Epiphanies

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Do you get them?

I had one this morning, and average one new epiphany every day.

Today's insight involves intelligence. Here's the problem: IQ score is supposed to measure how smart you are, and how smart you are opens and closes access to higher education. But high IQ and advanced degrees do not equal superior performance when the IQ and sheepskins are put to work on real life causes. In fact, much of what brainiacs do results in incoherent, entangled, illogical messes designed to curry favor with their bosses and patrons. So how smart is that?

So! My insight is: Like wealth and weight and height and beauty and cats and kids, the more IQ you have the greater the burden it is.

 

[Tomahawk26]

I find myself curious about what some specific examples might be!

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I find myself curious about what some specific examples might be!

The examples that come to mind first involve writing. Virtually everyone with a high IQ and advanced degree cant write clear prose: lawyers and perfessers are the worst. On the otherhand Shakespeare and Mark Twain and Hemingway and Steinbeck had no education to speak of and wrote crisp, clear prose thats easy to read and understand.

Take ROMEO & JULIET: Its a simple story of what happens to kids when theyre at the mercy of hormones and inept friends, family, clergy, and government. That is, IT TAKES A VILLAGE TO KILL A KID.

Harry Truman: No college, or mental genius: THE BUCK STOPS HERE.

Washington and Wall Street are swarming with Harvard grads, and look how things are.

 

[fire_breeze]

The examples that come to mind first involve writing. Virtually everyone with a high IQ and advanced degree cant write clear prose: lawyers and perfessers are the worst. On the otherhand Shakespeare and Mark Twain and Hemingway and Steinbeck had no education to speak of and wrote crisp, clear prose thats easy to read and understand.

Take ROMEO & JULIET: Its a simple story of what happens to kids when theyre at the mercy of hormones and inept friends, family, clergy, and government. That is, IT TAKES A VILLAGE TO KILL A KID.

Harry Truman: No college, or mental genius: THE BUCK STOPS HERE.

Washington and Wall Street are swarming with Harvard grads, and look how things are.

While there are some interesting, and honestly truthful, ideas here, I hope you don't mind if I point out a few things that I disagree with.

It all depends on how you define 'intelligence'.

Writing well is a skill, not a sign of intelligence; it can be taught, as is critical thinking (which is critically, and woefully, under-taught. I should not be teaching university students how to think, but I digress). Additionally, in order to become a tenured professor, you need to write - and a lot. It's a publish and perish market, trust me on this. In fact, you can't get a job teaching higher education without publishing.

While I agree that education does not signify intelligence - as I mentioned before, some of the most brilliant people I've had the pleasure of knowing do not have degrees but are rather well-read - at a graduate level, in the social science and humanities, at least, you need to be intelligent in order to be successful. The competition is beyond fierce. So people with a high IQ (which needs to be defined) and upper graduate degrees CAN write. They may not be able to write fiction - that's something entirely separate - but they can write extremely well. To say that they cannot write clearly and succinctly is patently untrue.

So yes, being an intelligent human being does not necessarily denote that said individual has a degree. An intelligent person, even genius, may or may not hold a MA or PhD. But a PhD or MA is intelligent.

(psst. Steinbeck went to university, but left after 5 years without a degree, and you cannot compare 16th century English public schools to 20/21st century education).

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

While there are some interesting, and honestly truthful, ideas here, I hope you don't mind if I point out a few things that I disagree with.

It all depends on how you define 'intelligence'.

Writing well is a skill, not a sign of intelligence; it can be taught, as is critical thinking (which is critically, and woefully, under-taught. I should not be teaching university students how to think, but I digress). Additionally, in order to become a tenured professor, you need to write - and a lot. It's a publish and perish market, trust me on this. In fact, you can't get a job teaching higher education without publishing.

While I agree that education does not signify intelligence - as I mentioned before, some of the most brilliant people I've had the pleasure of knowing do not have degrees but are rather well-read - at a graduate level, in the social science and humanities, at least, you need to be intelligent in order to be successful. The competition is beyond fierce. So people with a high IQ (which needs to be defined) and upper graduate degrees CAN write. They may not be able to write fiction - that's something entirely separate - but they can write extremely well. To say that they cannot write clearly and succinctly is patently untrue.

So yes, being an intelligent human being does not necessarily denote that said individual has a degree. An intelligent person, even genius, may or may not hold a MA or PhD. But a PhD or MA is intelligent.

(psst. Steinbeck went to university, but left after 5 years without a degree, and you cannot compare 16th century English public schools to 20/21st century education).

