12 Year old with an IQ of 170.

[Perpetual Change]

I would have liked to get into the sciences.

How about English?

I don't get this. What do you mean?

Also, as far as Aspergers goes... a longtime friend of mine has it. It's definitely real, and can be socially crippling. This guy kinda went through all of grade school and high school, before the government had time to decide he needed to be educated separately from people without it, and because of that he's pretty much at least integrated into society. But there are times where hanging out with him does just feel being attached to a huge anchor. One thing I've noticed is the more relaxed people act around him, the better he is. If people seem weirded out by his attitude, he tends to detect that and he gets even more awkward.

[Pirate]

Oh...well my point was how can measure someone's intelligence with such an arbitrary test.

What exactly makes it arbitrary? Is it about intelligence being something beyond measurement or do you think a scale is unnecessary because intelligence =/= productivity, happiness, whatever matters?

[j]

By grade 11 I should be taking all Advanced Placement courses (which I don't expect to be all that challenging anyway - anyone have experience?),

I didn't find them remotely challenging.  If I recall, they do entail a little more work than regular classes, but that doesn't say much.

-J

Same. The only AP class I found hard was chemistry, and that was because our teacher was total shit (seriously, out of 20 people only 3 passed the AP test, and we only got 3s).

That's weird, I had a terrible AP Chem teacher too.  She was bad enough when she was actually there, but she was gone on some pilgrimage for half the year.  She left audio recordings of lectures that were supposed to sync up with powerpoints and labs and shit, but the substitutes could never figure it out.  Garbage.

I swore I'd never take another chemistry class after that, and I ended up minoring in it.

It's just a very tired discussion. The measure of IQ is pretty well correlated with what it purports to measure, analytic skills.
The whole discussion then usually is "IQ is crap, I know people who I would consider intelligent and don't have a high IQ!!!". It's plain based on the fact that having a high IQ is considered desirable, so people get pissy because it's something that only a few people have.

I think this is mostly true.  Like any other measure of it's type, it's not meant to be taken as a final, end-all assessment of "intelligence".  But it does a decent job of measuring certain aspects of intelligence, like analytical skills and spatial and quantitative reasoning, etc.

-J

[Jamesman42]

I would have liked to get into the sciences.

How about English?

I don't get this. What do you mean?

Should it be "I would have liked to have gotten into the sciences."? I think it sounds right in that way.

Oh...well my point was how can measure someone's intelligence with such an arbitrary test.

What exactly makes it arbitrary? Is it about intelligence being something beyond measurement or do you think a scale is unnecessary because intelligence =/= productivity, happiness, whatever matters?

My thing is, how can we qualitatively measure intelligence on a single scale? Then again, I say that and believe what I believe because I follow Howard Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences.

Edit @ j: I know people don't use it as a final "score", but intelligence can be many things, in my opinion (as in the multiple intelligences in Gardner's theory).

[Pirate]

You know what would be really cool? A link.

[Perpetual Change]

I would have liked to get into the sciences.

How about English?

I don't get this. What do you mean?

Should it be "I would have liked to have gotten into the sciences."? I think it sounds right in that way.

I think it's fine. "I think it sounds right in that way" is just an atrocity though

[Pirate]

It's actually 'I would like to have gotten into the sciences' or 'I would have liked to get into the sciences'. I don't think you need to emphasize the tense more than once.

[Jamesman42]

You know what would be really cool? A link.

Here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligences

I would have liked to get into the sciences.

How about English?

I don't get this. What do you mean?

Should it be "I would have liked to have gotten into the sciences."? I think it sounds right in that way.

I think it's fine. "I think it sounds right in that way" is just an atrocity though

Haha *does an integral of a function* that's better.

[kári]

How did you "create your own motivation"? I really wish I had done well on my first exams in January. I just couldn't bring myself to study more than 2-4 hours a day and even when I was studying it was at a very slow pace and with a lot of distractions and breaks. I got a 6, 7, 9, 9 and a 12 (all on 20) which kind of sucks. But even now I can't bring myself to keep up what we have seen so far in the second semester...

Well, it's not that I morphed into this first-grade student
What I did was to slowly hone in on the amount of learning I need to get a good grade. That ended up being somewhere around 6-8 weeks. So, by the end I would time the beginning of the "hardcore learning group" that I had with a few buddies those 6-8 weeks before exam time. Before that there was a lot of partying and playing in my band
We had of course a few courses with mandatory attendance (the practical stuff where you do experiments etc.), so it's not that I stayed away from uni for months or something.
There was one exam though where I really gave all, just to sort of prove to myself that I can write good grades if I want to. The exam was called "TET" (theoretical electrical engineering, all about electric fields and shit) and had a fail rate of ~85%. It weeded out people to no end. So, I really busted my ass (it was very math-heavy, so I liked it) and ended up third-best student in the exam, with a B- or something. After that I said "why bother doing that for the other exams?"

rumborak

I'll keep that in mind, thanks! I hope I can limit the amount of distractions during my following exams, I think those are what lost me the most time and motivation.

[reneranucci]

[My thing is, how can we qualitatively measure intelligence on a single scale? Then again, I say that and believe what I believe because I follow Howard Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences.

Edit @ j: I know people don't use it as a final "score", but intelligence can be many things, in my opinion (as in the multiple intelligences in Gardner's theory).

Thank you James, this is very interesting, and I fully agree with that theory. Some time ago, I realized that everybody is good at something, and that there are different kinds of intelligence. IQ tests simply measure one dimension of it. I was always qualified as a smart person because I got good grades at school, but I always thought that it was more a way to try to excel at something because I wasn't good at sports, making friends, dating girls, playing music, etc. I was also good at college (3rd of my class overall) but I envied the guys that were 1st and 2nd, they were not only getting better grades but were well-rounded people, they were good at sports, people really liked them, and the smartest of the two was a great leader and every girl was in love with him.

