lol. 21 of the 64 voted to be the top 2%. I loled.
31 of the 54 voted to be in the top 10%. I loed again.
What this poll ultimatly proves is that at least half of this forum (or at least those involved with this poll) are excessivly arrogant or likewise condecending of others in the forum. Though I won't lie. Since starting MTG I have noticed a fair amount of arrogance in the population. About whats been reflected in this poll. Not everyone thinks they are mega-awesomescause but I would say about half.
I'm not your average typical nerd and a lot of my friends were REALLY surpised when I told them I played MTG. And I was suprised when I started at how many people had bloated egos for what seemed to be no apparent reason. They talk like they got a 10 inch trouser snake but in reality its b/c they won like ...2 FNM and can recall random facts about cards from 5 years ago and watched the Finals of worlds live on the internet.
I'm intelligent enough to know the average IQ tests are absolutely meaningless and also intelligent enough to know this poll is utter rubbish because people don't even interact on a consistent basis with even 10% of mtgs user base so making snap judgements is nothing but arrogance.
You know whats the funny part. I've talked a lot about IQ and intelligence while a WHOLE lot of people, due to have done a lot. The smartest people (I know one guy who is 1 in 30,000) know what IQ mean and effectively say that is exists and it is what people say it is. However, they have also realized that IQ, while being a close factor to what people would call intelligence, is not the best skill to have. Social skills and leadership are what people make happy and successful. When you go a bit lower on the IQ scale, a lot of people tend to say "You know IQ doesn't measure intelligence" or "I don't believe in that", or "that means nothing". Which is funny, cause I've heard those arguments soooo much all around. I think I might have heard it for the first like around 9-10 or do (my first IQ test). And consistently for the next 10 years.
High IQ is like saying you have the bluest *****.
The average people say "Wow, I wish I had such a blue *****." or "I think my ***** is very blue"
Then a lot of average-high people go "You know, it doesn't actually mean that you have the bluest *****" or "I know that you can't really mesure the blueness of your *****".
The people at the top go "Having a blue ***** makes it really hard to get laid, I wish it was just really big."
Oh, and one more thing. People who say "When I was young, my IQ was probably in the top x%", it wasn't IQ is calculated with your age factor. At 22 (IIRC) you are at your peak and you need to score the highest in an IQ test to get the same result as if you took it at another age. So because of that, either you are still in, or you weren't really in. I know cause people made fun of me for being half the age of the second youngest person there when I took my last test.
I've taken free IQ tests before, and I've gotten anywhere between 125-135. Then a month ago I took one of those paid IQ tests and got 112, and they said it was above what most of their clients got. I probably would have done better if I could memorize random numbers/letters and say them back backwards or organize them in the way they wanted. Like in one of the exercises, they would say something like "E 2 D 5 3" and you would have to read it back as "2 3 5 D E" without writing it down. I wish I didn't have terrible memory.
I brought up average IQ and 150+ target to be in top 2% because it's a metric most posters would be familiar with. A similar re-baselining could be performed with the SAT or any other standardized score.
I suspect the >2% voters formed an opinion of where they rank from (the highest?) standardized test ranking they have scored in life.
Some respondents may not have considered what happens when you keep dropping the bottom of the population. For example, one may have been the top student in a high school. But at college may be thrown into a class with top students from other high schools, and then in industry may be hired into a firm comprised only of top students from top colleges across multiple years. And there might be more than one top firm. And there is certainly more than one discipline.
I suspect the 'excess' 2 percenters either haven't gone through this process or thought through this process.
Separately, I might also be interested in a poll of "most successful" and "best in-person social skills." Particularly the latter.
What does intelligence even mean, though. To be fair, people in general are like that. It might be a little more skewed on here but if you expected anything resembling a normal bell curve for something like this on any sample, hah.
This.