I always relish informed and civil debate/discussion I hate flaming as much as anyone.

I get my information from a book titled THE TECHNIQUE OF CLEAR WRITING by Robert Gunning. Gunning was a professional writing analyst employed by many newspapers, magazines, publishers, etc to help them shape their wares for the reading public. He says that the higher your IQ, and the further you go in school, the worse your writing is regardless of what you write. He faults official and professional biases as the culprit for the bad writing. The best writers write for the general public, who vote with their purchases.

Rudolf Flesch was another writing analyst whose books correlate well with Gunning's findings.

 

[amofiga]

I tend to agree with some of the things Firebreeze said. Writing is not necessarily an inticator of intelligence. Some people can actually express themselves quite well when speaking but "freeze up" when faced with a blank sheet of paper, so to speak. I spent most of my career as a program manager for a large defense contractor. If you've heard of it in Iraq or Afghanistan or anywhere else, there's a good chance my company had a finger in it somewhere.

I was responsible for providing program reviews and briefings for small and large development programs to people ranging from engineers at area installations, field level soldiers, congressional personnel, and DoD staffers. I'd have to get engineers prepped and ready for presentations or providing written materials. I had one guy who could explain things very well in spoken word but for reasons I can't explain, couldn't put two coherent sentences together in writing. I'd tell him to just write it like he'd speak it, but would sweat and fume to get it in writing. He was ingelligent as hell, had common sense, could explain it to you standing in front of you, but just couldn't write. Why? Damned if I know. I suppose it was the way his brain was wired to his fingers as opposed to his mouth.

 

[fire_breeze]

I always relish informed and civil debate/discussion I hate flaming as much as anyone.

I get my information from a book titled THE TECHNIQUE OF CLEAR WRITING by Robert Gunning. Gunning was a professional writing analyst employed by many newspapers, magazines, publishers, etc to help them shape their wares for the reading public. He says that the higher your IQ, and the further you go in school, the worse your writing is regardless of what you write. He faults official and professional biases as the culprit for the bad writing. The best writers write for the general public, who vote with their purchases.

Rudolf Flesch was another writing analyst whose books correlate well with Gunning's findings.

As do I. Intelligent and civil debates spur ideas and it's the best way one can learn.

First, Gunning's book is dated and second, he was writing for a business/economic crowd. His book is geared for a specific audience. He himself was a businessman in the 1950s (again, you cannot compare then with now), with no background in social analytics.

Second, Gunning also developed the Gunning Fog Index (I can't remember if he discusses it in that particular book or in Clear Technical Writing), which essentially says that for literature intended for a wide, general audience, it needs to be rated to a GFI of less than 12 (ie. less than a grade 12 reading level). For universal understanding, it's down to 8. Additionally, the GFI (and Gunning himself) has extreme limits.

While Gunning is right that the further you are in school, the more difficult it is to write for the general public, the assumption that the further on you're in school, the more intelligent one is, the less capable one is to coherently write is, to use the official, academic term, pure bullshit. Academics write for academics of their fields, not for the general public. It's been a very long time since I've read Gunning, but it seems to me that there are two audiences in question: the general public and the academic. You cannot compare the two.

Third, according to Gunning as stated above, I should not be able to string 2 sentences. I am an in-progress ABD, I occasionally teach at a university level and I possess a high IQ as graded by 3 different systems. So I should be completely Neanderthalian in expressing myself. And yet, I've published creative works (and no, I'm not counting Lit ), had articles and reviews published in peer-reviews, and no one has ever accused me of not being able to write.

I am, I might add, not the exception of my field but rather the rule.

Writing clearly, as I mentioned before, is a skill. It can be taught - but unfortunately, nowadays, it isn't, most definitely not at a High School level. I'm sure if Gunning was writing for an audience today, he'd change his tune.

I tend to agree with some of the things Firebreeze said. Writing is not necessarily an inticator of intelligence. Some people can actually express themselves quite well when speaking but "freeze up" when faced with a blank sheet of paper, so to speak. I spent most of my career as a program manager for a large defense contractor. If you've heard of it in Iraq or Afghanistan or anywhere else, there's a good chance my company had a finger in it somewhere.

