Foo - High IQ link to being vegetarian

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6180753.stm

No wonder I've been getting closer and closer to vegetarian the last few years. ;)

If becoming a vegetarian would make my IQ drop to 106, I'll stick to my current diet patterns - thank you very much. :eek:

So... a 5 point difference right at the statistical average is somehow enough to start tooting horns??

Somehow, I think the studies authors were vegitarians.... ;)

So... a 5 point difference right at the statistical average is somehow enough to start tooting horns??

Somehow, I think the studies authors were vegitarians.... ;)
A very likely scenario, methinks.

So... I become a vegitarian and loose 26 points? Right! :rolleyes:

So... I become a vegitarian and loose 26 points? Right! :rolleyes:
I think their pool of test subjects were from rural Alabama.

I think their pool of test subjects were from rural Alabama.
No way, those people will eat anything. They eat a pig from the oink all the way to the last curl in the tail.

Actually, what they are reporting was the mean curve based off of the dataset. Most people actually float within 15 points +/- of 100. 130 and above is considered gifted due to the fact that they are at or above 2 standard deviations from the mean (A standard deviation is 15 points on the scale, either by the Wechxler or Stanford-Binet scales). Wechxler though is based on the percentile and Stanford is based on Mental age vs chronological referring to the level of learning and development. They are both norm referenced tests though rather than criterion tests.

High IQ? Vegetarian?

<--- yep

Actually, what they are reporting was the mean curve based off of the dataset. Most people actually float within 15 points +/- of 100. 130 and above is considered gifted due to the fact that they are at or above 2 standard deviations from the mean (A standard deviation is 15 points on the scale, either by the Wechxler or Stanford-Binet scales). Wechxler though is based on the percentile and Stanford is based on Mental age vs chronological referring to the level of learning and development. They are both norm referenced tests though rather than criterion tests.

My point exactly - though much better presented. A 5 point difference, essentially at the mean/norm is meaningless.

My point exactly - though much better presented. A 5 point difference, essentially at the mean/norm is meaningless.
Agreed, because they didn't account for either Type I or Type II statistical variance error, either! Type I is a 5%`~ deviation and Type II is up to 50%~! This article truly is meaningless as to it's validity! The results would be entirely reproducible in a general population regardless of diet....provided sufficient caloric intake and vitamin intake was present to provide sufficient development to the Central Nervous System. The only time a dietary variance would cause sufficient skew in IQ or Wechxler percentile would be if the dietary deficiency was during a critical development period, such as earl;y childhood.

Agreed, because they didn't account for either Type I or Type II statistical variance error, either! Type I is a 5%`~ deviation and Type II is up to 50%~! This article truly is meaningless as to it's validity! The results would be entirely reproducible in a general population regardless of diet....provided sufficient caloric intake and vitamin intake was present to provide sufficient development to the Central Nervous System. The only time a dietary variance would cause sufficient skew in IQ or Wechxler percentile would be if the dietary deficiency was during a critical development period, such as earl;y childhood.

What is all this statistical talk, your confusing me.

wheres my beef

Means you can have beef!

Thanks for the statistics lesson, gentleman.

Now...back on topic. It's meaningless....make fun of it!!! That's why I posted it. :D

Thanks for the statistics lesson, gentleman.

Now...back on topic. It's meaningless....make fun of it!!! That's why I posted it. :D
I thought I was making fun of it!:D Psychology humor!;)

If becoming a vegetarian would make my IQ drop to 106, I'll stick to my current diet patterns - thank you very much. :eek:

I think I'll continue to eat animals and have a much higher IQ than the mean vegetarians.

Ahahahaha I eat plenty of **** and my IQ is 154. Though the resulting clump of cholesterol that breaks off my artery wall will drop that instantly to 0.

<- high IQ and I will never stop eating creatures that bleed. I can't go a meal without thinking of those ugly cows being on my plate...hmmmm...breakfast.

I think it is more common sense to have a healthy diet and lifestyle, vegetarian or not. Is having common sense a result of having a high IQ? Could be. I actually don't know what my IQ is or whether it is high or not.

IQ is like SAT scores. you can pretty much tell people whatever you feel like. personally, my IQ is so high i don't want to embarass anyone so i'll keep it to myself.

I thought I was making fun of it!:D Psychology humor!;)
Maybe I didn't realize it was a joke as I'm an engineer and math geek and understood everything you said. ;)

Maybe I didn't realize it was a joke as I'm an engineer and math geek and understood everything you said. ;)
What can I say, I'm a Psychology and math geek as well! :D

Ironically enough, from what I've seen on this forum, having an IQ or Wechxler score toward the gifted end is the average!:D

I think it is more common sense to have a healthy diet and lifestyle, vegetarian or not. Is having common sense a result of having a high IQ? Could be. I actually don't know what my IQ is or whether it is high or not.

