It's the definition of IQ. 15 points is 1 standard deviation, so about 15% of th... | Hacker News

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		smhost on Oct 12, 2017 \| parent \| context \| favorite \| on: Google commits $1B in grants to train U.S. workers... It's the definition of IQ. 15 points is 1 standard deviation, so about 15% of the population has an IQ of 85 or below by definition.

kazinator on Oct 12, 2017 [–]

Just following up to add that these two 15's are unrelated, in case any readers get the wrong idea.

The area under the normal distribution curve from minus infinity to -1 (one standard deviation left of centre) is about 0.1586 or about 15-16%.

The 15 points = 1 stddev property of IQ is arbitrarily established.

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