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Chess performance and I.Q.

#41

I've had to buy new boots. The hip waiters are no longer sufficient. The **** is way over my head now.

I've had to buy new boots. The hip waiters are no longer sufficient. The **** is way over my head now.
#42

C001 m8 wh3n d0 w3 937 4 83773r 4um?

C001 m8 wh3n d0 w3 937 4 83773r 4um?
#43

The "Spirit" of chess is forever damaged by this foolish conception a correlation exists between intelligence and chess. The general public often buys into this nonsense. An atmosphere is created that of chess is for nerds only.
Too many chess players proclaim, "I am smarter than you, more intelligent, because I can win a board game."
Utter foolishness.

The "Spirit" of chess is forever damaged by this foolish conception a correlation exists between intelligence and chess. The general public often buys into this nonsense. An atmosphere is created that of chess is for nerds only. Too many chess players proclaim, "I am smarter than you, more intelligent, because I can win a board game." Utter foolishness.
#45

Some of the biggest idiots, abusers of logic, and proponents of stupidity that I've ever met, I've met on the chess board.

I can absolutely guarantee you that being effective OTB has NOTHING to do with intellect.

Nothing at all.

Some of the biggest idiots, abusers of logic, and proponents of stupidity that I've ever met, I've met on the chess board. I can absolutely guarantee you that being effective OTB has NOTHING to do with intellect. Nothing at all.
#46

New theory: The higher rated you are the stupider you are. The evidence is right in this forum.

New theory: The higher rated you are the stupider you are. The evidence is right in this forum.
#47

Jesus, I go to sleep and to come back to witness the biggest swarm of owls known to humankind; absolutely no healthy discussion (one exception) was enjoyed in my absence, only perpetuation of immaturity and projection of self-incapability. The best I could harness was in the form of anecdotal evidence.
If anyone is actually interested, here are some links referring to the meta-analysis study conducted on this very topic, as well as some additional discussion on it:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160913124722.htm
https://www.acsh.org/news/2017/05/31/do-chess-players-have-higher-iqs-11366
https://theconversation.com/does-playing-chess-make-you-smarter-a-look-at-the-evidence-76062
https://phys.org/news/2017-02-chess-players-intelligence-expertise.html
http://www.iflscience.com/brain/intelligence-plays-a-major-role-in-how-good-you-are-at-chess/
http://miyaguchi.4sigma.org/eloiq.html
http://www.saturnov.com/artigos/277-as-10-pessoas-mais-inteligentes-do-mundo
I didn't think this was necessary in my initial post, for the apparent correlation between chess aptitude and intelligence should be more obvious than not. I gave a (albeit very light) statistical approach approximating the distribution of Lichess Ratings which worked very well, so I thought people reading this would know what "correlation" means. It actually seems most people here are children.
So, now, with our scientific knowledge declared, we may be able to move just a bit further.

Responding individually to interesting comments:

@Jacob531 Agree with nearly everything you said. I in no way intended to be understood in such light, i.e., that I have misunderstood the very concept or correlation; I assure you this is not the case. One of the things I wanted to find out, in fact, was if chess ability has a correlation above 0.3 with I.Q.. If (doubt it), the correlation is above 0.7, then a meaningful equation should work reasonably well (specially because 0.7 is the general correlation between I.Q. tests themselves).

One of the points I wanted to discuss was: "given two individuals with similar play time (or that have been equally coached under specific conditions), is the one with higher Rating usually smarter?" I just cannot wrap my mind around people who'd answer "no" here.
In my opinion, answering "no" to the above question reflects either an incredibility shallow understanding of intelligence/chess (which, ironically, in the case of intelligence, should indicate how intelligent one is; meta-cognition is a beatch) or some kind of fear that one might not have the big number one once thought once had.

