IQ in different academic fields – Interesting? Quite!
You all know how much I detest league tables, especially those that are based on entirely arbitrary criteria but nevertheless promote a feeling of smug self-satisfaction for those who lucky enough to find themselves at the top. So when my attention was drawn to a blog post that shows (or purports to show) the variation of average IQ across different academic disciplines I decided to post the corresponding ranking with the usual health warning that IQ tests only measure a subject’s ability to do IQ tests. This isn’t even based on IQ test results per se, but on a conversion between the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) results and IQ which may be questionable. Moreover, the differences are really rather small and (as usual) no estimate of sampling uncertainty is provided.
Does this list mean that physicists are smarter than anyone else? You might say that. I couldn’t possibly comment…
- 130.0 Physics
- 129.0 Mathematics
- 128.5 Computer Science
- 128.0 Economics
- 127.5 Chemical engineering
- 127.0 Material science
- 126.0 Electrical engineering
- 125.5 Mechanical engineering
- 125.0 Philosophy
- 124.0 Chemistry
- 123.0 Earth sciences
- 122.0 Industrial engineering
- 122.0 Civil engineering
- 121.5 Biology
- 120.1 English/literature
- 120.0 Religion/theology
- 119.8 Political science
- 119.7 History
- 118.0 Art history
- 117.7 Anthropology/archeology
- 116.5 Architecture
- 116.0 Business
- 115.0 Sociology
- 114.0 Psychology
- 114.0 Medicine
- 112.0 Communication
- 109.0 Education
- 106.0 Public administration
In the Dark 
May 26, 2013 at 2:12 pm
[…] Other commentary on this can be found here. […]
May 26, 2013 at 7:49 pm
I hope you didn’t link to that blog to promote it! I found its comment about mentally handicapped people offensive.
May 27, 2013 at 9:24 am
Motl is a polariser. I find that I strongly agree with him on some things and strongly disagree with him on others.
May 27, 2013 at 9:24 am
It hasn’t been acceptable terminology for over 50 years and for good reason. Derogatory terms invite aggression and bullying.
May 27, 2013 at 10:40 am
I linked to that blog simply to acknowledge the source properly, not to endorse his attitudes. I’m told that people with very high IQs often lack emotional intelligence, so maybe he does have an IQ of 187..
May 27, 2013 at 10:56 am
How do you quantify emotional intelligence?
May 27, 2013 at 1:14 pm
How do you feel about IQ?
May 27, 2013 at 4:53 pm
It’s a quality, and I don’t think it can be quantified….but it seems clear to me that some people have a lot more of it than others!
May 27, 2013 at 5:30 pm
If it can be ordered, it can be put in 1:1 correspondence with the reals, ie quantified…
May 27, 2013 at 6:10 pm
But what if your qualities are entirely imaginary?
May 27, 2013 at 10:55 am
Were they terms that were originally medically descriptive and then became derogatory via use as insults? If so, I wonder roughly when.
May 27, 2013 at 12:55 pm
According to Chambers, “moron” used to be applied to a person whose IQ was in the range 50-69, and “idiot” to < 20; "imbecile" was somewhere between the two. But this specific use is obsolete, and all the words have a pretty general meaning nowadays.
We have no more control over what intelligence we are born with than we do over our physical attributes. What matters is what we do with it. Highly intelligent people sometimes choose to behave like idiots and when they do there should be appropriates words to describe them.
PS both "idiot" and "moron" come from Greek words; "imbecile" is from Latin (via French)
May 27, 2013 at 4:26 pm
Isn’t a “moron” some kind of fundamental particle?
May 27, 2013 at 4:41 pm
The OED gives moron as a kind of salamander…
May 27, 2013 at 4:50 pm
The OED is quite interesting on “moron”. Sense 1 is the specific meaning relating to the range in IQ from 50-70:
“The term was first adopted and given this meaning by the American Association for the Study of the Feeble-minded in 1910. It is now generally avoided in technical contexts due to its association with sense 2.”
Sense 2 being the derogatory meaning. The first appearance of Sense 2 was in 1917, so it took very little time to become simply a pejorative.
Although with a root in Greek, this word is surprisingly modern in English usage;. no instances recorded in the OED before 1910. I thought it was much older.
“Imbecile” is much older, but has evolved from an original meaning of weakness or impairment, to one that’s specific to mental incapacity.
“Idiot” has been around for ages, with references back to Middle English.
May 27, 2013 at 12:34 pm
If “average” is taken to refer to mode or median and the distribution is heavily skewed then it can be appropriate to be shocked. But I suspect Eisenhower was not making the obvious mistake nor thinking of skewed distributions but took “average” to mean worldwide rather than American, and was assuming US superiority.
May 28, 2013 at 8:22 pm
What I noticed about the table is that ‘education’ came close to bottom. it’s a bit worrying considering the influence of this field on teaching practice, and it chimes with my own experience that many of the ‘reforms’ pushed by educationalists (at least over here) are changes that suit the weakest students