as giftedness is a serious consideration for people with IQs greater that 120

...you are a generous hearted fellow indeed!

Wouldn't decreasing marginal returns be a big factor?

For example, for someone who is seriously environmentally deprived, improving the environment might have a big payoff.

At the other end, say when looking a population whose IQ is between 140 and 150, social intelligence might be a better predictor of success than IQ. I don't know if this is true (is it?), but for some points in the multidimensional spectrum it must be true.

For example, for someone who is seriously environmentally deprived, improving the environment might have a big payoff.

At the extreme, yes. If, say, you are being seriously neglected, then there is no way for your ability to be expressed. However, to my surprise, the range of environments that are "good enough" is quite large.

At the other end, say when looking a population whose IQ is between 140 and 150, social intelligence might be a better predictor of success than IQ. I don't know if this is true (is it?),

I used to think this was so, but David Lubinski/Camilla Benbow's group at Vanderbuilt are challenging this notion. Even in the extremely talented, g is still a powerful predictor of life outcomes.

One thing I never said in the post was that g explained everything (i.e., all the variance). It doesn't. However, for a single construct, it does a phenomenally good job at predicting most life outcomes. Better than (probably) any other single construct.

you are a generous hearted fellow indeed!

Yes, there mere mention of my name brings many warm fuzzy feelings.

A very useful primer, but why no mention of Godfrey Thomson? Thomson showed, quite early on, that g need not be attributable to any *single* common factor, but could be explained by a random overlapping of different elements.

Thomson showed, quite early on, that g need not be attributable to any *single* common factor, but could be explained by a random overlapping of different elements.

See pages 117-121 for counterarguments to this view.

Thanks, very useful. A couple of questions and reflections?

1) What on earth is meant by "life outcomes" in these discussions? Do higher-G people tend to hit the age of 80 ... richer than lower-G people? Do they feel more satisfied with their lives? I'm baffled by this, partly because "life outcome" usually means "death" to me -- it's the only still point where we all arrive. And offhand I'd say that death is death. So how is "life outcome" defined? And measured? "Objectively," as in "number of crimes committed and prosecuted for?" Subjectively, as in "how satisfied are you with your life"? And at what age is it measured? 5? 85?

2) Where stuff like "multiple intelligences" goes ... Might it be worthwhile treating it a little more kindly, or at least being a little more subtle and discriminating in your dismissals? I think it's probably pretty common experience that "gifts" come in all kinds of sizes and shapes. One guy's a great Little League coach, one gal is an inspiring first-grade teacher, another person's an extraordinarily good friend, another is a fast runner, another person can be trusted while another has shrewd instincts about what your boss is really up to. Maybe some of those gifts depend to some significant extent on G, but clearly a lot of them don't, or at least don't much. Gardner may be wrong about certain things (does his argument make it as science) but he may also be right or semi-right about a number of things (there are many different kinds of gifts and people). He may also be perceived-of as kind and open in a way that the G crowd isn't, and kindness and opeenness aren't to be sneered at. So maybe, just as a p-r thing, it might be wise to shade your dimissals of him and his ilk a bit. Not "wrong wrong wrong," which is just going to alienate a lot of people. But maybe something more like, "his theory reflects common experience, he's clearly onto something in those terms, he may even have something to contribute where thinking about how-to-educate is concerned. And his approach is to be respected as kind. It just doesn't make it as science."

Whaddya think?

It seems to me that a lot of the fuss about g and the idea of quantifiable intelligence generally has to do with people reading perhaps a bit too much in to the end value of intelligence.

Usually the two things the people immediately react with are outliers (e.g. People who do very well on intelligence tests but lack social skills, personal hygene, and/or the ability to hold down a good job.) or 'but they're still happy' aguments (e.g. Just because someone has an IQ of 95 doesn't mean he/she can't be a great parent, great first grade teacher, great painter, etc.)

It seems to me, though, that this doesn't so much invalidate the measurability of intelligence and the general predictive power that intelligence measurement has in regards to certain type of intelligence-based activities, and point out that a number of things which are highly valued in society do not in fact require intelligence as one of their primary pre-requisites.

Godfrey Thomson?

Godfrey Thomson's book on factor analysis is a very readable introduction; but, that being said, his theory of intelligence is very similar to that of E. L. Thorndike's (unsurprising, given their collaboration). Darth is right in that Jensen (pp.120-121) gives a nice rebuff of both.