I.Q. is certainly partially genetic and partially external, because, well, everything is. However, if I'm not mistaken, although the correlation was thought to be less than 0.5, recent studies 0.8; that means 80% of the variance in I.Q. is explained by genetic factors (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4270739/).

With regards to I.Q. changing over time, yes, that's correct and is it known as the Flynn Effect. It's about 3 points per decade, depending on the population and test used. But, of course, the change is between generations and practically all of it occurs at the bottom levels of I.Q..
If we're talking about a single person, then, according to the current methodology used to calculate I.Q., it is reasonably stable through one's life, from the age of six or seven years old onward. Apparently, intelligence rises somewhat linearly from age six or seven up to age twelve or thirteen, steeply increases until age sixteen, where it stabilizes through adulthood, only descending as a consequence of senescence.

Variation in test scores do occur for multiple reasons, including poorly constructed items, incompetence of licensed psychologists, temporary physical unfitness etc, but is usually within 5 points, under a 95% confidence interval.
This only doesn't happen when we're talking about uneven profiles, but these are much rarer than even profiles for most people, and only changes once we're focused only highly intelligent people.

@MeepMonster Copying something I just wrote: I.Q. is certainly partially genetic and partially external, because, well, everything is. However, if I'm not mistaken, although the correlation was thought to be less than 0.5, recent studies 0.8; that means 80% of the variance in I.Q. is explained by genetic factors (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4270739/).

@SummerSparkle I certainly believe in you, but this cannot be inferred.
(a) Anecdotal evidence, specially of such a small sample, can have no say on what really happens and all must be researched via scientific methodology.
(b) I gather that you've met some pretty shitty people. Were they really stupid as their opinions suggested? I mean, rationally, were they able to tie shoelaces, read and write coherently? Because, unless you had the pleasure of meeting idiot savants, my opinion is that since they were able to learn a good amount of information (which is necessary for one to play decent chess) and, more importantly, perform demanding logic tasks, they were not that stupid. They simply held a different opinion, or were assholes.
(c) As a conclusion from both points, we'd need a reproducible method in order to empirically verify your hypotheses.

@NoLuckOnlySkill Correlation doesn't imply causation, but causation does imply correlation. Thus, even if what you said is the correct view point (chess training rises intelligence, but more intelligent are not more likely to be better at chess), then my proposed relationship is still correct, i.e., chess ability and intelligence are positively correlated.

I agree that the consequences of the Dunning-Kruger effect are lame, even hilarious.
Since both are in Mensa, both are likely intelligent enough to be considered "intellectually gifted" (hate this terminology), but nowhere near Genius level, whatever level that is.
Your humble friend/colleague is also likely the more intelligent one, since he doesn't seem to be suffering from Dunning-Kruger.
I think the conclusion is that I agree with everything you said

@rajma420 It is not a theory, but more on the lines of a hypotheses (yes, it has been empirically verified, but I didn't leave any links in the original post).
A correlation, or for that matter any statistical statement, cannot be disproved by a single example, specially one in the "anecdotal evidence" list.
If I say that "among people with similar play time, the higher Rated ones are usually the smarter ones", it doesn't mean you won't find an example which does not conform to it. In fact, you could find 1000 cases in which that's not the case, but if your sample size was 1000000 people, I'd still be right 99.9% of the time.
In any way, is your result from an online test (if yes, then what test?) or from an actual I.Q. test?