Personally, my IQ score was/is around 140 initially, which is the top 1% [34 ACT/2150 SAT(I can't write longhand fast enough for the essay - actually in both I didn't finish the essay part due to that)]. It's dropped a bit over the years though, I think [though when I took my main profile thingy I was suffering from deep depression that probably doesn't help], to an average of around 125, 130? [They give you four different intelligences with confidence intervals.] I have life experience too, though. Who knows. I initially said I was going to put top 2%-5% but I guess I'll drop down to 10%-20%. That seems a bit more right for my profile of skills anyways.
It's important to remember this, though:
Quote from Jay13x »
Raw IQ is relatively meaningless - especially outside of hard sciences. As I said before I've learned that analytical skill that isn't paired with social or leadership ability isn't all that useful.
So the question becomes, how are we measuring this? How useful is it? Of the people on the forum, how many smart people would vote on this poll? How many different metrics can be used to determine intelligence?
I've had a WAIS metric done on me and my IQ is very ... skewed. It's genius-level [i.e. 180, 190, stretching the limits of the measurement] in a few areas, and around statistically normal everywhere else. The high parts are generally correlated to what standardized tests [and school] normally test[s] you on - short-term memory, pattern recognition.
Assuming the best of the people here, it /could/ be that all of us are part of the top 2% in some metric or another, but when taking the sum total of "intelligence", whatever it is, many of the submitters haven't experienced the things they're bad at or are ignoring them for the purposes of the poll. "Intelligence" is a specious word.
Also, the pool of people is different from normal life - people who play MTG [or are generally on MTGS; I don't play MTG so much anymore] would tend, I'd think, to be "smarter", conventionally speaking, with lowered* social skills, which would also skew the measurement.
Of course, selection bias exists too, so what do I know?
*edit*
Looked a little bit closer over my WAIS scores. One other thing; there tends to be a thought just that the skills don't degrade and that you are the highest score. This isn't statistically accurate either. ... heh.
my mouth is full of winsome lies -
and eyes are full of death besides
but luckily the soul is wise -
it sees beyond my blindness and
forced failure makes a better guise,
so as i come again alive,
it feels like life's a decent plan
This would certainly explain why so few rank themselves in the bottom half (I suspect more than one of those who selected the bottom tier were doing so partially in jest). Not sure that it provides as clear an explanation for all the respondents at the top. The paper suggests that the top quartile might underestimate their actual ranking by over-estimating how well others will do. Thoughts?
Standardized test scores aren't good indicators of intelligence (coming from someone who scored in the top 1-2% in the sat and gre) - and if you haven't taken a legitimate battery of iq tests, believing you're in the top few percent, in my mind, amounts to pure unsubstantiated arrogance. That number means you think you're smarter than 49 out of 50 people. I don't even think I've gotten to know 50 people well enough to assess their intelligence, let alone a statistically meaningful sample.
I'm hesitant to put myself at anything greater than 75%, and even that makes me uneasy, because intelligence is such a fluid, contextual thing. It's really been turned into just another status conferring quality people use to feel superior to one another.
Not sure that it provides as clear an explanation for all the respondents at the top.
The anonymity of the internet could be a significant factor. In a real social setting, claiming you are in the 60th or 70th percentile signals adequate humility while maintaining ego's need to be better than average.
lol. 21 of the 64 voted to be the top 2%. I loled.
31 of the 54 voted to be in the top 10%. I loed again.
What this poll ultimatly proves is that at least half of this forum (or at least those involved with this poll) are excessivly arrogant or likewise condecending of others in the forum. Though I won't lie. Since starting MTG I have noticed a fair amount of arrogance in the population. About whats been reflected in this poll. Not everyone thinks they are mega-awesomescause but I would say about half.
Well the majority of people who are still here posting in the OOC sections are people who have learned how to insult someone just thinly veiled enough that they don't get infracted for it. So people who have the ability to do that much political maneuvering just to get an edge in a debate or discussion probably on average think very highly of themselves in the first place.