However, once the factor analysists (including Thompson) realized you could extract g from oblique factors, this whole controversy withered.

Vernon has a nice bio article on Thompson and his contributions:

Vernon, P. E. (1962). The Contributions to Education of Sir Godfrey Thomson. British Journal of Educational Studies ,2 , 123--137.

life outcomes

A generic term I use to encompass things like: educational attainment, occupational prestige, fewer health problems, longevity, etc.

I use that purposefully, as the old argument was that g was only valid in predicating educational outcomes, but we know better now.

I think it's probably pretty common experience that "gifts" come in all kinds of sizes and shapes.

Yes, but Gardner posits they are independent of g, which is (a) testable, and (b) found to be untrue.

He may also be perceived-of as kind and open in a way that the G crowd isn't, and kindness and opeenness aren't to be sneered at.

Kindness is neither a necessary nor sufficient quality for science. Kindness is good to have in friendships, and I chose my friends, in large part, on this; but kindness is hardly a valid argument when their are mounds of data that refute your theory. It is an ad hominem argument.

and point out that a number of things which are highly valued in society do not in fact require intelligence as one of their primary pre-requisites.

That sounds good, but what are these highly valued things? And is their evidence that they are not related, at least in part, to g?

I never said, and never will say, that g is life's reason d' etre. However, I am waiting for a single entity that can predict as much, as well.

One thing g can't be that good at predicting - evolutionary success. Otherwise we'd all be smarter!

Somehow, I'm visualizing a caveman trying to figure out why he can't make a cave painting map that requires more than four colors to fill in, while his rival is cuckholding him two caves away.

Seriously, though, the Cochran/Harpending paper seems like a pretty good argument that we've been selected pretty strongly for g. Put Ashkenazi Jews in an environment that selected even more strongly for it, and the available tradeoffs reachable by mutations/selection weren't just genes for intelligence, they were genes that made a tradeoff like more intelligence but fewer surviving kids. The implication, at least to my amateur mind, is that the less expensive ways to get smarter were already fixed in the population, or at least were fixed in the the Ashkenazi population very quickly. (Did they get any of the nasty recessives with IQ benefits from surrounding groups? It seems like they could have; the genes would have one fitness among rural Poles, and a different, much higher one, among Jews, so a rare conversion, adoption, rape, or cuckholding might have been enough to introduce some rare gene, that would then become very common in the Ashkenazi population.)

Ugh. More babies dying and sickly kids, but more kids overall, or the selection wouldn't have worked....

I'll happily take less kids, where more of them live to maturity with less emotional distress like rape, assault and other violent behaviours.

Id also state that in the modern world, the importance of intelligence is obscured by non-libertarian leaning in society that makes the intelligent take care of the dumber, quite often against their wills.

Alex B. writes: "kindness is hardly a valid argument when their are mounds of data that refute your theory."

Given that I never floated a "theory" let alone suggested kindness as an "argument," that's a very dim response. What I suggested was acknowledging that Gardner's general approach resonates with common experience and that it may even have some practical virtues -- even while you blast its scientific claims so far as G goes. That's a question about p-r strategy, not an argument or a theory.

I do worry about you high-G types sometimes ...

Given that I never floated a "theory" let alone suggested kindness as an "argument," that's a very dim response.

Didn't mean "you" personally, but "you" in general. I know of none of your theories, so I wouldn't have a clue as to their validity.

I don't know whose common experience Gardner's mantra resonates with; I see his MI stuff often pushed on Educators who in turn try to bully it onto others "much the same way that Moses handled the Ten Commandments," but when I ask them about their experience, I hear once that resonates with individual differences viz a viz g. My own personal experience in the classroom also does the same: I appreciate the kind people and folks with pleasant dispositions, but that doesn't make up for the ability to understand and process information.

As far as PR, why not just tell people the truth and move on? When ever I read Gardner's stuff (well his books; can't say I ever read his peer-reviewed articles [does he have any?])I can't help but think he dances around a lot and, while entertaining, is vapid, whereas, say, Jensen is more terse, but he doesn't pull many punches and is much more rewarding to work through.

