The IQ Wars
“To the I.Q. fundamentalist, two things are beyond dispute: first, that I.Q. tests measure some hard and identifiable trait that predicts the quality of our thinking; and, second, that this trait is stable—that is, it is determined by our genes and largely impervious to environmental influences.
“This is what James Watson, the co-discoverer of DNA, meant when he told an English newspaper recently that he was “inherently gloomy” about the prospects for Africa. From the perspective of an I.Q. fundamentalist, the fact that Africans score lower than Europeans on I.Q. tests suggests an ineradicable cognitive disability. In the controversy that followed, Watson was defended by the journalist William Saletan, in a three-part series for the online magazine Slate. Drawing heavily on the work of J. Philippe Rushton—a psychologist who specializes in comparing the circumference of what he calls the Negroid brain with the length of the Negroid penis—Saletan took the fundamentalist position to its logical conclusion. . .”
From the New Yorker: Malcolm Gladwell’s review of James Flynn’s What Is Intelligence?
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Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
December 19th, 2007 at 1:48 pm
IQ tests are nothing more than crude approximations of a person’s intelligence. Who is really to say that one person is more intelligent than the other? These tests measure a general set of knowledge which is always culturally biased- even in the spatial and mathematical areas. You may know all the answers at Jeopardy but you still have to bring your car to those ignorant car mechanics when it breaks down. In this case, he is more intelligent than you in dealing with these kinds of problems. Always remember that IQ questions are just created by people. No matter how much they try to make it objective, it will still be inevitably biased. We know so little about how the brain works to make a sweeping generalization based on a number. Read “The Mismeasure of Man” by Stephen Jay Gould.
December 21st, 2007 at 2:06 pm
“You may know all the answers at Jeopardy but you still have to bring your car to those ignorant car mechanics when it breaks down.”
Uuhhh…not exactly a good analogy since a.) good memory is not the only component of intellligence and b.) a highly intelligent person will be able to learn the skill given the opportunity but the average car mechanic can’t write a dissertation.
December 21st, 2007 at 6:10 pm
b.) a highly intelligent person will be able to learn the skill given the opportunity but the average car mechanic can’t write a dissertation.
Yes but a highly intelligent car mechanic can since a highly intelligent person will be able to learn the skill given the opportunity.
Merry Christmas, everyone.
December 21st, 2007 at 8:20 pm
a) I never suggested that memory is the only component of intelligence… but I see your point. However, Jeopardy contestants are often perceived (and probably do score high on IQ tests) as having a high intelligence- thus the analogy.
b) On the second point, it is rather unfair to compare it with the dissertation writing skills of the car mechanic. Given the opportunity- which is good education, who knows what’s possible? I’m not talking about diplomas here either. It’s just the classic nature vs. nurture sort of thing. I prefer to go with the latter since the concept of “intelligence” is highly debatable, in my opinion. If they renamed it “Education Quotient”, I would have no quarrel with it.
December 22nd, 2007 at 5:33 am
[EDIT. Jessica, please post this reply instead of my previous one. Thanks!]
Cummon, writing a dissertation is not a “skill” that just about anyone can be taught to do! And that is why I put the qualification of “average”, not “highly intelligent”. Although it is amusing to imagine the romantic idea that there is a Will Hunting among the millions of car mechanics (or janitors), who holds the potential of synthesizing the Unified Field Theory, what is the likelihood that a person of such intelligence (or even not of such lofty potentials but high just the same) just aspired and settled for such a tedious job? He’d be restless and bored to death! At the very least, you would see him going up the ranks very quickly and pretty soon managing and, perhaps, owning the shop/s himself and taking on bigger challenges. (Before you even think about it, I’m not suggesting that a PhD holder, in keeping with my previous contention, couldn’t be interested in taking up fixing cars as a hobby.)
Of course it would be utterly stupid to subject a formally uneducated person, who will surely score low, to the tests and that is why they are standardized according to age and education level; you would have to have two persons on a level playing field to have a fair comparison, wouldn’t you?
