Fred on the automation of higher education

[Pointedstick]

This is a really good one.

http://www.fredoneverything.net/PoonU.shtml

After Microsoft agreed to accept scores instead of degrees, the dam broke. The rest is history. Fourteen years later,  thousands of professors were on food stamps, along with diversity counselors, featherbedding administrators, and football staffs. Traditional universities had been replaced by a roomful of servers in a former garden-implements factory in Bluefield, now the home of WillyJacknet. Harvard itself, with its huge endowment, had sold the buildings and reconstituted itself as the Greater Boston Hedge Fund.

[Kriegsspiel]

By a rare confluence of recessive genes, Willy Bill had a measured IQ of 193.

I LOL'd at this unnecessarily mean explanation.

But really, did any of YOU guys put your IQ on your college application? I guess that's only a thing if your IQ is 193.

[Libertarian666]

By a rare confluence of recessive genes, Willy Bill had a measured IQ of 193.

I LOL'd at this unnecessarily mean explanation.

But really, did any of YOU guys put your IQ on your college application? I guess that's only a thing if your IQ is 193.

SAT scores convert to IQ scores pretty easily, although the top of the IQ distribution is cut off because a perfect SAT I (after "recentering" to make the scores higher) is equivalent to about 152 IQ (assuming a 15 SD). Before that "improvement" a perfect SAT score was equivalent to 163 IQ, again assuming 15 SD.

See http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/GREIQ.aspx for conversion tables.

[WiseOne]

Cute article!

I expect he's right, and that some trades will find ways to circumvent college education and the disastrous student loans that result.  There is zero reason why someone can't be a perfectly good software engineer after taking Treehouse courses, for example.

Similarly, I think that for MDs, primary care as a specialty is doomed.  They do nothing that an NP can't do, so there's little to justify 4 years college, 4 years med school, and 3 years residency compared to an NP's 5 years total post high school.

[MachineGhost]

See http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/GREIQ.aspx for conversion tables.

The only problem with this is SAT difficulty for the same score has been dumbed down continuously for decades via "reforms", so does that mean people have lower IQ's as well?  It would certainly explain why nearly everyone is so dumbing stupid now.

I don't believe in the bell curve distribution because there is just no way 50% of all people are below 100 in IQ.  No, there has to be an extreme cliff edge to the left of positive kurtosis centered on 100 rather than a gradual dropoff.

[Libertarian666]

See http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/GREIQ.aspx for conversion tables.

The only problem with this is SAT difficulty for the same score has been dumbed down continuously for decades via "reforms", so does that mean people have lower IQ's as well?  It would certainly explain why nearly everyone is so dumbing stupid now.

I don't believe in the bell curve distribution because there is just no way 50% of all people are below 100 in IQ.  No, there has to be an extreme cliff edge to the left of positive kurtosis centered on 100 rather than a gradual dropoff.

No, the SAT "reforms" do not mean that people are dumber. It means that their education up to high school is worse, so they can no longer answer questions that they should have been able to answer with the previous high school curriculum.

As for your comments on the bell curve, obviously you don't read People magazine or watch "reality TV".

[MachineGhost]

No, the SAT "reforms" do not mean that people are dumber. It means that their education up to high school is worse, so they can no longer answer questions that they should have been able to answer with the previous high school curriculum.

As for your comments on the bell curve, obviously you don't read People magazine or watch "reality TV".

Isn't that just semantics?  If you have a fixed IQ potential and the concentration camp of mind destruction did its job better than it did in the past, aren't you technically dumber?  Or, is it implied that higher fixed IQ are self-learners and will eventually reach their full IQ potential, despite the skruling to the contrary?

I don't think women's penchant for gossip (which is a Stone Age emotional need akin to shopping) has much to do with IQ.  We're perfectly capable of being rationally smart and emotional pimps at the same time.

[Kriegsspiel]

By a rare confluence of recessive genes, Willy Bill had a measured IQ of 193.

I LOL'd at this unnecessarily mean explanation.