Darth: thanks for the reference. Jensen doesn't deny Thomson's claim that g *could* in theory be explained by overlapping multiple factors, but produces experimental evidence that seems easier to explain on the hypothesis of at least one common factor underlying disparate mental processes. Fair enough, if the evidence is sound, but I am sceptical at the claim (based on a study of his own) that 'individual differences' on the different tasks he describes are 'perfectly correlated'. Even performance of the same individual on the same task (at different times) is not 'perfectly correlated'. Has anyone replicated Jensen's results?

"and point out that a number of things which are highly valued in society do not in fact require intelligence as one of their primary pre-requisites."

That sounds good, but what are these highly valued things? And is their evidence that they are not related, at least in part, to g?

I haven't put a great deal of thought into this, but a few toss-outs which are generally valued but are not necessarily achieved through g:

-athletic ability (an athlete with lots of g may succeed in getting more out of his or her ability, but the g won't necessarily increase the ability at all)

-artistic/musical ability (again, g may help one take advantage of this, but with the exception of some fairly cerebral forms, I'm not sure that g is necessary for being a good artist)

-parenting (g may help one's financial and educational responsibilities, but the simple ability to be a good parent and raise a good family probably has fairly little to do with g)

athletic ability...an athlete with lots of g may succeed in getting more out of his or her ability

I think that qualifies as being g related.

Moreover, why are athletes (at least in football) required to take the Wonderlic? If the teams didn't think that cognitive ability had something to do with athletic performance, then why not simply rely on only the physical tests? Granted, though, in RT tasks, movement time is unrelated to g, so the relationship may not very strong.

artistic/musical ability I don't think excellence in the arts could be achieved without a strong g engine behind it. Moreover, Spearman himself found that pitch discrimination was loaded onto g. However, it is likely that success in, say, acting on TV or motion pictures is a much less loaded of a g task. Any one know of some studies? Something along the lines of number of Oscars/Emmys vs. SAT or College accepted into?

parenting. Hard to define success here as genes have a way to produce outcomes rather irrespective of parenting (assuming a "good enough" environment). But, g is related to understanding instructions for taking medicine, motorvehicle accidents, monetary resource allocation, etc., all of which are likely components of good parenting.

Fair enough, if the evidence is sound, but I am sceptical at the claim (based on a study of his own) that 'individual differences' on the different tasks he describes are 'perfectly correlated'.

That is just line of his argument, though. The major argument (in my opinion) is via neuropsychology, where you can get a very wide array of cognitive malfunctions for a wide variety of reasons, yet tasks that require similar abilities, are relatively unaffected. This is contrary to what the Thorndike/Thompson Sampling Theory would predict. For example, why are some people with prosopagnosia still able to recognize facial expressions? But there are many other examples in this literature.

Michael Blowhard—

Where stuff like "multiple intelligences" goes ... Might it be worthwhile treating it a little more kindly, or at least being a little more subtle and discriminating in your dismissals? I think it's probably pretty common experience that "gifts" come in all kinds of sizes and shapes. ….But maybe something more like, "his theory reflects common experience, he's clearly onto something in those terms, he may even have something to contribute where thinking about how-to-educate is concerned.

I for one think you have something of a point, if a highly muddled one. (The ellipsis leaves out some of the worst muddle about “kindness” and clearly different (physical) sorts of abilities, which have scant higher mental component and which essentially no one claims are highly correlated with g.

But your core point is indeed part of most everyone’s common experience, and hence has become intuitive for most of us. Talents do indeed differ including among those with equal or nearly equal overall, single number, mental abilities.

Disappointingly none of the far more knowledgeable on this subject posters and commenters here have chosen to take this core point of yours seriously. However, my understanding is that your core point IS, to some considerable degree, supported by the research literature.

First of all, the verbal/math (crudely speaking) breakdown of abilities within the single “g” of overall intelligence, is widely respected and widely tested. When one gets to more heavily g loaded (and less educationally loaded) tests like the pure IQ tests as opposed to SAT’s, the breakdown is usually more verbal or general reasoning vs. viso/spatial abilities. Math seems to be some combination of the two (from what I gather). Couldn’t this be therefore profitably broken out into a third category, with just the right mixtures creating peaking math abilities, or perhaps different ratios in different areas of math? Could something similar be done for other areas of real world intellectual specialization?

