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“I’m not that smart”

seths.blog

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Re: “I’m not that smart”

#51

Post by blackbrokkoli »

teachersaredumb wrote: post #8
thundergolfer wrote: post #4

Treating “intelligence” as a synonym for “training” is a more effective and positive approach than thinking certain people have some from-birth advantage over others. So many people walk around thinking they’re stupid when they’re not. They just were not trained well in things society considers the core competencies of smart people (math, literature, physics, etc) You can read perspectives on intelligence from people…

> but the major aspect of being smart is about wealth and educational inequality No, this is flat out wrong. There has been so much research on this, and intelligence is both highly predictive of life outcomes (controlling for wealth) and extremely heritable. If you take the biological kids of smart people and raise them in poor households, they still turn out very smart, much smarter than the biological kids of dumb…

Could you provide a citation? I am asking because this conflicts (not overstating) with every single study I read on this general topic. To name a few:

* The only relevant factor for predicting chess skill at any level seems to be hours spent on deliberate practice, see for example: https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.1106

* There is the decently famous Terman research (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Terman), who was convinced that he could predict future Nobel price winners, executives and wealthy people by IQ-testing them as a child. His approach basically did not work at all - to just name on aspect; he actually excluded two future Nobel-price winners from his group of future winners because their IQ was too low

* Students who are picked to fulfill minority quotas are just as likely to have successful law careers after graduating than their picked-by-intelligence colleagues (https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-4469.2000.tb00967.x)

I could name many more, but it is not my intention to win an argument by wall-of-text here, I am genuinely interested in sources pointing into a different direction. Thank you for your time!

Re: “I’m not that smart”

#52

Post by blackbrokkoli »

istinetz wrote: post #48
stevefan1999 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

nah, he is just trying to sell eugenics, a psuedoscientific practice, in disguise

>psuedoscientific yeah, animal breeding and crop selection work, but it couldn't possibly work on humans

It is about the origin of the term/field.

You are right that the field of genetics is of course applicable to humans, with a lot more muddiness when it comes to the ethics - not the point.

The term "eugenics" describes a certain philosophy/set of ethics which directly grew out of racist narratives at worst and some very loose interpretations of the scientific methods two hundred years ago at best. Furthermore it can argued that the "field" of eugenics never really attempted to shed this, even as of today. Thus, calling eugenics pseudo-scientific is considered fair game. At least that's my understanding.

Re: “I’m not that smart”

#53

Post by auganov »

rowanG077 wrote: post #39
lordnacho wrote: post #28

My take on this is that intelligence is like strength or other physical qualities. If you are in a hyper competitive area, you need good genes. But not everything is competitive. Yes, there are absolutely limits on your physical development that you are born with. You won't run 100m under 10s if you're a woman, and you're much more likely if you have recent roots in certain countries. You won't get to play profession…

I thought that intelligence is pretty static by almost(or all?) measurement tools we have. Is that not the case? Not to say that our measurement tools might have serious issues but then you enter the unanswered question of making very concrete what intelligence is.

The most trivial brain training exercises routinely show major increases in IQ scores. Those who favor a static hypothesis (and they seem to be the majority) like to simply assume these are fake gains. But without ground truth, there's no way to know. You'd also be surprised how few studies there are that have people directly practice IQ test taking.

The static hypothesis seems to rely on common sense rather than hard evidence. It's rare for somebody who seems dull to become a genius all of a sudden. And when it does happen it's easy to assume they seemed dull rather than actually were.

There is no disconnect between intelligence being simple yet hard to improve. Losing weight is very simple. But it's hard. Obesity is only slightly less heritable than IQ (both highly heritable), yet we know for a fact it's 100% controllable by the individual (unless one is strongly against the notion of free will).

Re: “I’m not that smart”

#54

Post by istinetz »

mach1ne wrote: post #27
teachersaredumb wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but the major aspect of being smart is about wealth and educational inequality No, this is flat out wrong. There has been so much research on this, and intelligence is both highly predictive of life outcomes (controlling for wealth) and extremely heritable. If you take the biological kids of smart people and raise them in poor households, they still turn out very smart, much smarter than the biological kids of dumb…

Can you provide a link to the claim? Interesting if true.

there is a lot of studies in that topic. Even wikipedia agrees:

>Early twin studies of adult individuals have found a heritability of IQ between 57% and 73%,[6] with some recent studies showing heritability for IQ as high as 80%.[7] IQ goes from being weakly correlated with genetics for children, to being strongly correlated with genetics for late teens and adults. The heritability of IQ increases with the child's age and reaches a plateau at 18–20 years old, continuing at that level well into adulthood. However, poor prenatal environment, malnutrition and disease are known to have lifelong deleterious effects.[8][9][10]

Re: “I’m not that smart”

#55

Post by rowanG077 »

auganov wrote: post #53
rowanG077 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought that intelligence is pretty static by almost(or all?) measurement tools we have. Is that not the case? Not to say that our measurement tools might have serious issues but then you enter the unanswered question of making very concrete what intelligence is.