Yes, there are no perfect tests that can accurately measure the complete breadth of human intelligence - and to that end they are highly inadequate but, if properly done, no less predictive of the overall picture IMO inasmuch as properly done scientific surveys & polls are about society - but my main objection was to the a priori premise on which you predicated your analogy: that the stereotypes you presented do not hold implications beyond their face value — which are that the successful Jeopardy contestant does not only possess great memory and, as you said, ability to score highly on IQ tests BUT is also, as his capability to correctly answer the eclectic contest questions suggests, naturally inquisitive enough to read & learn as much as he can without any provocation (Can anybody be truly “nurtured/educated” or forced to acquire information of such gargantuan proportions?) and, as his resume would undoubtedly show, accomplished in life apart from winning the contest in the exact way that the supposedly “highly intelligent” mechanic would certainly have been.
On a related anecdote, as Jessica could attest (she also attended Pisay), my experience at the extremely selective Philippine Science High School –students of which have IQ levels far above that of the national average and here, possibly, the evidence is more scientific than anecdotal as their selection process is clearly scientific — of having schoolmates from decidedly disparate socio-economic levels (Some were so poor, they had to send part of their already measly stipends to their families back home; they would have been doing that self-same car mechanic or an even less challenging job at that point had they not been intelligent.) and cultural backgrounds renders your assertions rather suspect and, appropriately enough, academic.
December 24th, 2007 at 3:25 am
‘Cummon, writing a dissertation is not a “skill” that just about anyone can be taught to do!’
Why the hell not? What is it about “dissertations” that is different from playing the violin, learning to write, coding a software applicaton, directing a movie, playing basketball, or performing diagnostic tests on car engines? These are things that we all learn through experience and training. If you work hard enough, you’ll achieve some sort of expertise on any of these fields.
By the way, I hated “Good Will Hunting.” I thought that it was totally contrived and simplistic… or maybe it was just Matt Damon. Anyway, you missed my point again by implying that I said someone from a car mechanic background could lurk a supergenious character like Will Hunting. That’s highly unlikely…. although I saw an Errol Morris documentary (First Person) about a man who had an IQ of 200+ which is one of the highest ever recorded, work as a bouncer in a club. On his interview, he seemed perfectly contented with his life. The Will Hunting character himself is, I think inspired by a guy named William James Sidis, who is a total failure. He spent the rest of his life collecting streetcar transfer tickets. His IQ is totally off the charts and would probably make Marilyn Vos Savant look like a retard. Curiously, his father believed that geniuses are created, not born. It reminded me of the Polgar sisters, recently featured in the “My Brilliant Brain” National Geographic Special. Their father cultivated in them an early love of chess and the results speak for themselves.
On the other hand, someone as brilliant as Richard Feynman could only achieve an IQ score of 125. Very unimpressive for someone of his caliber. Madonna’s IQ score is at least 140, some accounts say as high as a 160. But I don’t believe she can write a dissertation either, just a wild hunch. Fenyman, could at least play a mean set of bongo drums. If Feynman is not a genius, then who is? Certainly not J.D. Salinger, whom I think scored 95. I must be a cretin for adoring him.
I think there’s more to intelligence than just tests. There is this case of twins with savant syndrome- both of them can almost instantaneously compute whether a number is prime or not. Incredible! I recall another autistic savant who can play a piano piece instantaneously on just one hearing. Even Mozart could not do that… These evidences does seem to point out that we in fact, possess an innate intelligence indepedent of culture and learning. Maybe. Neuroscience may help uncover some of these mysteries in the future.
On the Pisay note. I’m sorry to say, but it reeks of elitism. First, you made Pisay sound like something from the “Glass Bead Game.” In this academy, we only have the best of the best… no wait, I think that was from Top Gun. Psychologically, it could get into your head like, “Hey, I got in here, therefore I must really be smart.” Next thing you know, he’s reading string theory in 11 spacetime dimensions.
Second, while commending your classmates in the lower-end of the socio-economic strata for getting into Pisay- you still condemn where they come from. Your message is clear. If you are an auto mechanic or construction worker, you must be dumb. Otherwise intelligent people go for work that is more challenging like- becoming a manager, lawyer, or a…. politician. Enough said…
December 24th, 2007 at 7:57 pm
December 28th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
Okay, hold on while I stretch my typing fingers…
Everything that we do is a skill… from brushing one’s teeth to the deepest intellectual activity you could think of. Your definition of a dissertation is that “it’s a completely creative activity that requires great imagination & critical thinking beyond mere learning, practice and repetition, which your examples clearly are not.” Let me check my examples:
Playing the violin – not only does require lots of practice…. You seem to have no idea how much research and imagination is required to perform and interpret musical pieces. Any classical music student will eventually know how important this is.
