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Self-Perception

2456

Posts

  • FencingsaxFencingsax It is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understanding GNU Terry PratchettRegistered User regular
    edited March 2007
    MVMosin wrote: »
    MuddBudd wrote: »
    MuddBudd wrote: »
    In my experience, every human on earth is retarded.

    Spent most of your life at home so far, eh?

    Thank you for proving my point.

    Not really. See, even if you think my remark was retarded, that's nowhere near sufficient evidence to prove a positive, universal claim. Your "point" is entirely unsupported and frankly rather a retarded claim to make. Mangling quotes from ancient philosophy and expecting people to think you're clever for it is similarly retarded.

    VICTOLY!

    VC, you should just pre-lime your declaratives.

    Not so fast. He was right about you. I, too, believe that the majority of the world's population are bastards and dumbasses, but there are exceptions, and there are different degrees of bastardity and dumbassitude.

    Fencingsax on
  • PorkChopSandwichesPorkChopSandwiches Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Dr. O wrote: »
    I personally prefer the people who just don't care. At least they're honest.

    Except they're never any help when it's time to decide where to go out to eat.

    PorkChopSandwiches on
  • HakkekageHakkekage Space Whore Academy summa cum laudeRegistered User regular
    edited March 2007
    I am currently in High School and in the honors track. I just took my SATs in January and was pretty ok with the score (2050), considering I didn't study or anything. But that's not good enough, apparently. A bunch of the people I know go to hardcore SAT classes every day to learn tricks to up their scores; My mom is currently hunting for a tutor to smack some SAT motivation into me. I'm just sitting here, going, "Why?"

    It just grates me on all directions when overzealous parents mold their kid into some med school drone from day one. I live in an area comprised of Asian-Americans and Indians, and they all push their kids to overachieve so they can get into AP Bio in Senior year toting a 4.2 GPA and waving their 2400 SAT banner, then hop into medical school. This wouldn't be a problem normally, as smart doctors are usually an asset, but smart doctors who obviously have no personality except for their enormous egos and shallow credentials? I can't stand the people that do everything only for a grade or good-looking things to put on their college apps. Maybe I'm just spiteful or jealous, I don't know; I do know I may not be as smart as these people, but at least I'm not the nail on the wall that my parents can hammer in to hang all the medals and honors of my puppet-like accomplishments.

    I know this comes off as arrogant in and of itself, but I am well aware of my own mediocrity. I am just a grade whore as the rest of them, but I have to fight with my parents every night I come home to make them let me get a job, or go on a trip, or tell them that under no circumstances am I going to be a lawyer or a doctor. I know I'm not good enough, and this wearying school career has left me so jaded with competition I am barely a viable candidate for any well-paying job. I lack real-life experience, which is really important, and unless I have to do something, I tend to avoid it.

    Also: It annoys me that these ultra-smart people act like retards on the internet, too. People who get these great grades and are apparently brilliant turn into 5th graders when on AIM.

    Hakkekage on
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  • The CatThe Cat Registered User, ClubPA regular
    edited March 2007
    just because one gets good grades doesn't mean one can't have fun.

    i seem to do okay, but i pretty much feel like a giant retard 90% of the time. I do not understand people who brag about test scores.

    The Cat on
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  • IncenjucarIncenjucar VChatter Seattle, WARegistered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Test scores and grades are just quick methods for people who have to comb through a hell of a lot of people to get an overall idea of your abilities. My GPA and SAT scores and whatnot are nice and all, but they only test for so many abilities and aspects. No school grade is going to show whether I'm a conniving asshole intent on embezzling from the company after selling its secrets to a competitor.

    As for self-perception, I keep my ego in check by reminding myself that I've used very little of my potential, while others with fewer natural and economic gifts are going to retire billionaires, while I'll be lucky if I can make upper-middle class.

    Incenjucar on
  • PorkChopSandwichesPorkChopSandwiches Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    The Cat wrote: »
    just because one gets good grades doesn't mean one can't have fun.

    i seem to do okay, but i pretty much feel like a giant retard 90% of the time. I do not understand people who brag about test scores.

    Well, you can blame a lot of people who put too much emphasis on the tests for that. We've programmed into our kids that test scores are super important. They're the new "penis size"

    PorkChopSandwiches on
  • IncenjucarIncenjucar VChatter Seattle, WARegistered User regular
    edited March 2007
    The Cat wrote: »
    just because one gets good grades doesn't mean one can't have fun.

    i seem to do okay, but i pretty much feel like a giant retard 90% of the time. I do not understand people who brag about test scores.

