'An Appalling Report'

[adamdavid80]

I never said that all those of African descent are less intelligent than all whites,

But wait, you did!  It's in print and everything!  Or are you now saying that not all white people are more intelligent than all black people?  So some black people are smarter than some white people?  Oh my god, so it's not a matter of the overall group, but it does come down to each individual?  So all of your sweeping generalizations are for naught? 

Of course there's no male counterpart for Bach...there's no male counterpart!  He's considered the most important, singular musician of all time...by definition, he's peerless. 

as for all of your theories, I'm going to go with not heriditary but environment being the determining factor: and that cmes down to each and every individual.  Even look at how a boy or girl child is treated: girls are frm the day they're born treated very sweetly, and encouraged to look pretty, whereas boys father's - for example - are trained to "put up yer dukes" etc.  30 years ago a woman was encouraged to develop social graces to attract a man of refinement...in th next 50 years, that will be completely wiped away and will be a very quaint memory (it more or less already is).

Historically, the only "heroes" black children have had were in athletics: Muhammed Ali, Michael Jordan, etc.  That's also ging to change with the successes of the likes of Obama, Rice, Powell, etc.  In the next 30 years - as the next generations grow and mature - this will also see a major shift.  All environment. 

And that comes back to education.  Build it, as the cliche goes, and they will come.  But the opportunity has to exist first.

[drogulus]

Yes, but the way our society goes about in dispelling the dogma is by insisting that there is no tendency.

      It's an understandable error. There are women geniuses, and a desire to compensate for a history of discrimination. That's how these dogmatic positions get established. I consider the question of the relative frequency of genius level intelligence to be empirical, and both sides are addicted to a priori ideas that say that female genius is either as common as male or nonexistent. It seems the real situation of relative scarcity is hard to deal with for dogmatists on both sides.

[PSmith08]

Pick whatever standard you like. It is not my business to tell you how to determine genius. Such a realization can only come within yourself. The question is moot of course. You won't answer it because you can't. There is no female counterpart to Bach, or Beethoven, or Shakespeare, or Homer. We all know that.

How do we know that? If you can't promulgate a standard of genius, then admit it. Of course, to do that would be to undermine your argument, so I understand fully your deep reluctance to fess up to the fact that you do not apply any standard save personal taste.

And that, for the purposes of your "argument" as you have presented it, is worse than worthless. It's also silly to make sweeping, normative conclusions based solely on personal taste, but don't let that stop you.

[Florestan]

you were simply unaware of how insensitive your comments in another thread here in the diner were.  And that IS your problem, because you're alienating people and you're not even aware of it. 

If this is supposed to make me feel guilty, it won't work. "Alienating people"? Come on, Adam! For God's sake, anyone can ignore me with a scroll of the mouse. Someone who feels alienated by some comments in an internet forum has big problems.

If someone were to make a comment along the lines of "Hey, Romanians don't deserve equal rights, and their existence is an abomination according to the Bible" and they said this completely aware of your heritage, than they're flat-out racist bigots. If that comment is made unaware of your heritage being Romanian, then that comment is either ignorant, narrow-minded, bigoted, or a combination of all three.

Agreed. But this, in respect with me, is a strawman, unless you could produce evidence that I ever employed this kind of thinking.

Overall, you seem like a friendly person who might be unawares of some traits (who isn't?), but sometimes, I get a very different impression.

Nobody's perfect. 

[drogulus]

How do we know that? If you can't promulgate a standard of genius, then admit it. Of course, to do that would be to undermine your argument, so I understand fully your deep reluctance to fess up to the fact that you do not apply any standard save personal taste.

    Where it's possible you should use objective aptitude measures and mostly objective achievement tests like discovering or inventing. In the aesthetic fields where personal opinion is the only method (whatever objective features exist only matter because of how they are subjectively valued) only a consensus can be applied. You need agreement about Bach, whereas disagreement about Newton is both more difficult to find and trivial to deal with. If you don't like the laws that's your problem. 

     There's no essence of genius. It isn't a predefined quality, but something we are determined to measure, and the measurements are adjusted to most clearly fit what people do that is mentally distinctive.

[PSmith08]

    Where it's possible you should use objective aptitude measures and mostly objective achievement tests like discovering or inventing. In the aesthetic fields where personal opinion is the only method (whatever objective features exist only matter because of how they are subjectively valued) only a consensus can be applied. You need agreement about Bach, whereas disagreement about Newton is both more difficult to find and trivial to deal with. If you don't like the laws that's your problem. 

     There's no essence of genius. It isn't a predefined quality, but something we are determined to measure, and the measurements are adjusted to most clearly fit what people do that is mentally distinctive.

"Should use" rarely implies, as a necessary consequence, a law. In any event, for aesthetic achievement, it's mob rule, and for scientific achievement, it's "discovering" or inventing for a test?

I don't know that either of those standards are particularly compelling (for example, Fermat had the rudiments of calculus before Newton, what do we do about that? Apply a consensus test?).

There is just no way to quantify this, and that's too bad. Unless, of course, people can get over an obsession with quantifying things because, well, if you can assign a number to it, then it must be true. Right?

[Homo Aestheticus]

Florestan,

Third, if one is to become a cultivated human being, this requires personal effort to study, think and understand, i.e. the very things a college education is supposed to foster.

Fourth, taking  a random paragraph from page 400 (four hundred, mind you!) and pretending that the references are unexplained is the top of disingenuity. To understand that paragraph you need (a) all the 399 pages preceding it, (b) the footnotes or endnotes, and (c) a good amount of personal research.

Thanks for making these good points but I still wonder about something discussed earlier regarding reading comprehension.

