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posted by CoolHand on Wednesday April 15 2015, @04:06PM   Printer-friendly
from the not-what-soylentils-want-to-hear dept.

From BBC Future:

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.

 
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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by mcgrew on Wednesday April 15 2015, @06:25PM

    by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Wednesday April 15 2015, @06:25PM (#171110) Homepage Journal

    Or that the marketable have any interest to anyone with brains. Justin Beiber is news? REALLY?

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    Starting Score:    1  point
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    Total Score:   3  
  • (Score: 1, Flamebait) by Tork on Wednesday April 15 2015, @06:32PM

    by Tork (3914) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday April 15 2015, @06:32PM (#171115)

    Or that the marketable have any interest to anyone with brains. Justin Beiber is news? REALLY?

    Before casting stones about who has sophisticated tastes you may want to think about what sorts of porn you and your 'intelligent' friends have stashed on your computers.

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    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 15 2015, @06:47PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 15 2015, @06:47PM (#171125)

      elderly british ladies are the height of sophistication, my good chap.

      • (Score: 4, Funny) by Tork on Wednesday April 15 2015, @06:57PM

        by Tork (3914) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday April 15 2015, @06:57PM (#171135)
        British porn...? Ew. Fun fact: Broadband adoption was slower in England because nobody could discern the difference between BritishPorn.jpg and BritishPorn.avi.
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        • (Score: 2) by jimshatt on Wednesday April 15 2015, @09:23PM

          by jimshatt (978) on Wednesday April 15 2015, @09:23PM (#171187) Journal
          They probably only needed the first frame anyway. Myself, I prefer cryptopornography (i.e. encrypted cable porn channels).
    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Tork on Wednesday April 15 2015, @07:02PM

      by Tork (3914) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday April 15 2015, @07:02PM (#171138)
      Flamebait?? Really??? Come on now, do you really think being 'intelligent' means your tastes are universally better than everybody else's? For every Justin Bieber fan there's an intelligent person with a huge stash of tentacle porn. Guilty pleasures are not correlated with intelligence.
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      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 16 2015, @08:25AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 16 2015, @08:25AM (#171467)

        Things can be appallingly ugly. That's a matter of taste, unrelated to intelligence.
        Things can be appallingly stupid. That's absolutely related to intelligence.

        • (Score: 2) by Tork on Thursday April 16 2015, @03:50PM

          by Tork (3914) Subscriber Badge on Thursday April 16 2015, @03:50PM (#171628)
          Too bad the delineation is *never* that clean. Try watching one of your videos with both hands on the desk some time.
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          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 16 2015, @04:44PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 16 2015, @04:44PM (#171642)

            Why should I take my hand off of the mouse and put it on the desk? And my other hand is very well placed under my chin to support it, thank you very much.

            Oh, and stop making conclusions from you to others; especially if it is about the type of videos they have.

            • (Score: 2) by Tork on Thursday April 16 2015, @04:59PM

              by Tork (3914) Subscriber Badge on Thursday April 16 2015, @04:59PM (#171647)

              Why should I take my hand off of the mouse and put it on the desk?

              I see....

              Oh, and stop making conclusions from you to others; especially if it is about the type of videos they have.

              It's funny when one guy tries to bullshit another guy about the porn he does or doesn't watch. The point still stands, sorry.

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    • (Score: 1) by Paradise Pete on Thursday April 16 2015, @08:42AM

      by Paradise Pete (1806) on Thursday April 16 2015, @08:42AM (#171477)

      you may want to think about what sorts of porn you and your 'intelligent' friends have stashed on your computers.

      If anything has been amply demonstrated over time, it's that when it comes to DRA* intelligence goes out the window.
       
        *dick-related activities

    • (Score: 2) by mcgrew on Sunday April 19 2015, @02:12PM

      by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Sunday April 19 2015, @02:12PM (#172827) Homepage Journal

      My point was that entertainers are not news unless they run for office or do something that affects you (besides entertaining you). It wasn't a statement about talent, it was a statement about being socially important. If Beiber gave his entire fortune to cancer research, then he'd be newsworthy. His getting a DUI or something is not.

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      • (Score: 2) by Tork on Monday April 20 2015, @05:52PM

        by Tork (3914) Subscriber Badge on Monday April 20 2015, @05:52PM (#173203)
        You're trying to connect intelligence and taste together and, really, you shouldn't. You can enjoy fine wine, you can enjoy a fast-food cheeseburger, neither are connected to how smart you are.
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        • (Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday April 22 2015, @02:36PM

          by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Wednesday April 22 2015, @02:36PM (#173990) Homepage Journal

          It has nothing to do with taste whatever, it has to do with the fact that ENTERTAINMENT IS NOT NEWS whether it's Justin Beiber or the New York Philharmonic. It annoys me when people can't understand that, almost as much as ABC's covering "dancing with the stars" as if that is in any way news.

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          • (Score: 2) by Tork on Wednesday April 22 2015, @05:05PM

            by Tork (3914) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday April 22 2015, @05:05PM (#174053)
            Actually your example perfectly supports news being a factor of taste, your issue is you don't share it.
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