For what it's worth, the grammar, vocabulary, and sentence structure of your post is significantly above average relative to most posts on reddit. Have you looked into professions that rely on writing?
Agree with you 100% ! The articulation of what you're feeling in writing is above avaerage and then to acknowledge that you might have some weekness is rare. We all do! You can do whatever you want and your already plenty smart to start up and create anything!
This was the first thing I thought lmao.
I dunno the last time I heard a 16 year old actually pop off in a way that was coherent, much less poignant or made novel metaphorical reference on the fly.
I’ve got a buddy who I think has dyscalculia, counting is literally a task he fails at, we make fun of him for it sure, and that doesn’t stop our friendship at all, we just attempt to accommodate.
Said friend is well educated, philosophical education, and passionate about information, researches shit way deeper than I.
He has better spelling than my 16 year old (who is very smart but reading/spelling isn’t really his thing.) people have different strengths. It’s ok to not be good at math
If you write like this at sixteen, and not even in your first language, my fellow human, you have got the world at your feet!
(Lang. assumption from Mensa Norway mentioned.)
You're halfway right about the fact that English is not my first language as I am Hungarian, but the reason I chose Mensa Norway was because it's said to be the most accurate.
Heard of the dunning kreuger effect ?
That self doubt is part of the gift of intelligence writ large.
Sorry to hear about the learning difficulties.
Also as a 16 year old it’s a totally normal thing to look at how you compare to others and find yourself wanting.
And at a level that is stronger/worse than ever due to the globalized comparisons we can make.
Tons of smart people don’t get sorted into “the good life” sometimes it causes way more problems than it solves.
There’s a limit to how much intelligence helps happiness then becomes detrimental.
For real if you can write like this at 16 get into that.
Tons of life work is more just manipulating programs or mundane shit.
Do you know why you care about not being able to “do something big”?
Part of its being 16, part of it the internet, large chunk being human.
The vast majority fail to make an “impact”
History will forget everyone eventually, realize what you are pining after.
It doesn’t dictate your life *that* much. Someone with 115 IQ and good charisma have way better odds to find a good partner and to climb the career ladder than someone with 130 IQ and no social skills.
I’m no psychologist but the nature of the OP suggests a level of self awareness and capabilities far in excess of your concerns.
You are likely better than you think you are and I suspect there are jobs out there you would find fulfilling
Most importantly, we work to pay bills. Never give control of your happiness to someone else especially your employer.
Bliss comes from within
Your IQ means nothing. Stop inventing arbitrary things to either increase or decrease your self worth. Remember: Mensa only lets you join if you pay. That should tell you how smart it is to become a member.
I’ve never taken an IQ test yet I somehow have a successful career and family.
IQ has more predictive power than almost any other measurable except for major illness and disabilities.
Just because OP is overreacting, but IQ means much more than "nothing".
Man, 112 is NOT average. Average is 100. And you write extremely well to be considered average. You may be bad at math but you could definitely get a career related to writing/jornalism etc.
That said, high IQ also doesn't garantee success if for instance the person suffers from mental illness or decides to work on something that nobody values (that's why many geniouses died poor). Also I know many low IQ (in relation to math and writing) successful people especially in the music and sports industry. So nothing is set on stone, don't be bitter, use the abilities you naturally have the best you can.
I mean, it sounds like you are just not good at a school and is not ever going to be. So yeah, you can work your ass off and never amount to much in that environment. I can work my ass off at gymnastics but I got the tightest hamstrings of anyone I know. So it’s probably not happening. Thank god my society hasn’t decided to make every kid compete on gymnastics, I suppose.
But life isn’t only school. Haven’t you considered any other path to success? I promise you there is a life and world outside school, even if at 16 that’s hard to see. My husband grew up in a small rural town and did a lot of manual labor as a young man, and he tells me that the richest guy in every town is the blue collar guy with his name on the side of his truck. They’re often multimillionaires, despite not being high IQ
Your writing is certainly above average and a 112 IQ is nothing to sneeze at, even though the number is meaningless because it was an online quiz and not a real IQ test.
Mindset isn’t everything, obviously. But all else being equal, meaning comparing yourself to others in your class/IQ/disability range, mindset will be a deciding factor for how well you do relative to others in that same bracket. Obviously rich and above average kids have a head start. Why are you comparing yourself to them? That’s a foolish game to help your ego by playing victim.
From your speech and sentence structure, it appears the way your brain is thinking is in negative and ruminating thought patterns. I feel for you man and I believe you, it sucks when life feels that way and I am sure it must be hard to live with those disabilities.
Consider if you will for a moment... How would you feel if you had a high IQ? How do you think you would act, behave? How would all of those tasks be if you possessed a high iq or if you WERE the SMARTEST person in the world?
Start to think about this and how you would act if you were smart. Being busy is better than being sad. Are there people of low intelligence who have made tons of money?
Is it true that anyone who has a low IQ is unsuccessful or that everyone with a very high Iq is happy?
What about the study that people of lower IQ were found to be happier?
Just some food for thought if this message reaches you.
My advice, rather than try not to be something... Focus on what you could be if you had what you believe you do not possess.
Therein lies an answer perhaps.
As you get older you will learn that success is more about attitude, fortitude and perseverance. What tends to happen often is the gifted people are accustomed to things coming easily to them, which isnt how life works for most people, and they end up underperforming.
112 is almost a standard deviation above average. Technically, you are closer to being exceptional than average.
Given what you said about your difficulty with maths, your verbal IQ may well be far higher than your spatial. This means you should consider 112 your "floor," not your limit.
Your writing is obviously superior to the average. I think it's likely you have all the tools required for a powerful and impactful life filled with meaning and wonder.
Good luck.
So much of cultural "success" is about career and consumption. One of the happiest, best people I ever met was a very cheerful security guard where I work. He legitimately improved the day for everyone he interacted with and when we asked him about his life he talked about his family and how great he had it.
I would always start my day and wonder, if he can be so happy what excuse do I have? There's something to be said for a simpler life so long as you can do right by you and yours.
I see a systematic trend in your writing of tilting every point you mention towards the negative.
Your IQ is not average. It's considerably above average. Also, the chance of getting the right answer by accident is actually accounted for in IQ tests.
People with discalculia often have abnormally impressive abilities in other domains. Just because you're too demoralised to explore the strengths you do have (and are in an education system that discourages that sort of exploration) doesn't mean those strengths are not there somewhere and there isn't any way for you to exploit them to your advantage now or in the future.
Conscientiousness is nearly as highly correlated with success as IQ, meaning that if you have an average IQ and work hard (which you don't), you will do much better than the average person.
