current community

your communities

more stack exchange communities

company blog
Stack Exchange Inbox Reputation and Badges
tour help
Skeptics Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for scientific skepticism. Join them; it only takes a minute:

Sign up
Here's how it works:
  1. Anybody can ask a question
  2. Anybody can answer
  3. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top
up vote 5 down vote favorite
1

Michael W. Ferguson writes in The Inappropriately Excluded:

The probability of entering and remaining in an intellectually elite profession such as Physician, Judge, Professor, Scientist, Corporate Executive, etc. increases with IQ to about 133. It then falls about 1/3 by 140. By 150 IQ the probability has fallen by 97%!

Is that claim backed by trustworthy data?

share|improve this question
1  
@Ryan : The fact that someone cites sources doesn't mean that the accurate reflect the research on the topic. – Christian Sep 20 at 17:36
3  
One comment. Moderate autism is associated with high IQ. Source So the correlation in your study may be due to the relation between autism and IQ, and have no relation to intelligence. – user35897 Sep 20 at 17:46
1  
@called2voyage he did say that citing sources does not mean they are "good" when i asked him if they were good or not, which is saying that they are bad. In the first place, If they were good, he would not have to ask the question to begin with. Im only asking why there is no visible effort into why 13 different sources do not provide enough information to the claim. – Ryan Sep 20 at 18:20
3  
@Ryan That's a straw man argument. Saying that they are not necessarily good is not the same as saying they are bad. Why would he ask to begin with? Because he doesn't consider himself qualified enough to evaluate the sources himself. – called2voyage Sep 20 at 18:22
4  
@Ryan : I ask the question because I consider this to be a significant claim where I don't know whether it's true or isn't. That's what expressing doubt is about. I don't make up my mind based on what the article says but I ask here for an answer. Peer review of claims is a valuable concept. – Christian Sep 20 at 19:45

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.