I was responsible for providing program reviews and briefings for small and large development programs to people ranging from engineers at area installations, field level soldiers, congressional personnel, and DoD staffers. I'd have to get engineers prepped and ready for presentations or providing written materials. I had one guy who could explain things very well in spoken word but for reasons I can't explain, couldn't put two coherent sentences together in writing. I'd tell him to just write it like he'd speak it, but would sweat and fume to get it in writing. He was ingelligent as hell, had common sense, could explain it to you standing in front of you, but just couldn't write. Why? Damned if I know. I suppose it was the way his brain was wired to his fingers as opposed to his mouth.

And I've known people who could write beautifully, but try to get them to explain verbally? It was painful.

Writing and verbal communication can be taught, but some people are more comfortable in one mode. *shrugs* Vive la difference, eh?

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I tend to agree with some of the things Firebreeze said. Writing is not necessarily an inticator of intelligence. Some people can actually express themselves quite well when speaking but "freeze up" when faced with a blank sheet of paper, so to speak. I spent most of my career as a program manager for a large defense contractor. If you've heard of it in Iraq or Afghanistan or anywhere else, there's a good chance my company had a finger in it somewhere.

I was responsible for providing program reviews and briefings for small and large development programs to people ranging from engineers at area installations, field level soldiers, congressional personnel, and DoD staffers. I'd have to get engineers prepped and ready for presentations or providing written materials. I had one guy who could explain things very well in spoken word but for reasons I can't explain, couldn't put two coherent sentences together in writing. I'd tell him to just write it like he'd speak it, but would sweat and fume to get it in writing. He was ingelligent as hell, had common sense, could explain it to you standing in front of you, but just couldn't write. Why? Damned if I know. I suppose it was the way his brain was wired to his fingers as opposed to his mouth.

Verbal competency is part of most intelligence tests.

Do you recall the Challenger investigation and how Richard Feynman destroyed all the government blabber with his icewater swizzle stick o-ring demo? The whole circus collapsed when Feynman snapped the o-ring. Thats real genius. The blabber isnt genius.

 

[blulilacgrl]

Just a couple thoughts as I only have a few minutes. But you bring up lawyers. As someone who has helped to craft legal briefs and then been an English student and written both literary analysis papers and creative writing submissions. Those are all very different styles of writing. Some writing is used to disseminate information, to argue a point, or simply for entertainment purposes. Each of them has its own set of rules and standards. And I would even go so far as to say none of them are a true indication of intelligence.

Intelligence comes in many forms. I believe it has been broken down into 7 different categories. A prime example of an "intelligence" that is often overlooked is "mechanical intelligence". My husband may not be the world's best writer. But he can look at and figure out any mechanical and/or electrical device. His brain is wired in such a way that those charts, schematics, and all the little dohickies that so confound most of the population simply make sense to him. The same way higher mathematics make sense to some people and yet don't to a majority of the population.

I work with a number of people, who as writers make great programmers and mathematicians. [laughs]

In regards to your examples of Shakespeare, Mark Twain, Hemingway, and Steinbeck.

There is a great debate as to whether Shakespeare actually wrote his plays. Twain and Hemingway were both journalists before they became novelists (you can actually see this training in Hemingway's very concise and short style of writing) and as Breeze pointed out Steinbeck went to Stanford University. So as you can see, none of these writers just decided one day to start writing and created their masterpieces. There were years of training, either through work or school. Except for Shakespeare, which is what fuels the debate as there is nothing that supposedly can account for his ability to craft the works that he did and influence the course of modern language.

 

[Lord Pmann]

Last week I had an epiphany that changed a lot. I'm so glad it happened.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Just a couple thoughts as I only have a few minutes. But you bring up lawyers. As someone who has helped to craft legal briefs and then been an English student and written both literary analysis papers and creative writing submissions. Those are all very different styles of writing. Some writing is used to disseminate information, to argue a point, or simply for entertainment purposes. Each of them has its own set of rules and standards. And I would even go so far as to say none of them are a true indication of intelligence.

Intelligence comes in many forms. I believe it has been broken down into 7 different categories. A prime example of an "intelligence" that is often overlooked is "mechanical intelligence". My husband may not be the world's best writer. But he can look at and figure out any mechanical and/or electrical device. His brain is wired in such a way that those charts, schematics, and all the little dohickies that so confound most of the population simply make sense to him. The same way higher mathematics make sense to some people and yet don't to a majority of the population.

I work with a number of people, who as writers make great programmers and mathematicians. [laughs]

In regards to your examples of Shakespeare, Mark Twain, Hemingway, and Steinbeck.

