Talk:Marilyn vos Savant/Archive 3

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Are there independent publications about the Mega test?

Another question about editing this article (and other articles). Where is there any published information, independent of the test developer, on the Mega test? Such third-party independent research is abundant for the Wechsler IQ scales, and has been for decades, and is adequately available for the Stanford-Binet, Kaufman, WJ, Raven, DAS, and other IQ tests. Particularly because IQ testing can have both medical and forensic consequences in the real world, I have become persuaded by a more experienced Wikipedian that sourcing all statements in all articles about IQ testing to the guidelines for reliable sources for medicine-related articles is helpful to readers of Wikipedia. Are there any sources at all of that kind for the Mega test? -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 14:10, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

It may be helpful to not think of the Mega Test as a clinical IQ test at all. It's more like a "Test Your Smarts" quiz, though a very intelligent one. It wasn't designed by a psychologist and it has (as far as I know) no endorsement from any psychological orginization. The score from the Mega test was included in Guinness, though. Here again, it's worth emphasizing that Marilyn vos Savant was propelled to fame for the mythology--if you will--of her IQ score as reported in Guinness. The only reliable sources are mainstream-media articles and bios about her. This is not an article about IQ testing. Relevant information about IQ testing can and ought to be included, but it should be second to the mainstream view of her IQ as reported in newspaper and magazine articles, interviews, her books, and in Guinness.99.21.181.141 (talk) 17:02, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
Oh, that's a little differently from how I think about the way the article will be approached by a new reader, but I see your point. In the event that some reader of the article thinks that this is an encyclopedic treatment of IQ testing, besides just relating the biography of a person famous for getting a high score on an IQ test, it would be prudent to source and wikilink any assertions about IQ testing that appear in the article. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 17:27, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Untitled

This article is focusing a lot on certain (fairly simple) puzzles instead of vos Savant as a person. I suggest moving the details about the puzzles elsewhere. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.126.207.212 (talk) 23:25, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

99.24.249.8 (talk) 19:18, 30 July 2010 (UTC) The most famous thing I thought I knew is that before her birth her father called a news conference and announced the pending birth of a genius. Now lets see if we can do some probability calculations from that.... That aside it seems that we have not touched on that central facet of creating intelligence. Doesn't seem to hard as R Feynmann's father created one and Richard returned the favor by giving his baby sister his lessons as his father deemed (probability again) the chances for a woman to succeed in science not good.

proposal for an edit

This is ambiguous: "Finally, vos Savant started a survey, calling on women readers (with exactly two children and at least one boy) and male readers (with exactly two children - the elder a boy) to tell her the sex of both children. With almost eighteen thousand responses, the results showed 35.9% (a little over 1 in 3) ***(of whom?)*** with two boys." - this comment has been moved from a main article page here. i'm not in any way associated with the author of it, but i agree that the article statement MAY be unclear, though it's perfectly clear for me - over 1/3 of the READERS, both male/female. please, place a [who?] (or similar) tag in the article if you agree with the aforementioned comment or if you're the author. Vaxquis (talk) 21:45, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

IQ

So her record IQ was over 50 years ago and her last test was in the 80s? Any data on what her IQ is now?--87.162.16.203 (talk) 18:45, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

  • The sources for her purported IQ are not good-quality sources, especially the Scoville source, which is a one-man webpage that doesn't meet usual Wikipedia verifiability standards. WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 23:26, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
The Scoville source isn't a good source (for several reasons). But what it's sourcing is good information, for the most part. The paragraph needs edited. A good source can be found. In the meantime, the paragraph needn't be deleted.99.55.157.8 (talk) 22:37, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

The German article is better than the English one!

The German article is more detailed, more accurate and better organized than the English article. The English article needs improvement. The German article could be a guide for the improvement. I will work on it when I have time. 99.97.48.148 (talk) 20:30, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Who has access to the Guinness Books of World Records from the years mentioned in the article?