You know, the kind of people that never admit when they are wrong. Those kind of people probably like to think they are the smartest guy in the room at all times. So that could explain it too.
I want to point out one thing. I think there would be more "average" results (as in less people in the top) if I had made the poll public (you can see who posted where).
This would certainly explain why so few rank themselves in the bottom half (I suspect more than one of those who selected the bottom tier were doing so partially in jest). Not sure that it provides as clear an explanation for all the respondents at the top. The paper suggests that the top quartile might underestimate their actual ranking by over-estimating how well others will do. Thoughts?
I thought the underestimation in the top was interesting too. The authors agree with your explanation:
Top-quartile participants did not underestimate themselves because they were wrong about their own performances, but rather because they were wrong about the performances of their peers. In essence, we believe they fell prey
to the false-consensus effect (Ross, Greene, & House, 1977). In the absence of data to the contrary, they mistakenly assumed that their peers would tend to provide the same (correct) answers as they themselves—an impression that could be immediately corrected by showing them the performances of their peers.
I think the explanation of the authors about overestimation, that people who perform poorly lack the ability to accurately judge performance is true. Experts are generally better at evaluating ability across a number of domains. However, I also think there is probably a lot going on under the surface too, these people are probably saying, "I could have done better if I had wanted to," or other variations. My point is that there is an emotional benefit to overestimating. It isn't just an inability to judge ability, it's emotionally protective.
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If that's your "casual," what on earth is required for "formal," a butler in livery shuffling the decks whilst a pianist plays Brahms in front of a tapestry?
I know some people who ace all their exams, can memorize entire blocks of legal texts overnight, and have an amazing IQ, but are usually so busy studying that they lack social skills and suffer having low EQ as a result, and are awkward in social situations. Intelligent, sure, but then they aren't smart enough to be able to interact with people normally?
Similarly, I know a lot of people who are particularly gifted in something (music, arts, creative writing) who can craft beautiful works of art but are not particularly gifted in math, science or other subjects. So if someone can play Mozart at the drop of a hat, but has difficulty comprehending trigonometry, you would believe this person is not intelligent?
Also, street smarts versus book smarts: there are plenty of people out there who have a great theoretical working knowledge of something, and others who have experience in the field. Compare someone who has studied culture their entire life but has never left their home country to someone who travelled the world and learned culture on the streets. Who would you rather have as a tour guide? (Truth be told, this depends; a great chunk of history and culture can be appreciated through books, while language and food need to be experienced first hand)
Even if we assume that intelligence can be measured by grades (I highly contest that), grades are no solid indicator of intelligence. There are people who cheat in exams to get A's, and there are honest but bright people who would rather fail than resort to cheating. Also, how do you grade things like being able to speak a language, for example? Sure we have these ridiculous language certificates, but you mean to tell me that a child who was raised speaking Mandarin as a second (or third) language purely by ear, but has never had a language class in their life, can't speak the language? Maybe that child can't read or write in Mandarin, but if they can speak it, how do you measure that intelligence?
In short, there are a lot of different aspects to consider when evaluating a persons (overall) intelligence.
I mean, I'm assuming the OP probably means IQ, but "intelligence" as a whole is not simply dictated by IQ. Take a look at some studies where people examined the top ranking gradeschoolers and predicted they would be big dogs in the future. Didn't happen; college drop outs, people who didn't do well in college, those whom you looked down upon... they often end up as successful, if not moreso, than those expected to succeed. Go to any high school reunion and see where everyone ends up and how successful they are (or are not). You'd be surprised.
I participate yearly in a survival challenge in which I am dropped off in the wilderness with 1 days rations, a knife, and no other supplies, and have to find my way home. This is typically several weeks hiking from civilization.
I have personally killed several bears in the course of this challenge, with the use of snares and other traps.
I think a more accurate poll would be education level. Unless people blatantly lie about that, which would be pretty pathetic, then that would be more accurate. I'm not saying IQ=education, but they can be equally important.