There is a great debate as to whether Shakespeare actually wrote his plays. Twain and Hemingway were both journalists before they became novelists (you can actually see this training in Hemingway's very concise and short style of writing) and as Breeze pointed out Steinbeck went to Stanford University. So as you can see, none of these writers just decided one day to start writing and created their masterpieces. There were years of training, either through work or school. Except for Shakespeare, which is what fuels the debate as there is nothing that supposedly can account for his ability to craft the works that he did and influence the course of modern language.

Wouldnt it be simpler to write, JIM JOHNSON YOURE FULLA SHIT

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Just a couple thoughts as I only have a few minutes. But you bring up lawyers. As someone who has helped to craft legal briefs and then been an English student and written both literary analysis papers and creative writing submissions. Those are all very different styles of writing. Some writing is used to disseminate information, to argue a point, or simply for entertainment purposes. Each of them has its own set of rules and standards. And I would even go so far as to say none of them are a true indication of intelligence.

Intelligence comes in many forms. I believe it has been broken down into 7 different categories. A prime example of an "intelligence" that is often overlooked is "mechanical intelligence". My husband may not be the world's best writer. But he can look at and figure out any mechanical and/or electrical device. His brain is wired in such a way that those charts, schematics, and all the little dohickies that so confound most of the population simply make sense to him. The same way higher mathematics make sense to some people and yet don't to a majority of the population.

I work with a number of people, who as writers make great programmers and mathematicians. [laughs]

In regards to your examples of Shakespeare, Mark Twain, Hemingway, and Steinbeck.

There is a great debate as to whether Shakespeare actually wrote his plays. Twain and Hemingway were both journalists before they became novelists (you can actually see this training in Hemingway's very concise and short style of writing) and as Breeze pointed out Steinbeck went to Stanford University. So as you can see, none of these writers just decided one day to start writing and created their masterpieces. There were years of training, either through work or school. Except for Shakespeare, which is what fuels the debate as there is nothing that supposedly can account for his ability to craft the works that he did and influence the course of modern language.

I've written all kinds of things but mostly psychological reports and legal papers. When I wrote probable cause affadavits, for example, I laid out the situation clearly and plainly and briefly. I didnt write 10 pages when 1/2 page was adequate. Every lawyer I know of cant call a spade a spade. But judges like wham bam thank you maam writing. They want the writing to make the call for them, and thats how it should be.

 

[Keel_to_breaker]

Wouldnt it be simpler to write, JIM JOHNSON YOURE FULLA SHIT

Would a more clear and direct approach involve pointing out that your broad-stroke generalizations make for some pretty weak arguments?

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

As do I. Intelligent and civil debates spur ideas and it's the best way one can learn.

First, Gunning's book is dated and second, he was writing for a business/economic crowd. His book is geared for a specific audience. He himself was a businessman in the 1950s (again, you cannot compare then with now), with no background in social analytics.

Second, Gunning also developed the Gunning Fog Index (I can't remember if he discusses it in that particular book or in Clear Technical Writing), which essentially says that for literature intended for a wide, general audience, it needs to be rated to a GFI of less than 12 (ie. less than a grade 12 reading level). For universal understanding, it's down to 8. Additionally, the GFI (and Gunning himself) has extreme limits.

While Gunning is right that the further you are in school, the more difficult it is to write for the general public, the assumption that the further on you're in school, the more intelligent one is, the less capable one is to coherently write is, to use the official, academic term, pure bullshit. Academics write for academics of their fields, not for the general public. It's been a very long time since I've read Gunning, but it seems to me that there are two audiences in question: the general public and the academic. You cannot compare the two.

Third, according to Gunning as stated above, I should not be able to string 2 sentences. I am an in-progress ABD, I occasionally teach at a university level and I possess a high IQ as graded by 3 different systems. So I should be completely Neanderthalian in expressing myself. And yet, I've published creative works (and no, I'm not counting Lit ), had articles and reviews published in peer-reviews, and no one has ever accused me of not being able to write.

I am, I might add, not the exception of my field but rather the rule.

Writing clearly, as I mentioned before, is a skill. It can be taught - but unfortunately, nowadays, it isn't, most definitely not at a High School level. I'm sure if Gunning was writing for an audience today, he'd change his tune.



And I've known people who could write beautifully, but try to get them to explain verbally? It was painful.

Writing and verbal communication can be taught, but some people are more comfortable in one mode. *shrugs* Vive la difference, eh?

My IQ is 85 or so. My high school guidance counselor assured me I wasnt college material, and to do something useful but undemanding with my life. So I possess a rather simple and unsophisticated understanding of most things. Generally I trust whats easy to read and understand. Like, I read Allan Hobson's books about dreams, and his prose is clear and simple, I watched a crew from Harvard discuss dreams, and have no idea what theyre about. Tho i did snag the bit about REM sleep's utility in hypnosis; I knew that already.

