Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Innumeracy in Gifted Education Advocacy

Before controlling for different factors, the article compares people with IQs of 100 with people with IQs of 120 or 130, and finds a pretty big difference. Then, after the controlling, it compares people with IQs of 105 with people with IQs of 110 and draws a conclusion. Seems like a cheat to me.

The article doesn't cite the original, so I'll have to search for it.

ETA: true, you don't need an IQ of 130 to become a dermatologist, but that doesn't mean you'll get there with an IQ OF 98, either. Doctors' IQs, as a group, are higher than average (google it).

To become a dermatologist, you need to graduate from college with good grades overall and good grades in science courses, including calculus, physics, general and organic chemistry, and biology, and you need good scores on the MCAT. Then you need to
complete medical school and pass the USMLE (I think) with good enough grades and scores to get accepted into a dermatology residency, which is highly competitive.

These are highly g-loaded accomplishments. I would not be surprised if they did signify that someone was in the top 2% of the intelligence distribution.

No, you just need enough money to pay for D.O. school.

In fact, I just looked up the local well-compensated dermatologist I was thinking of (who is not the sharpest tool in the shed) and lo, and behold, I found that he has a D.O. degree.

The IQ range from 10th percentile is 105.

I got into an argument with my brother in law about this very issue.

Me: "You don't have to be particularly intelligent to be a doctor."

Him: "Yes you do!"

Me: "My point is that the 10th percentile is 105, with the 50th being 120."

Him: "That sounds about right."

Me: "Then you don't have to be exceptionally intelligent."

You're splitting hairs here (and where did you get this information?). How well do dumb doctors do as a group?

Plus, if you're right about the 50th percentile, average IQs are apparently 20 points higher, which supports the argument that MD IQs are higher.

I found the study. It was published in the journal Intelligence. The author found a positive correlation between higher IQ and average income that apparently did not go away when he controlled for stuff. But it will be necessary to read the entire article.

I'm not arguing that they aren't higher than the average person.

The point was that to get on that career track with higher earnings, there's certainly no requirement to be in the top 2% of I.Q. distribution; but you need to get on the right track to collect your cash prizes.

I used google to find that info. There's some chart with all the professions floating around out there, where M.D.'s are the highest I.Q. of all the professions.

OK, so top 1% of income in the United States is about $380,000 per year (per NYT).

My guess is that those people generally aren't in the top 1% of I.Q. distribution.

You're missing the point (or maybe obfuscating it? ).

The point is that higher IQ tends to translate to higher earnings. No one claimed that the top 1% of IQ = top 1% of income.

I think that this confuses "raising a high-IQ child" with "grooming for material success."

It's not necessarily "expensive" to enrich a PG child. Even living in a non-urban, fairly blue-collar environment, there are libraries, the internet, and homeschooling opportunities, open source resources, etc.

But it is expensive to TigerParent. What costs so much, ironically, are those things that appeal not solely to PG children and their parents, but the things which are also trappings of high SES: private music lessons, travel, competitions, golf/polo/fencing/rowing/horses, designer camps/classes, etc.

I'm not dismissing the value of those things. Well, maybe I am arguing the value of those things-- from a purely monetary standpoint, I mean. I'm not sure that they do deliver "value" but I see why they are appealing.

I'm just stating that they aren't as strictly necessary as many of us have been conditioned to think.

For example: one can spend thousands each year on just math enrichment/education for a PG 3rd grader. OR... one could spend about $25 USD for Singapore Math's Primary Mathematics (2 full years, even!) and a few hours a week of a parent's time, which is less (by far) than even most standard packages from American textbook producers, and is certainly better quality pedagogically speaking.

Is the larger expense "necessary?" I don't know the answer, but I do know that we chose the $25 route. Maybe we're just 'cheap' that way.


Oh, and correlation fallacy is, I think, what is currently being hashed out here. That is, while many intelligent people CHOOSE high-dollar career tracks, that doesn't mean that those things select for high intelligence or have features that particularly require it. Competition tends, ironically, to select not for HIGHEST intelligence, but for optimal intelligence. This is why physicians tend to cluster around that optimal line.

Anecdote, that. But I have seen a LOT of pre-med, pre-vet, pre-nursing, and pre-pharmacy students. The successful ones tend to be in the upper third cognitively, but beyond that, intelligence seems to lose its predictive power in light of other factors such as personal work ethic, motivation, and yes, SES. Kids who don't have to work a forty hour week seem to do better in those pre-med courses. Who knew, right?

"Expensive" is a relative term. The median household income in the US is around $52k a year, and that's with a whole lot of two-income families mixed in. For such a family in a non-urban, blue-collar environment, the internet is usually an option, though speeds can be an issue. Library trips are limited by time available. Open source is only an option if you have the technical savvy to support it. And homeschooling, for a two-income family, is a non-starter. Such families may also struggle to find the time and money to take their children to extracurriculars, especially if they have more than one child. This means those lessons of learning to fail and growing from it, of doing something hard and not giving up, can be left out... lessons which can help all children, but are VITAL to gifted ones.

I'm definitely not talking tiger-mom, Yale-prepping here. That's a game I refuse to play, but I still see how much I'm spending on my DD, and how it would be impossible for us to do on the median household income.

In your example above, the $25 Singapore investment is probably not a deal-breaker, but a few hours a week may be.