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The Intelligence Myth – Why I cringe when someone tells me my child is smart

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Re: The Intelligence Myth – Why I cringe when someone tells me my child is smart

#101

Post by kareninoverseas »

I notice that I intentionally try to avoid portraying myself as "smart" these days because it frees me from having to work to prove it externally. I've also started working on hobbies that others don't consider meaningful, but which I notice challenge me as much as anything else I've been called smart for.

The upshot is that a lot of people in the workplace /do/ judge you anyways, and people seem to assume that you (like them) are doing your darnedest to appear as impressive as possible. Then again, I am working in high finance.

Re: The Intelligence Myth – Why I cringe when someone tells me my child is smart

#102

Post by shripadk »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #46
shripadk wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah sorry I meant to say 1% (I was thinking 0.01 in my head). Edited it. Thanks!

A more niche question: how does that biased 1% figure translate into selectivity at the level of the general population? For example, if every eligible student takes the test and 1% of examinees pass, then the threshold for passing the test is being in the top 1% of the eligible population. If 30% of the eligible population at random take the exam, and 1% pass, then the threshold for passing the test is a little more…

Yes you are right in a way. Lets put it into perspective: The total number of students who gave their 12th final board exams was 1.43 crore in 2017 (https://www.india.com/education/board-examinations-2017-over...). That is roughly 14.3 million students. This is an aggregation across all boards: ICSE, CBSE and various State Boards. Let us assume that the same number of students gave their board exams in 2018 as well (I am sure the number is higher but I can't find stats for it).

Now not all of these 14.3 million students appear for IIT JEE. Only 7% of these (1 million) appear for JEE. But since you talk about "eligible student", all the 14.3 million are eligible. But many don't even bother to take it because (as you mentioned) they know they don't stand a chance. Many of them are not interested in Engineering and are interested in Medical. These students take up NEET (which is equally tough). The remaining move on to do Arts, Commerce or any other stream with an aim to either do an MBA (through CAT), become a CA, LLB (for law) or pursue Civil Services (UPSC - as tough or some say even tougher than IIT JEE). The outliers are those that do not follow any of these well trodden paths: these are few and far between. So in reality only 7% of those eligible students appear for IIT JEE and then 1% of those appearing get selected.

The other fact you need to consider is that the Government of India expanded the number of IITs from the earlier 7 (as of 2001) to now 23 (as of 2018) and increased the total number of seats from 4500 to 12000. So an approx 3x jump in the number of seats keeping in mind the total number of aspirants taking the exam. So the pass percentage remains roughly the same year-on-year. I am sure if you now take 30% of the total eligible population (from your example), viz. 4.29 million students appearing for the exam, the percentage that pass will further decrease (from 1% to 0.28%). Because students are ranked and IIT seats that are fixed (around 12000) are filled rank-wise.

Re: The Intelligence Myth – Why I cringe when someone tells me my child is smart

#103

Post by [deleted] »

astazangasta wrote: post #77
Retra wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you've said is not profound. When you go around saying "the sky is blue" people aren't wrong to assume you meant something relevant, rather than just tossing out vague and trivial statements.

I'm not sure what to do with this remark. You said my definition of social construction was untenable because the implications were too broad and you seemed to find that frightening. I responded by saying that social construction IS a theory with broad implications and gave you a reference to read, since you seem to be unfamiliar with these concepts. Your response seems a non sequitur.

[deleted]

Re: The Intelligence Myth – Why I cringe when someone tells me my child is smart

#104

Post by smt88 »

barry-cotter wrote: post #72
smt88 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Birth control and women's rights, and marrying for love[1] are fairly new (within the last 20-100 yrs) and limited to a handful of countries. We just don't have data on how humans behave when such huge reprodutive variables change. Seeing how a single generation responds isn't a long enough time period, because children accumulate the social norms of their parents. 1. https://www.livescience.com/37777-history-of-marr…

We do have data on this. In the modern educated industrialised environment intelligence reduces fertility. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/twin-research-and-hu... > How Intelligence Affects Fertility 30 Years On: Retherford and Sewell Revisited — With Polygenic Scores and Numbers of Grandchildren > Using newly available polygenic scores for educational attainment and cognitive ability, this paper investigates…

This whole thread is about mate selection, not child production

Re: The Intelligence Myth – Why I cringe when someone tells me my child is smart

#105

Post by ozzmotik »

i somewhat had this problem when I was younger. i would hear it from basically everyone and it always sorta confused me because i certainly have never really felt intelligent per se, more just passionate about trying to understand why things work the way they do. if anything i more identify as ignorant in most regards, because by assuming that i absolutely know something, i think im doing myself a disservice and potentially blinding myself from seeing other aspects of it that I haven't yet considered. i did the whole advanced placement thing for a little while but I never really stayed in those classes, mostly because i just didn't have any interest in doing the work in them. i never really struggled with any of them, i can't think of any reason why anyone should given that there's a textbook with everything in it and an internets for everything else, but I suppose i understand that some people learn differently than others, and even more people tend to disparage their own ability to learn (unknowingly often to their detriment as it causes them to reject valid conclusions that they might come to because of a lack of confidence in said ability).

