Economist IQ?
I doubt anyone has hard data on this, but I'm wondering what people on this list would guess is the average IQ of Ph.D. economists? Would it be much different from the average IQ of Ph.D.s in general?
Re: Economist IQ?
Why not look at GRE scores (or do they still require GREs?) Rodney Weiher Stephen Miller wrote: I doubt anyone has hard data on this, but I'm wondering what people on this list would guess is the average IQ of Ph.D. economists? Would it be much different from the average IQ of Ph.D.s in general?
Re: Economist IQ?
At Chicago, econ math GRE's tend to be substantially higher than other social science Ph.D.'s. Verbal scores are comparable to humanities Ph.D.'s. Also remember that econ depts take a lot of asian students, which probably pushes down the verbal GRE score. More generally, any time you require math, you get higher caliber people. IMHO, the highest quality social science students tend to be in econ Ph.D. programs. By doing well in calculus and statistics, they've singalled a great deal of ability. This doesn't happen in other fields, and many social science undergrad programs tend to be watered down. For ex, the soc dept at Berkeley (my alma mater) does not require a course in introductory statistics. Instead, they require one semester of quantitative reasoning, which can be fulfilled with just about anything. Contrast that with economics, where you simply can't graduate from a top program without about a year of calculus. OTOH, economists are probably lower IQ than many physical science Ph.D.'s. IIRC from the Chicago statistics on GRE's, it was typical for non-biology science Ph.D.'s to have nearly perfect math scores. Fabio On Mon, 15 Dec 2003, Rodney F Weiher wrote: Why not look at GRE scores (or do they still require GREs?) Rodney Weiher Stephen Miller wrote: I doubt anyone has hard data on this, but I'm wondering what people on this list would guess is the average IQ of Ph.D. economists? Would it be much different from the average IQ of Ph.D.s in general?
Re: Economist IQ?
A far cry from perfect, but if you use the GRE as a test of intelligence, economics PhD students are the fourth most intelligent behind physicists, mathematicians, and computer scientists - according to the ETS in 2002. Mean scores for engineering (in some forms) are not much lower - but anthropology, archaeology, history, political science, theology, sociology, and communications are all fields with significantly lower scores. I suspect intuitively, due to a number of reasons - mostly the analytical nature of the field and the mathematical rigor - that economists are significantly more intelligent than PhDs in many other fields. But probably not all fields, and maybe not even most. - Zac Gochenour [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Original Message - From: Stephen Miller [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Monday, December 15, 2003 10:40 am Subject: Economist IQ? I doubt anyone has hard data on this, but I'm wondering what people on this list would guess is the average IQ of Ph.D. economists? Would it be much different from the average IQ of Ph.D.s in general?
Re: Economist IQ?
Do you have a cite for that, Zach? [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: A far cry from perfect, but if you use the GRE as a test of intelligence, economics PhD students are the fourth most intelligent behind physicists, mathematicians, and computer scientists - according to the ETS in 2002. Mean scores for engineering (in some forms) are not much lower - but anthropology, archaeology, history, political science, theology, sociology, and communications are all fields with significantly lower scores. I suspect intuitively, due to a number of reasons - mostly the analytical nature of the field and the mathematical rigor - that economists are significantly more intelligent than PhDs in many other fields. But probably not all fields, and maybe not even most. - Zac Gochenour [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Original Message - From: Stephen Miller [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Monday, December 15, 2003 10:40 am Subject: Economist IQ? I doubt anyone has hard data on this, but I'm wondering what people on this list would guess is the average IQ of Ph.D. economists? Would it be much different from the average IQ of Ph.D.s in general? -- Prof. Bryan Caplan Department of Economics George Mason University http://www.bcaplan.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] I hope this has taught you kids a lesson: kids never learn. --Chief Wiggum, *The Simpsons*
Re: Economist IQ?
In the book Sociology and its publics, Neil Smelser has a chart comparing GRE's for various disciplines. His point was that sociology, in comparison to other social sciences such as economics, get bad recruits. Fabio On Mon, 15 Dec 2003, Bryan Caplan wrote: Do you have a cite for that, Zach? [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: A far cry from perfect, but if you use the GRE as a test of intelligence, economics PhD students are the fourth most intelligent behind physicists, mathematicians, and computer scientists - according to the ETS in 2002. Mean scores for engineering (in some forms) are not much lower - but anthropology, archaeology, history, political science, theology, sociology, and communications are all fields with significantly lower scores. I suspect intuitively, due to a number of reasons - mostly the analytical nature of the field and the mathematical rigor - that economists are significantly more intelligent than PhDs in many other fields. But probably not all fields, and maybe not even most. - Zac Gochenour [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Original Message - From: Stephen Miller [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Monday, December 15, 2003 10:40 am Subject: Economist IQ? I doubt anyone has hard data on this, but I'm wondering what people on this list would guess is the average IQ of Ph.D. economists? Would it be much different from the average IQ of Ph.D.s in general? -- Prof. Bryan Caplan Department of Economics George Mason University http://www.bcaplan.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] I hope this has taught you kids a lesson: kids never learn. --Chief Wiggum, *The Simpsons*
