
IQ Estimates by College Major - evo_9
http://www.statisticbrain.com/iq-estimates-by-intended-college-major/
======
dragonwriter
What good is an estimate of the average IQ by college major? Without even a
standard deviation for each, what does it tell you that could ever be useful?

~~~
zissou
Reminds me of my favorite statistical/philosophical quote:

```When one commits to making statements about the average, they may be
talking about someone who never exists, but they make very nice statements.```

It reflects on our over used emphasis of the 50th percentile when making
statistical statements that are meant to be informative. In policy, the
average across a population, or subset of the population, is often used as a
form of a "fairness" rule. IMHO, examining other quantiles can be much more
informative about the nature of a distribution, perhaps for economic policy
reasons.

------
rcirka
I'm curious why it ends at 103. If the mean score is supposed to be 100, does
that mean anyone below that isn't fit for college - half the population?

~~~
jmillikin
If the minimum average IQ for a major is X, then there will be many students
in that major with IQs less than X.

Also, keep in mind that the study is deriving IQ from students' performance on
standardized tests. These tests are primarily intended to measure education,
rather than intelligence, and so this might simply be showing that the average
education level of college students is higher than the average of the general
population.

If they wanted to be honest about the reliability of their data, they would
have left the IQ column off completely.

~~~
gdwatson
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAT#Correlations_with_IQ>

------
berlinbrown
126 bitches.

