Very well said. Is it even possible to quantify intelligence? I mean, you can obviously measures brain size, which they did, and that was lacking, then they measured amount of gray matter, which matters a lot more, conclusively, but there is also the fact that even losing pieces of the brain cannot stop a person from being fully functioning due to neuroplasticity, and then you have concepts like IQ tests which are verifiable steeped in white exceptionalism aka racist as hell.
Comment on Does anyone else feel like 90% of the population is stupid?
Meowoem@sh.itjust.works 6 months agoI think it’s interesting how mathematically hard it is to judge anyone else’s intelligence, like you talk about the issue of people rolling down the hill and I get that and agree but really it’s vastly more complex topography - if the conversation is about python programming I can look very intelligent, if it’s about java programming then I’ll look a bit of a fool, and these are as similar as you can get were the topic famous geologists then I’d probably seem like a total idiot
Now you’ll be tempted to say but you can still tell by how you carry yourself and it’s s bit true but that’s not really true either, I’ve travelled enough to know that common sense in one area is dumb somewhere else - ask too many questions in one place they’ll think you’re simple and don’t ask enough somewhere else they’ll think it too.
Part of it is that we don’t really know what level someone is on, if you see a guy in the garden staring at the pretty leaves for hours he just might be empty headed, or he could be Alan Turing working out one of the most fundamentally brilliant mathematics discoveres of the era.
We’re on our own hill of intelligence so it can be hard to tell if someone on a different one is smart or dumb
jandar_fett@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Elderos@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
Removing bias from IQ tests is one hell of a challenge, but if we put that aside and only analyse IQ results from people from similar backgrounds, it definitely measure something, and it usually gives accurate results. Meaning your score would not change much by taking the test again.
IQ score correlate with someone general ability in pattern recognition, languages, logic, bias check and etc. It also correlate with grades, salary, lifespan. So, is that intelligence? I don’t know, but it is something.
Elderos@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
I also think so. You can usually tell who is close to your own level, but anything too far off andthe signals for what is considered smart or dumb tend to blend together.
The one trait which usually don’t lie is the person ability to learn. Fast learners and autodidacts are almost always smart, and people who are slow to learn are almost always left of the curve. Other signals you mentioned are deeply rooted in culture.