.tractalnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-10911977286216865042013-04-01T11:46:15.147-04:002013-04-01T11:46:15.147-04:00I was just was reading about Liebniz and Newton, a...I was just was reading about Liebniz and Newton, and noted both were childless. Kanazawa noted in the book studies of prodigies, and they generally found high accomplishment and below average fertility.efalkennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-36445861864605950882013-04-01T10:03:07.939-04:002013-04-01T10:03:07.939-04:00Slightly OT - commiserations on Caltech's lack...Slightly OT - commiserations on Caltech's lack of success in last year's Putnam competition.5371noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-19367681244816156092013-04-01T00:56:45.253-04:002013-04-01T00:56:45.253-04:00Is there any data on 1 in 10,000 female vs. male a...Is there any data on 1 in 10,000 female vs. male accomplishment? Any data on how many of the highest achievers had dual professional parents? One of the challenges of raising bright children as a middle income family are the limited opportunities in public schools.NotaPhysicistnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-66825657954854081072013-03-31T23:13:36.664-04:002013-03-31T23:13:36.664-04:00I would be curious to know how their children'...I would be curious to know how their children's IQ stack up against their parents but many of the children may be too young still.BellcurveOlinoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-40337179289003821862013-03-31T21:02:06.091-04:002013-03-31T21:02:06.091-04:00A lot of this is context/society dependent. If you...A lot of this is context/society dependent. If you look at the Clark-UK/China data it seems plausible that in the past smarter people who were more economically successful also reproduced more. Today that's not true for a number of reasons. <br /><br /><br />Re: Kanazawa, agriculture and trading/specialization were evolutionarily novel at first. Then we went through a period where most peoplesteve hsuhttp://duende.uoregon.edu/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-9890885536087294602013-03-31T20:49:26.255-04:002013-03-31T20:49:26.255-04:00Satoshi Kanazawa makes an intriguing point in his ...Satoshi Kanazawa makes an intriguing point in his book The Intelligence Paradox that one can over-rate intelligence if you look at achievement vs. progeny. Basically, he says intelligent people make better physicians, astronauts, better scientists, and better violinists, because all these pursuits are evolutionarily novel. But these are all the unimportant things in life, as they do not make efalkennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-2947107829355556772013-03-31T20:45:57.634-04:002013-03-31T20:45:57.634-04:00In earlier work it was shown that these 1 in 10k k...In earlier work it was shown that these 1 in 10k kids regress a bit by the time they are high school seniors. This is expected since they use a single test for admission and some of the kids who qualify are a bit below the cutoff but got lucky when taking the SAT at age 12. The typical HS SAT scores for this population (obtained pre-1995 when the ceiling was higher than today) were somewhat lowersteve hsuhttp://duende.uoregon.edu/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-7072260894702271222013-03-31T20:37:45.775-04:002013-03-31T20:37:45.775-04:00I don't recall seeing it, but Lubinski might k...I don't recall seeing it, but Lubinski might know. They have tons of data on this population.steve hsuhttp://duende.uoregon.edu/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-77503033405829758712013-03-31T20:14:24.529-04:002013-03-31T20:14:24.529-04:00I have a different question. You and LondonYoung ...I have a different question. You and LondonYoung went through an exercise roughing out the distribution of IQs in the typical Caltech graduating class. How did the actual composition of your class compare to that model [if that rings a bell]?David Coughlinhttp://twitter.com/dscoughlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-61008878709656207792013-03-31T20:07:46.355-04:002013-03-31T20:07:46.355-04:00Did they note the average number of children for t...Did they note the average number of children for this group?efalkennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-29839994736872356372013-03-31T19:40:04.361-04:002013-03-31T19:40:04.361-04:001 in 10000 is just a proxy for something else, a l...1 in 10000 is just a proxy for something else, a limit about which you have expressed interest in the past.David Coughlinhttp://twitter.com/dscoughlinnoreply@blogger.com