The current IQ test gives no consideration to lifestyle. Of course, you'd think that smart people would have healthy lifestyles, but anecdotal evidence shows otherwise. There are lots of pro cyclists who are reportedly, dumb as bricks. There are also plenty of sedentary blobs who are allegedly really smart (won't name names, for fear of getting the thread moved to P & R).

You seem like you'd fit right in in Lake Wobegon - where all the women are handsome, and all the children are above average (and I mean handsome in a flattering way) :)

Vegetarian = high IQ?

What a load of crap. The animal rights nazis put so much benign stupid stuff out their to promote their dribble agenda it is hard to believe anything they say.

I went vegetarian for awhile. All it did was make me lose muscle mass, lose strength, and lose stamina. I remember when I came off the vegan fad, my dad fed me a big steak. I felt like I could have run right through the wall I was so full of energy and strength. My grades improved at school too.

Having tried both, I am convinced that man is omnivorous meant to eat meat, leafy vegetables, and grains. Oh, and did I say MEAT?

Is beer vegetarian fare? I've noticed that I get real smart upto about a 1/2 dozen and then I get real stupid from then on :D

IQ is like SAT scores. you can pretty much tell people whatever you feel like. personally, my IQ is so high i don't want to embarass anyone so i'll keep it to myself.

yeah, and I'm not conceited at all!

I went vegetarian for awhile. All it did was make me lose muscle mass, lose strength, and lose stamina. I remember when I came off the vegan fad, my dad fed me a big steak. I felt like I could have run right through the wall I was so full of energy and strength. My grades improved at school too.

Well... I guess you're not the brightest knife in the drawer if you go on an incomplete vegetarian diet and the whine about how it made you lose (edit-thks mike) strength. That bad vegetarian diet... Did it give you a wedgie and steal your lunch money too? :bday:

Something dies so you can eat, including plants.

Wow, everyone missed the point.


Intelligent children are more likely to become vegetarians later in life, a study says.

Not necesarily the other way around.

Just to point out a couple of things:

The study was based on I.Q. at 10, while being vegetarian is based on doing it before 30. Or to make it real simple I.Q. is claimed to be the cause, not the effect.

Second this is a British study, one would assume that means it most likely used British subjects.

Anyone here had English food? It should be obvious that anyone with a decent I.Q. would be more apt to try an unconventional diet. The only traditional English food that was edible 20 years ago was fish and chips (from the right chip stand) or Indian food.

Bet the I.Q. difference is even larger for those who eat mostly foreign food!

Vegetarian = high IQ?

What a load of crap. The animal rights nazis put so much benign stupid stuff out their to promote their dribble agenda it is hard to believe anything they say.

I went vegetarian for awhile. All it did was make me lose muscle mass, lose strength, and lose stamina. I remember when I came off the vegan fad, my dad fed me a big steak. I felt like I could have run right through the wall I was so full of energy and strength. My grades improved at school too.

Having tried both, I am convinced that man is omnivorous meant to eat meat, leafy vegetables, and grains. Oh, and did I say MEAT?
Well, I don't agree with that at all.

You can vegetarian/vegan and still eat a bad diet. But you can also get all the nutrients from meat in vegetables except for one (forget which one off hand) and get better versions of them. For example, you can get more protein from spinach than from steak and the spinach protein absorbs in your body better than meat protein too.

Well... I guess you're not the brightest knife in the drawer if you go on an incomplete vegetarian diet and the whine about how it made you loose strength. That bad vegetarian diet... Did it give you a wedgie and steal your lunch money too? :bday:

You don't know that my vegetarian diet was incomplete and are not in a position to make any inferences about my intelligence. Keep your judgments to yourself.

(P.S. Learn how to spell)

The current IQ test gives no consideration to lifestyle. Of course, you'd think that smart people would have healthy lifestyles, but anecdotal evidence shows otherwise. There are lots of pro cyclists who are reportedly, dumb as bricks. There are also plenty of sedentary blobs who are allegedly really smart (won't name names, for fear of getting the thread moved to P & R).

You seem like you'd fit right in in Lake Wobegon - where all the women are handsome, and all the children are above average (and I mean handsome in a flattering way) :)

A guy with one of the highest reported IQ's, somewhere above the 230's, is a truck driver. I know plenty of grad students who are dumb as dirt but hard working.