The trouble with Gardner it’s plain is that first of all his MI theory is by design a feel good posited refutation of the whole concept of “g” – and understood or tested that way, it simply doesn’t work. It’s wrong. He won’t test it because he’d fail most likely, and those that have, have disproved him. Or at least the pure form of Gardner’s argument. (Which I’d say is something of a straw man, though that’s Gardner’s own fault.)

But Gardner’s been disproved only in THIS sense, so far as I know. In the sense that all cognitive abilities are highly correlated. Those who are math geniuses are usually verbally adept as well – and vice versa. COMPARED TO THE GENERAL POPULATION THAT IS – not compared to e.g. YOU. Now math geniuses may find it emotionally rewarding to spend virtually all their energies on the skills they are the very best at, and the easily verbally gymnastic the same in the opposite direction, and hence each may over time have pretty unrefined and withered abilities in the neglected area. After all most applications of intelligence do require leaning and some practice, and usually a whole lot of practice is even better.

Anyway, in emphasizing correlation among different mental abilities (with “g” being the essence of that correlation), primarily to defeat those who wish to claim that IQ is a myth (often or usually for political/ideological reasons having much to do with extremely reliably reproducible black vs. white scores on “g”), psychometricans and their advocates do I think tend to give short shrift to different mental ability peaks and special talents which in the real work of comparison among fairly close IQ peers in most high achieving professions, is what we all focus upon most.

Finally, I’ll end by saying that a mental abilities which is probably on the high end of orthogonality to other mental abilities, “emotional intelligence” is a real and often highly important to social outcomes mental ability. So too conscientiousness. In both some sort of happy medium may often be best for attaining e.g. the highest income (as opposed to being the most loving mother or spouse). I think we could benefit from much more research in this area, with Professor Baron-Cohen, brother to Borat, being a pioneer.

psychometricans and their advocates do I think tend to give short shrift to different mental ability peaks and special talents which in the real work of comparison among fairly close IQ peers in most high achieving professions, is what we all focus upon most.

I don't think anyone (here) denied the existence of special abilities/talents. And if you have homogeneous IQ group, then penchants & talents become especially prominent. What I said was that the skills tended to be positively related, unlike Gardner, Sternberg, etc. who imagine these abilities are completely independent of g. That is, you can have, say, high "interpersonal intelligence/practical intelligence" and not understand much of anything that goes on in School.

The EI field is too new, and I think they have some measurement issues, but my prediction is, if the field keeps going, that we'll find that it is another first order factor under Carroll's hierarchy.

I see at least two things here. (And remember, no one's doubting the existence or importance of G.)

* The p-r question. There's such a thing as winning the debate and losing the election. If all you do is tell people they're wrong, even if you're right you aren't going to win many of them over to your team. I assume you do want to win some of them over to your team. So why not pursue an approach to these discussions that is more rather than less likely to accomplish that? Small aside: I notice that high-G types are very prone to thinking that winning the debate ought to mean they should win the election. They seem to feel it's unfair that they should have to submit to non-intellectual warfare. That's a weakness of G types, no?

* I wish more studies were done of G and athletics, and G and the arts. But it might behoove y'all to be open to the experience of people in those fields, given the lack of other data. My own experience is that arts talent has zero to do with G, at least once past basic competence. Dancers, for example, are notorious for being intellectually dim, yet it's impossible to quarrel with their talent. The French have a saying "Bete comme un peintre" -- as dumb as a painter. Some actors are very bright, but generally speaking intellectual prowess gets in the way of acting ability -- that's one reason why actors are forever smoking grass and boozing it up. Short version: arts talent isn't about cognitive prowess, it's instinctual, and it's based in the body and the instincts. Having some G available might or might not enhance what you make, and it certainly helps out in some fields, but it's a different attribute than art-talent.

dance
You may be right. I looked through Psycinfo and only found one study on individual differences in (spatial) intelligence and dance (ballet) ability, and close-to-zero relationship was found. On one article I wouldn't base a huge amount of weight, but this area seems ripe for investigation. Anyone looking for a dissertation topic?


Corsi-Cabrera, M.; Gutierrez, L. (1991) Spatial ability in classic dancers and their perceptual style. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 72, 399-402.

My own experience is that arts talent has zero to do with G, at least once past basic competence.

