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This thread has certainly taken an interesting turn.
Especially so for me, given that my own kid is a freakbrain. He's an experimental physicist at Princeton, who got his PhD from Harvard, and is presently one of the entrants (so to speak) in the global race to develop a quantum repeater. At the moment he seems to be in the lead, in fact.
Fabricating mechanisms/objects that are small enough to manipulate individual photons in highly specific ways is a fantastically complex business. I'm well read, insatiably curious, have 60+ years of life experience, and had a high level career in a technical field, and no matter how hard I tried, was unable to follow more than 5% or so of a project overview presentation that he recently gave to a group of post docs at the University of Chicago.
Believe me, guys like him are from another planet.
He taught himself to read while still a few months short of his third birthday, was doing college level math while in grade school, etc, etc. I can absolutely guarantee that some kids are simply "born that way".
Every bit of it is in line with his intelligence test scores, btw. While not PREDICTIVE---achievement still takes work---raw mental horsepower is very real. Everyone who had significant contact with him after pre-school age came away trying to blink after-images from their eyes. Even my dad, a multi-PhD lifelong emeritus professor who was an absolute intellectual badass, had his worldview adjusted.
So, as un-PC as it might be these days to acknowledge innate biology when discussing a person's capacity, I can assure you that attempting to downplay it is just willful self-delusion.
Especially so for me, given that my own kid is a freakbrain. He's an experimental physicist at Princeton, who got his PhD from Harvard, and is presently one of the entrants (so to speak) in the global race to develop a quantum repeater. At the moment he seems to be in the lead, in fact.
Fabricating mechanisms/objects that are small enough to manipulate individual photons in highly specific ways is a fantastically complex business. I'm well read, insatiably curious, have 60+ years of life experience, and had a high level career in a technical field, and no matter how hard I tried, was unable to follow more than 5% or so of a project overview presentation that he recently gave to a group of post docs at the University of Chicago.
Believe me, guys like him are from another planet.
He taught himself to read while still a few months short of his third birthday, was doing college level math while in grade school, etc, etc. I can absolutely guarantee that some kids are simply "born that way".
Every bit of it is in line with his intelligence test scores, btw. While not PREDICTIVE---achievement still takes work---raw mental horsepower is very real. Everyone who had significant contact with him after pre-school age came away trying to blink after-images from their eyes. Even my dad, a multi-PhD lifelong emeritus professor who was an absolute intellectual badass, had his worldview adjusted.
So, as un-PC as it might be these days to acknowledge innate biology when discussing a person's capacity, I can assure you that attempting to downplay it is just willful self-delusion.
I wouldn't attempt that. I believe life is all about attaining your best. A lot of people surprise themselves with their capacity. Your son was obviously nurtured well. Imagine if someone he respected had told him, at a young age, that he was "stupid" and he'd bought into that. I'd bet you and the rest of his family could honestly take a bit of credit for encouraging and allowing him to develop.
I've never been happy with quick answers or study results. I like to see things with my own eyes as it were.
Dunning–Kruger effect...those exact same deficits also prevent them from recognizing when they are making mistakes and other people choosing more wisely.
deathmetal "In other words, "think for yourself" as advice depends on the ability of the thinker."
I agree with your points here.
The only reason I brought up Critical Thinking to begin with was as a thought/lesson worth preserving for posterity, along with the idea of Freedom. People who are not made aware of these two ideas grow up at the mercy of those around them. This leads to exploitation due to traditional ingrained ignorance or calculated and controlled conditions. If a person can Recognize the deficit in their thinking, then they can start to make improvements. This is called Critical Thinking. Without it we fall prey to gut thinking as you called it earlier. I call it emotional thinking, or the joining of group think under a charismatic spokesman.
I do not deny a persons physical/genetic differences. It is a factor, one that we have little control of. I will deny that a high scoring IQ test taker would get the same results if raised in the conditions that many millions of other children are raised, it isn't being PC, it is being honest. Tests require exposure and education to the ideas that they are testing. Another common argument with IQ tests is that they only test a comparatively unimportant aspect of what makes us healthy, successful people. Some researchers have devised the EQ test to supplement this deficit but even with it we are only considering a small part of what makes us competent humans.
deathmetal "In other words, "think for yourself" as advice depends on the ability of the thinker."
I agree with your points here.
The only reason I brought up Critical Thinking to begin with was as a thought/lesson worth preserving for posterity, along with the idea of Freedom. People who are not made aware of these two ideas grow up at the mercy of those around them. This leads to exploitation due to traditional ingrained ignorance or calculated and controlled conditions. If a person can Recognize the deficit in their thinking, then they can start to make improvements. This is called Critical Thinking. Without it we fall prey to gut thinking as you called it earlier. I call it emotional thinking, or the joining of group think under a charismatic spokesman.
