Contrary to some TIPSters, I am a fan of Malcolm Gladwell. He's not doing
research on telomerase or other Nobel-inducing work, but I think he *is* making
people think, and think critically. I think his books are fun.
Mike Palij asked the following: "...wonder if they can confirm that
Gladwell actually says that one doesn't get a benefit for having an IQ
over 120."
The answer is "yes" and "no." He does say something to that effect, but is
quoting someone else - actually two others. And he's not saying it has "no
benefit," but rather that it doesn't relate directly to how much money
you'll make in your lifetime and other possible benefits. On p. 79, he
writes: "In general, the higher your [IQ] score, the more education you'll
get, the more money you're likely to make, and - believe it or not - the
longer you'll live.
"But there's a catch. The relationship between success and IQ works
only up to a point. Once someone has reached an IQ of somewhere around 120,
having additional IQ points doesn't seem to translate into any measurable
real-world advantage.*"
And his footnote is this:
*The "IQ fundamentalist" Arthur Jensen put it thusly in his 1980 book *Bias
in Mental Testing *(p. 113): "The four socially and personally most
important threshold regions on the IQ scale are those that differentiate
with high probability between persons who, because of their level of general
mental ability, can or cannot attend a regular school (about IQ 50), can or
cannot master the traditional subject matter of elementary school (about IQ
75), can or cannot succeed in the academic or college preparatory curriculum
through high school (about IQ 105), can or cannot graduate from an
accredited four-year college with grades that would quality for admission to
a professional or graduate school (about IQ115). Beyond this, the IQ level
becomes relatively unimportant in terms of ordinary occupational aspirations
and criteria of success. That is not to say that there are not real
differences between the intellectual capabilities represented by IQs of 115
and 150 or even between IQs of 150 and 180. But IQ differences in this
upper part of the scale have far less personal implications than the
thresholds just described and are generally of lesser importance for success
in the popular sense than are certain traits of personality and character."
Then on p. 80, Gladwell writes:
"...the British psychologist Liam Hudson has written, 'and this holds true
where the comparison is much closer - between IQs of, say, 100 and 130. But
the relation seems to break down when one is making comparisons between two
people both of whom have IQs which are relatively high...A mature scientist
with an adult IQ of 130 is as likely to win a Nobel Prize as is one whose IQ
is 180.' "
Beth Benoit
Granite State College
Plymouth State University
New Hampshire
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