Autistic boy,12, with higher IQ than Einstein.....

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Autistic boy,12, with higher IQ than Einstein develops his own theory of relativity

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z1Hf74PEae

As mentioned on another thread, we don't know how high Einstein's IQ was. Maybe it was 90 and most people have an IQ higher than him. We just don't know. He never took an IQ test. The only way to know someone's IQ is to take an IQ test. People don't "have IQs" independently of the test.

True as I have come to realise.

Not exactly true. In the US (at least) there is a system that is used in courts to measure IQ that is considerd valid enough to make huge awards to people who are injured in negligent sorts of accidents. This is a system developed out of necessity as many people do not take IQ tests then get in an accident and an award amount is based on IQ lost. The only way to measure that is to use this system. It is actually pretty cool from what I can tell though I do not remember the name of it. My shrink walked me through the process somewhat during my own IQ talk/assesments as he is often called upon in court to do these measurements.

Ther is another thread about this kid: http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt155982.html

Thanks. Had not known.

I still mistrust any and all psychological assessments done on long-dead people, whether IQ or trying to "diagnose" them with autism, etc.

How does this technique work? And how does it account for the people thought to have a very high IQ by observation, who end up having a low to very low IQ when tested, and people thought to have a very low IQ by observation, who end up having a high to very high IQ when tested (both of which are massively over-represented in neurologically atypical people including autistic people)? That's the reason I don't trust such techniques, even if they're used in the courts for good reasons. (Well... semi-good reasons. Ideally the system wouldn't be relying on IQ tests for that purpose to begin with, so there would already be something better to rely on.)

If you ever get injured in an accident, answer every question wrong to maximize the award...

Yep, as I said in the other thread on the same kid, Einstein's IQ isn't known.
And the kid is nothing short of annoying. ("STEPHEN HAWKING IS GOING DOWN!! !" Honestly, kid, what the hell? So pretentious.)

~

And anbuend is right (both on the IQ bit and the posthumous diagnoses of autism bit.)
An IQ test is the only way to get an IQ score. You can't get it by those different means that the legal system apparently came up with; that's like saying you can get a math grade without taking a math test or doing any math.

Last edited by jmnixon95 on 25 Mar 2011, 11:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Exactly. Fraudulent.

It is IMPOSSIBLE to determine what was lost if the loss isn't a known constant, and you don't know what you started with. And I've NEVER heard of an award based on IQ lost. Brain damage, YES, but IQ? NOPE! BESIDES, IQ tests are BOUND to vary a little.

Wait, why Einstein? He was just a physicist who made some good contributions to the field.

Rarer than his intellectual capacities was the fact that he happened to be doing the right things at the right time. There are far, far more people capable of carrying out awesome feats than there are ones who actually do so because the whole process requires a lot of things to be set up just so.

I am not a fan of IQ testing for the following reasons.
1. A universally agreed upon definition of intelligence is nonexistent.
2. As a special education teacher, I have seen too many botched IQ tests.
3. Many IQ tests are knowledge tests in disguise.
4. IQ tests are poor predictors of academic success.
5. All IQ test have cultural bias. Even the non-language dependent tests seem biased in my opinion.
6. I have difficulty imagining how we can use a single number to measure intelligence.

To get back onto the topic of the boy himself... I just hope that he doesn't end up getting pushed with higher and higher expectations until he burns out. Although frankly it seems more from the little I've read (which makes it suspect as is -- having been in the media myself, I know how little articles actually give a view of a real person in their wholeness), it sounds more as if he's simply not capable of being held back, and is more intellectually capable than practically anyone I knew in gifted programs, including people of his IQ who couldn't do half what he is doing. I hope that that's true, and that the publicity doesn't do him too much harm. Publicity and the expectations that come along with it can be hard enough for an adult, let alone a child on the verge of puberty, let alone an autistic child on that edge. I just hope he's okay and that he will be okay once the hype dies down. I was never advanced in the manner he is (in fact despite being somewhat advanced in one or two areas, I actually found a lot of grade-level work quite challenging), but I understand both the pressures of being regarded as gifted, and the pressures of hype and publicity and expectations of performance, and how those can both be disastrous for an autistic person, each on their own.

Who cares if he's annoying and pretentious? I'd rather judge a physicist's contribution to humanity by their theories than their personal qualities.

http://books.google.com/books?id=NO948o ... &q&f=false

Page 121 talks about the methods that are commonly used in court. My shrink says 10 IQ points is easily worth 1 million dollars. It is apparently defensible.