441–450 of 452 posts
Every smart person should invest time to learn the dexterities to manage their talent.
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Welbutrin, while having some sort of stimulant effect, and often prescribed for ADHD, is not at all the same as real stimulant medications. It often helps people with ADHD because they have been prescribed this almost-stimulant to anxiety or depression (often caused directly or indirectly by ADHD symptoms and life), and it makes them better, because it's finally treating an actual cause rather than a downstream effec…
I have tried a wide variety of stimulant ADHD medication over the years, but I developed bipolar disorder in my late teens and it just doesn't work the same ever since. I haven't made it more than a couple months on any stimulant med without discontinuing it since then. Let's just say that "elevated mood" is no longer a selling point. Strattera really did work well for me but my doc won't let me take both Strattera a…
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They are the same length. Look at the points of the arrows and crooks of the branches.
Nope, still different. If you save the image as png, the tip of the leftmost arrow is at 68 pixels and the one of the rightmost one is at 393, while the crooks are 73 and 388.
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> what exactly did you mean by that? Great question. My primary point was that the IQ scale and absolute intelligence aren’t the same things, and people often assume they are (this article’s premise, for example), or even worse many people assume that absolute intelligence goes up exponentially along with the rarity of the IQ ranking. Height was simply an example of how there’s an obvious discrepancy between standard…
> Hehe I don’t need to argue every wrong thing you say No you don't. But if it's a central point of my argument, and ESPECIALLY when you throw it in my face later on that I based my argument around it - it feels like I wasted a lot of time and effort for nothing, and makes me wonder how much else of what I'm saying is a similar waste of time because you refrained from telling me I'm wrong about something else similar…
Hahaha, buddy, this is very funny. Lack of effort is what caused your problem in the first place. I’m super surprised you’re digging in your heels on this. If it was me, I’d drop it, since it’s not a good look, but suit yourself. You got something wrong. So what? Own it. Fix it. It isn’t my responsibility to correct you, it’s yours. You did indeed waste a tiny little bit of time by arguing and jumping to conclusions before reading carefully. ;) And that’s okay, which is why I ignored it. I’ve wasted time making mistakes too. There’s nothing wrong with making mistakes. How you deal with mistakes is revealing though, and blaming others for your mistakes isn’t typically very productive here, even if some politicians seem to get away with it. :P I do honestly appreciate that your previous comment tried to de-escalate a bit. Asking what I meant was a positive step, and asking that earlier would have saved you some time. Always assuming good faith and making sure you read carefully and understood everything is a good thing to learn to do on HN, that’s what the guidelines are trying to hint at. I have learned this lesson myself the hard way, multiple times, FWIW.
> Intelligence is not, because it’s not a physical attribute
Well okay this is our core problem. We have been talking about different things. And, I need to concede on this point that you are right. If I google “is intelligence a physical trait” the results I get say: no. In my defense, I thought I was careful to qualify that what I was talking about earlier as the biological component of intelligence, but I’m okay admitting I’ve made some mistakes here.
It is worth noting that “Intelligence is one of the most heritable behavioural traits” and that “studies have consistently shown that genetic influence on individual differences in intelligence is substantial”. https://www.nature.com/articles/mp2014105
> A person with IQ 180 is likely two orders of magnitude more intelligent in absolute terms than someone with IQ 100.
There is zero scientific basis for that claim. This is exactly what I was talking about from the top. This popular interpretation of extremely high IQ scores substantially overstates what can legitimately be inferred from the numerical scores. That’s why I call it a misconception. IQ only directly measures how unusual someone’s intelligence is, not how good it is. IQ is at best only moderately good at predicting cognitive performance on some tasks, and whether it predicts anything is highly dependent on the type of task. And after reading about it more, I’m going to correct myself and agree that IQ does not predict cognitive brain capacity, and we don’t yet have anything that does. But scientists are looking for that.
Anyway, this belief you have that 180 IQ vs 100 IQ is 100x more intelligent - whatever more intelligent actually means - is extremely extreme!! Why do you believe this, and what evidence is there of your claim? You’re absolutely right that I disagree with you there. But I will read and consider any supporting links or data you can provide, and I am open to changing my mind if the data is compelling. There’s a reason that IQ is considered outdated now, that scientists do not accept that intelligence is 1-dimensional, and that cognitive scientists now talk about multiple intelligences, and use g instead. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_factor_(psychometrics)
> As far as I know, neither brain size nor the number of neurons nor synapses is correlated with IQ.
Human brain size does correlate with IQ somewhat. Now you know.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_size#Intelligence
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7440690/
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/does-brain-size-m...
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> I got labeled "smart but lazy" at a pretty young age (high test scores, didn't do any homework) Same experience here. I could find just about anything else I wanted to do except homework. Spent all night coding many times. Went to school and aced all the tests, skipped all the homework, did not get good grades as a result. My dad actually arranged a visit with a psychiatrist who did an official IQ test (wooo! I'm a…
>> My dad actually arranged a visit with a psychiatrist who did an official IQ test (wooo! I'm a genius! yay!) One must love the irony that those tests are mainly use as a way to pat yourself on the back (you and your dad) more than any possible actionable item out of it. Funny how most people that take an IQ test come out as "geniuses"
Similar in concept to the German Abitur, which originally tracked students into Gymnasium or vocational tracks. Today it comes at the end of a secondary education (high-school) programme, and is comparable to British A-levels.
https://www.verywellmind.com/history-of-intelligence-testing...>
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abitur>
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> Hehe I don’t need to argue every wrong thing you say No you don't. But if it's a central point of my argument, and ESPECIALLY when you throw it in my face later on that I based my argument around it - it feels like I wasted a lot of time and effort for nothing, and makes me wonder how much else of what I'm saying is a similar waste of time because you refrained from telling me I'm wrong about something else similar…
> it feels like I wasted a lot of time […] Makes me hesitant to put too much effort into this conversation Hahaha, buddy, this is very funny. Lack of effort is what caused your problem in the first place. I’m super surprised you’re digging in your heels on this. If it was me, I’d drop it, since it’s not a good look, but suit yourself. You got something wrong. So what? Own it. Fix it. It isn’t my responsibility to cor…
I agree that intelligence is highly genetic. So is schizophrenia, though, and I don't think anyone would describe schizophrenia as a physical trait. So merely being genetic is not a proof of being a physical attribute.