    Well, you can blame a lot of people who put too much emphasis on the tests for that. We've programmed into our kids that test scores are super important. They're the new "penis size"

    Well, they DO sort of have a huge factor in regards to your ability to obtain enough money to keep from wanting to kill yourself.

    Incenjucar on
  • PorkChopSandwichesPorkChopSandwiches Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Incenjucar wrote: »
    The Cat wrote: »
    just because one gets good grades doesn't mean one can't have fun.

    i seem to do okay, but i pretty much feel like a giant retard 90% of the time. I do not understand people who brag about test scores.

    Well, you can blame a lot of people who put too much emphasis on the tests for that. We've programmed into our kids that test scores are super important. They're the new "penis size"

    Well, they DO sort of have a huge factor in regards to your ability to obtain enough money to keep from wanting to kill yourself.

    That would make a good motto for the SAT - "Score well, but if you don't, the world always needs ditch diggers!" They could even put a little picture of a guy with a shovel throwing dirt around.

    PorkChopSandwiches on
  • ShintoShinto __BANNED USERS regular
    edited March 2007
    I make a point never to share scores and really not even grades with people. I think a large part of the real motivation behind that is that my high school was a lot like Charles Darwin Middleschool in that once it got out that you were smart, you were marked. I mean I'm not even all that smart and most of my favorite people here seem to have way better scores than me anyway, and these kids all still marked me. It totally changed the way people treated you. I don't know if it does that elsewhere, I don't want to know. I don't want people deciding things about me as a person because I've started throwing numbers at them. I want them to listen to what I say or read what I write and base their opinions of me on that.
    Which is why I didn't mind the teachers doing similar things, because they did listen to what I said and read what I wrote.

    Some kid made fun of me when I was twelve. He said "I bet you get A's".

    We weren't from the same school. His school must have been fucked up.

    Shinto on
  • PorkChopSandwichesPorkChopSandwiches Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Shinto wrote: »
    I make a point never to share scores and really not even grades with people. I think a large part of the real motivation behind that is that my high school was a lot like Charles Darwin Middleschool in that once it got out that you were smart, you were marked. I mean I'm not even all that smart and most of my favorite people here seem to have way better scores than me anyway, and these kids all still marked me. It totally changed the way people treated you. I don't know if it does that elsewhere, I don't want to know. I don't want people deciding things about me as a person because I've started throwing numbers at them. I want them to listen to what I say or read what I write and base their opinions of me on that.
    Which is why I didn't mind the teachers doing similar things, because they did listen to what I said and read what I wrote.

    Some kid made fun of me when I was twelve. He said "I bet you get A's".

    We weren't from the same school. His school must have been fucked up.

    Unfortunately, your school was the deviation from the standard.

    PorkChopSandwiches on
  • Dr. ODr. O Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    I think some people are being too dismissive of test scores. It's not as though there's absolutely no correlation between SAT/ACT/GPA scores and intelligence; in fact there's probably a pretty strong correlation. It's just that they don't necessarily line up in individual cases.

    Dr. O on
  • VeegeezeeVeegeezee Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    I was just reading about a class in which the professor administers his exams in the form of hour-long, one-on-one interviews. I'm not sure if that would alleviate or worsen any existing defects in how I see my own intelligence.

    Veegeezee on
  • FencingsaxFencingsax It is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understanding GNU Terry PratchettRegistered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Veegeezee wrote: »
    I was just reading about a class in which the professor administers his exams in the form of hour-long, one-on-one interviews. I'm not sure if that would alleviate or worsen any existing defects in how I see my own intelligence.

    I would love that.

    Fencingsax on
  • TalkaTalka Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Everybody has a self-serving bias. Obviously, the people who perform badly on SAT tests are going to claim it isn't a useful measure of intelligence. That's Psychology 101 stuff. If a score doesn't reaffirm our positive self-perception, then we fix the discrepancy by reinterpreting the contradiction. Look at any study on cognitive dissonance.

    Now, I'm not saying SAT scores actually are a perfect measure of intelligence. But if everyone thinks they're "above average," and everyone constructs their self-image by rationalizing external cues about our capabilities, there's going to be a lot of contradictions out there. And since it's been shown that we change our opinions on everything and anything so long as it benefits our self-perception, you kinda' have to be skeptical about every Dick, Tom, and Harry out there claiming the SATs are bogus tests.