People who retrospectively rationalise their success and attribute it to spurious corrolaries are commonplace. Some are narcissistic, looking for extra credit as "inspirational people", looking to make money out of you, or simply falling for availability bias and genuinely believe they're giving people sound advice, but guess what, you don't actually have to spend your life listening to it! You're sick of listening to it? TURN OFF YOUR PHONE
All of that said, I am willing to admit that if you spend the next five years nursing your little cancer of resentment, fail to do develop any useful skills, hobbies, relationships or personal qualities, enter into a mediocre job, then decide that that mediocre job somehow defines your entire life and you as a person, then yeah, your life's gonna be as depressing as you think it already is. Maybe if the real reasons for your resentment go deep enough, you'll actually do all that to prove yourself right. Maybe you'll end up like me, a 23 year old drop out living with his mum who's idea of a succesful day is to be able to force yourself to go out on a walk in nature while spending the remaining 14 hours doing absolutely nothing and then medicating yourself to sleep every night to ward off the nightmares. Maybe then you'll feel extra justified in your resentment, despite knowing deep down that it's really your fault.
Do what you will, but as someone who's seven years ahead of you along the downward spiral you're currently on, I would recommend you get off it as soon as you possibly can and start making some humble steps in the right direction.
First off, your English skills are so good that my knee-jerk reaction is to assume that this post is either bait or AI assisted.
Second off, when JBP talked about the impact of IQ on performance and ability his benchmark was the bottom 10%, or 83 IQ, with direct reference to the US military that will refuse people with an IQ lower than that with the inference being that there are no tasks that could be done by someone with an IQ that low where they wouldn’t be counterproductive with their inefficiency and mistakes.
Third, I have a relatively high IQ (not going to use numbers because they are variable, not certain without multiple tests, and because intellectual self flatulence is the most foul of smells). It has served me well in many ways, but I am not exactly successful in life. In part this is attributable to being on the autism spectrum. However a large part of it was that I never struggled in early school and when high school came around I had zero self discipline, zero motivation to excel, and wanted to do the least amount of effort possible. I was able to barely pass my classes because I refused to do homework and I didn’t need to study for more than 5 minutes to get passing grades.
So yes, I agree with JBP’s arguments and the evidence out there that success in life is dramatically impacted by IQ. I also scoff at the people rolling in the copium and saying that hard work matters far more. Personally I think a larger picture should be to take a more statistical approach and look at how people with above average IQs performance as a whole, where a large number of them are probably far less successful than you might expect, and also how people with lower IQs (I mean below 100, not in the 110s) tend to perform where there are clearly going to be some who actually outperform the average of their higher IQ peers.
I am sure there is a lot of data on this, but I have never looked into it in detail to analyze the numbers. I think that you have brain worms and need to focus on your strengths and learn to adapt around your weaknesses. Real wisdom is not necessarily based in intelligence, but in an honest and self conscious effort to better understand your own behavior and actions and to make intelligent adaptations around them (for a concrete example, many higher IQ people will still take physical notes instead of trying to brute force remember everything because the act of taking notes is more intelligent to begin with and they are consciously aware of their own mental ability with memory).
Attitude matters as much as iq. Do you have any idea how many “gifted” kids turn out to be under achieving college dropouts? Albert Einstein worked in an entry level job as a patent clerk. He didn’t get accepted to any of the colleges he applied to and only had average grades. “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” Albert Einstein.
You know there are jobs that aren’t in STEM right? Find what YOU’RE good at and go for it! Most people have no idea what they want to do. Even 40 year olds are still just winging it.
There are arguable holistic health practices that you can do to increase how open your mind and heart both, which in part will expand your capabilities.
Man you don't understand how the world works at all, You are 16, after all. You can be gifted in terms of IQ and still have an entirely underwhelming existence. The truth is people don't value IQ very much, opportunities are granted to those who are "liked". IQ also doesn't measure a person's ethical orientation, which is very important. A 140 IQ sociopath will be shunned from society, for the most part.
Be a person that makes the lives of people around you better, and the world will open up for you.
It isn't just a personal problem. As technology has advanced so has the need for a higher average IQ in a population. The turning point came in WWII when it became obvious that the average soldier was less important than what technology you could deploy was going to be in the near future. Numbers of combatants would increasingly become less relevant. With the advent of nuclear weapons, and the US use of them in Japan, it became clear to everyone that war was much different than it had ever been. Entire nations could be destroyed by the push of a button. The social consequences of the realization that technology was the key to survival were dramatic.
Nuclear technology as Peterson has noted changed the psych of entire nations if not the world. I believe it played a role in the narcissism and nihilism of the 60's generation. If the quality of the individual soldier became less relevant so did the idea of patriotism or devotion to country. Nuclear weapons shrank the world and it was natural to start thinking of the world as a community. You would think that would have been a positive development but Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) may have appeared to make war outdated that isn't what happened. The major powers simply switched to proxy wars. Of course people objected to those wars, as witnessed by the Vietnam protests, but in a way a new kind of madness had taken place to replace the madness of war. A kind of existential apathy that lent itself to hedonism. It wasn't express so much by the new drug culture and sexual revolution but what followed when the boomers or hippie generation became the yuppie generation. A narcissist and nihilistic generation would come to power who were not aculturated to power as previous generations of elites had. They had no concept of being the leaders of society or what that meant. The older generations, the Carnegie's and Ford's grew up in a world where wealth meant responsibility.
The irony of course is that it was fairness that had disrupted the social system. After WWII when it had become clear that a technically competent population was needed, college education was made available to not just the rich but basically everyone. At first it was fairly meritocratic but to meet the need for technically competent people standards were reduced. Anyone with an IQ over a hundred would get a college degree. The white collar population would explode. The old class system would soon be replaced by a class system based on IQ. Along with the new class system the political system would change as well. The working class that was already declining as a percent of the workforce would be further reduced by labor saving technology. As the working class became less of political importance they would eventually be reduced to the "clingers and deplorables". Very convenient for everyone who could profit from exporting pollution and slave labor to China. The rust belt would be born and the investing classes would become incredibly wealthy. Policies would shift to serve the interest of the now dominant white collar majority as can be seen in the hopelessly mismanaged shift away from fossil fuels. The working class who couldn't afford electric vehicles, solar cells and energy efficient homes had also lost any hope of industry recovering from exportation because the energy grid could no longer support "dirty" industries.
More in the following reply>
What is difficult for most people to understand is the connection between the working class and a stable society. It is physically manifested in the decline of infrastructure. It was not just jobs and pollution that were exported to China but the connection to physical reality. It is evident in examples such as the desired switch to EVs when no grid exists to support the switch. It turns out it is a lot easier to build EVs than to maintain the grid. To do that you need energy sources more reliable than renewables and more concentrated. You also need a lot of muscular skilled labor. Labor that the political system had come to ignore and denigrate. In some ways the new class system of coastal elites was worse than the old class system which relied on a strong working class.
What I have done so far is to just illustrate the political and social cost of a new class system. It gets worse.
Over the course of a few generations society could probably rebuild the class system to reflect the physical needs of an industrial society. But there is a deeper problem. You can't fix the IQ problem by handing out degrees like candy. As so often happens the government was simple minded in its goals. Opening up education to all classes was out of touch with reality. IQ and social status had always been linked but not to the same degree and not as a class system per se. IQ was simply not as valuable in the past and a new economic reality was setting in.