Jesus, I go to sleep and to come back to witness the biggest swarm of owls known to humankind; absolutely no healthy discussion (one exception) was enjoyed in my absence, only perpetuation of immaturity and projection of self-incapability. The best I could harness was in the form of anecdotal evidence. If anyone is actually interested, here are some links referring to the meta-analysis study conducted on this very topic, as well as some additional discussion on it: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160913124722.htm https://www.acsh.org/news/2017/05/31/do-chess-players-have-higher-iqs-11366 https://theconversation.com/does-playing-chess-make-you-smarter-a-look-at-the-evidence-76062 https://phys.org/news/2017-02-chess-players-intelligence-expertise.html http://www.iflscience.com/brain/intelligence-plays-a-major-role-in-how-good-you-are-at-chess/ http://miyaguchi.4sigma.org/eloiq.html http://www.saturnov.com/artigos/277-as-10-pessoas-mais-inteligentes-do-mundo I didn't think this was necessary in my initial post, for the apparent correlation between chess aptitude and intelligence should be more obvious than not. I gave a (albeit very light) statistical approach approximating the distribution of Lichess Ratings which worked very well, so I thought people reading this would know what "correlation" means. It actually seems most people here are children. So, now, with our scientific knowledge declared, we may be able to move just a bit further. Responding individually to interesting comments: @Jacob531 Agree with nearly everything you said. I in no way intended to be understood in such light, i.e., that I have misunderstood the very concept or correlation; I assure you this is not the case. One of the things I wanted to find out, in fact, was if chess ability has a correlation above 0.3 with I.Q.. If (doubt it), the correlation is above 0.7, then a meaningful equation should work reasonably well (specially because 0.7 is the general correlation between I.Q. tests themselves). One of the points I wanted to discuss was: "given two individuals with similar play time (or that have been equally coached under specific conditions), is the one with higher Rating usually smarter?" I just cannot wrap my mind around people who'd answer "no" here. In my opinion, answering "no" to the above question reflects either an incredibility shallow understanding of intelligence/chess (which, ironically, in the case of intelligence, should indicate how intelligent one is; meta-cognition is a beatch) or some kind of fear that one might not have the big number one once thought once had. I.Q. is certainly partially genetic and partially external, because, well, everything is. However, if I'm not mistaken, although the correlation was thought to be less than 0.5, recent studies 0.8; that means 80% of the variance in I.Q. is explained by genetic factors (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4270739/). With regards to I.Q. changing over time, yes, that's correct and is it known as the Flynn Effect. It's about 3 points per decade, depending on the population and test used. But, of course, the change is between generations and practically all of it occurs at the bottom levels of I.Q.. If we're talking about a single person, then, according to the current methodology used to calculate I.Q., it is reasonably stable through one's life, from the age of six or seven years old onward. Apparently, intelligence rises somewhat linearly from age six or seven up to age twelve or thirteen, steeply increases until age sixteen, where it stabilizes through adulthood, only descending as a consequence of senescence. Variation in test scores do occur for multiple reasons, including poorly constructed items, incompetence of licensed psychologists, temporary physical unfitness etc, but is usually within 5 points, under a 95% confidence interval. This only doesn't happen when we're talking about uneven profiles, but these are much rarer than even profiles for most people, and only changes once we're focused only highly intelligent people. @MeepMonster Copying something I just wrote: I.Q. is certainly partially genetic and partially external, because, well, everything is. However, if I'm not mistaken, although the correlation was thought to be less than 0.5, recent studies 0.8; that means 80% of the variance in I.Q. is explained by genetic factors (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4270739/). @SummerSparkle I certainly believe in you, but this cannot be inferred. (a) Anecdotal evidence, specially of such a small sample, can have no say on what really happens and all must be researched via scientific methodology. (b) I gather that you've met some pretty shitty people. Were they really stupid as their opinions suggested? I mean, rationally, were they able to tie shoelaces, read and write coherently? Because, unless you had the pleasure of meeting idiot savants, my opinion is that since they were able to learn a good amount of information (which is necessary for one to play decent chess) and, more importantly, perform demanding logic tasks, they were not that stupid. They simply held a different opinion, or were assholes. (c) As a conclusion from both points, we'd need a reproducible method in order to empirically verify your hypotheses. @NoLuckOnlySkill Correlation doesn't imply causation, but causation does imply correlation. Thus, even if what you said is the correct view point (chess training rises intelligence, but more intelligent are not more likely to be better at chess), then my proposed relationship is still correct, i.e., chess ability and intelligence are positively correlated. I agree that the consequences of the Dunning-Kruger effect are lame, even hilarious. Since both are in Mensa, both are likely intelligent enough to be considered "intellectually gifted" (hate this terminology), but nowhere near Genius level, whatever level that is. Your humble friend/colleague is also likely the more intelligent one, since he doesn't seem to be suffering from Dunning-Kruger. I think the conclusion is that I agree with everything you said @rajma420 It is not a theory, but more on the lines of a hypotheses (yes, it has been empirically verified, but I didn't leave any links in the original post). A correlation, or for that matter any statistical statement, cannot be disproved by a single example, specially one in the "anecdotal evidence" list. If I say that "among people with similar play time, the higher Rated ones are usually the smarter ones", it doesn't mean you won't find an example which does not conform to it. In fact, you could find 1000 cases in which that's not the case, but if your sample size was 1000000 people, I'd still be right 99.9% of the time. In any way, is your result from an online test (if yes, then what test?) or from an actual I.Q. test?
#48