    Talka on
  • LeitnerLeitner Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Talka wrote: »
    Everybody has a self-serving bias. Obviously, the people who perform badly on SAT tests are going to claim it isn't a useful measure of intelligence. That's Psychology 101 stuff. If a score doesn't reaffirm our positive self-perception, then we fix the discrepancy by reinterpreting the contradiction. Look at any study on cognitive dissonance.

    Now, I'm not saying SAT scores actually are a perfect measure of intelligence. But if everyone thinks they're "above average," and everyone constructs their self-image by rationalizing external cues about our capabilities, there's going to be a lot of contradictions out there. And since it's been shown that we change our opinions on everything and anything so long as it benefits our self-perception, you kinda' have to be skeptical about every Dick, Tom, and Harry out there claiming the SATs are bogus tests.

    Because remembering simple stock answers is a great measurement of ones intelligence?

    Leitner on
  • TalkaTalka Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    SC wrote: »
    Talka wrote: »
    Everybody has a self-serving bias. Obviously, the people who perform badly on SAT tests are going to claim it isn't a useful measure of intelligence. That's Psychology 101 stuff. If a score doesn't reaffirm our positive self-perception, then we fix the discrepancy by reinterpreting the contradiction. Look at any study on cognitive dissonance.

    Now, I'm not saying SAT scores actually are a perfect measure of intelligence. But if everyone thinks they're "above average," and everyone constructs their self-image by rationalizing external cues about our capabilities, there's going to be a lot of contradictions out there. And since it's been shown that we change our opinions on everything and anything so long as it benefits our self-perception, you kinda' have to be skeptical about every Dick, Tom, and Harry out there claiming the SATs are bogus tests.

    Because remembering simple stock answers is a great measurement of ones intelligence?

    Is that what I said? Try again.

    Talka on
  • GlyphGlyph Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Fencingsax wrote: »
    Veegeezee wrote: »
    I was just reading about a class in which the professor administers his exams in the form of hour-long, one-on-one interviews. I'm not sure if that would alleviate or worsen any existing defects in how I see my own intelligence.

    I would love that.

    I've had that in the form of book reports. Which seems ill-conceived since chances are he hasn't read the biography of our choosing. But who knows, I actually had an instructor warn us not to plagiarize because he, and I quote, "read all of the encyclopedias".

    Glyph on
  • FencingsaxFencingsax It is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understanding GNU Terry PratchettRegistered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Shinto wrote: »
    I make a point never to share scores and really not even grades with people. I think a large part of the real motivation behind that is that my high school was a lot like Charles Darwin Middleschool in that once it got out that you were smart, you were marked. I mean I'm not even all that smart and most of my favorite people here seem to have way better scores than me anyway, and these kids all still marked me. It totally changed the way people treated you. I don't know if it does that elsewhere, I don't want to know. I don't want people deciding things about me as a person because I've started throwing numbers at them. I want them to listen to what I say or read what I write and base their opinions of me on that.
    Which is why I didn't mind the teachers doing similar things, because they did listen to what I said and read what I wrote.

    Some kid made fun of me when I was twelve. He said "I bet you get A's".

    We weren't from the same school. His school must have been fucked up.

    Unfortunately, your school was the deviation from the standard.

    I loved going to Nerd School. It's certainly humbling.

    Fencingsax on
  • japanjapan Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Agem wrote: »
    All the same, I think some people here are misrepresenting what the SATS are supposed to do. They're not a measure of intelligence. The only test I'm aware of (though I'm sure there are others) that claim to measure intelligence are, of course, IQ tests. IQ tests have their own slew of problems, but they're different from the SATS.

    I don't think there's really a meaningful way of even defining intelligence, never mind measuring it. I've been IQ tested five times in my life (I went to a private school that was big on that kind of thing) and got wildly different scores each time. My thinking is that the form the test takes heavily influences the result, and there's really no way to eliminate that.

    Really, if people are going to get into dick-waving contests about their intelligence, they need to decide what they mean buy intelligence, how they're going to measure it, and understand that no method of measurement is going to give the complete picture. I really doubt that's going to happen in a confrontational setting on a message board.

    japan on
  • electricitylikesmeelectricitylikesme Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    I think people need to be more properly informed of what those test scores actually mean. I mean fuck, here in Australia your HSC gives a UAI. UAI stands for Universities Admission Index. It is literally, a percent that grades everyone in the state from best to worse to let uni's give out places in order.