A guy with one of the highest reported IQ's, somewhere above the 230's, is a truck driver. I know plenty of grad students who are dumb as dirt but hard working.

yep. it's quite likely that there are people out there as intelligent as einstein was who are working in a coal mine, or are deep in poverty somewhere in africa.

my mom, for example, is god damn smart. much smarter than the rest of our family. she just choose to work a simple job and raise us kids. never went to college. a quiet life is all she wanted.

The current IQ test gives no consideration to lifestyle. Of course, you'd think that smart people would have healthy lifestyles, but anecdotal evidence shows otherwise. There are lots of pro cyclists who are reportedly, dumb as bricks. There are also plenty of sedentary blobs who are allegedly really smart (won't name names, for fear of getting the thread moved to P & R).

You seem like you'd fit right in in Lake Wobegon - where all the women are handsome, and all the children are above average (and I mean handsome in a flattering way) :)

I had to look that one up, and I think its actually "where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average." ;) And while I certainly see myself as someone who's strong, I doubt I would fit in well with that particular ficticious town. In such idealistic societies as this, there is probably a substantial amount of conforming an individual has to do in order to help the group to sustain. I have never been good at conforming. I like to play to my own tune and I always will. ;)

And you're right, IQ has really nothing to do with a healthy lifestyle, although I'm not sure how much IQ would play into the overall intellegence of a person if they continue to make unhealthy choices and live an unhealthy life. This is my own opinion of course, because I think the more healthy you are, the more happy you are, the more productive you are and you will live a more higher quality of life as a result of all this.

I don't get how you can't eat meat.

You're made of it. :p

Vegetarian = high IQ?

What a load of crap.

I have a high IQ nothing to do with what I eat, I am good at logic and totally suck at English writing.

We've always known that vegetarianism is an intelligent, compassionate choice benefiting animals, people and the environment

Compassionate is correct. The more intelligent you are the more likely you're going to struggle with what's right and wrong
Killing people is seen as wrong. The killing of animals must be wrong. Perhaps if we stop killing animals we will stop killing each other
The intelligent must do the things they believe will benefit society or else intelligence has no importance
Many become fanatic
Many will do stupid **** just to prove they're intelligent
There isn't as much to discover as there was half a century ago
or atleast that's what our schooling teaches us.
The important things yet to be discovered can only be found by the super-geniuses so it's best you just settle in/settle altogether and stake your claim of intelligence/benevolence on the things that the masses can actually understand and give you credit for.
Even if there were a larger difference in IQ's it wouldn't shock me
Plenty of our intelligent people spend their lives creating nintendo games and creating little blue pills because nowadays money = intelligence
Why do something that takes more work and will truly benefit when all you need to be smart is play on people?

I don't doubt that vegetarians are more intelligent than meat eaters
I'm just happy the difference isn't 30+ points

Do people become vegetarian because they have a very high IQ
or is it just another way to seperate themselves from the dummies?

From what I've noticed during my now 3 years on the internet
The average person in a forum is more intelligent than the average person on the street corner
Perhaps that's only because those digging ditches have less free time than us
or should I say have a more difficult job that doesn't put them in front of a computer where they can slack off and still appear productive
Maybe it's because there are still so many out there unable to grasp how it's possible to communicate with people through a television set
Maybe it's because the smarter ones want to save the world through understanding
and where better to become friends with others than here on the net where it's likely you'll encounter and talk more intimately with more people than you probably ever could IRL
Or maybe the average member is just a dork that cannot make friends easily
but in here they find safety in numbers


Why are smart people wasting their time talking about vegetarianism? That's the question needing to be answered

yep. it's quite likely that there are people out there as intelligent as einstein was who are working in a coal mine, or are deep in poverty somewhere in africa.

my mom, for example, is god damn smart. much smarter than the rest of our family. she just choose to work a simple job and raise us kids. never went to college. a quiet life is all she wanted.



How intelligent was Einstein? I've seen him as high as 180 and as low as 135
So many "old masters" seem to be given astronomical IQ's
Based solely on writings of theirs and achievments and such
I'm not sure I want to believe what our modern intelligentsia hands out.

You put the famous world-changers on such a high pedestal that the youth have little chance to match them

I had to look that one up, and I think its actually "where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average." ;) And while I certainly see myself as someone who's strong, I doubt I would fit in well with that particular ficticious town. In such idealistic societies as this, there is probably a substantial amount of conforming an individual has to do in order to help the group to sustain. I have never been good at conforming. I like to play to my own tune and I always will. ;)

And you're right, IQ has really nothing to do with a healthy lifestyle, although I'm not sure how much IQ would play into the overall intellegence of a person if they continue to make unhealthy choices and live an unhealthy life. This is my own opinion of course, because I think the more healthy you are, the more happy you are, the more productive you are and you will live a more higher quality of life as a result of all this.

