Why Are Some People With Very High IQ Just Plain Stupid?

[AlexS]

Well said!

.

But can you prove there are an infinite number of primes?

No, but I can prove there is not a finite number of primes.

[Rossluck]

Anyway, back to the original question. I've worked both as a labourer, and I've taught a bit at university and I'm strongly of the opinion that the intellectual differences between people isn't that great. It's really all in the mind (sorry).

People who get their jollies from imagining that they are intellectually superior to most people are yanking at their own chains. It's more a matter of what turns you on, or what you're interested in. I have a firm belief that you could grab any council worker from a road works site and coax him or her through medical school and produce a medical doctor after 7 years. If they wanted to do it.

Similarly, as someone else alluded to above, IQ tests are only good for one thing: measuring how good people are at doing IQ tests. So the question should be: why are people with low IQs just plain smart?

[Cliff Rogers]

.... I have a firm belief that you could grab any council worker from a road works site and coax him or her through medical school and produce a medical doctor after 7 years. ....

BUT..... would you go to them as a patient?

[Wongo]

No, but I can prove there is not a finite number of primes.

Were you in my class?

[silentC]

IQ tests are only good for one thing: measuring how good people are at doing IQ tests

That's a bit like saying that a maths test is only good for measuring how good you are at doing maths tests. What else would it be measuring?

I'm sorry, but I'm afraid that in my experience there actually is a very wide range in intellectual ability in the community. I have worked as a labourer and I have been to university. I think some of the labourers I worked with could have done much more with their lives, while others were in exactly the right job. I think some of the people I went to uni with were destined for great things and others would be better doing something more manual. It might not be PC to say it, but I think it's quite obvious that there are 'bright' people, 'average' people and 'not so bright' people. Whether or not IQ is any good at picking that up, I'll leave to the experts. They've been debating it for decades.

Go and read a bit about IQ, try Wikipedia for a starting point. Many, many studies have been done on the correlation between IQ (as tested) and school performance, job performance, income etc. I think it has been pretty well validated for some predictors. Others not so good perhaps.

Don't judge it on the on-line tests or the ones in Cleo. Go and get a proper professional test done and see how well you think you could fluff your way through to getting a high score. Have a stab at Mensa. Let us know how you get on. Top 3% I think.

[Ruddigar]

Were you in my class?

Alex is in a class all of his own, Wongo.

(and it's way above yours )

[Grunt]

That's a bit like saying that a maths test is only good for measuring how good you are at doing maths tests. What else would it be measuring?

I think the point is that it they are not necessarily a good measure of raw intelligence.

With practice you can get better at IQ tests. That doesn't mean that you are more intelligent but just better at doing the tests.

[Zed]

with practice your IQ improves - As you study your ability to learn more increases thus your IQ goes up. stoopid dog!

[Rossluck]

Go and read a bit about IQ, try Wikipedia for a starting point. Many, many studies have been done on the correlation between IQ (as tested) and school performance, job performance, income etc. I think it has been pretty well validated for some predictors. Others not so good perhaps.

Don't judge it on the on-line tests or the ones in Cleo. Go and get a proper professional test done and see how well you think you could fluff your way through to getting a high score. Have a stab at Mensa. Let us know how you get on. Top 3% I think.

Thou dost underestimate me. I have investigated IQ tests, I've done one, I've done very well: they're crap. I wouldn't glance at an on-line one and I wouldn't bother opening the cover of "Cleo". I think that Mensa is a joke and that it's members are pulling ... something ... a lot ... and are probably half blind because of it. A lot of the people in Mensa are revealingly involved in a perpetual attempt to improve their IQ tests through practice: this in itself discredits the tests (and says even more about the members of Mensa).

IQ tests are yet another one of the ways those who have power over others seek to reify it.

[Ruddigar]

I heard / read somewhere that you are only supposed to take the tests once every 5-10 years if they are to bit an accurate indicator of one's IQ.

Taking test after test will certainly make you better at IQ tests, but will not actually raise your IQ.

Just cause you get better at the tests, it won't mean that you can operate your toaster.

[Rossluck]

I think the point is that it they are not necessarily a good measure of raw intelligence.

With practice you can get better at IQ tests. That doesn't mean that you are more intelligent but just better at doing the tests.

Missed that, Grunt. Thanks for the support.

[Grunt]

What Is Intelligence, Anyway?
Isaac Asimov

What is intelligence, anyway? When I was in the army, I received the kind of aptitude test that all soldiers took and, against a normal of 100, scored 160. No one at the base had ever seen a figure like that, and for two hours they made a big fuss over me. (It didn't mean anything. The next day I was still a buck private with KP - kitchen police - as my highest duty.)

All my life I've been registering scores like that, so that I have the complacent feeling that I'm highly intelligent, and I expect other people to think so too. Actually, though, don't such scores simply mean that I am very good at answering the type of academic questions that are considered worthy of answers by people who make up the intelligence tests - people with intellectual bents similar to mine?

For instance, I had an auto-repair man once, who, on these intelligence tests, could not possibly have scored more than 80, by my estimate. I always took it for granted that I was far more intelligent than he was. Yet, when anything went wrong with my car I hastened to him with it, watched him anxiously as he explored its vitals, and listened to his pronouncements as though they were divine oracles - and he always fixed my car.

Well, then, suppose my auto-repair man devised questions for an intelligence test. Or suppose a carpenter did, or a farmer, or, indeed, almost anyone but an academician. By every one of those tests, I'd prove myself a moron, and I'd be a moron, too. In a world where I could not use my academic training and my verbal talents but had to do something intricate or hard, working with my hands, I would do poorly. My intelligence, then, is not absolute but is a function of the society I live in and of the fact that a small subsection of that society has managed to foist itself on the rest as an arbiter of such matters.

Consider my auto-repair man, again. He had a habit of telling me jokes whenever he saw me. One time he raised his head from under the automobile hood to say: "Doc, a deaf-and-mute guy went into a hardware store to ask for some nails. He put two fingers together on the counter and made hammering motions with the other hand. The clerk brought him a hammer. He shook his head and pointed to the two fingers he was hammering. The clerk brought him nails. He picked out the sizes he wanted, and left. Well, doc, the next guy who came in was a blind man. He wanted scissors. How do you suppose he asked for them?"

Indulgently, I lifted by right hand and made scissoring motions with my first two fingers. Whereupon my auto-repair man laughed raucously and said, "Why, you dumb jerk, He used his voice and asked for them." Then he said smugly, "I've been trying that on all my customers today." "Did you catch many?" I asked. "Quite a few," he said, "but I knew for sure I'd catch you." "Why is that?" I asked. "Because you're so goddamned educated, doc, I knew you couldn't be very smart."

And I have an uneasy feeling he had something there.

with practice your IQ improves - As you study your ability to learn more increases thus your IQ goes up. stoopid dog!

Is someone who completes a degree in astrophysics more intelligent or do they just have more knowledge and skills?

Why am I having a discussion about intelligence with an ape?

[silentC]

they're crap

OK, well, I guess that the psychologists who came up with it must be wrong then. Maybe you should let them know? They probably don't realise...

[Rossluck]

OK, well, I guess that the psychologists who came up with it must be wrong then. Maybe you should let them know? They probably don't realise...

No, they probably don't ....

[Rossluck]

BUT..... would you go to them as a patient?

That's more a question about the medical system than the council worker. If he or she had passed the board examinations,

Yes