The article mentions particular annual editions of the Guinness Book of World Records that include a record for highest IQ. Does any editor have any of those books at hand? Is it possible to verify directly from Guinness publications what those publications said, in what year, about any person listed as having the highest IQ? -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 14:05, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

I found a 1988 edition of Guinness Book of World Records at a book fair in St. Louis for 25 cents. Here's the entire entry under "Highest IQ" on page 29 (copied by hand):

Intelligence quotients or IQ's comprise the subject's mental age divided by his chronological age or actual age multiplied by 100, so that an 8-year-old more gifted than an average 16-year-old would have an IQ of 16/8 × 100 = 200. The highest childhood score has been achieved by Marilyn Mach vos Savant of St. Louis, Mo, who as a 10-year-old achieved a ceiling score for 23-year-olds, thus giving her an IQ of 228.

In adult High IQ clubs, admission requirements are not on IQ points but are gauged in percentiles. An IQ exhibited by 1 person in 10,000 for instance coincides with 158 on the Stanford-Binet scale but 187 on the Cattell scale. The most elite ultra-high IQ society is the Mega Society with 26 members with percentiles of 99.9999 or 1 in a million. The topmost scorer in the Mega admission test, devised by its founder Ronald K. Hoeflin, has been 46 out of 48 by Marilyn Mach vos Savant superseding the 43 of Jeff Ward.

The 3 members who scored 197 are Christopher Philip Harding (b Keynsham, England, 1944) of Rockhampton, Australia; Dr Ferris Eugene Alger (b Des Moines, Ia, 1913) of New Hope, Pa, and Dr Johannes Dougles Veldhuis (b Hamilton, Ont, Canada, 1949) of Charlottesville, Va.

The highest IQ published for a national population is 115 for the Japanese born in 1960–61. At least 10 percent of their whole population has an IQ over 130.

I typed this by hand. So some typos have likely been inserted. But not all errors are my typos, such as the awkward "scorer ... has been 46 out of 48" in the last sentence of the second paragraph and the comma instead of a semicolon in the second-to-last paragraph, among other errors. (By the way, I have other contributions on this talk page under an IP address.) macjacobus (talk) 02:53, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
Ooh, thanks for the typing. Now I'm curious about whether we have a copyright violation in some Wikipedia articles, as some of that text looks very familiar. I saw later (after I asked the question you kindly answered) that the newspaper feature story about Marilyn vos Savant mentions directly that Guinness later dropped that IQ category because of its unreliability. The Guinness Book of World Records was famous for its fact-checking, but the day when that entry was written was not one of its finer days. There are multiple mistakes in that entry (as is easily verified through reliable sources on IQ testing. Scary. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 03:15, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Famous Columns --> ambiguous

The last sentence of the Famous Columns section is ambiguous. Someone please verify the information and make it clear... this section needs citations or perhaps removed.


Brandoneus (talk) 03:53, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Removing it is correct, because irrelevant pop culture references don't belong in this biographical article. Thanks for pointing out that problem. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 02:56, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

$100 Bill Puzzle

http://www.parade.com/askmarilyn/2010/11/Sundays-Column-11-28-10.html "Four identical sealed envelopes are on a table. One contains a $100 bill. You select an envelope at random and hold it in your hand without opening it. Two of the three remaining envelopes are then removed and set aside, still sealed. You are told that they are empty. "You are now given the choice of keeping the envelope you selected or exchanging it for the one on the table. What should you do? A) Keep your envelope; B) switch it; or C) it doesn’t matter. "I said you should switch envelopes. Here’s why: Imagine playing this game repeatedly. You start with a 25% chance of choosing the envelope with the cash. Then two empty ones are taken away on purpose. (Only someone with knowledge of the contents can inform you that sealed envelopes are empty.) So if the $100 bill is in any of the three unchosen envelopes—which it is 75% of the time-—y ou’ll get it by switching."

COMMENT: Wrong. The two removed envelopes are empty? If true, odds between the other two are 50-50. If false, the odds are 0-0. Switching envelopes changes nothing. 24.19.195.93 (talk) 19:21, 29 November 2010 (UTC) R.E.Stannard Jr.