 

[silverwhisper]

james, this thread is an excellent example of why i don't like conversing with you.

as do others, i think you're committing a host of unwarranted assumptions and just plain lazy thinking. i'd have explained at greater length but since you completely dismissed blu's fairly well-reasoned observations, i see no reason to duplicate that waste of time.

and that's my problem with you. you argue in bad faith, james. you aren't actually interested in an honest exchange of ideas, never mind keeping an open mind with any interest in persuasion one way or the other, but rather, you seek mere reactionaryism.

it's essentially a form of trolling: you're just posting to see yourself post. and i get it, you're bored. you like to talk.

but that makes you a tiresome conversationalist because what others have to say is of little relevance beyond its ability to provide a springboard so you can post again. and again. and again. and you take the time to read & dismiss what blu has to say without engaging FB's fairly extensive and well-reasoned response, which is what someone truly interested in a dialogue would have responded to first.

ed

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

james, this thread is an excellent example of why i don't like conversing with you.

as do others, i think you're committing a host of unwarranted assumptions and just plain lazy thinking. i'd have explained at greater length but since you completely dismissed blu's fairly well-reasoned observations, i see no reason to duplicate that waste of time.

and that's my problem with you. you argue in bad faith, james. you aren't actually interested in an honest exchange of ideas, never mind keeping an open mind with any interest in persuasion one way or the other, but rather, you seek mere reactionaryism.

it's essentially a form of trolling: you're just posting to see yourself post. and i get it, you're bored. you like to talk.

but that makes you a tiresome conversationalist because what others have to say is of little relevance beyond its ability to provide a springboard so you can post again. and again. and again. and you take the time to read & dismiss what blu has to say without engaging FB's fairly extensive and well-reasoned response, which is what someone truly interested in a dialogue would have responded to first.

ed

blufairy says I'm fulla shit, I dont agree but think I summed her points up succinctly without exploiting the opportunity to quarrel or fill the thread with defensive blabber. If I'm wrong about the gist of her post she may correct me. Its okay to think I'm nutty or whatever, and I dont think she's evil.

As for you, everbody gets an opinion, and no one is obligated to swoon over what you or I blabber about.

 

[blulilacgrl]

Hold up guys. Actually Jim, I don't think you are "fulla shit".[laughs]

I personally think (as Breeze stated) that writing is a skill and not a sign of intelligence. There are many forms of intelligence that cannot be measured by formal tests. My husband's mechanical intelligence (some call it aptitude) cannot be measured by a paper test. But you see it every time he can fix a complex engine, motor, etc. And that is not something everybody can do. And it is not something that can be taught (at least not to the degree that he is able to do it). You either have it or you don't. Trust me, I have met people with genius IQs who cannot fathom what my husband does. It is beyond them

There is a scene from the show The Big Bang Theory that perfectly models this. All the "geniuses" are driving down the road and the car breaks down. The driver asks "Who understands the basics of a combustion engine?" They all raise their hands. He then asks, "Okay who is going to fix the car?" None of them can.

Here is a link to the 9 different types of intelligence as proposed by Howard Gardner

In your original post Jim, you said this:


But high IQ and advanced degrees do not equal superior performance when the IQ and sheepskins are put to work on real life causes. In fact, much of what brainiacs do results in incoherent, entangled, illogical messes designed to curry favor with their bosses and patrons.

On this point I agree with you. I have a degree. I have that sheepskin framed and up on my wall. And while it looks pretty and I am quite proud of the effort and time it took for me to acquire it. The fact that I am able to write and convey my thoughts better than my husband does not mean that I have a higher IQ, nor does it mean that my English degree is more helpful in the day to day workings of real life than my husband's ability to actually fix things.

And on the flip side, I work a side job where, with my lowly Bachelor's degree, I am fixing the mistake of men and women who hold Master's degrees in their fields. Computer Programmers and Mathematicians who cannot wrap their heads around the finer points of APA formatting for their papers. They can write beautiful code and intense mathematical equations, but they cannot write simple papers designed for the average man to grasp the concept they are attempting to explain.

What I find when you are dealing with people who are writing papers and articles designed to curry favor with their bosses and patrons is that they will use words and phrases that are specialized to their fields. And every field has this. A good writer will find a way to use this "specialized language" in a manner that even the layperson can understand it. Journalists learn this skill very early on as their job is to take information and make it understandable to the masses. Which probably accounts for why Twain and Hemingway went on to be such great writers.