Michael, this cannot be true of all artistic endeavors. One cohort of the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth was selected on the basis of being among the top 1 in 10,000 in IQ (as assessed by SAT scores at age 12). This accomplishments of this group include: 7 publications of poetry or prose, 6 noteworthy pieces of art or music (including an apparently well-known rock opera), 2 Fulbright awards, a solo violin debut at age 13 with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, a Mellon Fellow in the Humanities, a Presidential Scholar for Creative Writing, a Hopwood writing award, a Creative Anachronisms Award of Arms, and a first-place prize in midreal-medieval poetry. (This list of accomplishments is rather vague in order to protect the anonymity of SMPY participants.)

Is there any other measurement that you could have taken at age 12 to select as accomplished a cohort? I doubt it.

I think we're all subject to a certain amount of bias in what we observe about this, because:

a. We can't really observe how smart someone is in normal interactions; some people can come off as smarter than they really are in verbal interactions, others come off as much less smart than they really are. We probably assess peoples' intelligence incorrectly in a bunch of other ways, too.

b. We almost all live in restricted-range land. If you're successful enough to get to level X of some field, it's surely some mixture of properties that have led you here. Alice has a higher IQ, Bob has a fantastic work ethic, Carol had exactly the right influences guiding her into the field. So within level X of the field, IQ may not explain much, because we've already selected for getting there. The people who are less brilliant got here because of their work ethic or social skills or connections or whatever. The people who are too brilliant to be stuck at this level of the field are stuck because of their lousy work ethic, bad social skills, talent for making enemies, etc.

All IMHO. Add grains of salt to taste.

Darth Quixote--

Fascinating study! Gotta link?

Michael Blowhard--

Short version: arts talent isn't about cognitive prowess, it's instinctual, and it's based in the body and the instincts. Having some G available might or might not enhance what you make, and it certainly helps out in some fields, but it's a different attribute than art-talent.

I take your larger point here about artistic talents Michael, and agree with it. As well, I imagine that a great many in the arts, and perhaps many in arts where it isn’t as obvious, are disproportionately high in visospatial intelligence, rather than verbal. Dancers (though I note Alex B’s one small study tc Michael Blowhard--

Short version: arts talent isn't about cognitive prowess, it's instinctual, and it's based in the body and the instincts. Having some G available might or might not enhance what you make, and it certainly helps out in some fields, but it's a different attribute than art-talent.

I take your larger point here about artistic talents Michael, and agree with it. As well, I imagine that a great many in the arts, and perhaps many in arts where it isn't as obvious, are disproportionately high in visospatial intelligence, rather than verbal. Dancers perhaps as well as painters and architect. (Though I note Alex B.’s one small study to the contrary.)

Though in acting, I'm struck by how many of our really best actresses (even) are actually very brainy. Streep, Foster and Portman for example. None of these are really beautiful, and Streep is even only marginally good looking. Ashley Judd is I gather a great deal smarter than people generally believe. And who was that gorgeous 40’s femme fatale Jewish actress Heddy Lamar, who also provided key math insights for our torpedo targeting program in WWII and whose amateur work also became important in CDMA spread spectrum cell phone technology (which is dominant in the world today).

Though a sense of abandoned sensuality as a tappable, below the surface, potentiality (which is then brought to the fore before our eyes en flick) is often key to great actresses, and not only French ones, don't you think. I.e., your point about intuiting roles rather than rationally plotting them out, certainly seems right to this far less knowledgeable in that area appreciator. Linear, "if this then that, because of that other" doesn't cut it for actors, no doubt.operhaps as well as painters and architects.

Though a sense of abandoned sensuality as a tapable, below the surface, potentiality (which is then brought to the fore before our eyes) is often key to great actresses, and not only French ones, don’t you think. I.e., your point about intuiting roles rather than rationally plotting them out, certainly seems right to this far less knowledgeable in that area appreciator. Linear, “if this then that, because of that other” doesn’t cut it for actors, no doubt.

You all, I apologize. I've started using this key saver macro thing for html minimalist coding in blog comments. Sometimes these bizzare big copy and paste text chunks further down in the comment happen without my intention. And then I see them when I read.

If it happened all the time, I'd scrap the macro html shortcut thing. Which does save time and effort. But it's fairly rare. But not rare enough. Haven't figured it out entirely -- also not (yet) spending many (enough?) brain cycles on the issue to run it to earth.

Anyway, that's why, and it was unintended.

