Intelligence and the Limits of Science

Scientific studies of intelligence are handicapped without taking SSH into account

A review of the existing literature on the IQ communications Gap reveals both the limits of science with regards to analyzing social matters as well as the difficulties revealed by leaving the Socio-Sexual Hierarchy out of its equations.

Emil Kirkegaard digs into the concept of the communications gap and reaches some conclusions:

There is an idea of a communication range or zone of tolerance, variously attributed to Arthur Jensen, Leta Hollingworth and probably others, but which really was promoted by Grady M. Towers, a Mensa-type with mental problems. The idea is that you cannot talk effectively or connect properly with other humans outside some IQ range (20-30).

Evidence for this claim is scant and pretty weak. Best case is a study of business leaders showing a non-monotonic effect of intelligence on some aspects of perceived (subordinate-rated) leadership ability.

But it is true that people cluster by intelligence. We knew that already. This is just a special case of social homophily, or assortative mating in terms of dating. Birds of a feather flock together. I'm sure a typical gifted person will have trouble relating to average intelligence people, but fortunately, it is pretty easy to find other smart people these days.

In the Terman sample (very old!), the very bright people had somewhat more loneliness and social adjustment issues the smarter they were, probably related to their inability to find friends back then.

If you think you are very, very smart, and can't relate to others, and think everybody is too stupid to talk to, the problem doesn't have much to do with intelligence, but with your other issues.

While recognizing and affirming the legitimacy of Kirkegaard’s doubts about the relevance and validity of the scientific sources cited to support the concept, I think he goes too far in attempting to dismiss it on that basis, due to a false assumption and a failure to consider some much more substantial evidence relevant to the subject.

The false assumption is that “it is pretty easy to find other smart people these days”. Indeed, in a world where the average IQ is rapidly dropping, the fact that the Internet facilitates some superficial forms of connection at a level indistinguishable from AI chatbots cannot be reasonably accepted as a vast improvement in the collective state of gifted and highly-gifted social relations. Furthermore, there simply aren’t very many people in the ranges he cites. At 150, that’s one in 1,125 people. At 170, that’s one in 164,571.

The substantial evidence that is ignored is the mysterious absence of the gifted, and highly gifted, in academia and all the professions that has been regularly observed for decades. And while it’s possible that this absence is not rooted in the communications gap, the relationship is at least potentially causal. Especially when that gap covers the full SSH range from Alpha to Omega.

Kirkegaard’s final conclusion clearly describes a Gamma perspective, one he does not appear to share. However, his idea that a genuinely very, very smart person who observes that most people are too stupid to bother talking to necessarily has a problem indicates that he is probably not highly gifted himself and therefore doesn’t grasp the heart of the matter.

If you’re of average to sub-Mensa intelligence, in the range of 84 to 132 IQ, consider how much you enjoy talking to young children. You probably don’t hate it, you likely won’t go out of your way to avoid it, and it can even be enjoyable in small doses, but chances are that you’d pay just about any price to avoid doing it all day, every day, for the rest of your life.

And that’s something that almost certainly applies across the hierarchy; even the most extroverted Alpha who is highly intelligent will probably require some intelligent Bravos to translate his ideas into language that the Deltas can understand and accept.