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I have very good memorization skills, but poor lateral thinking and poor emotional control. I have a high measured IQ, but that means little when I have trouble just talking to people or thinking outside the box.
I'd say I'm 50%-60%. I'm not dumb, but I'm certainly not smart.
My grades are really good but I don't feel very academically intelligent. And I'm only at a high school level education right now. So I went with 30-40%.
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I think a more accurate poll would be education level. Unless people blatantly lie about that, which would be pretty pathetic, then that would be more accurate. I'm not saying IQ=education, but they can be equally important.
I would really be interested in seeing the education level distribution among users here. We'd need random sampling to make any inferences, but just seeing any poll responses and how many users have or are currently working on advanced degrees would be interesting.
Edit: I'd also like to see what the degrees are in. I suspect most people (myself included) would guess that a disproportionate percentage of magic players are studying/working in STEM fields.
An autistic savant could probably best the entirety of the forum on the area they are a savant in, while at the same time they could be unable to tie their shoes. Where would you rank them?
"Intelligence" is a very broad term with no standard definition of what it means to be "an intelligent person". We live in a differentiated society and different people are intelligent about different things in different ways. Trying to take a baseline measurement of intelligence that is free from any social, cultural, or gender bias has proven to be impossible so far.
I think they are areas when I am smarter than the average MTGS member, I am positive there are MANY areas where the average MTGS member is smarter than me. You can't boil all that down to a number and put any weight in it
My grades are really good but I don't feel very academically intelligent. And I'm only at a high school level education right now. So I went with 30-40%.
Intelligence and ability/performance are two separate things. This is actually why a lot of children who get labeled as "gifted" wind up having academic and professional problems later in life.
Edit: I'd also like to see what the degrees are in. I suspect most people (myself included) would guess that a disproportionate percentage of magic players are studying/working in STEM fields.
I'm in business, so there's at least one person on here fighting the stereotypes.
And there is 12% in the bottom 90 to 100% , and single-digit percentages in the 70% to 90%, which shows that people often take extremes.
I put myself in the top 50%. I'm probably smarter than many people who claim to be in the top 10%. And a good number people who claim themselves lower than me are very likely smarter than me.
Ask me this question 2 years ago, I would have put myself in the top 10%. Seems like I've gotten dumber over the past 24 months LOL.
But seriously, there are so many different kinds of intelligence, it's hard to say that the kind you have is authoritative.
Intelligence and ability/performance are two separate things. This is actually why a lot of children who get labeled as "gifted" wind up having academic and professional problems later in life.
Indeed, on the academic front - not so much because of testing however - I was completely unmotivated to do homework, so I did grade school like college and with 20-25% of the grade being homework based in my day...
Fortunately I'd normally ace the rest, but was quite amusing going from 2-2.5 GPA to 3.9 GPA the minute I stepped into college. (And a few of my teachers after my example adjusted their homework weighting in later years - my German teacher for example changed his to be a bonus to help people that were struggling on tests, but ignored it for people acing tests)
I'm in business, so there's at least one person on here fighting the stereotypes.
Business as well here, although Human Resources explicitly. (It was considered to be a business degree when I graduated, I'd imagine it still is)
Oh and Jay13x I think your probably safe to put yourself in the top 2% , I'd put you there without worrying about being statistically wrong.
Well, I appreciate it. How much of that is life experience and learned methods of thinking versus biological ability, I don't know. I can tell you I very easily could have become a Sheldon-esque nerd or the poster boy for wasted potential (I don't trust myself with MMOs). But that's several things:
- Good raw intelligence (But a jack-of-all trades rather than being particularly adept at any one thing)
- OCD Personality Traits (this is probably the biggest reason I could have gone full-on stereotype)
- Emotionally tense childhood (I'm good at spotting people's moods and ingratiating myself with them)
Lol, when I did the Meyers-Briggs (the worth of which is debatable) for an internship in college, 'Leader of a Military Junta' was one of the several end points for me, so things could have gone very bad
Ultimately, the most valuable trait I have is the ability to ask for help and cultivate a group of skilled people as friends and acquaintances. Having other people who actively want to help me is more valuable than any trait, knowledge or skill I have.