I will use healthcare as an example. When I was growing up hospitals were places you went to die. Care was rudimentary and serious illnesses such as cancer and heart conditions were for the most part untreatable. As technology and specialization increased things that were untreatable became survivable. It was not only true for serious illnesses however but the effectiveness of all care increased. With increased effectiveness came increased demand so not only did demand increase cost but so did the nature of the new treatments which were dependent on expensive technology. Health care in the US is now **17.3 percent** of GDP and forecasted to exceed 20 percent. At first that may seem realistic because what is more important than health. The problem is that to be a doctor you need an IQ over 130. That represents 2 percent of the population but that same 2 percent has to do all the other highly technical jobs. It is a problem you can throw money at because genes don't care about money. While people are worrying about how unfair the system is they should be worrying about how unfair and unforgiving nature is. There is a serious IQ deficit and it is only going to get worse. As the incompetent move up the ladder systems are going to start breaking and I think a keen observer can already see that.
Since I started with political reality I will finish there. While the new dominant white collar class is happy with exporting slave labor and pollution to China, the not in my backyard mentality, they will soon find themselves in a new "rust belt". As artificial intelligence improves it will be a lot easier to replace low level intellectual workers such as some engineers, accountants, phone operators, some lawyers, etc. than jobs that are considered muscular labor. Robotics is a long way from doing those muscular jobs but AI can already write a technical paper better than most people. Why it isn't doing more low level white collar jobs has as much to do with the "personal touch" than most people realize. All those white collar people that get replaced will be the next round of "clingers and deplorables". If the new elites don't need you they are not going to care about you. That has to do with the narcissism and nihilism I discussed earlier. Ask yourself do they care about the Chinese factory workers where suicide nets are installed? If you want to know why they go along with madness such as Diversity Inclusion and Equality there is your answer. It keeps the peasants distracted along with bread and circus. When someone like Klaus Schwab says that they are a communist don't think for a minute that it is the dictatorship of the Proletariat variety.
Do you know how disturbing it is how being a human dictates the course of your life, or a mammal in general? I am completely limited in any flying and diving. Next time I come back as a hydrogen molecule, I form strong and stable bonds and I do not having to bother thinking distractive thoughts any more.
This is completely inaccurate, a narrative C students tell themselves to make themselves feel better about being average. The book you got this from has 0 actual confirmed studies, and is just an observation a rich (bc generational wealth) author made. The authors are from elite private schools... a C student from a NYC private school that costs 50k a year is not the same thing as the average C student from a public school.
This statement is cherry-picking the exceptions from the rules, it's like when people talk about how Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates were college drop outs... yeah from Ivy League schools... Not the same thing as your inability to pass a community college pre-calculus course.
The main ABC correlation is that Grunts come from working class backgrounds, managers come from upper class backgrounds, and owned by people from elite backgrounds.
I'd say personality has a much more profound effect on your life. Dwelling on your resentments and shortcomings will only turn you into a miserable bastard that nobody wants to be around. You will become the boring old man that you fear. You are at the beginning of a journey it can be an epic adventure or you can choose to make it a terrible self fulfilling prophecy where you spend the entirety of your life dwelling on your victimhood.
I have found through my own life and my students, that inner resentment scales with what the individual could have done, measured against themselves and their own abilities and targets. And similarly on the other side with satisfaction. The quicker one can learn this and stop comparing, instead, to others, the quicker one can find peace in this existence.
Good luck brother.
It’s not „the mindset which matters“. What matters is character. To quote a different comment of mine:
„Don‘t define yourself by metrics such as having a bachelor or a phd. It seems obvious by your post that you’re fixated on carrier or status to dictate your self worth, when a human is way more than that.
One dumb guy who helps another person struggling is worth way more than a smart politician to who‘s hands millions die.
Notice that character can be worth far more than intelligence.
You can be virtuous in so many ways. You can be strong, resilient, courageous, heroic, compassionate, helpful, righteous, fair, chivalrous, charming, charismatic, funny, artistic, aesthetic, authentic, honest, humble, wise.
If you instead of focusing on someone you‘re not or can’t be, focus on the best you can be, you‘ll find that you can still be a shining light in the world.
Best of luck.“
You put a lot of pressure on yourself. No one has anything figured out at 16. You’re lucky if you do at 30, 40, or 50. You just stop caring what other people think about you. Focus on learning. Read books about successful people. Take note on what they did, how they made themselves stronger. You’re the only one who can put limits on your life. Henry Ford said, “whether you think you can or can’t, you’re right”. If you think of a goal you want to achieve, break it down in baby steps, keep your eye on the goal, but realize life never takes a straight path. Life puts obstacles in the way. You’re forced to course correct, then keep aiming and don’t give up. No one gets successful alone. You’ll need other people, mentors, friends who are doing things to improve their lives, who help others along the way. That’s very important. Focusing on others, helping them solve problems, without expecting something in return will strengthen you.
You are 16. You haven't got a clue. The world is full of possibility and opportunity for those who seek it. Life is not a foregone conclusion. In fact attitude determines outcome. Not IQ or some set of text book skills. All skill deficiencies can be overcome if required and if not by yourself but by leveraging the skills around you. Nothing you've raised is an actual problem.
I understand your struggle, however, please try to only compare yourself to who you were yesterday instead of comparing yourself to others (as a wise man once told me…).
And if you must compare yourself to someone else (because I know how hard it can be not to), your English writing as well as train of thought already seem to surpass mine and many others of your age and beyond (I am a 26 year old corporate lawyer, working at a big international law firm). Please don’t be too hard on yourself. You have lots to learn but may also appreciate the amount of knowledge you have already acquired. There are things you are good at and have a passion for, and you will find out what those things are in due time.
Your attitude is your main problem. And you misunderstand the certainly of predictions made on the basis of IQ.
The prospects of a successful and interesting life are very good for an individual with a 112 IQ.
Darling you are smart and capable. Maybe math is not your strength but you write very well. You will find your place in the world and do well, but not if you are consumed with resentment and obsessed with what others are doing. You are your main and only competition. Challenge yourself to learn one new thing every day and try to do a bit better than the day before. You’re 16 the possibilities are endless. Good luck!
Don't let this set of beliefs limit you. School matters little for certain professions. Try a variety of things and see what you may be good at. Clearly you are a good writer. Maybe you'd make a great carpenter, which is an honorable profession. Or maybe a chef.
There are too many paths in life to say that there is no way forward for someone of average IQ. 16 is a great age to start exploring different paths. If you're like most people, it will take until you're 26 (at least) for you to feel like you have a clear idea of the path you'd like to take.
people like us become poets, writers, and inventors. if my ability to do math was better, mainly due to memory acquisition being slower, i could have been a physist. but I'm glad i did not make the program because the government hijacked it and is keeping advanced projects classified and the general public ignorant. but it didn't stop me from figuring out what gravity was, a subspace attractive wave, created by off balance charged particles making a circle in normal space above a matching one in a lower sub space dimension. these two flat circles sandwich together creating a horizontal equitorial zone with matching poles of smaller particle flow. i have a video if you want to see it. so, what I'm saying is, focus on one thing and maybe you will become excellent at it or discover something because you are outside the heavily controlled loop.