Yeah - it didn't sound quite right to me when I copied it from a web site. I also can't picture you gossiping at the back fence, eating lutefisk or attending a Lutheran church. :)

I was being a little obtuse to make a point - which I think you stated better than I did. IQ is an indirect measure of some portion of a person's ability to make sense of information that's presented to them. It misses a whole lot, and is not much of a predictor of what a person will achieve, or how well adjusted a person will be. While being a vegetarian may correlate to some aspects of life, IQ seems quite an unlikely thing to be linked to it.

Im a vegitarian and smarter than everybody...So, yeah..its true.

We've always known that vegetarianism is an intelligent, compassionate choice benefiting animals, people and the environmentWho is the "we" in this "we've" that you're referring to? PETA? Because there are probably a lot more people who disagree with your statement than agree with it.



The more intelligent you are the more likely you're going to struggle with what's right and wrongThat's quite a leap. How did you come to this conclusion? There are many very intelligent people who are devoid of a moral compass (Ted Bundy, Jeff Skilling, The Unibomber, etc.). I am unconviced there is a relationship between intelligence and morality.


Killing people is seen as wrong. The killing of animals must be wrong. Perhaps if we stop killing animals we will stop killing each other What??? That's some wild assumption you've created there.



Plenty of our intelligent people spend their lives creating nintendo games and creating little blue pills because nowadays money = intelligence
No, money does not equal intelligence and I think you're quite a cynic if you truly believe that most people think this way. And what do you have against nintendo games and little blue pills? What do you do for a living? I'm curious, because it seems like you've taken a very condescending attitude to people who don't think exactly like you do.

I hope you're happy in the idealistic fantasyland that you've created inside of your head.:rolleyes:

You don't know that my vegetarian diet was incomplete and are not in a position to make any inferences about my intelligence. Keep your judgements to yourself.

(P.S. Learn how to spell)


I never made an inferences about your intelligence, I just said you weren't the brightest knife in the drawer. ;)
Which is besides the point, since a decent vegetarian diet shouldn't result in any lost strength, so you must not have had a decent one, or you lost strength due to something else and attributed it to the diet because you felt like it. Are you a hypochondriac? ;)

P.s. Judgments doesn't have an e. :D

my mom, for example, is god damn smart. much smarter than the rest of our family. she just choose to work a simple job and raise us kids. never went to college. a quiet life is all she wanted.

Yeah.. most people seek a quiet life of dignified solitude away from the lime light after having accidentally unleashed the sole survivor of the alien craft that crashed into the side of cheyenne mountain in the late 80's and taking out 4 MP's by accident in the processing of trying to stop the fugitive with her M16. They don't let you back on base after something like that.

So if I go eat a vegetarian, will it make me smarter?

Ironically enough, from what I've seen on this forum, having an IQ or Wechxler score toward the gifted end is the average!:D
'cept for me. I pull a 72 everytime. Prolly all those ribeyes.

My IQ is 5000 and I don't eat any vegitebles.

While being a vegetarian may correlate to some aspects of life, IQ seems quite an unlikely thing to be linked to it.

I agree. I also agree with what someone said here earlier. Just because you are a vegetarian or a vegan, that do not make you automatically healthy. I used to be very idealistic when I first started eating vegetarian about 12 years ago. I was only doing it because I felt ethically inclined to and I wasn't very healthy...at all. Over the years, it just became a part of me, and while I still ate the same way I didn't really have the same passion as I did when I first started. The reasons for my starting the diet where being forgotten because I longer thought about what I was eating. It had just become a part of me. It wasn't until I really took a look at what I put into my body and how it was affecting me, did I realize how important diet is.

Now that I've learned more about life and lived a little longer, I find that my views and beliefs are changing. While I still detest violence and don't like the idea of eating meat because of it, I don't exactly feel that this is bad or a wrong way to live. I do think that humans are omnivorous by nature and that eating meat can be a part of that. However I think we need very little, if any, to sustain ourselves. I do think humans eat WAY much more than they are designed to. I do think that most of our diet should consist of fresh fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds because this is what is best for our bodies. There are so many things wrong with the food industry in our culture it is hard to know where to start.

Hmm.....I'm not a vegetarian.