    Except no one understands that. People with, facing it, comparatively crappy UAI's like 80 end up on Current Affairs and in newspapers talking about how their marks weren't actually that good, and then we get the token interviews from employers saying "he had an ok UAI but actually they're dangerously under-educated"

    electricitylikesme on
  • ViolentChemistryViolentChemistry __BANNED USERS regular
    edited March 2007
    Dr. O wrote: »
    I think some people are being too dismissive of test scores. It's not as though there's absolutely no correlation between SAT/ACT/GPA scores and intelligence; in fact there's probably a pretty strong correlation. It's just that they don't necessarily line up in individual cases.

    You know how some people say you can get a rough-estimate of someone's IQ by dropping the last digit of one of the old out-of-1600 SAT scores? On the one hand I don't buy it, on the other hand IQ is a meaningless measure anyway, and on my third hand if you drop the zero from the end of my SAT score you get my IQ. What does all of this mean? Nothing, so far as I can see.
    Talka wrote: »
    Everybody has a self-serving bias. Obviously, the people who perform badly on SAT tests are going to claim it isn't a useful measure of intelligence. That's Psychology 101 stuff. If a score doesn't reaffirm our positive self-perception, then we fix the discrepancy by reinterpreting the contradiction. Look at any study on cognitive dissonance.

    Now, I'm not saying SAT scores actually are a perfect measure of intelligence. But if everyone thinks they're "above average," and everyone constructs their self-image by rationalizing external cues about our capabilities, there's going to be a lot of contradictions out there. And since it's been shown that we change our opinions on everything and anything so long as it benefits our self-perception, you kinda' have to be skeptical about every Dick, Tom, and Harry out there claiming the SATs are bogus tests.

    Seems a bunch of people need to start being more mindful of the universal claims they make. I performed well enough on the SATs to get marked as a smart-kid by my classmates, and I just finished saying they don't mean much. Normally that wouldn't be enough to disprove a claim, but what you have here is a universal claim, which only takes one counter-example to disprove.

    ViolentChemistry on
  • ShintoShinto __BANNED USERS regular
    edited March 2007
    Dr. O wrote: »
    I think some people are being too dismissive of test scores. It's not as though there's absolutely no correlation between SAT/ACT/GPA scores and intelligence; in fact there's probably a pretty strong correlation. It's just that they don't necessarily line up in individual cases.

    You know how some people say you can get a rough-estimate of someone's IQ by dropping the last digit of one of the old out-of-1600 SAT scores? On the one hand I don't buy it, on the other hand IQ is a meaningless measure anyway, and on my third hand if you drop the zero from the end of my SAT score you get my IQ. What does all of this mean? Nothing, so far as I can see.
    Talka wrote: »
    Everybody has a self-serving bias. Obviously, the people who perform badly on SAT tests are going to claim it isn't a useful measure of intelligence. That's Psychology 101 stuff. If a score doesn't reaffirm our positive self-perception, then we fix the discrepancy by reinterpreting the contradiction. Look at any study on cognitive dissonance.

    Now, I'm not saying SAT scores actually are a perfect measure of intelligence. But if everyone thinks they're "above average," and everyone constructs their self-image by rationalizing external cues about our capabilities, there's going to be a lot of contradictions out there. And since it's been shown that we change our opinions on everything and anything so long as it benefits our self-perception, you kinda' have to be skeptical about every Dick, Tom, and Harry out there claiming the SATs are bogus tests.

    Seems a bunch of people need to start being more mindful of the universal claims they make. I performed well enough on the SATs to get marked as a smart-kid by my classmates, and I just finished saying they don't mean much. Normally that wouldn't be enough to disprove a claim, but what you have here is a universal claim, which only takes one counter-example to disprove.

    Actually that comes out pretty close for me. Weird.

    Shinto on
  • GoumindongGoumindong Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Gnasty wrote: »
    celery77 wrote: »
    We're just lucky there's no test for measuring post quality, because my score would be off the charts.

    Seriously though -- I assume everyone else knows something I don't, and I respect that in everyone I meet. You can feel as clever as you want, but when you don't know how to light the pilot on your heater, change the spark plugs in your car, or name some arcane art history, etc., you're just as dumb as everyone else.