I do not deny a persons physical/genetic differences. It is a factor, one that we have little control of. I will deny that a high scoring IQ test taker would get the same results if raised in the conditions that many millions of other children are raised, it isn't being PC, it is being honest. Tests require exposure and education to the ideas that they are testing. Another common argument with IQ tests is that they only test a comparatively unimportant aspect of what makes us healthy, successful people. Some researchers have devised the EQ test to supplement this deficit but even with it we are only considering a small part of what makes us competent humans.
Critical thinking was originally a way of teaching Socratic philosophy -- basically the root of Western thinking -- in a less formal context.
I find it interesting in that you can put me in a room full of "A" students or high test-scorers, and present them an uncontrolled diagnostic problem like a spontaneous bug in complex code, or real-world problem, and the separation immediately occurs between those who can and who cannot.
If we expand to the "B" and "C" students, we find some who simply have bad methodology, usually for emotional reasons. But sometimes those outperform the high scorers.
Other factors are important too, but only in a negative sense. If you starve a high IQ child, you end up (usually) with a lower IQ child. If you beat and abuse an intelligent person, you just end up with more complex neuroses and fetishes. And so on.
All of this led to my leisure theory of life: it is important to make sure that the smartest and most moral people are in charge so that we can cut out the unnecessary and focus on the good, and then spend more time loafing, because it is through leisure that we know our souls.
I find it interesting in that you can put me in a room full of "A" students or high test-scorers, and present them an uncontrolled diagnostic problem like a spontaneous bug in complex code, or real-world problem, and the separation immediately occurs between those who can and who cannot.
If we expand to the "B" and "C" students, we find some who simply have bad methodology, usually for emotional reasons. But sometimes those outperform the high scorers.
Other factors are important too, but only in a negative sense. If you starve a high IQ child, you end up (usually) with a lower IQ child. If you beat and abuse an intelligent person, you just end up with more complex neuroses and fetishes. And so on.
All of this led to my leisure theory of life: it is important to make sure that the smartest and most moral people are in charge so that we can cut out the unnecessary and focus on the good, and then spend more time loafing, because it is through leisure that we know our souls.
Some are born with 4 cylinders under the hood, some with 1/2 a cylinder under the hood, others with 64 cylinders under the hood. Doesn't make anyone intrinsically better, worse, happier, or sadder.
I got born into a brain trust. Education and thinking were prized. Every Sunday morning we watched the "College Bowl" on TV and played against the college teams competing in the weekly academic decathlon. George's son is the equivalent to my brother, an experimental physicist who graduated top of his class at Caltech, was a project leader at Los Alamos, retired, and is now developing a new branch of information theory. He can't fix a broken light.
Regardless of dome power, most all human beings have similar forces driving them. For example, the basis for all human conflict can be boiled down to one sentence.
People are loathe to give up an unearned advantage.
Simple as that. Doesn't take 64 under the hood to figure that out.
I got born into a brain trust. Education and thinking were prized. Every Sunday morning we watched the "College Bowl" on TV and played against the college teams competing in the weekly academic decathlon. George's son is the equivalent to my brother, an experimental physicist who graduated top of his class at Caltech, was a project leader at Los Alamos, retired, and is now developing a new branch of information theory. He can't fix a broken light.
Regardless of dome power, most all human beings have similar forces driving them. For example, the basis for all human conflict can be boiled down to one sentence.
People are loathe to give up an unearned advantage.
Simple as that. Doesn't take 64 under the hood to figure that out.
Can't deny brilliance or genius. I think it is often mis-identified and surfaces in people who are regarded as of low intelligence. Had a friend who was raised as retarded until one teacher saw otherwise and brought her along. Or people with ample intellectual gifts can't realize them because of emotional snags or personality disorders. Humility is required in sizing up other people. We are often wrong.
Being the only ultrasmart person I've ever known, I don't know whether the tales of being lost about everything EXCEPT their specialty is the rule or the exception for such people.
Definitely not the case with El Kid. He's pretty much the opposite of the mental image most people get when they hear "physicist" or "rocket scientist" --- 6'4", 240, athletic, very outdoors-oriented, extremely knowledgeable about non-science stuff, and has been frighteningly good at every task/mission I've ever known him to attempt, from machine design to shooting to hardcore rock-climbing. Against type, he's also never been lacking in the femelles attrayantes department, either. :wink:
(Which is very much a bimbo-free zone, btw. The young lady is this pic graduated #1 at a top 5 law school a few years ago)
Yes, yes, yes. But as many on this forum pointed out, none of that matters if he doesn't know cursive. :D
Why the heck would anyone give up an unearned advantage?
And:
What is wrong with an unearned advantage, when it is merited?
If I go searching for a brain surgeon, I want the best I can find. That may have very little to do with his grades, but cannot be independent of the question of his native intelligence.
And:
What is wrong with an unearned advantage, when it is merited?
If I go searching for a brain surgeon, I want the best I can find. That may have very little to do with his grades, but cannot be independent of the question of his native intelligence.
Ability is innate. Talents, intellect, other genetic traits.
You cannot raise your IQ. You can damage it, but you cannot raise it.
That is ability.
You cannot raise your IQ. You can damage it, but you cannot raise it.
That is ability.
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