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from the not-what-soylentils-want-to-hear dept.
If ignorance is bliss, does a high IQ equal misery? Popular opinion would have it so. We tend to think of geniuses as being plagued by existential angst, frustration, and loneliness. Think of Virginia Woolf, Alan Turing, or Lisa Simpson – lone stars, isolated even as they burn their brightest. As Ernest Hemingway wrote: "Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know."
The question may seem like a trivial matter concerning a select few – but the insights it offers could have ramifications for many. Much of our education system is aimed at improving academic intelligence; although its limits are well known, IQ is still the primary way of measuring cognitive abilities, and we spend millions on brain training and cognitive enhancers that try to improve those scores. But what if the quest for genius is itself a fool's errand?
The first steps to answering these questions were taken almost a century ago, at the height of the American Jazz Age. At the time, the new-fangled IQ test was gaining traction, after proving itself in World War One recruitment centres, and in 1926, psychologist Lewis Terman decided to use it to identify and study a group of gifted children. Combing California's schools for the creme de la creme, he selected 1,500 pupils with an IQ of 140 or more – 80 of whom had IQs above 170. Together, they became known as the "Termites", and the highs and lows of their lives are still being studied to this day.
As you might expect, many of the Termites did achieve wealth and fame – most notably Jess Oppenheimer, the writer of the classic 1950s sitcom I Love Lucy. Indeed, by the time his series aired on CBS, the Termites' average salary was twice that of the average white-collar job. But not all the group met Terman's expectations – there were many who pursued more "humble" professions such as police officers, seafarers, and typists. For this reason, Terman concluded that "intellect and achievement are far from perfectly correlated". Nor did their smarts endow personal happiness. Over the course of their lives, levels of divorce, alcoholism and suicide were about the same as the national average.
As the Termites enter their dotage, the moral of their story – that intelligence does not equate to a better life – has been told again and again. At best, a great intellect makes no differences to your life satisfaction; at worst, it can actually mean you are less fulfilled.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Wednesday April 15 2015, @04:37PM
1. Humans tend to like those dumber than themselves, because they're easy to understand and manipulate if necessary. They tend to fear smart people unless they are absolutely certain the smart person is on their side, because they're unpredictable and thus dangerous. Indeed, that might be one reason alcohol functions as a "social lubricant" - it makes everyone stupider, so everyone feels safer.
2. Smart people understand fully threats and problems that stupid people aren't even aware of or don't know what to make of it. "It's so hot right now" versus "Heavy coal-powered industry is making it hotter every single year, and if we don't do something about that we're going to have a really huge problem on our hands." James Flynn, discoverer of the Flynn Effect, noted that one reason the left-wing activists of the 60's had such a hard time with their parents is that the activists could handle hypothetical reasoning like "How would you feel if you were black?" while white parents couldn't even consider the question.
Both of those frequently leave smart people with full knowledge of a problem that most people don't understand along with a solution to that problem, and a complete lack of power to make that solution a reality.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by TK-421 on Wednesday April 15 2015, @06:01PM
Of course, sometimes, the wizards of smart come up with some rather vulgar solutions [nzherald.co.nz] that venture into the realm of sociopathy. [reference.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by lentilla on Wednesday April 15 2015, @06:47PM
some rather vulgar solutions [nzherald.co.nz]
Your linked article is perfectly germane to this discussion in that it discusses inherited smartness and also shows how less smart people can completely fail to understand what smarter people have said.
Here's the summary lifted directly "An internationally recognised expert on intelligence warns New Zealand children could get dumber in three or four generations unless women with higher education started producing more babies."
As evidence he supplies some data: women without tertiary eduction have 2.57 babies, women with tertiary education 1.85. So; assuming that "less smart" women produce less smart babies; as time goes on the population's overall smartness will decrease.
But wait, here is my favourite part. In hearing of this, we have a politician coming up with a better solution:
"Rather than talking about encouraging smart women to have babies and dumb women not to have babies, what we do need to do is make the commitment to good quality education."
So apparently the plan is: educate less-smart people more, which will increase their IQ, which will make smarter babies.
*facepalm*
We are going to see a lot of discussion in this thread about smart people being able to see things that others simply don't notice. That statement by a politician is an excellent example of this effect. They appear to be truly unable to grasp what someone said and have come up with a solution that doesn't address the issue at hand. How typical. As Thexalon says in the grandparent of this post:
Both of those frequently leave smart people with full knowledge of a problem that most people don't understand along with a solution to that problem, and a complete lack of power to make that solution a reality.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 15 2015, @07:15PM
As evidence he supplies some data: women without tertiary eduction have 2.57 babies, women with tertiary education 1.85. So; assuming that "less smart" women produce less smart babies; as time goes on the population's overall smartness will decrease.
He mentioned higher education in that quote. Does he think all that knowledge will magically be carried over to offspring?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 16 2015, @11:07AM
Education starts in the womb, not in the school.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday April 15 2015, @11:40PM
Establish state sponsored child care and economic compensation for making babies to highly educated women who otherwise just does the math and figures it's not worth their time and money. For the rest make it cool to use rubber at all times. Or free dress credit for combined injectable contraceptive.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday April 15 2015, @11:42PM
Politicians decide on many stupid things. But reality is there to give them feedback ;-)
But it will waste the resources of the commons.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 16 2015, @05:45PM
The feedback loop doesn't work when they're completely delusional and claim reality is a giant liberal conspiracy preventing their perfect ideas from working.
(Score: 2) by Common Joe on Thursday April 16 2015, @06:05AM
Actually, there is truth to this. (Not that I expect a politician to get that right. I'm quite sure this statement is by complete accident and it will never be implemented correctly.)
There's an exponential effect if you can get kids educated at an early age. My Mom taught me to read at an early age which gave me a leg up on those who didn't learn to read and comprehend until several years later. (Thank you, Mom.) People who worked with computers at an early age tend to have an easier time interacting with them later.
Not perfect by a long shot, but parents pass information on to their offspring. The payout for that kind of investment won't be obvious for a generation or two. This is a huge reason why poverty (and single family mom working two or more jobs) can be so devastating to the children for more than a generation.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday April 15 2015, @06:53PM
Manipulating others is a sign of sociopathy and has nothing to do with intelligence. I did meet one guy who said I scared him because I was "too smart", though, and my daughter says I like to go to bars because it's the only place I can go and be as stupid as everyone else; there may be something to that.
Want to know what it's like to be really smart? Go into a bar sober and drink pepsi, you'll see what it's like to be smart and how annoying normal people can be.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org