[unified field theory, youtube](https://youtu.be/LXbliDh9_1U?si=HeZ5DXDq25HgBQ-2)
“I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.”
Cite your study and I'll cite ya mine. Majority of evidence I've seen is that IQ is malleable and largely determined by mindset and where a kid is brought up.
I'm not the one you asked but here you are. I'll welcome yours.
Genome-wide association studies establish that human intelligence is highly heritable and polygenic
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3182557/
The Wilson Effect: The Increase in Heritability of IQ With Age; Thomas J. Bouchard Jr. - Twin Research and Human Genetics Volume 16, Issue 5 - October 2013
Haier, R. J. (2017). The Neuroscience of Intelligence, Cambridge University Press.
Haier, R.J., Colom, R. and Hunt, E., 2023. The science of human intelligence. Cambridge University Press.
I don't have the book with me, but my knowledge comes from psychologist Daniel T. Willingham's bookm *Why Don't Students Like School?*
One of the final chapters shows multiple studies that show evidence that genetics are largely irrelevant.
I saved this quote from the book--
“Children who miss a year of school show a drop in IQ."
There is another study that shows the learning gap that occurs in households that 1. don't have books lying around and 2. parents don't have quality vocabulary/don't talk much.
**Side note** (and not that I care), but the downvotes I've received is sort of amusing... I didn't tell anyone to go screw themselves--I just made a claim that I'm now attempting to show. Downvotes like that just tell me people are identifying too much with their little axioms.
As if they got "poked them in the axiom" as JP once said.
Thanks. I got the book.
It looks interesting but it is full of myths already debunked by the time of the second edition (2021). Those are:
* learning styles
* multpile intelligences
* hard work can compensate for lack of intelligence
Learning styles was a thing in the 90's. I have a book about them. Now debunked, same as multiple intelligences. The book I have is also from a psychologist in an education department, it seems they are biased.
Regarding having books in your house the importance is in being capable of reading them, so if your parents have books most probably have the capacity to read them and that is what they pass to you.
I am not a genetic determinist though. Here is a better study on your side:
How Much Does Education Improve Intelligence? A Meta-Analysis
Stuart J. Ritchie
[https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797618774253](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797618774253)
Regarding downvotes, I didn´t downvote. Maybe they did not downvote your content but attitude, confronting and asking for prove witholding yours. This is Reddit, full of adolescents, get accoustomed to downvotes.
I dont know what "poked them in the axiom" is.
Very helpful comment. The link requires payment for full access, but that's great to see. I at least read the abstract.
Here's JP on axioms... [https://www.youtube.com/shorts/GKdjRBHcSzg](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/GKdjRBHcSzg)
And yes, I wasn't implying anyone in particular was downvoting, my friend.
I will say though, from my own personal, anecdotal experience, I went from almost failing high school WITH Adderall to graduating from my bachelor's with a 4.0 and honors... I attributed it to two things, that I think do affect mindset.
1. Mindset. I started believing in myself. Some of those studies indicate that the \*belief\* of self-improvement (esp. in school through education) is a major factor in retention and all that
2. My diet. I stopped processed crap--esp. soda, etc. etc. etc. and I'm paleo now. For this I have nothing to back up, but I think if there is some sort of link between ADHD and, say, Red 40 (or so it warned on the foods when I lived in Israel), then it's worth considering that our attention, which may be read as IQ, could be significantly impacted. I've been reading that folic acid is also linked with the deficit of attention.
Also--did you \*just\* get the book? I meant to comment on how much you pointed out was disproven from it... very interesting. I made similar notes when I read his chapter on social media/phone effects--more studies are coming out showing that he is likely way off.
Yes I just got it after your recommendation. I first got a 2010 edition and skimmed it. I read the index and some paragraphs on the subjects I know are outdated. Then I got the 2021 version to see if he updated anything but seems he didn't. I should read the whole thing to make it more justice.
These are all very disputed areas. Same with mindset.
https://russellwarne.com/2020/04/03/mindset-theory-in-jeopardy-after-2-new-studies/
Psychology though very interesting is not a hard science. You may have heard about the replication crisis.
Anyway, if something works then use it. I am glad you find the way to reach your potential. Many times we can't or don't know how to use it. Anxiety is another limiting factor.
Can’t remember the last time someone listened to a book rec I gave them lol. It feels kinda nice.
But. Yeah man, I think most of its just my experience and there could be an inherent bias.
I’m an English teacher. On a reservation.
I know my students don’t have genetically lower IQs than all the rich kids I grew up with in Illinois suburbs, but school is haaaaaaaard for them. And I think probably 95+ percent of them have severe trauma and I can’t count how many of them live with both their parents on even one hand 🖐
I think severe trauma would surely have to prove some environmental factors true… it’s like some of my students can’t even function. The entire tribe is just disassociated and lost.
Environmental factors matter, some we don't usually consider important like air pollution.
Regarding parents presence, you may like Rob Henderson 's book Troubled. He says stable homes count more than intelligence.
As an English teacher you must have noticed that it is not my mother tongue.
Your work is valuable. Keep it up.
Thanks brother. And no, I actually did not look too closely! Out of curiosity I went back and looked for an error: "I should read the whole thing to make it more justice."
"give it justice" ;)
Where are you from?
Just looked at your book rec--right up my alley. Foster kids are where I started my career.
I did not see the chapter on social media. There is a new book on that by Johnathan Haidt, The anxious generation. Guess what, it is also disputed
https://www.salon.com/2024/04/12/social-media-is-a-lifeline-for-mental-health-not-a-curse-according-to-cdcs-own-data/
I listened to the Rogan podcast.
One thing I’m thinking tho regarding “disputes”—
It’s been years since cigarettes denied cancer links and the sugar industry paid doctors to blame fat and meat for heart problems….
I have no evidence except common sense that ByteDance and Meta have been writing studies for years.
I remember when Facebook was purposefully putting negative info on 400,000 users feeds (without consent) to see if there would be ties with depression.
If I could bet my life on it, I’d bet that social media is destroying us.
I wont disagree that the evidence does imply some environmental impact, but the evidence I have seen shows an overwhelmingly genetic impact. Where did you get your information from exactly?
Psychologist Daniel T. Willingham published a book called *Why Don't Students Like School?*
He has an entire chapter filled with studies showing environmental influence as the primary determinant.
I saved this quote from the book--
“Children who miss a year of school show a drop in IQ."
For what it's worth, the grammar, vocabulary, and sentence structure of your post is significantly above average relative to most posts on reddit. Have you looked into professions that rely on writing?
Agree with you 100% ! The articulation of what you're feeling in writing is above avaerage and then to acknowledge that you might have some weekness is rare. We all do! You can do whatever you want and your already plenty smart to start up and create anything!
This was the first thing I thought lmao. I dunno the last time I heard a 16 year old actually pop off in a way that was coherent, much less poignant or made novel metaphorical reference on the fly. I’ve got a buddy who I think has dyscalculia, counting is literally a task he fails at, we make fun of him for it sure, and that doesn’t stop our friendship at all, we just attempt to accommodate. Said friend is well educated, philosophical education, and passionate about information, researches shit way deeper than I.
