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I'll admit I spend probably greater than average time brooding over how dumb most people are. But I don't think this is inherent in those people. I think it's m

by dqpb 8y ago

I'll admit I spend probably greater than average time brooding over how dumb most people are. But I don't think this is inherent in those people. I think it's mostly a result of their prior knowledge, sleep, energy level, stress/anxiety, and give-a-shit. I think most people are fundamentally capable of great intelligence.

viraptor 8y ago
> energy level, stress/anxiety, and give-a-shit. I think most people are fundamentally capable of great intelligence. This sounds like there's a missing link where "most people are fundamentally capable of higher energy level, less anxiety, more give-a-shit" may not be taken for granted.
- 80386 8y ago
  High energy and low anxiety seem more trainable than IQ, although even then they aren't infinitely trainable. Thomas Edison, by the common accounts, slept four or five hours a night plus a few short naps; most people couldn't do that. There are some other important factors that aren't as flattering to modern Western society. I know some smart people who are stuck in dead-end jobs because their parents didn't know the right hoops to jump through to get them into an environment conducive to socioeconomic advancement and a good college, and some who aren't going anywhere because they just can't buy into the BS they're supposed to buy into. If you can't suck it up and agree with your professors, even when they're obviously wrong, you're going to have a hard time. On the other hand, I know a guy who isn't very smart but got into Harvard because his parents were rich and he's the sort of person who reflexively identifies with and agrees with authority.
yourapostasy 8y ago
> I think most people are fundamentally capable of great intelligence. If the real world distribution of IQ closely approximates the Gaussian distribution IQ tests are meant to model, then in the US alone there are about 44 million people in the range from about 70-85. World wide, about 1 billion people in that cohort of 1-2 standard deviations. Even if actual real world results are half of what the models predict, we're still talking really large numbers of people. Finding ways to bring them up to "just" average intelligence would be astounding for the species, and I'd aim for that first instead of setting ourselves up for failure by defining a goal of "great intelligence". Right now, the best we can prescribe with even a semblance of consistent results is intensive educational intervention and family assistance from early childhood onward. Actually doing that in our current economic model would be on the order of ditching the MIC and somehow transferring the spending to those activities. That's a pipe dream with current established stakeholders.
- DoreenMichele 8y ago
  We would likely do better to deal with biomedical issues, like inadequate nutrition and unidentified health issues.
  - xyzzyz 8y ago
    Malnutrition only has effect on intelligence at extreme levels that basically never occur in the US. The American poor sometimes go hungry, but are never actually starving, and don’t lack micronutrients either. Don’t get me wrong, terrible food and atrocious eating habits, resulting in serious health problems, are one of the most serious problems in this country. However, this doesn’t impact intelligence.
    - DoreenMichele 8y ago
      I have six years of college. I was in all the gifted programs and so forth in school. I was one of the top students of my graduating high school class. Then I ended up very ill and homeless. My comments in online forums during that time were filled with typos and tended to sound like an idiot wrote them. I've gradually gotten healthier. My typos and other issues have gone way down. There are a lot of Americans living with various sorts of chronic health issues. So, in short, I don't agree. But I'm probably not up for trying to "prove it" and just contemplating the possibility makes me feel tired and aggravated.
- toasterlovin 8y ago
  Honestly, at this point we should just focus on getting to genetically engineered solution. It’s really not that far away at this point. All the environment based solutions have extremely small effect sizes and are really expensive.
toasterlovin 8y ago
You should ask yourself what it would it take to falsify your working hypothesis and then see if there are research results which falsify it.
- zbentley 8y ago
  Longitudinal studies in this area (developmental effects on intelligence) are vanishingly rare. Those that do exist are either extremely limited, ethically suspect, or useless (confounded). The difficulty in answering "why is person/are people the way they are?" in a rigorous, falsifiable way has brought about the existence of entire disciplines dedicated to qualitative analysis as a means of getting closer to answers without requiring often-impossible rigor. I think "falsifiable" might be too high a bar for answering these kinds of questions. That doesn't mean we should give up, or presume the null hypothesis: getting to "probable/improbable" in a useful proportion of cases is likely the best we can do.
  - toasterlovin 8y ago
    There are natural longitudinal experiments in the form of twin studies. They show pretty conclusively that the largest systematic influence of intelligence is DNA at about 50%. Almost everything else about intelligence is due to random variation in the environment (and not due to all of the things you would think make a difference, like parenting, schooling, class size, economic status, etc.). The person I was responding to could also just go talk to a bunch of teachers.
Theodores 8y ago
It is the same as with sports, but not all sports. With modest training people can run the marathon or put in a decent performance on a bicycle. This applies across a large age range, I am sure that there are plenty of seven year old's and seventy-seven year old's that could pedal one hundred miles in a day. Normally none of the do. If you do a charity ride once a year or so then you realise lots do, even with sub-standard bicycles, although the thousands seen on the charity ride event is a drop in the ocean compared to the population at large. I too believe people are fundamentally capable of great intelligence, I also believe that most people value intellect in others. In Robert McKee's 'Story' he writes about how a good film can raise the intellect of the audience for the duration of the film to that of the script-writers, this can be done in real life too. So intellect is variable, much like athleticism. There are limits, age does not help, Alzheimers is a thing as is a lack of grey matter for learning new stuff. A lot of 'intellectuals' on TV are charlatans, narrowly clever and with a false impression of how smart they are. It is almost as if they are wheeled out as entertainers. This applies on the left and the right, so you get Slavoj Zizeks and Niall Fergusons on the small screen giving 'intelligence' a bad name. I quite like the Steve Jobs quote on how TV networks dumb down: “When you’re young, you look at television and think, There’s a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that’s not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That’s a far more depressing thought. Conspiracy is optimistic! You can shoot the bastards! We can have a revolution! But the networks are really in business to give people what they want. It’s the truth.” To return to the cycling/marathon analogy, today, like most days and for most people I won't be riding 100 miles on my bike. If I go into town and spend ages waiting to cross the road I will be cursing those lazy car drivers and wondering why they can't ride a bike once in a while.
whitepoplar 8y ago
I think the key to becoming smart is believing that you're smart. However one ends up with that confidence varies--testing as "high IQ", going to a good university, learning it from your parents, failing and having something to prove--they all work. If someone truly believes, in their bones, that they can do something and then work like hell to achieve it--I'm betting on that person no matter what the establishment thinks that person capable of.