@Acoffe Welp, time to start reading. That's quite a bit of sources.

@Acoffe Welp, time to start reading. That's quite a bit of sources.
#50

@Acoffe
I spent quite a bit of time reading through this and filtering through both information and garbage.
I didn't halfheartedly write this source evaluation either, I say what I mean. Though, without the intent of seeming rude. :)

http://www.saturnov.com/artigos/277-as-10-pessoas-mais-inteligentes-do-mundo

This source says nothing about there being a correlation between chess and intelligence, mostly anecdotal evidence and it even attempts to quantify IQ based on an Elo rating; apples to oranges.

https://theconversation.com/does-playing-chess-make-you-smarter-a-look-at-the-evidence-76062

This source says a few things, but they are small and pointless to mention. Also, this source seems to be biased:
"The chess community is probably right in criticising the recent study, as it suffers from several methodological shortcomings that probably invalidate the results."

https://www.acsh.org/news/2017/05/31/do-chess-players-have-higher-iqs-11366

I like that this site has a citation, a quote and a graph and is probably one of your more accurate sources. However I do have an issue with this part.

"As is most intelligence research, this is considered controversial. A competing hypothesis blames college admissions. According to this view, colleges select for students with higher IQs through a screening process that involves standardized tests, which correlate with intelligence."

Someone already practically answered this on Quora and the link below.
https://www.quora.com/Despite-having-an-IQ-of-160-I-did-not-get-into-Harvard-I-even-submitted-proof-of-being-in-Mensa-How-can-I-cope-with-this-and-move-on-with-my-life/answer/Noah-Cohen-6?srid=3yYtJ

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160913124722.htm

This does support your claim, after comparing this site with it's source, it is pretty much a clone of it's source.
((Edit) Look who else decided to copy: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2016-09-links-intelligence-chess-skill.html)

http://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2016/study-links-intelligence-and-chess-skill/?utm_campaign=media-pitch&utm_medium=email

"2,300 scholarly articles on chess skill, looking specifically for studies that included a measure of cognitive ability (such as IQ score) and objective chess skill (such as the Elo rating, which ranks players based on game performance). The final sample included 19 studies with about 1,800 total participants."

Also, what are the names/ideas of these 19 studies and where can I look them up?

http://miyaguchi.4sigma.org/eloiq.html
Supports your claim with
two equations, a graph and anecdotal evidence.

http://www.iflscience.com/brain/intelligence-plays-a-major-role-in-how-good-you-are-at-chess/

I seriously wish they would cite sources.
This article is interesting, still no cited info to back it up.

http://www.iflscience.com/team/tom-hale/
look at this guy's credentials...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4270739/
This site used 120 sources, maybe I'll check the sources on a later date, eh? Besides, I have school in 3 hours.

I have used this source for research of my own, and it is definitely a reliable source.