The most trivial brain training exercises routinely show major increases in IQ scores. Those who favor a static hypothesis (and they seem to be the majority) like to simply assume these are fake gains. But without ground truth, there's no way to know. You'd also be surprised how few studies there are that have people directly practice IQ test taking. The static hypothesis seems to rely on common sense rather than har…

Can you source some peer-reviewed research that shows this? Everywhere I look the baseline seems to be IQ scores can't be trained save a tiny few points. And 3 IQ points don't really make a genius out of someone smart.

Free will has nothing to do with not being able to do something because physical constraints are placed on a person. e.g. A person in a wheel chair does not have more or less free will then someone who can walk. Even though the latter clearly has more freedom in a certain sense.

Re: “I’m not that smart”

#56

Post by lordnacho »

rowanG077 wrote: post #55
auganov wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most trivial brain training exercises routinely show major increases in IQ scores. Those who favor a static hypothesis (and they seem to be the majority) like to simply assume these are fake gains. But without ground truth, there's no way to know. You'd also be surprised how few studies there are that have people directly practice IQ test taking. The static hypothesis seems to rely on common sense rather than har…

Can you source some peer-reviewed research that shows this? Everywhere I look the baseline seems to be IQ scores can't be trained save a tiny few points. And 3 IQ points don't really make a genius out of someone smart. Free will has nothing to do with not being able to do something because physical constraints are placed on a person. e.g. A person in a wheel chair does not have more or less free will then someone who…

Are IQ tests what we really mean when we mean someone is intelligent? What about that kid who can't do calculus one year, then the next year they can? Haven't they gotten smarter?

Re: “I’m not that smart”

#57

Post by bradlys »

zizee wrote: post #26
thundergolfer wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd venture that the "guys ... operating at a completely different level" likely gained their intuitive understanding of math and physics from earlier educational training (formal or informal). But this is really besides the point, because Seth says: > The number of tasks in our culture that require someone who was born with off-the-charts talent is small indeed. I think we can carve off advanced theoretical physics…

> I'd venture that the "guys ... operating at a completely different level" likely gained their intuitive understanding of math and physics from earlier educational training (formal or informal). Surely it's a combination of nurture AND nature. It's likely some people are just born smarter than others, much like people are born with the "right stuff" to go further in athletic pursuits. Just like athletic training wou…

I don’t think most people disagree there’s a difference in how brains start - I think people disagree about the size of the difference and the importance. The brain seems far more plastic than the rest of the body in terms of potential.

Someone being born with the genetic code to be 6’8” is gonna have an entirely different experience playing basketball than someone who is born with 5’8” code assuming equal effort put into training. We see this huge gap in professional sports because those advantages make it incredibly obvious - same as many other physical feats. People train incredibly hard but can’t win something due to an arbitrary constraint.

The issue with mental stuff is that it’s basically down to niche tricks to make one stand out now. Yes - some people are born with an incredible(y useless) ability to calculate multiplying numbers quickly. Meanwhile - there’s folks who learn how to do something similar using a finger counting method… and then the rest of us just type it into a computer for basically no effort. Same with other things like memory and what not. (Which is easily defeated by typing something into Google)

For most people and most positions in the world - these abnormal features are mostly irrelevant. The rest of things is down to ability to grind, experience, and not being too narrow in thought.

Re: “I’m not that smart”

#58

Post by rowanG077 »

lordnacho wrote: post #56
rowanG077 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you source some peer-reviewed research that shows this? Everywhere I look the baseline seems to be IQ scores can't be trained save a tiny few points. And 3 IQ points don't really make a genius out of someone smart. Free will has nothing to do with not being able to do something because physical constraints are placed on a person. e.g. A person in a wheel chair does not have more or less free will then someone who…

Are IQ tests what we really mean when we mean someone is intelligent? What about that kid who can't do calculus one year, then the next year they can? Haven't they gotten smarter?

Yes unnormalized IQ scores of kids increase when they get older. That's why only the normalized to their age IQ score is reported. I won't get seduced into a discussion about whether IQ is really intelligence. It's the best proxy we have that's all that matters for this discussion.

Re: “I’m not that smart”

#59

Post by hackeraccount »

In my experience smart is a nice quality to have in people you work with but it's on par with pleasant to be around. Motivated on the other hand is crucial - I'd rather work with a dumb toxic person who wants to get the job done then an nice genius who doesn't care about the work.

I'm really on board with Woody Allen's line that 90% of life is showing up.

Re: “I’m not that smart”

#60

Post by lordnacho »

rowanG077 wrote: post #58
lordnacho wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are IQ tests what we really mean when we mean someone is intelligent? What about that kid who can't do calculus one year, then the next year they can? Haven't they gotten smarter?

Yes unnormalized IQ scores of kids increase when they get older. That's why only the normalized to their age IQ score is reported. I won't get seduced into a discussion about whether IQ is really intelligence. It's the best proxy we have that's all that matters for this discussion.

But it can make perfect sense that your rank doesn't change within your cohort. The better you are above your cohort, the more encouraged you are, and the more help you'll get from the system. So in that sense it can be the case that it's very hard to change your intelligence.
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