Learning to write – sure… writing is not a creative activity, nor it requires critical thinking… maybe we can just refer to it as “typing.”
Coding a software application – programming software applications is as much a creative process as anything. In addition, code (the logic part) could become so complex that it takes a whole team to write it. Even then, Windows still crashes frequently. Clearly, you don’t know much about computers.
Playing basketball – As we can see it best with Michael Jordan, Julius Erving, or Magic Johnson- basketball is more than just a robotic drill that you perform without creativity and imagination.
Directing a movie – This is the only one you have acknowledged as a legitimate example- but for the wrong reason. Ok, Carlo J. Caparas is not exactly Orson Welles here- but he’s still being creative, in his own way. Films from Luis Bunuel, Vittorio de Sica, or Kurosawa could indeed be called a work of art or even a “dissertation,” but a Caparas film is, in its own way, still a work of art. Take note however, that art means different things to different people. I’m no fan of Lito Camo either (to put it mildly), but the songs he writes is an indirect expression of the society and culture that he lives in. That for me is enough to call it art. Blasphemy, you may say? Not so much if you really think about it.
Is it not possible to write a crappy dissertation that does not exhibit any of the qualities that you’ve mentioned but would still be enough make you graduate? The majority of thesis’ being submitted are just rehashes of old and existing ideas anyway. Very rarely are they truly original. The sad reality is that students write dissertations because it is a requirement… nothing more. However, you make it appear that all dissertations are paradigm-shifting works of profound importance.
“Are being good at chess, Jeopardy and determining prime numbers truly the only enterprise of the intelligent? Is it really all that simple?”
I don’t think it is… which IS the point of all my previous comments… if you really have been following it. But your formula of Intelligence = IQ + EQ + unknown quantity is oversimplifying it a step further. First, emotional intelligence or EQ is by no means a unanimously accepted idea. It almost seems to me that its real motive is to sell all those self-help books. EQ sounds very marketable, but until more scientific research is done on intelligence, EQ tests should have the same validity as a lie-detector test. I’m not saying that EQ is totally bogus- it has some valid points. The problem is that it is trying to measure something which is hard to quantify.
Back to your formula.
For the “various other undetermined factors” part, maybe we can put in “dissertation” instead. How does that sound?
My posts are directed at IQ tests, which are considered widely as the standard measure of intelligence. It is not directed towards your own definition, which you continually expand to suit your arguments. There is more to intelligence than these tests supposedly measures. It does not measure creativity and originality, for example. You can call it EQ, if you like. Whatever it is, your whole life experience will be the most important factor in determining your success. The IQ test was after all, originally created just to separate children with mental deficiencies- not as the de facto standard for intelligence.
One danger in putting a lot of faith into these tests is that people could use it for the purpose of discrimination. In the past, skull sizes were measured to “scientifically” determine intelligence. The Nazi doctor, Josef Mengele conducted extensive research on twins to support the idea of Aryan racial superiority. Twin research is nothing new. Recently, we have Charles Murray in his book “The Bell Curve,” which maintains that the reason for blacks being underachievers is due to their low IQ. James Watson, one of the subjects of this blog, was excommunicated by a lot of his colleagues because he took the same view. There should be no place for these racially-motivated ideas in this day and age. The film GATTACA, which I hope you’ve seen, echoes some of my fears regarding this view.
“There ARE gradations in intelligence and it’s as incontrovertible as it is self-evident. I see dumb people everywhere and there are limits to what education can do! If you don’t see it, it’s either you live in a fantasy world where everybody fares identically to the same challenges or you’re pushing your own personal wishful thinking or you’re just trying to save face to defend your position.”
Okay, so if we both believe that there is more to intelligence that IQ tests, what do I make of your statement above? Maybe that is the difference between you and me. You only see dumb people while I just see people. Sure I call some of them stupid, just like the next guy. But frankly, who am I to judge? Stupidity is usually the term that we use to describe someone who disagrees with our own views and principles. In other words, people who are different from us. It’s no wonder that the whole world appears stupid. The view that I have is that these “self-evident” gradations in intelligence we see all around is “mostly” caused by cultural differences, not because of some hard-wired IQ score. Take note of the word “mostly,” which you might again misquote as “100% nurture.” I’ll get back to that later.