So the question becomes, how are we measuring this? How useful is it? Of the people on the forum, how many smart people would vote on this poll? How many different metrics can be used to determine intelligence?
You can pretty much trust that this poll is worthless except as a self assessment, which other comments have driven home. What most people think of as 'intelligence' is a lot of factors.
I gave myself top 40%, which I'd imagine is fairly accurate. I'm definitely smarter than most, but i'm not exactly the brightest tool in the drawer.
Don't sell yourself short, either. One of the important things I learned from never being 'the best' at anything growing up (which grated on me for a long time, until around 16) is that there is a lot of value in a well-rounded individual.
Intelligence and ability/performance are two separate things. This is actually why a lot of children who get labeled as "gifted" wind up having academic and professional problems later in life.
I would actually say it has more to do with personality than ability. Pretty much anyone can learn a given ability - but if someone doesn't want to learn or doesn't have the right attitude, it'll never sink in. There are tons of very intelligent people out there that plateau just as badly as high school athletes because they never developed the coping skills to deal with the adult world.
I struggled with this early in college, as finally having to study and put effort into classes to get good grades was a rude awakening. There are plenty of people who I would rank around the same intelligence as me that couldn't make that transition.
Fortunately I'd normally ace the rest, but was quite amusing going from 2-2.5 GPA to 3.9 GPA the minute I stepped into college. (And a few of my teachers after my example adjusted their homework weighting in later years - my German teacher for example changed his to be a bonus to help people that were struggling on tests, but ignored it for people acing tests)
Ha! I was the opposite when I first started in college, but once I got past the gen ends which were largely busy work, and got into classes that required critical thinking, I started excelling again. Never quite got as high as a 3.9, though.
Business as well here, although Human Resources explicitly. (It was considered to be a business degree when I graduated, I'd imagine it still is)
HR is actually it's own degree at this point, actually. There are entire poli sci classes devoted to the subject.
I'm am an Emergency Manager - it was mostly Poli Sci, economics and healthcare courses. It's literally the only field that will never become obsolete - because the one thing you can count on is bad stuff happening.
31 of the 54 voted to be in the top 10%. I loed again.
What this poll ultimatly proves is that at least half of this forum (or at least those involved with this poll) are excessivly arrogant or likewise condecending of others in the forum. Though I won't lie. Since starting MTG I have noticed a fair amount of arrogance in the population. About whats been reflected in this poll. Not everyone thinks they are mega-awesomescause but I would say about half.
I'm not your average typical nerd and a lot of my friends were REALLY surpised when I told them I played MTG. And I was suprised when I started at how many people had bloated egos for what seemed to be no apparent reason. They talk like they got a 10 inch trouser snake but in reality its b/c they won like ...2 FNM and can recall random facts about cards from 5 years ago and watched the Finals of worlds live on the internet.
You know whats the funny part. I've talked a lot about IQ and intelligence while a WHOLE lot of people, due to have done a lot. The smartest people (I know one guy who is 1 in 30,000) know what IQ mean and effectively say that is exists and it is what people say it is. However, they have also realized that IQ, while being a close factor to what people would call intelligence, is not the best skill to have. Social skills and leadership are what people make happy and successful. When you go a bit lower on the IQ scale, a lot of people tend to say "You know IQ doesn't measure intelligence" or "I don't believe in that", or "that means nothing". Which is funny, cause I've heard those arguments soooo much all around. I think I might have heard it for the first like around 9-10 or do (my first IQ test). And consistently for the next 10 years.
High IQ is like saying you have the bluest *****.
