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> You accept that some individuals are off the scale of various physical abilities. No I don't! I'm getting on, and not very fit; I can run about 30 yards, sl

> You accept that some individuals are off the scale of various physical abilities. No I don't! I'm getting on, and not very fit; I can run about 30 yards, slowly, before I run out of steam. But even Olympic runners can't run 100x faster than me. I know how fast Olympic runners can run. > Why should we believe that everyone is roughly equal in intelligence? Why, indeed. Why do you think that I believe that? > Which is why IQ is often expressed as a range. I have avoided mention of IQ; I don't think it's equivalent to intelligence. > and then make a realization you'd never would have. Yes, of course. I've met a lot of people that are quicker on the uptake than I am. But I'm sorry; "truly gifted" suggests there's some kind of magic going on. I don't believe in magic, and I don't believe in gifts from the gods. And I don't believe that there are people that are orders of magnitude smarter than the average; my observation was simply that average people like me aren't in a position to estimate the smarts of brighter people. So there is a tendency to assume there's magic occurring; that they aren't just brighter, but there's some other ingredient. There's no magic ingredient; we're all made roughly the same way, from the same ingredients.

bena 4y ago
I think you believe that because you say basically that. Then you say that you don't believe there are people that are orders of magnitude smarter than the average. There are. There's no magic. Just like the fact Usain Bolt running the 100m dash in 9.58 seconds isn't magic. No one else has been capable of reproducing that feat. Including people who train to do exactly that. And I don't suggest there is magic. You're forcing an argument on me that I am not making. IQ is as good a measure of intelligence as there is. IQ is not a measure of human worth. IQ is not a measure of success. IQ is not a measure of a lot of things. IQ is the rough measure of the raw processing power of a human brain. I am simply pointing out that intelligence is no different than any other attribute one can possess. And some people possess it at the extremes.
- denton-scratch 4y ago
  > Usain Bolt running the 100m dash in 9.58 seconds isn't magic Sure it is. But it's not orders of magnitude. > IQ is the rough measure of the raw processing power of a human brain. [citation needed] That claim is both specific and vague at the same time. I'll try to work out how you did that :-)
  - bena 4y ago
    Depends on your deviation. And how do you mean "specific and vague". IQ isn't precise because like all of our physical attributes, there's wiggle room. Like how you may think you're a certain height, but you actually fluctuate throughout the day. Same with weight. Or strength. Or speed. IQ is a rough measure. It can really only tell us what you get when you take the test. But if you take it several times, it should fall within a range. And a good IQ test shouldn't test knowledge. It should test reasoning, spatial ability, pattern matching, etc. You know, the factors that make up our raw processing power. Are you saying it's "specific and vague" because it's an imprecise measure of a specific ability? That wouldn't be "specific and vague" in the way you mean. You could say it's a vague claim about a specific thing, but that's not mysterious.
    - denton-scratch 4y ago
      I meant "specific and vague" like this: > Then you say that you don't believe there are people that are orders of magnitude smarter than the average. There are. So you're stating that some people are orders of magnitude smarter than the average; but you've adduced no evidence. I don't agree; you're making the claim, so the burden is on you. > IQ is the rough measure of the raw processing power of a human brain. That's a very specific claim. I know what "raw processing power" means in the context of a CPU, and I know of various ways of measuring it. But a brain is not a CPU. It's not a processor; arguably what it does is not similar to information processing.

bena 4y ago

I think you believe that because you say basically that. Then you say that you don't believe there are people that are orders of magnitude smarter than the average. There are. There's no magic. Just like the fact Usain Bolt running the 100m dash in 9.58 seconds isn't magic. No one else has been capable of reproducing that feat. Including people who train to do exactly that. And I don't suggest there is magic. You're forcing an argument on me that I am not making. IQ is as good a measure of intelligence as there is. IQ is not a measure of human worth. IQ is not a measure of success. IQ is not a measure of a lot of things. IQ is the rough measure of the raw processing power of a human brain. I am simply pointing out that intelligence is no different than any other attribute one can possess. And some people possess it at the extremes.

denton-scratch 4y ago
> Usain Bolt running the 100m dash in 9.58 seconds isn't magic Sure it is. But it's not orders of magnitude. > IQ is the rough measure of the raw processing power of a human brain. [citation needed] That claim is both specific and vague at the same time. I'll try to work out how you did that :-)
- bena 4y ago
  Depends on your deviation. And how do you mean "specific and vague". IQ isn't precise because like all of our physical attributes, there's wiggle room. Like how you may think you're a certain height, but you actually fluctuate throughout the day. Same with weight. Or strength. Or speed. IQ is a rough measure. It can really only tell us what you get when you take the test. But if you take it several times, it should fall within a range. And a good IQ test shouldn't test knowledge. It should test reasoning, spatial ability, pattern matching, etc. You know, the factors that make up our raw processing power. Are you saying it's "specific and vague" because it's an imprecise measure of a specific ability? That wouldn't be "specific and vague" in the way you mean. You could say it's a vague claim about a specific thing, but that's not mysterious.
  - denton-scratch 4y ago
    I meant "specific and vague" like this: > Then you say that you don't believe there are people that are orders of magnitude smarter than the average. There are. So you're stating that some people are orders of magnitude smarter than the average; but you've adduced no evidence. I don't agree; you're making the claim, so the burden is on you. > IQ is the rough measure of the raw processing power of a human brain. That's a very specific claim. I know what "raw processing power" means in the context of a CPU, and I know of various ways of measuring it. But a brain is not a CPU. It's not a processor; arguably what it does is not similar to information processing.