[laughs] And of course what I have just written is a horrible example of being succinct. I apologize if I rambled or went off point.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Hold up guys. Actually Jim, I don't think you are "fulla shit".[laughs]

I personally think (as Breeze stated) that writing is a skill and not a sign of intelligence. There are many forms of intelligence that cannot be measured by formal tests. My husband's mechanical intelligence (some call it aptitude) cannot be measured by a paper test. But you see it every time he can fix a complex engine, motor, etc. And that is not something everybody can do. And it is not something that can be taught (at least not to the degree that he is able to do it). You either have it or you don't. Trust me, I have met people with genius IQs who cannot fathom what my husband does. It is beyond them

There is a scene from the show The Big Bang Theory that perfectly models this. All the "geniuses" are driving down the road and the car breaks down. The driver asks "Who understands the basics of a combustion engine?" They all raise their hands. He then asks, "Okay who is going to fix the car?" None of them can.

Here is a link to the 9 different types of intelligence as proposed by Howard Gardner

In your original post Jim, you said this:


But high IQ and advanced degrees do not equal superior performance when the IQ and sheepskins are put to work on real life causes. In fact, much of what brainiacs do results in incoherent, entangled, illogical messes designed to curry favor with their bosses and patrons.

On this point I agree with you. I have a degree. I have that sheepskin framed and up on my wall. And while it looks pretty and I am quite proud of the effort and time it took for me to acquire it. The fact that I am able to write and convey my thoughts better than my husband does not mean that I have a higher IQ, nor does it mean that my English degree is more helpful in the day to day workings of real life than my husband's ability to actually fix things.

And on the flip side, I work a side job where, with my lowly Bachelor's degree, I am fixing the mistake of men and women who hold Master's degrees in their fields. Computer Programmers and Mathematicians who cannot wrap their heads around the finer points of APA formatting for their papers. They can write beautiful code and intense mathematical equations, but they cannot write simple papers designed for the average man to grasp the concept they are attempting to explain.

What I find when you are dealing with people who are writing papers and articles designed to curry favor with their bosses and patrons is that they will use words and phrases that are specialized to their fields. And every field has this. A good writer will find a way to use this "specialized language" in a manner that even the layperson can understand it. Journalists learn this skill very early on as their job is to take information and make it understandable to the masses. Which probably accounts for why Twain and Hemingway went on to be such great writers.

[laughs] And of course what I have just written is a horrible example of being succinct. I apologize if I rambled or went off point.

At least you have a BA. All I have are 2 MAs, no BA. Lemme tell ya, some folks were mighty upset that I got into grad school without a BA.

Actually there are tests that measure mechanical aptitude, the military usta use them to classify recruits. The old GATB did a good job of it, too.

I still think lotsa brainiacs are quacks. I knew two men condemned to death after their MDs misdiagnosed schizophrenia for brain cancer. Even I, a mere student, knew that middleage men dont get schizophrenia, especially when theyve had no pathology ever. And I recall the MD who sent me a patient with headaches. I called him. WHY YOU SEND ME LADY WITH HEADACHES? He say, headaches in the skull, yo job mon. I say, WRONG! NO PAIN RECEPTORS INSIDE SKULL. She was a phenobarbital addict. Then there was the MD who misdiagnosed pneumonia for cold. Child die. It happens all the time. And if Harvard brainiacs knew squat Wall Street would be EZ Street and Washington would be healed.

 

[luvthedesserts]

At least you have a BA. All I have are 2 MAs, no BA. Lemme tell ya, some folks were mighty upset that I got into grad school without a BA.

Actually there are tests that measure mechanical aptitude, the military usta use them to classify recruits. The old GATB did a good job of it, too.

I still think lotsa brainiacs are quacks. I knew two men condemned to death after their MDs misdiagnosed schizophrenia for brain cancer. Even I, a mere student, knew that middleage men dont get schizophrenia, especially when theyve had no pathology ever. And I recall the MD who sent me a patient with headaches. I called him. WHY YOU SEND ME LADY WITH HEADACHES? He say, headaches in the skull, yo job mon. I say, WRONG! NO PAIN RECEPTORS INSIDE SKULL. She was a phenobarbital addict. Then there was the MD who misdiagnosed pneumonia for cold. Child die. It happens all the time. And if Harvard brainiacs knew squat Wall Street would be EZ Street and Washington would be healed.