The average people say "Wow, I wish I had such a blue *****." or "I think my ***** is very blue"
Then a lot of average-high people go "You know, it doesn't actually mean that you have the bluest *****" or "I know that you can't really mesure the blueness of your *****".
The people at the top go "Having a blue ***** makes it really hard to get laid, I wish it was just really big."
Oh, and one more thing. People who say "When I was young, my IQ was probably in the top x%", it wasn't IQ is calculated with your age factor. At 22 (IIRC) you are at your peak and you need to score the highest in an IQ test to get the same result as if you took it at another age. So because of that, either you are still in, or you weren't really in. I know cause people made fun of me for being half the age of the second youngest person there when I took my last test.
I suspect the >2% voters formed an opinion of where they rank from (the highest?) standardized test ranking they have scored in life.
Some respondents may not have considered what happens when you keep dropping the bottom of the population. For example, one may have been the top student in a high school. But at college may be thrown into a class with top students from other high schools, and then in industry may be hired into a firm comprised only of top students from top colleges across multiple years. And there might be more than one top firm. And there is certainly more than one discipline.
I suspect the 'excess' 2 percenters either haven't gone through this process or thought through this process.
Separately, I might also be interested in a poll of "most successful" and "best in-person social skills." Particularly the latter.
This.
Personally, my IQ score was/is around 140 initially, which is the top 1% [34 ACT/2150 SAT(I can't write longhand fast enough for the essay - actually in both I didn't finish the essay part due to that)]. It's dropped a bit over the years though, I think [though when I took my main profile thingy I was suffering from deep depression that probably doesn't help], to an average of around 125, 130? [They give you four different intelligences with confidence intervals.] I have life experience too, though. Who knows. I initially said I was going to put top 2%-5% but I guess I'll drop down to 10%-20%. That seems a bit more right for my profile of skills anyways.
It's important to remember this, though:
So the question becomes, how are we measuring this? How useful is it? Of the people on the forum, how many smart people would vote on this poll? How many different metrics can be used to determine intelligence?
I've had a WAIS metric done on me and my IQ is very ... skewed. It's genius-level [i.e. 180, 190, stretching the limits of the measurement] in a few areas, and around statistically normal everywhere else. The high parts are generally correlated to what standardized tests [and school] normally test[s] you on - short-term memory, pattern recognition.
Assuming the best of the people here, it /could/ be that all of us are part of the top 2% in some metric or another, but when taking the sum total of "intelligence", whatever it is, many of the submitters haven't experienced the things they're bad at or are ignoring them for the purposes of the poll. "Intelligence" is a specious word.
Also, the pool of people is different from normal life - people who play MTG [or are generally on MTGS; I don't play MTG so much anymore] would tend, I'd think, to be "smarter", conventionally speaking, with lowered* social skills, which would also skew the measurement.
Of course, selection bias exists too, so what do I know?
*edit*
Looked a little bit closer over my WAIS scores. One other thing; there tends to be a thought just that the skills don't degrade and that you are the highest score. This isn't statistically accurate either. ... heh.
*edit 2*
One other note: Six months ago I probably would've voted top 2% on this poll.
Also, whoever posted this link: http://www.psoriasissociety.ttsg.org/pdfs/Dunning-Kruger%20Effect.pdf
It's pretty awesome. Especially that chart on 1124. [I like charts!]
and eyes are full of death besides
but luckily the soul is wise -
it sees beyond my blindness and
forced failure makes a better guise,
so as i come again alive,
it feels like life's a decent plan
This would certainly explain why so few rank themselves in the bottom half (I suspect more than one of those who selected the bottom tier were doing so partially in jest). Not sure that it provides as clear an explanation for all the respondents at the top. The paper suggests that the top quartile might underestimate their actual ranking by over-estimating how well others will do. Thoughts?
I'm hesitant to put myself at anything greater than 75%, and even that makes me uneasy, because intelligence is such a fluid, contextual thing. It's really been turned into just another status conferring quality people use to feel superior to one another.