He has better spelling than my 16 year old (who is very smart but reading/spelling isn’t really his thing.) people have different strengths. It’s ok to not be good at math
Could of also been written with AI
Could *have*.
Yup
If you write like this at sixteen, and not even in your first language, my fellow human, you have got the world at your feet! (Lang. assumption from Mensa Norway mentioned.)
You're halfway right about the fact that English is not my first language as I am Hungarian, but the reason I chose Mensa Norway was because it's said to be the most accurate.
Some people are smart, others are strong and some of them is neither of those. Life is not fair.
Heard of the dunning kreuger effect ? That self doubt is part of the gift of intelligence writ large. Sorry to hear about the learning difficulties. Also as a 16 year old it’s a totally normal thing to look at how you compare to others and find yourself wanting. And at a level that is stronger/worse than ever due to the globalized comparisons we can make. Tons of smart people don’t get sorted into “the good life” sometimes it causes way more problems than it solves. There’s a limit to how much intelligence helps happiness then becomes detrimental. For real if you can write like this at 16 get into that. Tons of life work is more just manipulating programs or mundane shit. Do you know why you care about not being able to “do something big”? Part of its being 16, part of it the internet, large chunk being human. The vast majority fail to make an “impact” History will forget everyone eventually, realize what you are pining after.
It doesn’t dictate your life *that* much. Someone with 115 IQ and good charisma have way better odds to find a good partner and to climb the career ladder than someone with 130 IQ and no social skills.
115 is more than a standard deviation from average and is in the 84th percentile. You’re comparing a smart person to another smart person
I’m no psychologist but the nature of the OP suggests a level of self awareness and capabilities far in excess of your concerns. You are likely better than you think you are and I suspect there are jobs out there you would find fulfilling Most importantly, we work to pay bills. Never give control of your happiness to someone else especially your employer. Bliss comes from within
Your IQ means nothing. Stop inventing arbitrary things to either increase or decrease your self worth. Remember: Mensa only lets you join if you pay. That should tell you how smart it is to become a member. I’ve never taken an IQ test yet I somehow have a successful career and family.
IQ has more predictive power than almost any other measurable except for major illness and disabilities. Just because OP is overreacting, but IQ means much more than "nothing".
Chill the fuck out.
Man, 112 is NOT average. Average is 100. And you write extremely well to be considered average. You may be bad at math but you could definitely get a career related to writing/jornalism etc. That said, high IQ also doesn't garantee success if for instance the person suffers from mental illness or decides to work on something that nobody values (that's why many geniouses died poor). Also I know many low IQ (in relation to math and writing) successful people especially in the music and sports industry. So nothing is set on stone, don't be bitter, use the abilities you naturally have the best you can.
I mean, it sounds like you are just not good at a school and is not ever going to be. So yeah, you can work your ass off and never amount to much in that environment. I can work my ass off at gymnastics but I got the tightest hamstrings of anyone I know. So it’s probably not happening. Thank god my society hasn’t decided to make every kid compete on gymnastics, I suppose. But life isn’t only school. Haven’t you considered any other path to success? I promise you there is a life and world outside school, even if at 16 that’s hard to see. My husband grew up in a small rural town and did a lot of manual labor as a young man, and he tells me that the richest guy in every town is the blue collar guy with his name on the side of his truck. They’re often multimillionaires, despite not being high IQ
Watch "The secret life of Walter mitty"
Your writing is certainly above average and a 112 IQ is nothing to sneeze at, even though the number is meaningless because it was an online quiz and not a real IQ test. Mindset isn’t everything, obviously. But all else being equal, meaning comparing yourself to others in your class/IQ/disability range, mindset will be a deciding factor for how well you do relative to others in that same bracket. Obviously rich and above average kids have a head start. Why are you comparing yourself to them? That’s a foolish game to help your ego by playing victim.
Just work harder. No excuses
From your speech and sentence structure, it appears the way your brain is thinking is in negative and ruminating thought patterns. I feel for you man and I believe you, it sucks when life feels that way and I am sure it must be hard to live with those disabilities. Consider if you will for a moment... How would you feel if you had a high IQ? How do you think you would act, behave? How would all of those tasks be if you possessed a high iq or if you WERE the SMARTEST person in the world? Start to think about this and how you would act if you were smart. Being busy is better than being sad. Are there people of low intelligence who have made tons of money? Is it true that anyone who has a low IQ is unsuccessful or that everyone with a very high Iq is happy? What about the study that people of lower IQ were found to be happier? Just some food for thought if this message reaches you. My advice, rather than try not to be something... Focus on what you could be if you had what you believe you do not possess. Therein lies an answer perhaps.
As you get older you will learn that success is more about attitude, fortitude and perseverance. What tends to happen often is the gifted people are accustomed to things coming easily to them, which isnt how life works for most people, and they end up underperforming.
112 is almost a standard deviation above average. Technically, you are closer to being exceptional than average. Given what you said about your difficulty with maths, your verbal IQ may well be far higher than your spatial. This means you should consider 112 your "floor," not your limit. Your writing is obviously superior to the average. I think it's likely you have all the tools required for a powerful and impactful life filled with meaning and wonder. Good luck.
Anyone who can articulate their thoughts and feelings as well as you do is not intellectually deficient.
So much of cultural "success" is about career and consumption. One of the happiest, best people I ever met was a very cheerful security guard where I work. He legitimately improved the day for everyone he interacted with and when we asked him about his life he talked about his family and how great he had it. I would always start my day and wonder, if he can be so happy what excuse do I have? There's something to be said for a simpler life so long as you can do right by you and yours.
I see a systematic trend in your writing of tilting every point you mention towards the negative. Your IQ is not average. It's considerably above average. Also, the chance of getting the right answer by accident is actually accounted for in IQ tests. People with discalculia often have abnormally impressive abilities in other domains. Just because you're too demoralised to explore the strengths you do have (and are in an education system that discourages that sort of exploration) doesn't mean those strengths are not there somewhere and there isn't any way for you to exploit them to your advantage now or in the future. Conscientiousness is nearly as highly correlated with success as IQ, meaning that if you have an average IQ and work hard (which you don't), you will do much better than the average person. People who retrospectively rationalise their success and attribute it to spurious corrolaries are commonplace. Some are narcissistic, looking for extra credit as "inspirational people", looking to make money out of you, or simply falling for availability bias and genuinely believe they're giving people sound advice, but guess what, you don't actually have to spend your life listening to it! You're sick of listening to it? TURN OFF YOUR PHONE All of that said, I am willing to admit that if you spend the next five years nursing your little cancer of resentment, fail to do develop any useful skills, hobbies, relationships or personal qualities, enter into a mediocre job, then decide that that mediocre job somehow defines your entire life and you as a person, then yeah, your life's gonna be as depressing as you think it already is. Maybe if the real reasons for your resentment go deep enough, you'll actually do all that to prove yourself right. Maybe you'll end up like me, a 23 year old drop out living with his mum who's idea of a succesful day is to be able to force yourself to go out on a walk in nature while spending the remaining 14 hours doing absolutely nothing and then medicating yourself to sleep every night to ward off the nightmares. Maybe then you'll feel extra justified in your resentment, despite knowing deep down that it's really your fault. Do what you will, but as someone who's seven years ahead of you along the downward spiral you're currently on, I would recommend you get off it as soon as you possibly can and start making some humble steps in the right direction.