There are gradations in intelligence only in relation to your own. That is why I thought assuming a car mechanic can never learn how to write a dissertation is unfair. Think of it like relativity, wherein each point in space can only be determined in relation to another. There is no up and down, left or right- only these points of reference.
“I’m sorry but this is, for lack of a better term, simply stupid. This is going beyond merely attributing more credit to “nurture” than it deserves. I can take a 90-nature/10-nurture or even a 50-50, but you think it’s 100% nurture?!”
Hello Mcfly, are you there? You quoted my statement, “we in fact, possess an innate intelligence independent of culture and learning.” That very specifically said that there is there is indeed a genetic component in intelligence. Did you even read the sentence or did you just saw it as an opportunity to insert the “sic” in?
I never said it is 100% nurture. That would be ludicrous. I only said I was only leaning more towards the nurture idea. You and I are not in the position to say whether it is 90-10 or 50-50. This is not a class debate wherein everything is painted in black and white.
“I take this to mean you think everybody (anybody from the magbabalut to the President, from the yayas to professors) has absolutely the same potential of becoming an Einstein or a Bertrand Russell with just the same amount & kind of education? Where are all those people then?!”
The magbabalut or the yaya could probably not become the next Einstein since their lives have already been set in another direction. But replace the “magbabalut” with “child,” then it takes on a whole new meaning. It is not a bad idea to instill in the minds of children that they all have the potential to become an Albert Einstein, or a Bertrand Russell. Of course, the reality is that only a few of them will become one. But the world will be a much better place if they all aspired to it. Seeing all these balut vendors, one cannot help but think that under different circumstances, they would have become much, much more than they presently are. They might have even written “dissertations” which brings me to…
“Also, among the many inconsistencies of your argument is regarding Madonna (I thought you said everybody can write a dissertation and yet having an IQ of 140 couldn’t? Ano ba talaga?!)”
First of all, I know the difference between Madonna and Sharon Stone. One of them sings, right? Anyway, Madonna probably can’t write a dissertation for the same reason as a car mechanic can’t. What they do for a living is not preparing them to write dissertations. Madonna’s IQ score is irrelevant in this case. You are attaching too much importance on the IQ part, in spite of all your EQ talk.
Regarding Madonna’s accomplishments, if you think Madonna should be given an honorary doctorate, then the same goes for Michael Jackson, Britney Spears, Elvis, Beyonce, Mariah Carey, and to anyone who has sold over a million albums.
‘I don’t see anything wrong with being “dumb” either, in the greater scheme or things. Your main problem, it seems, is conflating your own prejudices (that you yourself seem to be unaware of) — about seeing car mechanics as being “lowly” as opposed to a “becoming a manager, lawyer, or a…. politician” as being elite’
Here is another example of your reversal tactics. The thread of this discussion was started when you said that a car mechanic can never write a dissertation. Then you assert that you are just making a statement of fact, nothing more. Then you claim that I am the one who was prejudices because I “compared” the car mechanic to a lawyer or a politician, even if that sentence’s point is to show the discrimination. It is your own obvious prejudices that compelled me to respond to your reply in the first place. The last paragraph of your response deals with social Darwinism. Regrettably, it has been used to justify some of the worst atrocities of our time. But that is another topic for discussion.
Regarding Philippine Science, I want to congratulate you for getting accepted. Judging by the nature of your responses, it seems like a fairly recent event.
High-five, Christopher Hitchens and Happy New Year to you, Dr. Feelgood! Hope you feel better!
January 1st, 2008 at 10:07 pm
January 2nd, 2008 at 3:45 am
“I See Dumb People”
Okay, let me THINK while you stretch your fingers in preparation for the prodigious typing skills that I acknowledge you DO have. On second thought, this is gonna be more play than think.
Bleh..all you did was to nitpick on the peripherals and give more of the same circular arguments, without, once again, disproving any of my original contentions. But since that’s the only thing you can do, let me indulge your fetish…
[Everything that we do is a skill… from brushing one’s teeth to the deepest intellectual activity you could think of. Your definition of a dissertation is that “it’s a completely creative activity that requires great imagination & critical thinking beyond mere learning, practice and repetition, which your examples clearly are not.” Let me check my examples:
Playing the violin – not only does require lots of practice…. You seem to have no idea how much research and imagination is required to perform and interpret musical pieces. Any classical music student will eventually know how important this is.]