    Umm, no? Just because someone is more skilled at something than I am, or has technical knowledge that I lack, does not make me "as dumb as everyone else." Knowing how to do some specific thing is not a measure of intelligence.

    I would say, instead, that knowing how to do any specific thing is the perfect measure of intelligence.

    Goumindong on
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  • PorkChopSandwichesPorkChopSandwiches Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Veegeezee wrote: »
    I was just reading about a class in which the professor administers his exams in the form of hour-long, one-on-one interviews. I'm not sure if that would alleviate or worsen any existing defects in how I see my own intelligence.

    Reminds me of my Master's Orals. Two hours locked in a room with three professors. I was sweaty.

    PorkChopSandwiches on
  • ZoolanderZoolander Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Thanatos wrote: »
    Zoolander wrote: »
    I judge whether a person is smart or not by seeing how quickly they can grasp new concepts. Just pure knowledge, obtained by studying a lot or reading a bunch of books is pretty meaningless to me - anybody can do that. But someone who is able to quickly understand a difficult new concept, no matter which field of study it's in - that's impressive. I've been lucky to meet a bunch of people who blew my socks off at how fast they can understand something new.

    Their brains simply works faster than mine (or the vast majority of people's) in all respects.
    This is something that's going to be different for everyone for everything. I can grasp a new arithmetic concept in minutes, and if it's something grammar-related, I'll probably be explaining the intricacies of it to the person who taught it to me in no time, but if it's "here's how to drive a stick shift," I'll be at it for months before it starts to sink in, and if it's something in calculus, I may never get it.

    But I've met two people in my life who are good at almost everything. Amazing at sports (like they can play any sport they want really well, no problem), math, biology, theoretical physics, crossword puzzles, card games, you name it. They're also socially very adept, which is the rarest thing. I find these people noteworthy expressly because they seem to be able to do everything, unlike everybody else, whose talents are in particular fields.

    The only thing that these people aren't very good at seems to be writing long essays and shit, but I don't put much stock in that as a measure of intelligence.

    And the internet is a terrible place for judging intelligence, even worse than SAT scores, probably (I don't know, I've never taken one).

    Zoolander on
  • ShintoShinto __BANNED USERS regular
    edited March 2007
    Veegeezee wrote: »
    I was just reading about a class in which the professor administers his exams in the form of hour-long, one-on-one interviews. I'm not sure if that would alleviate or worsen any existing defects in how I see my own intelligence.

    Reminds me of my Master's Orals. Two hours locked in a room with three professors. I was sweaty.

    I can't wait.

    Largely because I'm verbally combative with professors anyway. That would just be an excuse.

    Shinto on
  • ViolentChemistryViolentChemistry __BANNED USERS regular
    edited March 2007
    Zoolander wrote: »
    And the internet is a terrible place for judging intelligence, even worse than SAT scores, probably (I don't know, I've never taken one).

    Why? It's all people's thoughts, and not much else. Granted it's possible for people to have some great thoughts and be completely unable to express them, but then those thoughts aren't of much use anyway. So if judging intelligence based on people's thoughts and ability to handle conceptual shit competently is a shitty way to do it, what would be a better way? Bear in mind that this is not SE.

    ViolentChemistry on
  • ZoolanderZoolander Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Zoolander wrote: »
    And the internet is a terrible place for judging intelligence, even worse than SAT scores, probably (I don't know, I've never taken one).

    Why? It's all people's thoughts, and not much else. Granted it's possible for people to have some great thoughts and be completely unable to express them, but then those thoughts aren't of much use anyway. So if judging intelligence based on people's thoughts and ability to handle conceptual shit competently is a shitty way to do it, what would be a better way? Bear in mind that this is not SE.
    Just people's thoughts and also google, wikipedia, etc. etc. I can sound like a genius by spending 10 minutes reading something on wikipedia and straight-out regurgitating it here on the forums, but that shit wouldn't fly in real life, when someone asks you a question about it and you go 'hold on, just give me 10 minutes and an internet-enabled computer and I'll find you the answer'.

    Zoolander on
  • ViolentChemistryViolentChemistry __BANNED USERS regular
    edited March 2007
    Zoolander wrote: »
    Zoolander wrote: »
    And the internet is a terrible place for judging intelligence, even worse than SAT scores, probably (I don't know, I've never taken one).