The anonymity of the internet could be a significant factor. In a real social setting, claiming you are in the 60th or 70th percentile signals adequate humility while maintaining ego's need to be better than average.
Well the majority of people who are still here posting in the OOC sections are people who have learned how to insult someone just thinly veiled enough that they don't get infracted for it. So people who have the ability to do that much political maneuvering just to get an edge in a debate or discussion probably on average think very highly of themselves in the first place.
You know, the kind of people that never admit when they are wrong. Those kind of people probably like to think they are the smartest guy in the room at all times. So that could explain it too.
I think the anomity has something to do with it.
I thought the underestimation in the top was interesting too. The authors agree with your explanation:
I think the explanation of the authors about overestimation, that people who perform poorly lack the ability to accurately judge performance is true. Experts are generally better at evaluating ability across a number of domains. However, I also think there is probably a lot going on under the surface too, these people are probably saying, "I could have done better if I had wanted to," or other variations. My point is that there is an emotional benefit to overestimating. It isn't just an inability to judge ability, it's emotionally protective.
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Mythic rares are fine.
I know some people who ace all their exams, can memorize entire blocks of legal texts overnight, and have an amazing IQ, but are usually so busy studying that they lack social skills and suffer having low EQ as a result, and are awkward in social situations. Intelligent, sure, but then they aren't smart enough to be able to interact with people normally?
Similarly, I know a lot of people who are particularly gifted in something (music, arts, creative writing) who can craft beautiful works of art but are not particularly gifted in math, science or other subjects. So if someone can play Mozart at the drop of a hat, but has difficulty comprehending trigonometry, you would believe this person is not intelligent?
Also, street smarts versus book smarts: there are plenty of people out there who have a great theoretical working knowledge of something, and others who have experience in the field. Compare someone who has studied culture their entire life but has never left their home country to someone who travelled the world and learned culture on the streets. Who would you rather have as a tour guide? (Truth be told, this depends; a great chunk of history and culture can be appreciated through books, while language and food need to be experienced first hand)
Even if we assume that intelligence can be measured by grades (I highly contest that), grades are no solid indicator of intelligence. There are people who cheat in exams to get A's, and there are honest but bright people who would rather fail than resort to cheating. Also, how do you grade things like being able to speak a language, for example? Sure we have these ridiculous language certificates, but you mean to tell me that a child who was raised speaking Mandarin as a second (or third) language purely by ear, but has never had a language class in their life, can't speak the language? Maybe that child can't read or write in Mandarin, but if they can speak it, how do you measure that intelligence?
In short, there are a lot of different aspects to consider when evaluating a persons (overall) intelligence.
I mean, I'm assuming the OP probably means IQ, but "intelligence" as a whole is not simply dictated by IQ. Take a look at some studies where people examined the top ranking gradeschoolers and predicted they would be big dogs in the future. Didn't happen; college drop outs, people who didn't do well in college, those whom you looked down upon... they often end up as successful, if not moreso, than those expected to succeed. Go to any high school reunion and see where everyone ends up and how successful they are (or are not). You'd be surprised.
Therefore, the poll question is actually moot.
How well do you do against one?
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I'd say I'm 50%-60%. I'm not dumb, but I'm certainly not smart.
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I would really be interested in seeing the education level distribution among users here. We'd need random sampling to make any inferences, but just seeing any poll responses and how many users have or are currently working on advanced degrees would be interesting.
Edit: I'd also like to see what the degrees are in. I suspect most people (myself included) would guess that a disproportionate percentage of magic players are studying/working in STEM fields.
Exactly.
An autistic savant could probably best the entirety of the forum on the area they are a savant in, while at the same time they could be unable to tie their shoes. Where would you rank them?
"Intelligence" is a very broad term with no standard definition of what it means to be "an intelligent person". We live in a differentiated society and different people are intelligent about different things in different ways. Trying to take a baseline measurement of intelligence that is free from any social, cultural, or gender bias has proven to be impossible so far.