And where, pray tell, could this “imagination” come from? Did your momma teach you your “imagination”? I wonder where Perlman and Licad “researched” their creative imaginations. This has got take the plaque for the most ridiculous among the many ridiculous things you’ve already said.
[Learning to write – sure… writing is not a creative activity, nor it requires critical thinking… maybe we can just refer to it as “typing.”]
Ah…yes? Di ba nga it’s not dissertation.
[Coding a software application – programming software applications is as much a creative process as anything. In addition, code (the logic part) could become so complex that it takes a whole team to write it. Even then, Windows still crashes frequently. Clearly, you don’t know much about computers.
Playing basketball – As we can see it best with Michael Jordan, Julius Erving, or Magic Johnson- basketball is more than just a robotic drill that you perform without creativity and imagination.]
Ok, I missed those as I was busy on the LARGER POINT I was making while you are here reiterating your lack of logic. Sige…Mac, Jordan’s basketball and Jessica’s beloved Federer’s tennis could be beautiful art/dissertation. But that still begs the same questions. So why aren’t there more Steve Jobs and Bill Gates in the world or Michael-Jordan-like talents given the obsession with and practice many of our countrymen devote to basketball? Are you trying to prove your point, or mine?
[Directing a movie – This is the only one you have acknowledged as a legitimate example- but for the wrong reason. Ok, Carlo J. Caparas is not exactly Orson Welles here- but he’s still being creative, in his own way. Films from Luis Bunuel, Vittorio de Sica, or Kurosawa could indeed be called a work of art or even a “dissertation,” but a Caparas film is, in its own way, still a work of art. Take note however, that art means different things to different people. I’m no fan of Lito Camo either (to put it mildly), but the songs he writes is an indirect expression of the society and culture that he lives in. That for me is enough to call it art. Blasphemy, you may say? Not so much if you really think about it.]
If you’re going by the general, layman’s definition of “art” then by all means call Caparas, et al. “artists” for all I care. I wonder by which worldview would you then consider the works of Kurosawa, et al. art while maintaining the former assertion. What made you make the distinction to group those people together? What makes one better than the other? Do you even know what CONSISTENCY means? Don’t you see that you’re practically admitting the gradations; you just don’t like to explicitly say it to save face or maybe because of the lack of facility to explain it?
If you want to truly impress me, try to address all my points that you conveniently ignored, instead of these insignificant things. I clearly demonstrated the essential difference between “skill” and “dissertation” in tthe last paragraph of my previous post.
[Is it not possible to write a crappy dissertation that does not exhibit any of the qualities that you’ve mentioned but would still be enough make you graduate? The majority of thesis’ being submitted are just rehashes of old and existing ideas anyway. Very rarely are they truly original. The sad reality is that students write dissertations because it is a requirement… nothing more. However, you make it appear that all dissertations are paradigm-shifting works of profound importance.]
And that precisely is why there ARE gradations in intelligence even for those who write dissertations. Is that so hard to get? There really aren’t many people at the extremes of the bell curve so that’s not surprising.
[“Are being good at chess, Jeopardy and determining prime numbers truly the only enterprise of the intelligent? Is it really all that simple?”
I don’t think it is… which IS the point of all my previous comments… if you really have been following it. But your formula of Intelligence = IQ + EQ + unknown quantity is oversimplifying it a step further. First, emotional intelligence or EQ is by no means a unanimously accepted idea. It almost seems to me that its real motive is to sell all those self-help books. EQ sounds very marketable, but until more scientific research is done on intelligence, EQ tests should have the same validity as a lie-detector test. I’m not saying that EQ is totally bogus- it has some valid points. The problem is that it is trying to measure something which is hard to quantify.
My posts are directed at IQ tests, which are considered widely as the standard measure of intelligence. It is not directed towards your own definition, which you continually expand to suit your arguments. There is more to intelligence than these tests supposedly measures. It does not measure creativity and originality, for example. You can call it EQ, if you like.]
For the Nth time, I am saying I AGREE, I AGREE, I AGREE. Yes, the validity of the tests (and the formulas) are debatable. But the possible invalidity of the tests does NOT disprove the existence of the gradations. It’s like saying Osteoporosis did not occur before the advent of Bone densitometry scans; or no hot and cold before the advent of the thermometer. Di mo ba talaga maintindihan yon? Which school did you attend? I wonder how your teachers were able to explain how all of the students, given that they were given the same kind and amount of lessons, did EQUALLY great (or bad, in your case, kidding) in their tests?