    Why? It's all people's thoughts, and not much else. Granted it's possible for people to have some great thoughts and be completely unable to express them, but then those thoughts aren't of much use anyway. So if judging intelligence based on people's thoughts and ability to handle conceptual shit competently is a shitty way to do it, what would be a better way? Bear in mind that this is not SE.
    Just people's thoughts and also google, wikipedia, etc. etc. I can sound like a genius by spending 10 minutes reading something on wikipedia and straight-out regurgitating it here on the forums, but that shit wouldn't fly in real life, when someone asks you a question about it and you go 'hold on, just give me 10 minutes and an internet-enabled computer and I'll find you the answer'.

    I never said anything about knowledge. Being able to spit out facts and numbers and studies doesn't make people look smart, we have computers (which, incidentally, are not intelligent) for that. Please answer my actual question.

    ViolentChemistry on
  • electricitylikesmeelectricitylikesme Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Zoolander wrote: »
    Zoolander wrote: »
    And the internet is a terrible place for judging intelligence, even worse than SAT scores, probably (I don't know, I've never taken one).

    Why? It's all people's thoughts, and not much else. Granted it's possible for people to have some great thoughts and be completely unable to express them, but then those thoughts aren't of much use anyway. So if judging intelligence based on people's thoughts and ability to handle conceptual shit competently is a shitty way to do it, what would be a better way? Bear in mind that this is not SE.
    Just people's thoughts and also google, wikipedia, etc. etc. I can sound like a genius by spending 10 minutes reading something on wikipedia and straight-out regurgitating it here on the forums, but that shit wouldn't fly in real life, when someone asks you a question about it and you go 'hold on, just give me 10 minutes and an internet-enabled computer and I'll find you the answer'.
    No in real life I can get away with a hand waving explanation and a generalized expression of what I'm about. Here I need to cite my sources.

    electricitylikesme on
  • ZoolanderZoolander Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Zoolander wrote: »
    Zoolander wrote: »
    And the internet is a terrible place for judging intelligence, even worse than SAT scores, probably (I don't know, I've never taken one).

    Why? It's all people's thoughts, and not much else. Granted it's possible for people to have some great thoughts and be completely unable to express them, but then those thoughts aren't of much use anyway. So if judging intelligence based on people's thoughts and ability to handle conceptual shit competently is a shitty way to do it, what would be a better way? Bear in mind that this is not SE.
    Just people's thoughts and also google, wikipedia, etc. etc. I can sound like a genius by spending 10 minutes reading something on wikipedia and straight-out regurgitating it here on the forums, but that shit wouldn't fly in real life, when someone asks you a question about it and you go 'hold on, just give me 10 minutes and an internet-enabled computer and I'll find you the answer'.

    I never said anything about knowledge. Being able to spit out facts and numbers and studies doesn't make people look smart, we have computers (which, incidentally, are not intelligent) for that. Please answer my actual question.
    How do I know those thoughts are actually theirs? Anybody can find a smart-sounding opinion on the internet and pass it off as their own.

    My preferred way of judging intelligence (as I've mentioned before) is to see how quickly they can understand new concepts, whether it's in math, physics, language, whatever. School/university is probably the best place to do this, because it's very clear when a student is book-smart and just learns stuff by rote and when the student actually understands the stuff well, and most importantly: quickly.

    It's a lot easier to sense that someone genuinely understands something when you ask them in real life as opposed to the internet.

    Zoolander on
  • ViolentChemistryViolentChemistry __BANNED USERS regular
    edited March 2007
    Zoolander wrote: »
    Zoolander wrote: »
    Zoolander wrote: »
    And the internet is a terrible place for judging intelligence, even worse than SAT scores, probably (I don't know, I've never taken one).

    Why? It's all people's thoughts, and not much else. Granted it's possible for people to have some great thoughts and be completely unable to express them, but then those thoughts aren't of much use anyway. So if judging intelligence based on people's thoughts and ability to handle conceptual shit competently is a shitty way to do it, what would be a better way? Bear in mind that this is not SE.
    Just people's thoughts and also google, wikipedia, etc. etc. I can sound like a genius by spending 10 minutes reading something on wikipedia and straight-out regurgitating it here on the forums, but that shit wouldn't fly in real life, when someone asks you a question about it and you go 'hold on, just give me 10 minutes and an internet-enabled computer and I'll find you the answer'.