Just like intelligence and IQ are two separate things, so is intelligence and the underlying biological structures enabling intelligence. Saying the former when you mean the latter is not just unclear, it's flat out incorrect.
There is as much proof of the 100 times intelligence gap as there's for any other number. Which, yes, is zero. Nobody has come up yet with any method to quantify intelligence directly, and until that happens, it'll be impossible to make any objective statement about raw amount of anybody's intelligence. I was just saying what I personally believe to be most likely.
I was wrong about lack of correlation. Thank you for the links. That said, I did dig further, and from what I gathered, brain size differences account for at most 25% of variation in IQ. The other 75% must be either non-physical differences, or physical differences that don't affect brain size. My bet is on the former, because there's neither any evidence nor a theoreticsl model for the latter. Granted, I haven't looked for a theoretical model too deeply; you're more than welcome to prove me wrong yet again.
The biggest obstacle for the ... whatever the thing you're saying is called, I'm 100% sure I'd get it wrong if I tried to name it, so I won't... are child geniuses. Children have smaller bodies, shorter legs, and less muscle mass than adults. There are extremely few 7 year old boys who are taller, faster or stronger than a median 25 year old man - around one in a billion for height, probably zero for the other two. Similar story with head circumference, though to a lesser degree. The 95% range for 7 year olds barely overlaps with the range for adults. Every single case I could find of a child that young reaching the mean HC of an adult man (57cm) was a sad story of a rare medical condition that definitely didn't make them smarter. I use it to conclude it's extremely rare for child heads - and by proxy, child brains - to reach the size of adults. If intelligence was physical, that should also prevent virtually all children from being more intelligence than a median adult. And yet, there's plenty of children whose intelligence surpasses most adults. It's almost commonplace. How do you reconcile that with your argument?
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> it feels like I wasted a lot of time […] Makes me hesitant to put too much effort into this conversation Hahaha, buddy, this is very funny. Lack of effort is what caused your problem in the first place. I’m super surprised you’re digging in your heels on this. If it was me, I’d drop it, since it’s not a good look, but suit yourself. You got something wrong. So what? Own it. Fix it. It isn’t my responsibility to cor…
Admittedly I skimmed most of your comment. I'm not masochistic enough to enjoy reading what an idiot I am or whatever else you wrote there, and I come to this site for enjoyment. Let me know if I missed something important, like not understanding what you're saying at all yet again. I agree that intelligence is highly genetic. So is schizophrenia, though, and I don't think anyone would describe schizophrenia as a phy…
Human head size reaches 80% by age two. IQ tests for 7 years olds are completely different tests and even different scales than IQ tests for adults. (See WPPSI vs WISC vs WAIS) The IQ scoring formula originally divided ‘mental age’ by chronological age to adjust (this is the Q in IQ), because it’s well known that a 10 year old knows more things and has a better memory than a 7 year old.
Child geniuses are a much bigger problem for your argument than mine. If IQ measured the innate biological component of intelligence, then it’d be no surprise at all that you can find young outliers. But if intelligence is trained, then child geniuses would be meaningless. If intelligence is entirely trained, that means it’s entirely acquired during life, and so then everyone can become a “genius” with effort, and IQ would only be measuring motivation and not intelligence.
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Have you ever gotten an IQ test?
Yes, my mom has never told me the score, but it led to me being put in gifted classes. I took the SAT at 12 and did well enough to make JHU CTY's SET program. So in terms of raw brainpower it's there, but I've never really been able to apply it consistently for whatever reason and have ended up very average. Still haven't really come to terms with that in my late 20s. I've got a perfectly good life but I have this va…
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When the test is designed, they use a wide variety of people. But the only people I ever hear taking an IQ tests are people that already know they are smart. Why? Because it probably feels good. Because why else? Is there any actionable item out of that test?
I'd imagine the only people taking it are on either end of the curve - smart people who want a gold sticker, and not-smart people that need a sufficiently low IQ score to qualify for a government program.
Or you are so stupid someone else thinks its a good idea to have you tested to confirm you are challenged
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>> My dad actually arranged a visit with a psychiatrist who did an official IQ test (wooo! I'm a genius! yay!) One must love the irony that those tests are mainly use as a way to pat yourself on the back (you and your dad) more than any possible actionable item out of it. Funny how most people that take an IQ test come out as "geniuses"
The initial use was to ration advanced education (secondary or higher), so as not to lavish it on "morons" (at the time a technical term). Similar in concept to the German Abitur , which originally tracked students into Gymnasium or vocational tracks. Today it comes at the end of a secondary education (high-school) programme, and is comparable to British A-levels. https://www.verywellmind.com/history-of-intelligence-…
I have met a couple people that were boasting to me they were in the top 0.01% intelligence wise (as proven by the IQ test! Geniuses!). None of them were particularly successful or looked particularly outliers on intelligence based on what they achieved.