[One danger in putting a lot of faith into these tests is that people could use it for the purpose of discrimination. In the past, skull sizes were measured to “scientifically” determine intelligence. The Nazi doctor, Josef Mengele conducted extensive research on twins to support the idea of Aryan racial superiority. Twin research is nothing new. Recently, we have Charles Murray in his book “The Bell Curve,” which maintains that the reason for blacks being underachievers is due to their low IQ. James Watson, one of the subjects of this blog, was excommunicated by a lot of his colleagues because he took the same view. There should be no place for these racially-motivated ideas in this day and age. The film GATTACA, which I hope you’ve seen, echoes some of my fears regarding this view.]
This is, maybe, the only valid portion of your reply but it’s more of the same VALUE JUDGMENTS that are beside the point. More on that later since, as I had suspected, you’re just reiterating Gould’s political propaganda that, however valid, is not the domain of pure science.
[“I’m sorry but this is, for lack of a better term, simply stupid. This is going beyond merely attributing more credit to “nurture” than it deserves. I can take a 90-nature/10-nurture or even a 50-50, but you think it’s 100% nurture?!”
Hello Mcfly, are you there? You quoted my statement, “we in fact, possess an innate intelligence independent of culture and learning.” That very specifically said that there is there is indeed a genetic component in intelligence. Did you even read the sentence or did you just saw it as an opportunity to insert the “sic” in?
I never said it is 100% nurture. That would be ludicrous. I only said I was only leaning more towards the nurture idea. You and I are not in the position to say whether it is 90-10 or 50-50. This is not a class debate wherein everything is painted in black and white.]
Hello, do you read? Let me put here the complete quote again because you conveniently omitted the important words:
“These evidences does (SIC) seem to point out that we in fact, possess an innate intelligence indepedent (more SIC for you) of culture and learning. Maybe. Neuroscience may help uncover some of these mysteries in the future.”
What do the words MAYBE and MAY mean? What does waiting for Neuroscience to prove it mean? You don’t believe there is any form of innate intelligence! Yet. Because wala pa raw proof. It’s obvious you don’t have any background in Pediatrics and Neurology or even basic college Psychology and high school Biology or, hell, even basic common sense and observation. Look at babies and toddlers and tell me they don’t have NATURAL INSTINCTS that do not have to be taught before they do them on their own. I AM in a position to believe there is at least 1% innate intelligence, but that is greatly understating the matter.
So okay, enough of the nitpicking…you’re acknowledging it’s not 100% nurture. Your first plus point.
And what the hell about all the research I cited?! Do you read?
[The magbabalut or the yaya could probably not become the next Einstein since their lives have already been set in another direction. But replace the “magbabalut” with “child,” then it takes on a whole new meaning. It is not a bad idea to instill in the minds of children that they all have the potential to become an Albert Einstein, or a Bertrand Russell. Of course, the reality is that only a few of them will become one.]
So what made you realize this “reality” that, even with exactly the same environmental/educational conditions as Einstein’s, not all of them will be so? Akala ko ba equal tayong lahat? Ano baaaaaa?
[But the world will be a much better place if they all aspired to it. Seeing all these balut vendors, one cannot help but think that under different circumstances, they would have become much, much more than they presently are. They might have even written “dissertations” which brings me to…]
How noble. And I agree. So why does the balut vendor who, according to you, has just as much potential as Einstein, not get bored with his job and use his logical/mathematical acumen to do something else that will provide for him and his family an easier life? Do you see humans as instinctive fatalists? Why do you keep evading the issue? Let me answer na lang, you don’t know what you are talking about.
[Anyway, Madonna probably can’t write a dissertation for the same reason as a car mechanic can’t. What they do for a living is not preparing them to write dissertations. Madonna’s IQ score is irrelevant in this case.]
And why wouldn’t Madonna, given the same opportunity in a university that your hypothetical mechanic is given, not be able to write a dissertation even with her supposed high IQ? I was putting them in the same situation. Do you really know what CONSISTENCY means? You obviously haven’t participated in a controlled scientific study in your life or even read any journal article or even understood the implications of the experiments you did in high school Chemistry to be this ignorant of even basic concepts of research. Here I was talking of anecdotal vs. scientific evidence, twin studies, methodology and sampling and you don’t even understand consistency. Geeeez.
