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“was not paying attention and nothing to do with their intelligence” You might be surprised to learn that people with an iq of 80 have a hard time paying atten

“was not paying attention and nothing to do with their intelligence” You might be surprised to learn that people with an iq of 80 have a hard time paying attention to much of anything. My point was not to quibble over the likelihood of a classroom of 150’s, but to illustrate a point, that what counts as a dumb question is largely a function of the average cognitive capacity of the reference group. You may disagree and find context doesn’t matter, and to some extent I can see where you are coming from: mistakes like not paying attention seem to be results of a slightly different thing than pure g intelligence. I see that, but suspect the correlation is so high that the distinction matters only a little.

dragontamer 3y ago
> My point was not to quibble over the likelihood of a classroom of 150’s, but to illustrate a point, that what counts as a dumb question is largely a function of the average cognitive capacity of the reference group. And in my experience, a "dumb question" is asked all the time by highly smart people who happened to have lost their attention span at that moment. > I see that, but suspect the correlation is so high that the distinction matters only a little. I was a very distracted student growing up. I made it a point to ask stupid questions, because it was more important to hold the class back and make sure I got my learning, than to otherwise pretend I was smarter than who I really was. I get that teachers got pissed off at me for not paying attention. I also get that I was holding back the class. But alas, the name of the game is learning. You can't learn if you've missed the material. If you've missed the material, better ask the question right now (while you still remember), than wait later in the week when you've really forgotten everything.
- 2devnull 3y ago
  When I used to hear people ask those kinds of questions I just assumed they had learning disabilities of some sort. I never really felt “held back” by other students as much as by the curriculum or by ability grouping or the large class sizes.
  - dragontamer 3y ago
    I mean, I know this other guy who absolutely was mentally handicapped in my Calculus class. He obviously could do calculus, but we all had to be careful how we talked and interacted, because his ability outside of math was almost nil. Must have been one of those 'idiot-savants' or something.

dragontamer 3y ago

> My point was not to quibble over the likelihood of a classroom of 150’s, but to illustrate a point, that what counts as a dumb question is largely a function of the average cognitive capacity of the reference group. And in my experience, a "dumb question" is asked all the time by highly smart people who happened to have lost their attention span at that moment. > I see that, but suspect the correlation is so high that the distinction matters only a little. I was a very distracted student growing up. I made it a point to ask stupid questions, because it was more important to hold the class back and make sure I got my learning, than to otherwise pretend I was smarter than who I really was. I get that teachers got pissed off at me for not paying attention. I also get that I was holding back the class. But alas, the name of the game is learning. You can't learn if you've missed the material. If you've missed the material, better ask the question right now (while you still remember), than wait later in the week when you've really forgotten everything.

2devnull 3y ago
When I used to hear people ask those kinds of questions I just assumed they had learning disabilities of some sort. I never really felt “held back” by other students as much as by the curriculum or by ability grouping or the large class sizes.
- dragontamer 3y ago
  I mean, I know this other guy who absolutely was mentally handicapped in my Calculus class. He obviously could do calculus, but we all had to be careful how we talked and interacted, because his ability outside of math was almost nil. Must have been one of those 'idiot-savants' or something.