"Although there are many types of cognitive ability tests of individual differences, they almost all correlate substantially and positively; people with higher ability on one cognitive task tend to have higher ability on all of the others."
I think this is your main idea.

Most of your sources use anecdotal evidence to support your claims. However, you did use a considerably reliable source that did agree.
If you could find more sources as reliable as this one that also agree, I'd be willing to check those out as well. When I have the time to, of course.

P.S. Upon looking closer, I noticed that most of your sources are using info from these sites.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4270739/

http://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2016/study-links-intelligence-and-chess-skill/?utm_campaign=media-pitch&utm_medium=email (side note: three of them plagiarized this one completely)

@Acoffe I spent quite a bit of time reading through this and filtering through both information and garbage. I didn't halfheartedly write this source evaluation either, I say what I mean. Though, without the intent of seeming rude. :) http://www.saturnov.com/artigos/277-as-10-pessoas-mais-inteligentes-do-mundo This source says nothing about there being a correlation between chess and intelligence, mostly anecdotal evidence and it even attempts to quantify IQ based on an Elo rating; apples to oranges. https://theconversation.com/does-playing-chess-make-you-smarter-a-look-at-the-evidence-76062 This source says a few things, but they are small and pointless to mention. Also, this source seems to be biased: "The chess community is probably right in criticising the recent study, as it suffers from several methodological shortcomings that probably invalidate the results." https://www.acsh.org/news/2017/05/31/do-chess-players-have-higher-iqs-11366 I like that this site has a citation, a quote and a graph and is probably one of your more accurate sources. However I do have an issue with this part. "As is most intelligence research, this is considered controversial. A competing hypothesis blames college admissions. According to this view, colleges select for students with higher IQs through a screening process that involves standardized tests, which correlate with intelligence." Someone already practically answered this on Quora and the link below. https://www.quora.com/Despite-having-an-IQ-of-160-I-did-not-get-into-Harvard-I-even-submitted-proof-of-being-in-Mensa-How-can-I-cope-with-this-and-move-on-with-my-life/answer/Noah-Cohen-6?srid=3yYtJ https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160913124722.htm This does support your claim, after comparing this site with it's source, it is pretty much a clone of it's source. ((Edit) Look who else decided to copy: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2016-09-links-intelligence-chess-skill.html) http://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2016/study-links-intelligence-and-chess-skill/?utm_campaign=media-pitch&utm_medium=email "2,300 scholarly articles on chess skill, looking specifically for studies that included a measure of cognitive ability (such as IQ score) and objective chess skill (such as the Elo rating, which ranks players based on game performance). The final sample included 19 studies with about 1,800 total participants." Also, what are the names/ideas of these 19 studies and where can I look them up? http://miyaguchi.4sigma.org/eloiq.html Supports your claim with two equations, a graph and anecdotal evidence. http://www.iflscience.com/brain/intelligence-plays-a-major-role-in-how-good-you-are-at-chess/ I seriously wish they would cite sources. This article is interesting, still no cited info to back it up. http://www.iflscience.com/team/tom-hale/ look at this guy's credentials... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4270739/ This site used 120 sources, maybe I'll check the sources on a later date, eh? Besides, I have school in 3 hours. I have used this source for research of my own, and it is definitely a reliable source. "Although there are many types of cognitive ability tests of individual differences, they almost all correlate substantially and positively; people with higher ability on one cognitive task tend to have higher ability on all of the others." I think this is your main idea. Most of your sources use anecdotal evidence to support your claims. However, you did use a considerably reliable source that did agree. If you could find more sources as reliable as this one that also agree, I'd be willing to check those out as well. When I have the time to, of course. P.S. Upon looking closer, I noticed that most of your sources are using info from these sites. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4270739/ http://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2016/study-links-intelligence-and-chess-skill/?utm_campaign=media-pitch&utm_medium=email (side note: three of them plagiarized this one completely)

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