If  reason  and  language  are the 2 key elements which make us cognitive individuals why is it incorrect to state that there is an intimate connection between intellectual/academic ability and reading comprehension ?

The following was written by psychologist/educator Edward Thorndike:

"Reading comprehension involves 2 steps: the linguistic ability to decode and grasp the precise meaning of the words from the text and the logical-mathematical ability to infer, deduce and interpolate. The mind is assailed as it were by every word in the paragraph. It must select, repress, soften, emphasize, correlate and organize, all under the influence of the right mental set or purpose or demand..."

_______

Doesn´t it come down to  conceptual and reasoning ability ? The conceptual, whether it be grasping the precise meaning of a word from the general English vocabulary like ´obloquy´ or a basic term from psychology like ´operant conditioning´ or a basic concept from chemistry like ´Boyle´s Law´ or an idea from philosophy like ´phenomenology´or, as mentioned earlier something abstruse from mathematics like ´Galois Theory´... And the reasoning, which involves grasping the main ideas from the text and making inferences, deductions, interpolations as he says ?   

   

[Florestan]

If  reason  and  language  are the 2 key elements which make us cognitive individuals why is it incorrect to state that there is an intimate connection between intellectual/academic ability and reading comprehension ?

It's not incorrect. It's true.

Look, if your position boils down to the fact that not everybody has potential for intellectual careers and those who haven't should be rather going to vocational schools than to colleges (without this fact diminishing in the least their worth as human beings), I agree completely.

[adamdavid80]

Sidebar relation, There is research that proves that the illiterate have much stronger memories.  Which is reasonable, bc there is an innate subconscious recognition that they will have to strore and retain information much more effectively than others who are able to read.  So as far as cognitive ability, reading ability is no measure of intelligence.

Economic prosperity probably plays a much higher role as anything.  You'll never see the child of a millionaire at a vocational school, just as  - WITHOUT, SAY, AFFIRMATIVE ACTION - children of those below the poverty level could never get into the "finest" private schools - whether that be at the grade-school or graduate level. 

Even those with "talent" or ability have to work at it constantly.  Lan Lang I assure oyu, for whatever prodigy abilities he had as a child was in front of the keyboard or studying music in some regard hours upon hours everyday of his waking life.  Talent doesn't mean a thing compared to drive and ambition.  And you're not going to have the chance to exploit that drive and ambition with no opportunity.

[Homo Aestheticus]

Florestan,

Look, if your position boils down to the fact that not everybody has potential for intellectual careers and those who haven't should be rather going to vocational schools than to colleges, I agree completely.

What is it then that you disagree with in ACD´s original entry on this topic ?

Here:

http://www.soundsandfury.com/soundsandfury/2008/10/gee-what-a-surprise.html

Why is he wrong ?

(without this fact diminishing in the least their worth as human beings)

And this needs to be stated more often.... Thank you.

[Joe_Campbell]

Lan Lang I assure oyu, for whatever prodigy abilities he had as a child was in front of the keyboard or studying music in some regard hours upon hours everyday of his waking life. 

So what happened?

[adamdavid80]

So what happened?

I knew I shouldn't have gone with Lang as my example...

[karlhenning]

Richard Wagner would have gasped at the exquisite art of Lang Lang . . . .

[adamdavid80]

Richard Wagner would have gasped at the exquisite art of Lang Lang . . . .

Is this a reference? 

is this the same kind of gasp my grandfather makes when he has to visit the proctologist?

[karlhenning]

Is this a reference? 

The Ardent one's tag.

[adamdavid80]

The Ardent one's tag.

Damn it.  I knew it seemed strangely familiar.

Why can't I be cognizant and comatose like everybody else??

[karlhenning]

Damn it.  I knew it seemed strangely familiar.

Why can't I be cognizant and comatose like everybody else??

You had a strategy, but you got hit.

[drogulus]

"Should use" rarely implies, as a necessary consequence, a law. In any event, for aesthetic achievement, it's mob rule, and for scientific achievement, it's "discovering" or inventing for a test?

I don't know that either of those standards are particularly compelling (for example, Fermat had the rudiments of calculus before Newton, what do we do about that? Apply a consensus test?).

There is just no way to quantify this, and that's too bad. Unless, of course, people can get over an obsession with quantifying things because, well, if you can assign a number to it, then it must be true. Right?

     Are you unhappy about the absence of an absolute test? I'm not. There no genius in nature, only our determination to distinguish several kinds of mental excellence with this one word.

     We don't have to do anything to decide whether Fermat is or isn't a genius. He meets the criteria which is made as tight or as loose as necessary. You've made the case for Fermat, which answers what to do about it. Since there are quantifiable (IQ) as well as unquantifiable (however you get into MIT, however you get to be the greatest composer, painter, etc.) criteria, there will always be an objection, and none of them matter. In fact, if we accepted your criticism about quantifiability (which you simultaneously mock ), we would have to wonder exactly what your Fermat problem amounts to. If you think he's a genius, aren't you using my pragmatic criteria, without quantification?

     

[drogulus]

     Genius is used to describe both those people who are really smart and those who are really accomplished, and though there is a good amount of overlap many examples exist of people who meet one of these and not the other. And some fields are too inherently subjective for quantification. Even though we know this, it doesn't inhibit us from using the word genius for the most obviously qualified, which means that the word is a mark of distinction which doesn't need to be backstopped. "Handsome is as handsome does" is the "rule", and quantifiability only comes into it when we need a predictive measure, like for the draft board or school admission. Asking if it's real is not useful. You want to know if the prediction pans out, and if it does the measurement criteria is justified.

     

[karlhenning]

     Genius is used to describe both those people who are really smart and those who are really accomplished . . . .

I think, a spark of inspiration beyond mere accomplishment.

Otherwise, Telemann would be a genius