"Marilyn"

The second paragraph's wording is a little too informal? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.49.119.12 (talk) 04:27, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Is askipedia a reliable source?

Seems to me it ain't, but it's used to estimate vos Savant's IQ. Phiwum (talk) 15:45, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

$100 Bill Puzzle

http://www.parade.com/askmarilyn/2010/11/Sundays-Column-11-28-10.html "Four identical sealed envelopes are on a table. One contains a $100 bill. You select an envelope at random and hold it in your hand without opening it. Two of the three remaining envelopes are then removed and set aside, still sealed. You are told that they are empty. "You are now given the choice of keeping the envelope you selected or exchanging it for the one on the table. What should you do? A) Keep your envelope; B) switch it; or C) it doesn’t matter. "I said you should switch envelopes. Here’s why: Imagine playing this game repeatedly. You start with a 25% chance of choosing the envelope with the cash. Then two empty ones are taken away on purpose. (Only someone with knowledge of the contents can inform you that sealed envelopes are empty.) So if the $100 bill is in any of the three unchosen envelopes—which it is 75% of the time-—y ou’ll get it by switching."

COMMENT: Wrong. The two removed envelopes are empty? If true, odds between the other two are 50-50. If false, the odds are 0-0. Switching envelopes changes nothing. 24.19.195.93 (talk) 19:24, 29 November 2010 (UTC) R.E.Stannard Jr.

You're basically given a choice between the one envelope in your hand and the other three on the table. Instead of the two empty envelopes being discarded, say they're set on top of the remaining envelope. (And why not? They're empty, so it's the same as setting scrap on top.) Then you are offered a choice between the envelope in your hand and the stack on the table. It should be pretty clear that the three envelopes are three times more likely to contain the $100 bill than just the one envelope. 75.132.168.114 (talk) 07:45, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
Marilyn frequently makes assumptions that affect the answer, without explicitly stating them, or describing how they are assumptions. There are at least two ways to interpret this problem: (1) Somebody who knows what envelope contains the $100 intentionally removes two that do not, and tells you they are empty; or (2) Somebody who does not know which envelope contains the $100 removes two at random, and a different person who does know informs you that it just so happens that they both are empty. But the problem statement does not make it clear which applies, and which it is changes the answer.
Marilyn assumed it was (1). 1/4 of the time you would have initially chosen the correct envelope, and switching loses. 3/4 of the time you would have chosen incorrectly, and the remaining envelope has the $100. So there are three times as many cases where switching wins.
But if it was (2), 1/4 of the time you would have initially chosen the correct envelope; all three of the other envelopes are empty, and switching loses. 3/4 of the the time, you will have picked incorrectly. But in 2/3 of those cases, the random selection will remove the envelope with the $100. These cases contradict the problem statement, and are eliminated. In 1/3 of them, or (1/3)*(3/4)=1/4 of all cases, two empty envelopes are randomly removed. In these cases, switching wins. So there are just as many cases where switching wins as where switching loses, and there is no advantage either way.
Marilyn needs to explain how she interprets an ambiguous question, and how that interpretation affects the answer. That's what having a high IQ should allow a person to do. JeffJor (talk) 02:27, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
It's possible that the player does not know which is the case between (1) and (2). In case (1), switching is an improvement, and in case (2), switching makes no difference. So why wouldn't a player who does not know whether the envelopes are removed at random, or with knowledge of their contents, switch?
A third possibility that isn't treated here is that the person providing the information is intentionally lying about whether one of the two removed envelopes contain the $100 (in which case again it doesn't matter, since neither the envelope in the player's hand, nor the one on the table, contains the money). And a fourth possibility is that the informant simply doesn't know, in which case the information provided is useless and again it doesn't matter what the player chooses. 198.70.193.2 (talk) 22:37, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

World's highest IQ?