Interesting thread, a bit wordy in spots, but that’s to be expected I suppose. Everyone would have high an I.Q. if they knew the answers. And that’s the flaw in the test. You can actually study, read, and remember in order to score higher. Every field makes up their own language to keep out the riffraff. That would be the uneducated and those that didn’t pay their dues. It’s the Country Club snobbery mentality. Everyone wants to feel special and elite in their own way. Talking down to people seems to be a preferred way of doing that and if you can make up or redefine words in the process, so much the better.

I had a computer programming professor speak for fifty minutes on why the monitor in front of me wasn’t really there. It was just our brains projecting what our eyes observed. I had an English professor mark me down for disagreeing with a premise on the existence of Time. I stopped financing their lifestyles soon after. I maxed out whatever the military is using now in place of the GATB. One of my instructors preparing me for Ranger School said I was the most intelligent individual he’d ever seen go through the course. I wrote a thirty page paper on a mission from insertion to extraction with fields of fire and all contingencies. It took two hours. I have no idea what my I.Q would be if I took the test again. My ego isn’t fragile enough to care.

I think you might be making the assumption that Wall Street and D.C don’t like the way the system is working as is. They seem to be in their own playground at the expense of the plebs.

 

[njlauren]

Verbal competency is part of most intelligence tests.

Do you recall the Challenger investigation and how Richard Feynman destroyed all the government blabber with his icewater swizzle stick o-ring demo? The whole circus collapsed when Feynman snapped the o-ring. Thats real genius. The blabber isnt genius.

Feynman was a genius, literally, and according to you, since he was high IQ and an academic, he shouldn't have been able to do that, he should have written a ton of bullshit no one could understand.....the point being that generalities like you speak of might have grains of truth, but they aren't always true (and if you ever read Feynman's kookie memoirs, or seen the videos of his lectures, he could be clear and succinct, or he could cause brain fog. BTW, Feynman credited an Air Force General for the idea about the O Rings, but he couldn't present it for political and other reasons..it was feynman who thought up the little demo, though.

 

[njlauren]

There are a lot of people who get into Harvard who aren't particularly geniuses, you don't need to be a genius to get good grades in high school, good sat scores and so forth, you can get that by being intelligent, and work your tail off. There are a lot of people who earn advanced degrees who do so because they work hard at it, and get through it. For every Richard Feynman, who simply had a mind that transcended genius (much of what he sowed out there is just now coming to fruition, 25 years after his death), there are a lot of PHd's who teach, do research, but otherwise are merely good *shrug* On the other hand, Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard, and look what he did......

There are a lot of very intelligent people with PHd's who can write clearly and succinctly, there are ones who couldn't put together a declarative sentence, writing well or concisely has nothing to do with brains. Sometimes really bright people are thinking so fast, they don't have time to format it, some of them actually have disabilities that make writing hard, like dyslexia, ironically enough.

The thing about IQ is it is potential, there are a lot of people in Mensa who otherwise would seem to be ordinary, boring people, many of them are working jobs you look and say WTF? It is because intelligence alone does very little, as many recent books will tell you. Read Malcolm Gladwell's book "Outliers", and you will find that intelligence alone isn't enough, that it also takes a lot of other things, including good old fashioned hard work. Want to know why great writers can write the way they do? They likely spent a lot of time writing and reading, Hemingway said that to learn to write, you have to learn to read (or something like that), and he and other great writers spent a lot of time reading, as well as writing (and getting drunk, and getting laid....). Gladwell has this 10,000 hour rule, that to get really proficient at anything, you need roughly that amount of time in....

The other thing about success is that you need other skills, like the ability to be able to look at a situation, assess it, and come up with a unique solution to it, to innovate. There have been studies out there that often the kids who do the straight A's, 2400 SAT's, 10 AP's and so forth, who go to the best colleges, when they come out don't do that well, whereas someone who isn't quite in that league, will come out, and do quite well. There is an old joke, that has grains of truth, that the 4.0 from Harvard often ends up working for the guy with the 3.0 that went to a state school, in part because the guy that went to the state school might have spent time learning how to negotiate people, work with people, learn about things outside the classroom, while the 4.0 spent all their time figuring out how to get an A out of the professor (there are actually studies showing a negative correlation between GPA and performance on the job, in part, because the A students often think that what they have done in school is the real world, makes them special, while the B students kind of are like Avis, they try harder...