But really, did any of YOU guys put your IQ on your college application? I guess that's only a thing if your IQ is 193.

SAT scores convert to IQ scores pretty easily, although the top of the IQ distribution is cut off because a perfect SAT I (after "recentering" to make the scores higher) is equivalent to about 152 IQ (assuming a 15 SD). Before that "improvement" a perfect SAT score was equivalent to 163 IQ, again assuming 15 SD.

See http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/GREIQ.aspx for conversion tables.

I only took the ACT, so I went here.

Maybe this is a dumb question, but was that article a parable, or was it a true story? A cursory google search didn't turn up anything with Willy Jack's name, or Poon U except for Fred's article. Granted, 14 years ago was pretty much the dark ages so maybe there just isn't any info?

[MachineGhost]

It's a joke.

[Mountaineer]

See http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/GREIQ.aspx for conversion tables.

The only problem with this is SAT difficulty for the same score has been dumbed down continuously for decades via "reforms", so does that mean people have lower IQ's as well?  It would certainly explain why nearly everyone is so dumbing stupid now.

I don't believe in the bell curve distribution because there is just no way 50% of all people are below 100 in IQ.  No, there has to be an extreme cliff edge to the left of positive kurtosis centered on 100 rather than a gradual dropoff.

One meaningless comment  just because I can:  One girl I went to high school with had an IQ of 69 by the test in play at the time.  Pretty "dense" as I remember her classroom contributions and grades, but as an adult seems to be relatively functional in conducting activities of life.

... Mountaineer

[Kriegsspiel]

See http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/GREIQ.aspx for conversion tables.

The only problem with this is SAT difficulty for the same score has been dumbed down continuously for decades via "reforms", so does that mean people have lower IQ's as well?  It would certainly explain why nearly everyone is so dumbing stupid now.

I don't believe in the bell curve distribution because there is just no way 50% of all people are below 100 in IQ.  No, there has to be an extreme cliff edge to the left of positive kurtosis centered on 100 rather than a gradual dropoff.

One meaningless comment  just because I can:  One girl I went to high school with had an IQ of 69 by the test in play at the time.  Pretty "dense" as I remember her classroom contributions and grades, but as an adult seems to be relatively functional in conducting activities of life.

... Mountaineer

Hi fellow Mountaineer, welcome to America, have you been here long?

[dragoncar]

See http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/GREIQ.aspx for conversion tables.

The only problem with this is SAT difficulty for the same score has been dumbed down continuously for decades via "reforms", so does that mean people have lower IQ's as well?  It would certainly explain why nearly everyone is so dumbing stupid now.

I don't believe in the bell curve distribution because there is just no way 50% of all people are below 100 in IQ.  No, there has to be an extreme cliff edge to the left of positive kurtosis centered on 100 rather than a gradual dropoff.

One meaningless comment  just because I can:  One girl I went to high school with had an IQ of 69 by the test in play at the time.  Pretty "dense" as I remember her classroom contributions and grades, but as an adult seems to be relatively functional in conducting activities of life.

... Mountaineer

69 is so low that I can only guess there was an anomaly with the test.  I don't think "real" 69 IQ can survive in the world without outside assistance.

[Mark Leavy]

69 is so low that I can only guess there was an anomaly with the test.  I don't think "real" 69 IQ can survive in the world without outside assistance.

IQ standard deviation is ~15.
69 is about 2 standard deviations.
The area below 2 standard deviations on a normal curve is about 10%.

Of course you would know this if you were 2 standard deviations higher.
/ducks/ 

Mark

<edit>  Whoops.  Foot in mouth.  Area below 2SD below the mean is about 2.5%.
My apologies for the snark, dragoncar.  Just call me Mark-2

[MachineGhost]

It looks like the bell curve is "age agnostic" as it is your relative mental IQ vs your chronological age * 100.  So essentially, if you are smarter than what your chronological age says you should be, you will score higher than 100.  That's all it means.  So okay, half of the population is relatively stupider than what they should be.  I can get on board with that!