NEWS FROM THE IQ FRONT

Despite its political unpopularity, academic research into IQ still goes on. Two recent articles in one of the academic journals are particularly interesting. The first shows that a high IQ is in general better for your personal and social adjustment. We have all heard stories of highly intelligent weirdos but they are the exception rather than the rule. Mostly, a high IQ makes you BETTER at solving your personal and social problems, not worse. The Terman & Oden (1947) "Genetic studies of genius" showed the same thing many years ago, of course.

The second study provides some hard data on how intelligent American Jews are. There has long been evidence that they are more intelligent than white Americans in general but it turns out that they are ahead by only 7.5 IQ points on average. That is still substantial (half a standard deviation) but not quite as high as some earlier estimates.

Reference
Terman, L. M., & Oden, M. H. (1947). Genetic studies of genius: Vol. 4. The gifted child grows up. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

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