by dqpb 8y ago

viraptor 8y ago

> energy level, stress/anxiety, and give-a-shit. I think most people are fundamentally capable of great intelligence. This sounds like there's a missing link where "most people are fundamentally capable of higher energy level, less anxiety, more give-a-shit" may not be taken for granted.

80386 8y ago
High energy and low anxiety seem more trainable than IQ, although even then they aren't infinitely trainable. Thomas Edison, by the common accounts, slept four or five hours a night plus a few short naps; most people couldn't do that. There are some other important factors that aren't as flattering to modern Western society. I know some smart people who are stuck in dead-end jobs because their parents didn't know the right hoops to jump through to get them into an environment conducive to socioeconomic advancement and a good college, and some who aren't going anywhere because they just can't buy into the BS they're supposed to buy into. If you can't suck it up and agree with your professors, even when they're obviously wrong, you're going to have a hard time. On the other hand, I know a guy who isn't very smart but got into Harvard because his parents were rich and he's the sort of person who reflexively identifies with and agrees with authority.

yourapostasy 8y ago

> I think most people are fundamentally capable of great intelligence. If the real world distribution of IQ closely approximates the Gaussian distribution IQ tests are meant to model, then in the US alone there are about 44 million people in the range from about 70-85. World wide, about 1 billion people in that cohort of 1-2 standard deviations. Even if actual real world results are half of what the models predict, we're still talking really large numbers of people. Finding ways to bring them up to "just" average intelligence would be astounding for the species, and I'd aim for that first instead of setting ourselves up for failure by defining a goal of "great intelligence". Right now, the best we can prescribe with even a semblance of consistent results is intensive educational intervention and family assistance from early childhood onward. Actually doing that in our current economic model would be on the order of ditching the MIC and somehow transferring the spending to those activities. That's a pipe dream with current established stakeholders.