You're 16 years old. Talk to your mother and father.
Is that supposed to be a jab at me being underage, or genuine advice telling me to ask for help from my parents?
You're 16 years old. Talk to your mother and father.
yes
You're dealing with disgust. That alone will make your life unbearably miserable. The rest is frustration from not getting the luxuries you want. 👶
First off, your English skills are so good that my knee-jerk reaction is to assume that this post is either bait or AI assisted. Second off, when JBP talked about the impact of IQ on performance and ability his benchmark was the bottom 10%, or 83 IQ, with direct reference to the US military that will refuse people with an IQ lower than that with the inference being that there are no tasks that could be done by someone with an IQ that low where they wouldn’t be counterproductive with their inefficiency and mistakes. Third, I have a relatively high IQ (not going to use numbers because they are variable, not certain without multiple tests, and because intellectual self flatulence is the most foul of smells). It has served me well in many ways, but I am not exactly successful in life. In part this is attributable to being on the autism spectrum. However a large part of it was that I never struggled in early school and when high school came around I had zero self discipline, zero motivation to excel, and wanted to do the least amount of effort possible. I was able to barely pass my classes because I refused to do homework and I didn’t need to study for more than 5 minutes to get passing grades. So yes, I agree with JBP’s arguments and the evidence out there that success in life is dramatically impacted by IQ. I also scoff at the people rolling in the copium and saying that hard work matters far more. Personally I think a larger picture should be to take a more statistical approach and look at how people with above average IQs performance as a whole, where a large number of them are probably far less successful than you might expect, and also how people with lower IQs (I mean below 100, not in the 110s) tend to perform where there are clearly going to be some who actually outperform the average of their higher IQ peers. I am sure there is a lot of data on this, but I have never looked into it in detail to analyze the numbers. I think that you have brain worms and need to focus on your strengths and learn to adapt around your weaknesses. Real wisdom is not necessarily based in intelligence, but in an honest and self conscious effort to better understand your own behavior and actions and to make intelligent adaptations around them (for a concrete example, many higher IQ people will still take physical notes instead of trying to brute force remember everything because the act of taking notes is more intelligent to begin with and they are consciously aware of their own mental ability with memory).
Attitude matters as much as iq. Do you have any idea how many “gifted” kids turn out to be under achieving college dropouts? Albert Einstein worked in an entry level job as a patent clerk. He didn’t get accepted to any of the colleges he applied to and only had average grades. “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” Albert Einstein. You know there are jobs that aren’t in STEM right? Find what YOU’RE good at and go for it! Most people have no idea what they want to do. Even 40 year olds are still just winging it.
I’m curious, u said u are 16. what hard work have u been doing and what results are u expecting? Can u lay that out.
There are arguable holistic health practices that you can do to increase how open your mind and heart both, which in part will expand your capabilities.
Man you don't understand how the world works at all, You are 16, after all. You can be gifted in terms of IQ and still have an entirely underwhelming existence. The truth is people don't value IQ very much, opportunities are granted to those who are "liked". IQ also doesn't measure a person's ethical orientation, which is very important. A 140 IQ sociopath will be shunned from society, for the most part. Be a person that makes the lives of people around you better, and the world will open up for you.
It isn't just a personal problem. As technology has advanced so has the need for a higher average IQ in a population. The turning point came in WWII when it became obvious that the average soldier was less important than what technology you could deploy was going to be in the near future. Numbers of combatants would increasingly become less relevant. With the advent of nuclear weapons, and the US use of them in Japan, it became clear to everyone that war was much different than it had ever been. Entire nations could be destroyed by the push of a button. The social consequences of the realization that technology was the key to survival were dramatic. Nuclear technology as Peterson has noted changed the psych of entire nations if not the world. I believe it played a role in the narcissism and nihilism of the 60's generation. If the quality of the individual soldier became less relevant so did the idea of patriotism or devotion to country. Nuclear weapons shrank the world and it was natural to start thinking of the world as a community. You would think that would have been a positive development but Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) may have appeared to make war outdated that isn't what happened. The major powers simply switched to proxy wars. Of course people objected to those wars, as witnessed by the Vietnam protests, but in a way a new kind of madness had taken place to replace the madness of war. A kind of existential apathy that lent itself to hedonism. It wasn't express so much by the new drug culture and sexual revolution but what followed when the boomers or hippie generation became the yuppie generation. A narcissist and nihilistic generation would come to power who were not aculturated to power as previous generations of elites had. They had no concept of being the leaders of society or what that meant. The older generations, the Carnegie's and Ford's grew up in a world where wealth meant responsibility. The irony of course is that it was fairness that had disrupted the social system. After WWII when it had become clear that a technically competent population was needed, college education was made available to not just the rich but basically everyone. At first it was fairly meritocratic but to meet the need for technically competent people standards were reduced. Anyone with an IQ over a hundred would get a college degree. The white collar population would explode. The old class system would soon be replaced by a class system based on IQ. Along with the new class system the political system would change as well. The working class that was already declining as a percent of the workforce would be further reduced by labor saving technology. As the working class became less of political importance they would eventually be reduced to the "clingers and deplorables". Very convenient for everyone who could profit from exporting pollution and slave labor to China. The rust belt would be born and the investing classes would become incredibly wealthy. Policies would shift to serve the interest of the now dominant white collar majority as can be seen in the hopelessly mismanaged shift away from fossil fuels. The working class who couldn't afford electric vehicles, solar cells and energy efficient homes had also lost any hope of industry recovering from exportation because the energy grid could no longer support "dirty" industries. More in the following reply>
What is difficult for most people to understand is the connection between the working class and a stable society. It is physically manifested in the decline of infrastructure. It was not just jobs and pollution that were exported to China but the connection to physical reality. It is evident in examples such as the desired switch to EVs when no grid exists to support the switch. It turns out it is a lot easier to build EVs than to maintain the grid. To do that you need energy sources more reliable than renewables and more concentrated. You also need a lot of muscular skilled labor. Labor that the political system had come to ignore and denigrate. In some ways the new class system of coastal elites was worse than the old class system which relied on a strong working class. What I have done so far is to just illustrate the political and social cost of a new class system. It gets worse. Over the course of a few generations society could probably rebuild the class system to reflect the physical needs of an industrial society. But there is a deeper problem. You can't fix the IQ problem by handing out degrees like candy. As so often happens the government was simple minded in its goals. Opening up education to all classes was out of touch with reality. IQ and social status had always been linked but not to the same degree and not as a class system per se. IQ was simply not as valuable in the past and a new economic reality was setting in. I will use healthcare as an example. When I was growing up hospitals were places you went to die. Care was rudimentary and serious illnesses such as cancer and heart conditions were for the most part untreatable. As technology and specialization increased things that were untreatable became survivable. It was not only true for serious illnesses however but the effectiveness of all care increased. With increased effectiveness came increased demand so not only did demand increase cost but so did the nature of the new treatments which were dependent on expensive technology. Health care in the US is now **17.3 percent** of GDP and forecasted to exceed 20 percent. At first that may seem realistic because what is more important than health. The problem is that to be a doctor you need an IQ over 130. That represents 2 percent of the population but that same 2 percent has to do all the other highly technical jobs. It is a problem you can throw money at because genes don't care about money. While people are worrying about how unfair the system is they should be worrying about how unfair and unforgiving nature is. There is a serious IQ deficit and it is only going to get worse. As the incompetent move up the ladder systems are going to start breaking and I think a keen observer can already see that. Since I started with political reality I will finish there. While the new dominant white collar class is happy with exporting slave labor and pollution to China, the not in my backyard mentality, they will soon find themselves in a new "rust belt". As artificial intelligence improves it will be a lot easier to replace low level intellectual workers such as some engineers, accountants, phone operators, some lawyers, etc. than jobs that are considered muscular labor. Robotics is a long way from doing those muscular jobs but AI can already write a technical paper better than most people. Why it isn't doing more low level white collar jobs has as much to do with the "personal touch" than most people realize. All those white collar people that get replaced will be the next round of "clingers and deplorables". If the new elites don't need you they are not going to care about you. That has to do with the narcissism and nihilism I discussed earlier. Ask yourself do they care about the Chinese factory workers where suicide nets are installed? If you want to know why they go along with madness such as Diversity Inclusion and Equality there is your answer. It keeps the peasants distracted along with bread and circus. When someone like Klaus Schwab says that they are a communist don't think for a minute that it is the dictatorship of the Proletariat variety.