Alex

Nice summary. It is quite remarkable that only ONE common factor has emerged so consistently. By Contrast, in the domain of trait personality, 5 (or slightly fewer) factors have been proferred.

For the multiple factors to work ONE other factor that has comparable utility/range would need to be found. I haven't heard of any such.

Have modern societal institutions amplified the importance of g and this rise still hasnt peaked?

Of the personality factors, dominance and conscientiousness seem importance to success (although the former less so than previously?). How strongly are they related to g?

Darth -- I think what sometimes misleads people looking at intelligence and the arts is that they trust the teachers and prize-givers. This is a mistake because teachers and prize-givers are biased towards a certain kind of high-achieving, good-studenty kind of art, which most of the time doesn't resonate with audiences. And art that doesn't work for audiences (and there are many different audiences, including I suppose profs and grad students) is dead, and not really worth discussing. A typical mistake smart people make looking at the arts is the think along these lines: "Hmm, Picasso made complicated art. He must have been an intellectually brilliant guy who figured out how to use his visual talent to express these intellectually complicated notions." 99% of the time, the case goes quite differently. The artist is an unintellectual person with a lot of talent (acting, painting, whatever), who figures out how to make stuff that contempo audiences dig -- and *then* critics and journalists and profs read a lot of intellectual content into the work. With artists, the brains don't precede the talent or the work. The brains and the thinking are often put into the work by the viewers and interpreters, not by the artist.

Here's an example of a great artist who made work that resonates still and still has great influence. What do you suppose his SAT scores were?

which most of the time doesn't resonate with audiences

Shakespeare? Cervantes? Bach? Mozart? Beethoven? Dickens? Tolstoy? Dostoevsky? Each of these artists has been appreciated by millions.

Do you really think Michaelangelo had an IQ less than 115? What about Picasso?

Perhaps this is a difference of emphasis. When I hear the word "artist," I think composers of literature and music. There can be simply be no question that distinguished practitioners of these arts must be of well-above-average intellectual ability. It seems that when you use the word "artist," you mean dancers, musical performers, actors, and others whose work is generally not preserved for posterity. But even here I don't concede. Notice the enrichment for talented classical musicians among East Asians and Ashkenazi Jews. And I suspect that the mean IQ of rappers with albums promoted by respectable labels is well above the African American mean. Jay-Z anyone?

I looked again at Jensen, G Factor, p.120, and I am even more puzzled. He claims that 'individual differences' on a 'visual scan task' and a 'memory scan test' are 'perfectly correlated'. What does this actually mean? IIRC tests of this kind are only moderately g-loaded (i.e. positively correlated with a wide range of other mental tests, which is really all that 'g-loaded' means), so it can hardly mean that these tests themselves are perfectly correlated - if they were, this would point to a specific or group factor underlying them both, rather than a g factor. But if it doesn't mean this, what does it mean? I suppose I should look up the paper cited by Jensen, but I don't have access to it at the moment.

David, what it means that the individuals' rank orders of reaction times on the two tasks, after correction for attenuation, are perfectly correlated (r=1). This is of interest because the brain clearly computes these two tasks in different ways; many variables such as mean reaction time differ across the two tasks. This tends to support the argument (contra Thomson's sampling theory) that two different cognitive processes can be correlated, not necessarily because of overlapping components, but because they are similarly influenced by widely distributed properties of the neural substrate.

I can put the paper in GNXP Backchannel if you like.

Yes, the correlations of these tasks with Raven's Progressive Matrices in this sample of UC Berkeley students are only -0.30, so their g loadings are not as high as those of typical psychometric tests. In the common-factor model this means that they must load not only on g but other factors.

Darth: thanks, I checked out the free abstract, which is double-dutch to me! No need to post the paper, I can read it the next time I call in at the library.

'Similarly influenced by widely distributed properties of the neural substrate' doesn't seem to me a knock-down argument for unitary g, but I'm not saying I reject that concept.

If the diverse tasks in question are strongly influenced by 'non-g' factors, yet the rank-order of individuals on the tasks is invariant, doesn't this mean that there is more than one g factor?

I'm still puzzled!

the rank-order of individuals on the tasks is invariant, doesn't this mean that there is more than one g factor?