DoreenMichele 8y ago
We would likely do better to deal with biomedical issues, like inadequate nutrition and unidentified health issues.
- xyzzyz 8y ago
  Malnutrition only has effect on intelligence at extreme levels that basically never occur in the US. The American poor sometimes go hungry, but are never actually starving, and don’t lack micronutrients either. Don’t get me wrong, terrible food and atrocious eating habits, resulting in serious health problems, are one of the most serious problems in this country. However, this doesn’t impact intelligence.
  - DoreenMichele 8y ago
    I have six years of college. I was in all the gifted programs and so forth in school. I was one of the top students of my graduating high school class. Then I ended up very ill and homeless. My comments in online forums during that time were filled with typos and tended to sound like an idiot wrote them. I've gradually gotten healthier. My typos and other issues have gone way down. There are a lot of Americans living with various sorts of chronic health issues. So, in short, I don't agree. But I'm probably not up for trying to "prove it" and just contemplating the possibility makes me feel tired and aggravated.
toasterlovin 8y ago
Honestly, at this point we should just focus on getting to genetically engineered solution. It’s really not that far away at this point. All the environment based solutions have extremely small effect sizes and are really expensive.

toasterlovin 8y ago

You should ask yourself what it would it take to falsify your working hypothesis and then see if there are research results which falsify it.

zbentley 8y ago
Longitudinal studies in this area (developmental effects on intelligence) are vanishingly rare. Those that do exist are either extremely limited, ethically suspect, or useless (confounded). The difficulty in answering "why is person/are people the way they are?" in a rigorous, falsifiable way has brought about the existence of entire disciplines dedicated to qualitative analysis as a means of getting closer to answers without requiring often-impossible rigor. I think "falsifiable" might be too high a bar for answering these kinds of questions. That doesn't mean we should give up, or presume the null hypothesis: getting to "probable/improbable" in a useful proportion of cases is likely the best we can do.
- toasterlovin 8y ago
  There are natural longitudinal experiments in the form of twin studies. They show pretty conclusively that the largest systematic influence of intelligence is DNA at about 50%. Almost everything else about intelligence is due to random variation in the environment (and not due to all of the things you would think make a difference, like parenting, schooling, class size, economic status, etc.). The person I was responding to could also just go talk to a bunch of teachers.

Theodores 8y ago

It is the same as with sports, but not all sports. With modest training people can run the marathon or put in a decent performance on a bicycle. This applies across a large age range, I am sure that there are plenty of seven year old's and seventy-seven year old's that could pedal one hundred miles in a day. Normally none of the do. If you do a charity ride once a year or so then you realise lots do, even with sub-standard bicycles, although the thousands seen on the charity ride event is a drop in the ocean compared to the population at large. I too believe people are fundamentally capable of great intelligence, I also believe that most people value intellect in others. In Robert McKee's 'Story' he writes about how a good film can raise the intellect of the audience for the duration of the film to that of the script-writers, this can be done in real life too. So intellect is variable, much like athleticism. There are limits, age does not help, Alzheimers is a thing as is a lack of grey matter for learning new stuff. A lot of 'intellectuals' on TV are charlatans, narrowly clever and with a false impression of how smart they are. It is almost as if they are wheeled out as entertainers. This applies on the left and the right, so you get Slavoj Zizeks and Niall Fergusons on the small screen giving 'intelligence' a bad name. I quite like the Steve Jobs quote on how TV networks dumb down: “When you’re young, you look at television and think, There’s a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that’s not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That’s a far more depressing thought. Conspiracy is optimistic! You can shoot the bastards! We can have a revolution! But the networks are really in business to give people what they want. It’s the truth.” To return to the cycling/marathon analogy, today, like most days and for most people I won't be riding 100 miles on my bike. If I go into town and spend ages waiting to cross the road I will be cursing those lazy car drivers and wondering why they can't ride a bike once in a while.

whitepoplar 8y ago

I think the key to becoming smart is believing that you're smart. However one ends up with that confidence varies--testing as "high IQ", going to a good university, learning it from your parents, failing and having something to prove--they all work. If someone truly believes, in their bones, that they can do something and then work like hell to achieve it--I'm betting on that person no matter what the establishment thinks that person capable of.