I think they are areas when I am smarter than the average MTGS member, I am positive there are MANY areas where the average MTGS member is smarter than me. You can't boil all that down to a number and put any weight in it
I'm still not sure if that was self selection bias or some kind of Dunning Kruger effect-thing.
Hey OP, can you set the poll to show who voted for what?
Art is life itself.
Intelligence and ability/performance are two separate things. This is actually why a lot of children who get labeled as "gifted" wind up having academic and professional problems later in life.
I'm in business, so there's at least one person on here fighting the stereotypes.
And there is 12% in the bottom 90 to 100% , and single-digit percentages in the 70% to 90%, which shows that people often take extremes.
I put myself in the top 50%. I'm probably smarter than many people who claim to be in the top 10%. And a good number people who claim themselves lower than me are very likely smarter than me.
Ask me this question 2 years ago, I would have put myself in the top 10%. Seems like I've gotten dumber over the past 24 months LOL.
But seriously, there are so many different kinds of intelligence, it's hard to say that the kind you have is authoritative.
Indeed, on the academic front - not so much because of testing however - I was completely unmotivated to do homework, so I did grade school like college and with 20-25% of the grade being homework based in my day...
Fortunately I'd normally ace the rest, but was quite amusing going from 2-2.5 GPA to 3.9 GPA the minute I stepped into college. (And a few of my teachers after my example adjusted their homework weighting in later years - my German teacher for example changed his to be a bonus to help people that were struggling on tests, but ignored it for people acing tests)
Business as well here, although Human Resources explicitly. (It was considered to be a business degree when I graduated, I'd imagine it still is)
Re: People misusing the term Vanilla to describe a flying, unleash (sometimes trample) critter.
Well, I appreciate it. How much of that is life experience and learned methods of thinking versus biological ability, I don't know. I can tell you I very easily could have become a Sheldon-esque nerd or the poster boy for wasted potential (I don't trust myself with MMOs). But that's several things:
- Good raw intelligence (But a jack-of-all trades rather than being particularly adept at any one thing)
- OCD Personality Traits (this is probably the biggest reason I could have gone full-on stereotype)
- Emotionally tense childhood (I'm good at spotting people's moods and ingratiating myself with them)
Lol, when I did the Meyers-Briggs (the worth of which is debatable) for an internship in college, 'Leader of a Military Junta' was one of the several end points for me, so things could have gone very bad
Ultimately, the most valuable trait I have is the ability to ask for help and cultivate a group of skilled people as friends and acquaintances. Having other people who actively want to help me is more valuable than any trait, knowledge or skill I have.
You can pretty much trust that this poll is worthless except as a self assessment, which other comments have driven home. What most people think of as 'intelligence' is a lot of factors.
Don't sell yourself short, either. One of the important things I learned from never being 'the best' at anything growing up (which grated on me for a long time, until around 16) is that there is a lot of value in a well-rounded individual.
I would actually say it has more to do with personality than ability. Pretty much anyone can learn a given ability - but if someone doesn't want to learn or doesn't have the right attitude, it'll never sink in. There are tons of very intelligent people out there that plateau just as badly as high school athletes because they never developed the coping skills to deal with the adult world.
I struggled with this early in college, as finally having to study and put effort into classes to get good grades was a rude awakening. There are plenty of people who I would rank around the same intelligence as me that couldn't make that transition.
Ha! I was the opposite when I first started in college, but once I got past the gen ends which were largely busy work, and got into classes that required critical thinking, I started excelling again. Never quite got as high as a 3.9, though.
HR is actually it's own degree at this point, actually. There are entire poli sci classes devoted to the subject.
I'm am an Emergency Manager - it was mostly Poli Sci, economics and healthcare courses. It's literally the only field that will never become obsolete - because the one thing you can count on is bad stuff happening.
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