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Comment by hirvi74 | Hacker News Reader

I am not sure what is defined as "financial success," since it appears to be something one can be born into regardless of IQ.

In regards to income, I briefly skimmed the Wikipedia section for IQ and Income, which can be found here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient#Income

"Highly correlated" would not be the choice of words I use to describe correlations between (0.23 - 0.5).

We, as people, should cherish the contributions of one's intelligence instead of obsessing over an arbitrary, qualitative value painted as a qualitative value like one's potential intelligence.

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> Highly correlated" would not be the choice of words I use to describe correlations between (0.23 - 0.5).

lol, this range is 0.5 to 0.7 variance explained (R squared) which is an insane value. in typical social studies a correlation of > 5% is considered a major improvement. In finance a correlation or > 1% is considered amazing.

You are either a hyper-intelectual drinking Taleb's kool-aid or simply don't know what you are talking about :D

If the correlation is 0.2 then it explains 4% of the variance. If it's 0.5, then 25%. I'm not sure how you got your numbers, can you clarify?

Also 10% variance explained in social science is considered pretty good (which is depressing, but such is life).

> a hyper-intelectual

Very far from it. I'm just an idiot with Internet access.

> drinking Taleb's kool-aid

I do agree with some of what he has said about IQ, but I am not well-versed in any of his other writings.

> simply don't know what you are talking about

Perhaps, but I am still not convinced.

Maybe you’re not familiar with how correlation is reported, but 0.23-0.5 is very high.

I think I am hung up on semantics.

If 0.23-0.5 correlation is "very high" then what is 0.7-0.9? Would r >= 0.7 be literal causation at that point for psychologist? (I'm kidding, of course)

Again, I am not saying that a correlation of 0.23-0.5 is statistically insignificant by any means. I just think I needed "very high" to be coupled with "for psychology."

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