    I never said anything about knowledge. Being able to spit out facts and numbers and studies doesn't make people look smart, we have computers (which, incidentally, are not intelligent) for that. Please answer my actual question.
    How do I know those thoughts are actually theirs? Anybody can find a smart-sounding opinion on the internet and pass it off as their own.

    My preferred way of judging intelligence (as I've mentioned before) is to see how quickly they can understand new concepts, whether it's in math, physics, language, whatever. School/university is probably the best place to do this, because it's very clear when a student is book-smart and just learns stuff by rote and when the student actually understands the stuff well, and most importantly: quickly.

    An opinion isn't an argument. You could simply look up an argument and present it as your own, but you're going to get caught really quickly, and any argument you just look up online can easily be countered by just looking up one of the common counter-arguments for that particular argument. Perhaps the internet would be a poor place to judge people's intelligence if you're personally unable to spot this nonsense, but it's usually pretty easy to spot and then people won't be able to defend it against other arguments very effectively if they can't actually wrap their head around the concepts involved in their borrowed claims. And if they can actually wrap their head around the concepts sufficiently to defend their stated argument or claim, then it doesn't matter that they looked the original claim up. Which directly contrasts a classroom setting where you're usually actually not even permitted to challenge claims and arguments because it will disrupt the flow of discourse. I don't see how it would be any easier to tell that someone only has knowledge and not intelligence in a classroom than on the internet unless you just really don't know how to tell when someone knows what they're talking about and when they're just faking it.

    ViolentChemistry on
  • ZoolanderZoolander Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Which directly contrasts a classroom setting where you're usually actually not even permitted to challenge claims and arguments because it will disrupt the flow of discourse. I don't see how it would be any easier to tell that someone only has knowledge and not intelligence in a classroom than on the internet unless you just really don't know how to tell when someone knows what they're talking about and when they're just faking it.
    It's just so much easier in real life, because you can sense their body language and their hesitation and everything else you can't on the internet.

    And I don't know how your classes were, but in my classes (well, I was always in the smart-people-stream my entire life), students were always allowed to challenge the way things are done. Time was not usually an issue.

    Actually, as a particular example, in one math Linear Algebra class way back when, the teacher presented one way of proving a certain statement about matrices, and this one very smart person in the class asked the teacher 'couldn't you just do it this way?' and he and the teacher spent the entire rest of the class talking about it. The teacher didn't realize you could do it this way, and it turned out, after the teacher went home and thought about it some more, that it was a perfectly valid way of proving the statement. It was actually a really intuitive method. And everyone thinks math is supposed to be one of those 'you can't challenge this' subjects, but that's what sets a smart person apart. This same student argued with our physics teacher all the time - and they were not stupid arguments ithat dumb people love to have. They were really logical arguments and our physics teacher would try to respond as well as he could, because the textbook can't cover everything. So that's one way of knowing when a person is very quick on their feet - when they correct the teacher right then and there and are actually right about the correction.

    And you can tell very clearly who's smart even outside of the classroom setting in schools. I don't think anybody's school experience consists entirely of a teacher talking at students and then the students quietly shuffling their way out of the classroom and never speak to each other about anything discussed in class.

    You can always tell, when doing difficult homework assignments together or something, which guy is the smart one that understands the stuff quickly and finds out something that is not necessarily covered in the book by pure deductive skills. This is unlike the book worm who always has to go straight to the book, look up the relevant material and comb for the answer in the text.

    Zoolander on
  • ViolentChemistryViolentChemistry __BANNED USERS regular
    edited March 2007
    Zoolander wrote: »
    Which directly contrasts a classroom setting where you're usually actually not even permitted to challenge claims and arguments because it will disrupt the flow of discourse. I don't see how it would be any easier to tell that someone only has knowledge and not intelligence in a classroom than on the internet unless you just really don't know how to tell when someone knows what they're talking about and when they're just faking it.
    It's just so much easier in real life, because you can sense their body language and their hesitation and everything else you can't on the internet.

    And I don't know how your classes were, but in my classes (well, I was always in the smart-people-stream my entire life), students were always allowed to challenge the way things are done. Time was not usually an issue.