[Regarding Madonna’s accomplishments, if you think Madonna should be given an honorary doctorate, then the same goes for Michael Jackson, Britney Spears, Elvis, Beyonce, Mariah Carey, and to anyone who has sold over a million albums.]
Jus ko po!!! Did you even understand an iota of everything I discussed about why she merits a doctorate? Di ba nga ang dami sa mga Hollywood stars ang merong honorary doctorates? Don’t you know? Eh now you know. BTW, Madonna is about to be inducted into the Rock and Roll of Fame, her own field’s “doctorate”, next year.
All I was saying regarding Sharon Stone is that Madonna’s supposed high IQ has never been elevated above rumourville while Sharon confirmed on TV that she was tested so and was sent to a special high school/college hybrid program on her senior year at HS. The media and word-of-mouth do tend to mix these things up when they’re unconfirmed…is all I was saying. Don’t get all sensitive; you’re not THAT dumb.
[Here is another example of your reversal tactics. The thread of this discussion was started when you said that a car mechanic can never write a dissertation. Then you assert that you are just making a statement of fact, nothing more. Then you claim that I am the one who was prejudices because I “compared” the car mechanic to a lawyer or a politician, even if that sentence’s point is to show the discrimination. It is your own obvious prejudices that compelled me to respond to your reply in the first place.]
Who introduced the words “lowly” and “elite” and even “dumb” into the discussion? It was you who first made the distinction to begin with in your very first post, which made me point out that, by being unaware of the numerous important implications in your stupid analogy, you didn’t know what you were also implying about your own prejudices by doing so. I have never denied that I have prejudices. Who doesn’t have one? But I don’t use them where they can be obtrusive such as in discussions like this. As I don’t use prejudice here, I AM being judgmental based on scientifically verified evidence; all of which you conveniently ignored to make it seem like your a priori assumptions still hold water.
And please stop pretending that you can lecture me on “Social Darwinism” when you don’t even have any idea about the scientific method. If all you can do is convince yourself that you at least know something by naming it, you really, really do not impress me at all.
[Regarding Philippine Science, I want to congratulate you for getting accepted. Judging by the nature of your responses, it seems like a fairly recent event.
High-five, Christopher Hitchens and Happy New Year to you, Dr. Feelgood! Hope you feel better!]
Ah..aheheheh..More pathetic whinery. Does arguing so clumsily (in both form & substance) and the fact that, in the end , all you can really do is make corny, cheap shots like those make you truly happy?
I’m really sorry that I did not write anything that could be considered intelligent this time around as I was so disappointed to have been given this dumb reply. What was there to properly reply to? I only ended up repeating what I already said. In my previous posts, I took pains to respond with something cogent, thinking I was discussing with another intelligent person only to realize that I overestimated and, instead, got impaled with more reiteration of already discredited answers and evasion of the truly important points that I made, which STILL stand uncontested regardless of the drivel spouted. Could you please challenge me?! Please, these are not arguments. God, I’m so irritated I’m almost tempted to help you rebut myself. What a bore; it was all I could do to amuse myself.
P.S. Just out of curiosity, what field are you in? Please don’t tell me you’re in the Natural or even Social Sciences. And Catch22, don’t take this personally. I’m just a naturally sutil/naughty guy. You’re obviously not dumb, just far from being as intelligent as moi. (Wink) Happy New Year, indeed! =)
January 5th, 2008 at 2:00 am
Well, I have to agree with you there- there’s nothing intelligent in your last post. Not much sense to reply point by point since I don’t want to repeat myself any more than you do. It will just disintegrate into something like a shouting match.
If we both agree that IQ tests can be unreliable at times, then what the hell are we arguing about? Is it dissertations, art, or Madonna? Perhaps it is the “gradations” thing- which I may have given you the wrong impression. Let me be clear this time. I DO SEE these gradations of intelligence everywhere. I did not categorically state this before since the answer should be obvious to anyone. But the real question is how did these variations arise? Is it mostly due to the hereditary factors which IQ tests supposedly measures, or environmental ones? Okay, I’ll stop here before it gets redundant.
However, I will give a reaction to the Bernard Davis article which was posted AFTER my last reply as soon as I catch up with some work. Just to satisfy your curiosity though, my work is in IT. How about you?