Re: The Intelligence Myth – Why I cringe when someone tells me my child is smart

#106

Post by tomp »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #93
tomp wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're generalizing from 1 example. I don't remember being called smart, but I definitely was smart (comparatively, always in the top of achievement except sports through my schooling including Oxford university). I wasn't afraid to ask questions and was happy to risk looking like a fool in order to ask a question about a complex topic (which, given it was complex for me , it was also likely complex for other people)…

If you weren't called smart, your anecdote fails to actually contradict theirs. Theirs is also supported by the research, which says generally that it's harmful to children to praise them for being smart. It's better to praise them for effort and results. https://bingschool.stanford.edu/news/carol-dweck-praising-in...

> Theirs is also supported by the research

Is it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_Dweck#Criticism

> Critics point to the fact that Dweck's research does not appear to be replicable—a key requirement to prove its validity.

> If your effect is so fragile that it can only be reproduced [under strictly controlled conditions], then why do you think it can be reproduced by schoolteachers?

Re: The Intelligence Myth – Why I cringe when someone tells me my child is smart

#107

Post by tomp »

hailhash wrote: post #17

Intelligence/smart is the default condition of all children at the time of birth. It’s the non-intelligent parents who drive the intelligence out of them by their own behavior and ignorance

There’s only so much parents can do (post-birth)...

This is one of my favourite articles ever:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4739500/

> linearly increasing heritability of intelligence from infancy (20%) through adulthood (60%).

Re: The Intelligence Myth – Why I cringe when someone tells me my child is smart

#108

Post by DoreenMichele »

tomp wrote: post #106
DoreenMichele wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you weren't called smart, your anecdote fails to actually contradict theirs. Theirs is also supported by the research, which says generally that it's harmful to children to praise them for being smart. It's better to praise them for effort and results. https://bingschool.stanford.edu/news/carol-dweck-praising-in...

> Theirs is also supported by the research Is it? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_Dweck#Criticism > Critics point to the fact that Dweck's research does not appear to be replicable—a key requirement to prove its validity. > If your effect is so fragile that it can only be reproduced [under strictly controlled conditions], then why do you think it can be reproduced by schoolteachers?

Your style of argument fundamentally doesn't work. This comment is no better than your earlier one.

1. Dismissing someone else's personal anecdote because you have a different personal anecdote is basically broken on the face of it.

2. Saying "Being called smart doesn't hurt anyone, I know because of my personal anecdote wherein I was not called smart" is just not any kind of solid logic whatsoever.

3. Dismissing their anecdote as a single instance with your single instance when there are actually other anecdotes here in this very discussion that agree with theirs and it's the essential point of the article under discussion is not a reasonable claim in the slightest.

4. All research has its critics. Rebutting my comment with "your research has critics" while ignoring the myriad other flaws in your initial position amounts to cherry picking.

If you want to debate this further, let me suggest you address the other points I have made and also go find research that actually agrees with your world view as stronger arguments than your current one. Otherwise, it's most likely really not worth engaging.

Re: The Intelligence Myth – Why I cringe when someone tells me my child is smart

#109

Post by candiodari »

This author seems to be believing in the myth that there is such a thing as intrinsic smartness (being smart without effort). She perpetuates the misconception, without realizing the point she herself is making. Nobody is smart. It just doesn't exist. You just missed all the effort that went into becoming smart.

You have the same myth in fighting sports. "Some people are just faster" sooner or later becomes someone's argument why they're not as good as others. They have the same nerves you do, and the ion cascade in their nerves is the exact same speed in theirs as it is in yours. It's just effort (in training, beforehand, not in the actual fight). Nothing more (aside from one thing: smaller people are in fact faster. Not because they think faster but because they have less torque to fight. A point that will be made in any karate tournament)

Doesn't it seem a bit convenient ? The "truly smart" examples she gives:

* a schizophrenic

  One sign of schizophrenia is doing the same thing unceasingly for absurd periods of times - sometimes decades. How much effort did this guy put in ? Not for good reasons, perhaps, but ...
* a "female technology manager" ...

  .. dedicated her whole life to work. Then, one day, her husband asked her for a divorce because she barely came home. After 18 years, her children realized that she wasn’t the one who raised them ...
* just truly "gifted" people

  They often have no balance in their own mental well being. Once they have identified an intellectual need, they try to fulfill that need single-mindedly at all cost. These are the people who are truly “gifted”.
* Herself

  My intellect was in fact much more average than anyone realized. It was my “work ethic” that made me seem like an “intellectually gifted” person.
I feel like it is very important to give kids (yes, through forcing them) the ability to focus and expend effort to achieve a goal. This is of course not to be pushed at the expense of everything else, but it very important.
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