On the other hand, that somehow someone who isn't as well educated is necessarily smarter, a la Sarah Palin,, oye......Truman didn't have a fancy education, but the man had read every book in the library in his town, kept reading, and learned things like Latin on his own and he wasn't stupid, despite what people tried to paint him as (in part because he wasn't part of the Harvard Hegonomy) . Lots of people were self taught, and the one thing that distinguished them was their desire to learn, Mark Twain had a mind like a steel bear trap, for example. On the other hand, sometimes eschewing a formal education is counterproductive. Edison was an intuitive genius, but he pooh-poohed formal education, but had he had more of one, he probably would have done even more then he did, if he had had knowledge of physics and chemistry, he would have been able to save time on some of the trial and error he did.For example, he noted in his experiments with the light bulb a phenomenon of voltages going across the filament in a certain bulb design with a certain layout, it was called the Edison Effect, and he patented it, had he had more knowledge, he probably could have taken that and been the inventor of the vacuum triode aka the vacuum tube, 20 years before Lee De Forest created it....

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Interesting thread, a bit wordy in spots, but that’s to be expected I suppose. Everyone would have high an I.Q. if they knew the answers. And that’s the flaw in the test. You can actually study, read, and remember in order to score higher. Every field makes up their own language to keep out the riffraff. That would be the uneducated and those that didn’t pay their dues. It’s the Country Club snobbery mentality. Everyone wants to feel special and elite in their own way. Talking down to people seems to be a preferred way of doing that and if you can make up or redefine words in the process, so much the better.

I had a computer programming professor speak for fifty minutes on why the monitor in front of me wasn’t really there. It was just our brains projecting what our eyes observed. I had an English professor mark me down for disagreeing with a premise on the existence of Time. I stopped financing their lifestyles soon after. I maxed out whatever the military is using now in place of the GATB. One of my instructors preparing me for Ranger School said I was the most intelligent individual he’d ever seen go through the course. I wrote a thirty page paper on a mission from insertion to extraction with fields of fire and all contingencies. It took two hours. I have no idea what my I.Q would be if I took the test again. My ego isn’t fragile enough to care.

I think you might be making the assumption that Wall Street and D.C don’t like the way the system is working as is. They seem to be in their own playground at the expense of the plebs.

My favorite graded paper was one I got in a memory course. The professor wrote: HOW DO YOU EXPECT ME TO GRADE SOMETHING I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT? My paper was about Gerald Edelman's Theory of Neuronal Group Selection and its application to memory. I invited my perfesser outside and suggested that she get her act together and stop cheating me outta my tuition money.

America is full of genius, like yourself, effectively gelded by our Harvard elites.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Feynman was a genius, literally, and according to you, since he was high IQ and an academic, he shouldn't have been able to do that, he should have written a ton of bullshit no one could understand.....the point being that generalities like you speak of might have grains of truth, but they aren't always true (and if you ever read Feynman's kookie memoirs, or seen the videos of his lectures, he could be clear and succinct, or he could cause brain fog. BTW, Feynman credited an Air Force General for the idea about the O Rings, but he couldn't present it for political and other reasons..it was feynman who thought up the little demo, though.

I dont know that anything I assert is true, but I do think the wagering odds favor my position. What wares do the Harvard elites produce for the money and prestige we heap on them?

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/streams-of-consciousness/2012/10/18/how-do-you-spot-a-genius/

Who knew! Its autism!

I actually agree with this.

But I'd add the ability to recognize confounding as an essential part of genius.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confounding

Lemme offer an example I stumbled across on an IQ test I took: The test question featured 5 animals (squirrel, skunk, snake, shrew, and pig), and wanted to know which animal is odd-man out. The official answer is PIG, its common name begins with P, the others begin with S. But look again, all the animals are mammals except for the snake. No points for SNAKE.

 

[luvthedesserts]

My favorite graded paper was one I got in a memory course. The professor wrote: HOW DO YOU EXPECT ME TO GRADE SOMETHING I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT? My paper was about Gerald Edelman's Theory of Neuronal Group Selection and its application to memory. I invited my perfesser outside and suggested that she get her act together and stop cheating me outta my tuition money.

America is full of genius, like yourself, effectively gelded by our Harvard elites.

Wow, I'm not sure I've ever been so complimented. A gelded genius. I had to do some self-exploration to see if my gooseberries were still there. I do appreciate you comparing my dangly bits to a horse though. That's how I read it anyway.

I'll quote Hank Williams Jr. "A country boy can survive." When the elites finally bring Rome down from all their games, we'll still be here.