No, it means that there is more than one common factor. Imagine that you administered seven different vocabulary tests. All would load on g, verbal ability, and factors specific to word knowledge. But this does not mean that verbal ability and the specificity are elevated to the status of "g factors"--at least, not to that of the hypothetical g factor, as opposed to the one that happens to emerge from the factor analysis of your particular battery.

Darth -- You're accepting the ranking of the arts that comes from profs and historians and critics. In other words, you're letting the view of the arts that intellectual, high-G people have (which, surprise surprise, gives highest awards to high-G-type, or high-G-seeming-type, art) cloud your vision. I mean, it's OK to personally prefer Bach to Son House. But the fact is that they're *both* giants, and both influential. (Bach, btw, was largely forgotten for something like a hundred years after he died.) Also, what does it mean if Michelangelo and Picasso did have IQs of 115? All you've shown is that two of the very greatest in "art" terms were slightly above average in G terms. That proves exactly nothing. If G is related to art talent, then two of the very greatest artists ought to have super-remarkable IQs, not run-of-the-mill ones. Some artists are smart in academic-SAT-Gish terms. Many aren't, including many who have had a great deal of success. (There are a lot of artists who make complicated-seeming art who are in fact simpletons, for instance. Not an unusual thing to run across in the arts. They're just really good at *giving the impression* that they're complicated, super-intelligent people.) Therefore I propose that it's worth considering the possibility that art-talent and G are independent variables.

As for definitions ... Art encompasses all kinds of things and activities: design, music, dance, storytelling, standup comedy, photography, sitcom-writing, acting, etc. Why exclude any of these things?

Takeaway lesson: the people who teach us about art tend to be far smarter (in G terms) than the people who actually make the art. And they tend to overvalue high-G type, and they tend to oversell the idea that art is a complicated, intellectual activity. It's beyond-worthwhile to throw off their vision of art and start to deal with it a little more directly.

Another possibility, thinking about the Flynn paper Jason posted awhile back: Perhaps artists are people who have lots of g, but instead of developing it along the pathways of academic achievement (with all the feedback processes that may be behind some of the Flynn effect), they develop it along the pathways of visual or musical expression, with similar feedback processes.

I mean, it's hard for me to listen to jazz and think that this is not the product of a lot of intelligence. It's similarly hard for me to look at some intricate and interesting piece of visual art, and not think of it as the product of a lot of intelligence. Perhaps you're right, and the process of producing it takes a lot less intelligence (but talent in some other way) than the process of consuming it. But I have my doubts, because the artist/musician has to please himself to have any kind of guide about what he should be practicing and producing. Indeed, this seems the opposite of what you'd expect--far, far more people can enjoy a piece of music or literature or art than can produce one that anyone else will enjoy.

Michael Blowhard

Takeaway lesson: the people who teach us about art tend to be far smarter (in G terms) than the people who actually make the art. And they tend to overvalue high-G type, and they tend to oversell the idea that art is a complicated, intellectual activity. It's beyond-worthwhile to throw off their vision of art and start to deal with it a little more directly.

And your site in collaboration with three other blowhards (though in my opinion by far the majority of the best stuff is from you), with it's special concentration by you on artily erotic subjects (though hardly only that) viewed from a very open minded by non or even anti leftist perspective, is a GREAT place to start. Maybe THE great web place to start.

In addition to reading the current stuff over the last month or so, I've been doing lots of site specific google searches and they've been HIGHLY rewarding and interesting. Hell, just about the entirety of my netflix new additions to queue have been inspired by Michael's postings at his site, and it's been turning out great. But the rewards have gone far beyond movie tips. Aesthetic outlook generally. And male female interactions and relative strengths and modalities for improvement. Rewarding.

Highly recommended.

What hard data is there for success in the arts vs. g?

"If one is under the impression that the environment can have massive influence on g, the logical product of that belief is that massive government programs should be able to raise cognitive abilities. In short, they do not."

Replace logical with intuitive. Other environmental explanations exist, such as culture.

This article gives an unfair assessment of alternative models of intelligence. Flynn, in the most recent Cato Unbound, summarizes how other models are *more* predictive than g of life outcomes:

"Sternberg has gotten better predictions by supplementing conventional IQ tests with more creative tasks such as writing an essay on the octopus’s sneakers. Jim Heckman has shown that non-cognitive measures of social skills, self-control, etc, are equally powerful predictors."