Marilyn does not have the world's highest IQ.[citation needed] On a more modern level, the highest IQ ever recorded was by Marilyn vos Savant with 228; however that is a mental status ratio IQ (used for children).[citation needed]

I added the {{cn}} tags there because the claims are uncited. I think this would be a case where it might in fact be better to simply remove the text, but I'd rather get some consensus first.

vos Savant vs Mathematicians

vos Savant says that "if we reject a hyperbolic method of squaring the circle, we should also reject a hyperbolic proof of Fermat's last theorem." and the mathematicians equivocate. On the one hand mathematicians say, agreeing with vos Savant, that "squaring the circle in hyperbolic geometry is a different problem from that of squaring it in Euclidean geometry". On the other hand mathematicians say, disagreeing with vos Savant, that "axiomatic set theory (rather than Euclidean geometry) is now the accepted foundation of mathematical proofs and that set theory is sufficiently robust to encompass both Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometry as well as geometry and adding numbers." However, since a circle in Euclidean space is not the same as a circle in hyperbolic space for all radii,hyperbolic tools provide approximate proofs for some (very small in the limit) radii i.e., as hyperbolic space approaches Euclidean space in the limit. Accordingly, we should reject a hyperbolic proof of FLT for all values of z,x,y integers. Indeed, one should reject a hyperbolic proof for Beal's conjecture and Pythagoras theorem for the same reasons.<ref> http://www.coolissues.com/mathematics/bfphyperbolicspace.html<ref> ClueBot III (talk) 02:13, 9 February 2018 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jamestmsn (talk • contribs) 22:29, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

example

this was under the "two boys problem" for discussion, but belongs here..

added text from main section: "An alternative view might be :-

Woman has
young boy, older girl young girl, older boy 2 boys 2 girls
Probability: 1/4 1/4 1/2 0


Which is actually correct?

JCA "

obviously the information after the final break doesn't belong, but lets keep focused on the content. i've notified the user who added the example on his talk page. minorCOLOSSAL (talk) 18:28, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Did her father call a press conference before her birth to announce a genius?

204.38.52.66 (talk) 20:29, 28 October 2013 (UTC) This is my understanding yet I find no confirmation; since newspaper articles were published at the time this could possibly be researched and confirmed. It would add significantly to the article as it would indicate the belief that intelligence is created is able to be substantiated.

This would have happened, if at all, long before most Wikipedians and I were born. But I have never, ever seen a statement to this effect. Without a source, it's best not to speculate. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 21:28, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Source suggestions

You may find it helpful while reading or editing articles to look at a bibliography of Intelligence Citations, posted for the use of all Wikipedians who have occasion to edit articles on human intelligence and related issues. I happen to have circulating access to a huge academic research library at a university with an active research program in these issues (and to another library that is one of the ten largest public library systems in the United States) and have been researching these issues since 1989. You are welcome to use these citations for your own research. You can help other Wikipedians by suggesting new sources through comments on that page. It will be extremely helpful for articles on living persons with reputations for having high IQ scores to edit them according to the Wikipedia biographies of living persons policy, as it is important to get these issues as well verified as possible. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 15:23, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Page needs improvement

An encyclopedia is not a list of mistakes. Does this page look like encyclopedia britannica to you? It reads more like a gossip newspaper. Mrknockknock (talk) 12:32, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Do you have any sources to suggest on the life of this person? -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 18:20, 3 December 2014 (UTC)
No i do not, i just passed by. Mrknockknock (talk) 18:41, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

need more biscuits

let*s hear it for gossip * my best question for high IQ girl is why do you write that dumb column * the funniest part of one book * all fairly unreadable * is when some joker asks her to explain her names * she replies by asking "what does your name mean? garbageman?" less media more honesty * 74.78.2.94 (talk) 01:10, 16 January 2015 (UTC)grumpy

Problem with last part of "Errors in the Column" section

I had great difficulty following the logic of the final part in this section concerning the problem of whether a $1000 annual raise vs. a "$300 semi-annual" raise is better. The way that paragraph leads one through the math seems both confusing, and possibly just plain wrong (except for the final sentence, which makes sense). That paragraph references this column by Cecil Adams for The Straight Dope, which in a much shorter paragraph makes the explanation crystal clear. This section needs to be rewritten. It's so difficult to follow, I can't tell if it's factually correct and just confusing, or just completely incomprehensible. Someone better at math than me, please take it on. StrangeAttractor (talk) 03:52, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Request for Comments

There is an RfC on the question of using "Religion: None" vs. "Religion: None (atheist)" in the infobox on this and other similar pages.