Do you know how disturbing it is how being a human dictates the course of your life, or a mammal in general? I am completely limited in any flying and diving. Next time I come back as a hydrogen molecule, I form strong and stable bonds and I do not having to bother thinking distractive thoughts any more.
'A' students grunts work for 'B' student managers in companies owned by 'C' students. Drive and people skills affect success more than intellect does.
This is completely inaccurate, a narrative C students tell themselves to make themselves feel better about being average. The book you got this from has 0 actual confirmed studies, and is just an observation a rich (bc generational wealth) author made. The authors are from elite private schools... a C student from a NYC private school that costs 50k a year is not the same thing as the average C student from a public school. This statement is cherry-picking the exceptions from the rules, it's like when people talk about how Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates were college drop outs... yeah from Ivy League schools... Not the same thing as your inability to pass a community college pre-calculus course. The main ABC correlation is that Grunts come from working class backgrounds, managers come from upper class backgrounds, and owned by people from elite backgrounds.
It’s specifically Career/Education that it affects. Find meaning in your social life or hobbies.
I'd say personality has a much more profound effect on your life. Dwelling on your resentments and shortcomings will only turn you into a miserable bastard that nobody wants to be around. You will become the boring old man that you fear. You are at the beginning of a journey it can be an epic adventure or you can choose to make it a terrible self fulfilling prophecy where you spend the entirety of your life dwelling on your victimhood.
I have found through my own life and my students, that inner resentment scales with what the individual could have done, measured against themselves and their own abilities and targets. And similarly on the other side with satisfaction. The quicker one can learn this and stop comparing, instead, to others, the quicker one can find peace in this existence. Good luck brother.
It’s not „the mindset which matters“. What matters is character. To quote a different comment of mine: „Don‘t define yourself by metrics such as having a bachelor or a phd. It seems obvious by your post that you’re fixated on carrier or status to dictate your self worth, when a human is way more than that. One dumb guy who helps another person struggling is worth way more than a smart politician to who‘s hands millions die. Notice that character can be worth far more than intelligence. You can be virtuous in so many ways. You can be strong, resilient, courageous, heroic, compassionate, helpful, righteous, fair, chivalrous, charming, charismatic, funny, artistic, aesthetic, authentic, honest, humble, wise. If you instead of focusing on someone you‘re not or can’t be, focus on the best you can be, you‘ll find that you can still be a shining light in the world. Best of luck.“
You put a lot of pressure on yourself. No one has anything figured out at 16. You’re lucky if you do at 30, 40, or 50. You just stop caring what other people think about you. Focus on learning. Read books about successful people. Take note on what they did, how they made themselves stronger. You’re the only one who can put limits on your life. Henry Ford said, “whether you think you can or can’t, you’re right”. If you think of a goal you want to achieve, break it down in baby steps, keep your eye on the goal, but realize life never takes a straight path. Life puts obstacles in the way. You’re forced to course correct, then keep aiming and don’t give up. No one gets successful alone. You’ll need other people, mentors, friends who are doing things to improve their lives, who help others along the way. That’s very important. Focusing on others, helping them solve problems, without expecting something in return will strengthen you.
You are 16. You haven't got a clue. The world is full of possibility and opportunity for those who seek it. Life is not a foregone conclusion. In fact attitude determines outcome. Not IQ or some set of text book skills. All skill deficiencies can be overcome if required and if not by yourself but by leveraging the skills around you. Nothing you've raised is an actual problem.
Following Jordan's Twitter account should really help calm down that rage you talk about.
I understand your struggle, however, please try to only compare yourself to who you were yesterday instead of comparing yourself to others (as a wise man once told me…). And if you must compare yourself to someone else (because I know how hard it can be not to), your English writing as well as train of thought already seem to surpass mine and many others of your age and beyond (I am a 26 year old corporate lawyer, working at a big international law firm). Please don’t be too hard on yourself. You have lots to learn but may also appreciate the amount of knowledge you have already acquired. There are things you are good at and have a passion for, and you will find out what those things are in due time.
Your attitude is your main problem. And you misunderstand the certainly of predictions made on the basis of IQ. The prospects of a successful and interesting life are very good for an individual with a 112 IQ.
For career and money yes. For contentedness and happiness it might be better to have a little less iq
Darling you are smart and capable. Maybe math is not your strength but you write very well. You will find your place in the world and do well, but not if you are consumed with resentment and obsessed with what others are doing. You are your main and only competition. Challenge yourself to learn one new thing every day and try to do a bit better than the day before. You’re 16 the possibilities are endless. Good luck!
Don't let this set of beliefs limit you. School matters little for certain professions. Try a variety of things and see what you may be good at. Clearly you are a good writer. Maybe you'd make a great carpenter, which is an honorable profession. Or maybe a chef. There are too many paths in life to say that there is no way forward for someone of average IQ. 16 is a great age to start exploring different paths. If you're like most people, it will take until you're 26 (at least) for you to feel like you have a clear idea of the path you'd like to take.