    Actually, as a particular example, in one math Linear Algebra class way back when, the teacher presented one way of proving a certain statement about matrices, and this one very smart person in the class asked the teacher 'couldn't you just do it this way?' and he and the teacher spent the entire rest of the class talking about it. The teacher didn't realize you could do it this way, and it turned out, after the teacher went home and thought about it some more, that it was a perfectly valid way of proving the statement. It was actually a really intuitive method. And everyone thinks math is supposed to be one of those 'you can't challenge this' subjects, but that's what sets a smart person apart. This same student argued with our physics teacher all the time - and they were not stupid arguments ithat dumb people love to have. They were really logical arguments and our physics teacher would try to respond as well as he could, because the textbook can't cover everything. So that's one way of knowing when a person is very quick on their feet - when they correct the teacher right then and there and are actually right about the correction.

    And you can tell very clearly who's smart even outside of the classroom setting in schools. I don't think anybody's school experience consists entirely of a teacher talking at students and then the students quietly shuffling their way out of the classroom and never speak to each other about anything discussed in class.

    You can always tell, when doing difficult homework assignments together or something, which guy is the smart one that understands the stuff quickly and finds out something that is not necessarily covered in the book by pure deductive skills. This is unlike the book worm who always has to go straight to the book, look up the relevant material and comb for the answer in the text.

    Apart from body-language which is more telling of confidence than anything else in the first place, how are any of these not possible on the internet? Being able to look up answers and spit them out doesn't even look the same as discussion of the concepts involved. And seriously, body-language is a pretty shitty way to gauge intelligence especially when compared against the wording people use. And there's a difference between asking the teacher if an alternate method of solving something works and challenging the arguments and claims of other students, a very large, very obvious difference.

    ViolentChemistry on
  • ZoolanderZoolander Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    And there's a difference between asking the teacher if an alternate method of solving something works and challenging the arguments and claims of other students, a very large, very obvious difference.
    Yes... that's why I bought up the homework assignments example... Or even in class, students are allowed to talk about each other's opinions too, I don't know which nazi school you went to though.

    Zoolander on
  • ViolentChemistryViolentChemistry __BANNED USERS regular
    edited March 2007
    Zoolander wrote: »
    And there's a difference between asking the teacher if an alternate method of solving something works and challenging the arguments and claims of other students, a very large, very obvious difference.
    Yes... that's why I bought up the homework assignments example...

    Which I ignored because at my uni it's called plagiarism and ergo not a particularly intelligent activity to participate in. But it doesn't really matter anyway because there's nothing about a group-assignment that differentiates it from internet discourse except body-language. Having to look things up doesn't make a person look stupid, incidentally. Refusing to look things up if you're uncertain, however, does. Part of being smart is knowing where to find the answers that you don't already have.

    ViolentChemistry on
  • ZoolanderZoolander Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Zoolander wrote: »
    And there's a difference between asking the teacher if an alternate method of solving something works and challenging the arguments and claims of other students, a very large, very obvious difference.
    Yes... that's why I bought up the homework assignments example...

    Which I ignored because at my uni it's called plagiarism and ergo not a particularly intelligent activity to participate in.
    Wow. Ok then. You really did go to some nazi school. Working together on a tough physics assignment or something is one of the best ways to learn. Seriously, wow.

    I guess it's different for like philosophy students or something, because this shit is encouraged in engineering/science schools.

    Zoolander on
  • corcorigancorcorigan Registered User regular
    edited March 2007
    Zoolander wrote: »
    Zoolander wrote: »
    And there's a difference between asking the teacher if an alternate method of solving something works and challenging the arguments and claims of other students, a very large, very obvious difference.
    Yes... that's why I bought up the homework assignments example...

    Which I ignored because at my uni it's called plagiarism and ergo not a particularly intelligent activity to participate in.
    Wow. Ok then. You really did go to some nazi school. Working together on a tough physics assignment or something is one of the best ways to learn. Seriously, wow.

    I guess it's different for like philosophy students or something, because this shit is encouraged in engineering/science schools.

    Everything is about team work these days...

    Besides, maths is all about plagiarism. Wouldn't get very far if everyone had to start from base principles for everything.

    corcorigan on
    Ad Astra Per Aspera
  • The HeroThe Hero __BANNED USERS regular
    edited March 2007
    corcorigan wrote: »
    Besides, maths is all about plagiarism. Wouldn't get very far if everyone had to start from base principles for everything.


    Spoken by someone who has only ever done math for academic purposes.

    The Hero on
  • ViolentChemistryViolentChemistry __BANNED USERS regular
    edited March 2007
    So you guys planning to the part that assumes group-homework is permitted and discusses why it's still not really supporting the original claim or just keep talking about how much you don't like my school and ignore the meat?

    ViolentChemistry on
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