The RfC is at Template talk:Infobox person#RfC: Religion infobox entries for individuals that have no religion.

Please help us determine consensus on this issue. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:19, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Monte Hall Problem

Many years ago, when the controversy over Vos Savant's analysis of the Monte Hall problem first appeared, a huge controversy swept the Internet, and a colleague of mine (himself a math major)asked my opinion. After considerable confused thought, I came up with the following suggestion: As the game was structured, the contestant could pick one of doors A, B, or C. Suppose the guest picks, say, door B. He/she has a 1/3 choice of having chosen the prize. But now Monte Hall opens one of the other doors, say door C, to show a goat.

But now imagine a different game, in which case the contestant can pick two of the three doors, say A and C, and wins if either door contains the prize. Obviously, the chance of winning is 2/3. Now the host opens door C to show the goat. This is not new information. One of doors A and C must have held a goat, so the fact that this is true does nothing to change the probabilities. It is still 2/3 likely that either of the doors ( A and C) originally choses contains the prize. So the contestant is still 2/3 likely to win by sticking with the choices A and C).

Back to the actual game, picking door B and then switching to door A when C is opened puts the contestant in exactly the same position if both A and C had been chosen originally, and the conststant wins if either is correct. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.170.132.196 (talk) 13:40, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

Name

She has a very good name, because in French "savant" means a scientist, someone who knows a lot and is clever. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A01:E35:8A8D:FE80:C847:A886:C372:8190 (talk) 04:03, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

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Political Opinions

One thing not mentioned in the article is Ms. Savant's political leanings. I read her column regularly in the St. Louis Post Dispatch (published in the "Parade" magazine insert every Sunday)and was often shocked to see a main stream publication printing what most people then and now would consider radical right wing opinions. Ms. Savant has advocated the dissolution of the jury system and replacing it with panels of judges. Her argument was that a “jury of peer”, ordinary people, is simply not intellectually capable of making these decisions. A few months later she recanted this position. Apparently someone had explained to her that this would be a giant step backward and historically had always led to a brutal, inhumane court system. This is obvious to any person who was exposed to high school level history classes. I thought at the time that it was obvious to the very clever Ms. Savant but that she simply didn't care and was only “backing off” because her publishers insisted. Ms. Savant also promoted the idea of eugenics and involuntary sterilization. There was such a backlash from traditional, Midwestern readers, many of whom had fought against this very idea in World War 2, that Ms. Savant soon stopped making any kind of political statements at all in her columns. I wish someone with the necessary research skills would find these events and add them to the article. I am afraid I can only tell you that these things were published in the early 1980s. It would be an omission if history did not record this woman's repeated attacks on American democracy and her narcissistic contempt for common people. 75.93.51.156 (talk) 16:01, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

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Ranf Enaz?

Who is Ranf Enaz? There is literally nothing available on that person other than his assessment of vos Savant's Fermat solution critique. All finds are clones of the same sentence for which no source is given. That leads me to the conclusion that either that person does not exist at all and a pure fabrication has been planted here or that, if the person does indeed exist, has no scientific credentials whatsoever that would justify to cite his (or her) opionion on the subject. I am therefore removing the paragraph. --2A00:14D8:400B:10:C561:61C0:B688:9FAD (talk) 14:56, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

Good spot! That text was added on January 26 by an account that was subsequently blocked for vandalism, but nobody had come here to clean up that particular item. Thank you. --Krelnik (talk) 02:54, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

Eh??

What does this sentence mean? "If two people could complete a project in six hours, how long would it take each of them to do identical projects on their own, given that one took four hours longer than the other?" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.76.101.107 (talk) 08:09, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

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