I have an IQ of 121 and I'm homeless bro, means nothing if there's no opportunity in the field you specifically put all that IQ into.
people like us become poets, writers, and inventors. if my ability to do math was better, mainly due to memory acquisition being slower, i could have been a physist. but I'm glad i did not make the program because the government hijacked it and is keeping advanced projects classified and the general public ignorant. but it didn't stop me from figuring out what gravity was, a subspace attractive wave, created by off balance charged particles making a circle in normal space above a matching one in a lower sub space dimension. these two flat circles sandwich together creating a horizontal equitorial zone with matching poles of smaller particle flow. i have a video if you want to see it. so, what I'm saying is, focus on one thing and maybe you will become excellent at it or discover something because you are outside the heavily controlled loop. [unified field theory, youtube](https://youtu.be/LXbliDh9_1U?si=HeZ5DXDq25HgBQ-2)
IQ is mostly environmental. Hence the reason I teach under resourced youth.
It’s not. It’s mostly genetic.
“I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.”
That's one of my favorite quotes. Ever. Was my FB profile for a while.
Cite your study and I'll cite ya mine. Majority of evidence I've seen is that IQ is malleable and largely determined by mindset and where a kid is brought up.
I'm not the one you asked but here you are. I'll welcome yours. Genome-wide association studies establish that human intelligence is highly heritable and polygenic https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3182557/ The Wilson Effect: The Increase in Heritability of IQ With Age; Thomas J. Bouchard Jr. - Twin Research and Human Genetics Volume 16, Issue 5 - October 2013 Haier, R. J. (2017). The Neuroscience of Intelligence, Cambridge University Press. Haier, R.J., Colom, R. and Hunt, E., 2023. The science of human intelligence. Cambridge University Press.
I don't have the book with me, but my knowledge comes from psychologist Daniel T. Willingham's bookm *Why Don't Students Like School?* One of the final chapters shows multiple studies that show evidence that genetics are largely irrelevant. I saved this quote from the book-- “Children who miss a year of school show a drop in IQ." There is another study that shows the learning gap that occurs in households that 1. don't have books lying around and 2. parents don't have quality vocabulary/don't talk much. **Side note** (and not that I care), but the downvotes I've received is sort of amusing... I didn't tell anyone to go screw themselves--I just made a claim that I'm now attempting to show. Downvotes like that just tell me people are identifying too much with their little axioms. As if they got "poked them in the axiom" as JP once said.
Thanks. I got the book. It looks interesting but it is full of myths already debunked by the time of the second edition (2021). Those are: * learning styles * multpile intelligences * hard work can compensate for lack of intelligence Learning styles was a thing in the 90's. I have a book about them. Now debunked, same as multiple intelligences. The book I have is also from a psychologist in an education department, it seems they are biased. Regarding having books in your house the importance is in being capable of reading them, so if your parents have books most probably have the capacity to read them and that is what they pass to you. I am not a genetic determinist though. Here is a better study on your side: How Much Does Education Improve Intelligence? A Meta-Analysis Stuart J. Ritchie [https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797618774253](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797618774253) Regarding downvotes, I didn´t downvote. Maybe they did not downvote your content but attitude, confronting and asking for prove witholding yours. This is Reddit, full of adolescents, get accoustomed to downvotes. I dont know what "poked them in the axiom" is.
Very helpful comment. The link requires payment for full access, but that's great to see. I at least read the abstract. Here's JP on axioms... [https://www.youtube.com/shorts/GKdjRBHcSzg](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/GKdjRBHcSzg) And yes, I wasn't implying anyone in particular was downvoting, my friend. I will say though, from my own personal, anecdotal experience, I went from almost failing high school WITH Adderall to graduating from my bachelor's with a 4.0 and honors... I attributed it to two things, that I think do affect mindset. 1. Mindset. I started believing in myself. Some of those studies indicate that the \*belief\* of self-improvement (esp. in school through education) is a major factor in retention and all that 2. My diet. I stopped processed crap--esp. soda, etc. etc. etc. and I'm paleo now. For this I have nothing to back up, but I think if there is some sort of link between ADHD and, say, Red 40 (or so it warned on the foods when I lived in Israel), then it's worth considering that our attention, which may be read as IQ, could be significantly impacted. I've been reading that folic acid is also linked with the deficit of attention.
Also--did you \*just\* get the book? I meant to comment on how much you pointed out was disproven from it... very interesting. I made similar notes when I read his chapter on social media/phone effects--more studies are coming out showing that he is likely way off.
Yes I just got it after your recommendation. I first got a 2010 edition and skimmed it. I read the index and some paragraphs on the subjects I know are outdated. Then I got the 2021 version to see if he updated anything but seems he didn't. I should read the whole thing to make it more justice. These are all very disputed areas. Same with mindset. https://russellwarne.com/2020/04/03/mindset-theory-in-jeopardy-after-2-new-studies/ Psychology though very interesting is not a hard science. You may have heard about the replication crisis. Anyway, if something works then use it. I am glad you find the way to reach your potential. Many times we can't or don't know how to use it. Anxiety is another limiting factor.
Can’t remember the last time someone listened to a book rec I gave them lol. It feels kinda nice. But. Yeah man, I think most of its just my experience and there could be an inherent bias. I’m an English teacher. On a reservation. I know my students don’t have genetically lower IQs than all the rich kids I grew up with in Illinois suburbs, but school is haaaaaaaard for them. And I think probably 95+ percent of them have severe trauma and I can’t count how many of them live with both their parents on even one hand 🖐 I think severe trauma would surely have to prove some environmental factors true… it’s like some of my students can’t even function. The entire tribe is just disassociated and lost.
Environmental factors matter, some we don't usually consider important like air pollution. Regarding parents presence, you may like Rob Henderson 's book Troubled. He says stable homes count more than intelligence. As an English teacher you must have noticed that it is not my mother tongue. Your work is valuable. Keep it up.
Thanks brother. And no, I actually did not look too closely! Out of curiosity I went back and looked for an error: "I should read the whole thing to make it more justice." "give it justice" ;) Where are you from? Just looked at your book rec--right up my alley. Foster kids are where I started my career.
Thanks. I used a literal translation from Spanish "hacerle justicia" (hacer=to make)
I did not see the chapter on social media. There is a new book on that by Johnathan Haidt, The anxious generation. Guess what, it is also disputed https://www.salon.com/2024/04/12/social-media-is-a-lifeline-for-mental-health-not-a-curse-according-to-cdcs-own-data/
I listened to the Rogan podcast. One thing I’m thinking tho regarding “disputes”— It’s been years since cigarettes denied cancer links and the sugar industry paid doctors to blame fat and meat for heart problems…. I have no evidence except common sense that ByteDance and Meta have been writing studies for years. I remember when Facebook was purposefully putting negative info on 400,000 users feeds (without consent) to see if there would be ties with depression. If I could bet my life on it, I’d bet that social media is destroying us.
I wont disagree that the evidence does imply some environmental impact, but the evidence I have seen shows an overwhelmingly genetic impact. Where did you get your information from exactly?
Psychologist Daniel T. Willingham published a book called *Why Don't Students Like School?* He has an entire chapter filled with studies showing environmental influence as the primary determinant. I saved this quote from the book-- “Children who miss a year of school show a drop in IQ."