The time you realize how the real world works is when you get your first job. Here the IQ is less valuable and everything depends on how good you are to express your ideas, to lead and confront other people, to socialize and to show self-confidence. I was usually afraid of speaking up or even to talk to the Managers   I worked there for 4 years and then did a Master's degree at Harvard, and it was the same story: It didn't matter if you got good grades, the poeple who got the more recognition were those with more self confidence and social skills, and the quality of your job depended on your networking and not in intelligence per se. Now I have another job and I feel that I cannot make progress due to my lack of confidence and leadership skills.

tl;dr It's good to have a high  IQ but in the real world soft skills rule (except maybe if you work for the Academia).

[In The Name Of Rudess]

^That's all true, but I think you are unjustly comparing IQ-intelligence with skills. IQ is for the largest part fixed at birth. All of the skills you mentioned are not genetically predisposed, they can be learned by anyone (to a certain extent). Playing music, making friends, sports, leadership etc. can all be learned and improved by anyone. Someone with an IQ of 80 will never get more intelligent, no matter how much they study.

[reneranucci]

^That's all true, but I think you are unjustly comparing IQ-intelligence with skills. IQ is for the largest part fixed at birth. All of the skills you mentioned are not genetically predisposed, they can be learned by anyone (to a certain extent). Playing music, making friends, sports, leadership etc. can all be learned and improved by anyone. Someone with an IQ of 80 will never get more intelligent, no matter how much they study.

Well yeah, maybe I didn't consider that. But I was talking more about the strong correlation that apparently exists between a high IQ and lack of social skills, and that people that get good grades usually are regarded as smart while others with different abilities are not, which is unfair.

[Pirate]

Why would people without academic skills be regarded as "smart"? There are other terms of recognition for their abilities. You don't see someone who gets good grades but doesn't get called "athletic". To me, someone who is smart is someone who can solve problems mentally quicker and to a higher degree of correctness than the standard.

[Chino]

Someones ability to think and process data should be measured by how well he/she scores in a game of tetris.

[kári]

You don't see someone who gets good grades but doesn't get called "athletic".

Do you mean like you don't see someone who gets good grades but complains that they don't get called athletic?

[rumborak]

^That's all true, but I think you are unjustly comparing IQ-intelligence with skills. IQ is for the largest part fixed at birth. All of the skills you mentioned are not genetically predisposed, they can be learned by anyone (to a certain extent). Playing music, making friends, sports, leadership etc. can all be learned and improved by anyone. Someone with an IQ of 80 will never get more intelligent, no matter how much they study.

Well yeah, maybe I didn't consider that. But I was talking more about the strong correlation that apparently exists between a high IQ and lack of social skills, and that people that get good grades usually are regarded as smart while others with different abilities are not, which is unfair.

Why overload the term? We have words like "empathic", "good leadership" etc etc. And we have the word "smart", which just means good analytical skills.
The real problem is IMHO just the fact that nobody wants to be called non-smart. So, they create different interpretations of "smart".

And yes, nobody employs a person based on their IQ, because it's just a single dimension and it takes a lot more to succeed in life/job. There's a lot of medium-smart men and women who are way more successful than the uber-smart guy who stands in his own way.

rumborak

[Pirate]

You don't see someone who gets good grades but doesn't get called "athletic".

Do you mean like you don't see someone who gets good grades but complains that they don't get called athletic?

Well I don't really mean complaining, but I see Reneranucci is saying that people who don't get good grades can also be smart, since they have different abilities. Assuming that "smart" is a word used to describe someone who gets good grades in all cases (forgetting that some people don't apply themselves) then why would we call someone who is incapable of getting good grades "smart"? It's as if you called someone who has musical abilities "athletic" despite that person being disabled or something. "Smart" is not a describing word that applies to all abilities. It's unfair to the person who gets good grades to be regarded in the same vein as a mentally challenged basketball prodigy, rather than it being unfair to the mentally challenged basketball prodigy when he isn't considered smart but the A-student is.

[MetalManiac666]

And we have the word "smart", which just means good analytical skills.

Gonna have to disagree here.  I feel that someone who, say, is good at rote memorization of historical facts but is bad at math can be considered "smart" in the same way that a physicist could be considered "smart."

[Chino]

Smart is how long you'd survive if you got dumped in the wild, not how many facts you can remember.

[Durg]

This is pretty damn impressive. "The boy wonder, who taught himself calculus, algebra, geometry and trigonometry in a week"

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1369595/Jacob-Barnett-12-higher-IQ-Einstein-develops-theory-relativity.html

My 12 year old could beat up that kid.   

[Pirate]

Smart is how long you'd survive if you got dumped in the wild, not how many facts you can remember.

Disagree and agree. At some level you must be physically capable. Think of Stephen Hawking.

[Jamesman42]

Smart is how long you'd survive if you got dumped in the wild, not how many facts you can remember.

Disagree and agree. At some level you must be physically capable. Think of Stephen Hawking.

But what if he knew everything he COULD do, and just was not able to? How would smarts factor into it then? He could know many more things that he could do than maybe I could do, but does it make me smarter because I am the one actually able to do it?

[Pirate]

No.

[Jamesman42]

Good, then you're wrong.

[Perpetual Change]

This is pretty damn impressive. "The boy wonder, who taught himself calculus, algebra, geometry and trigonometry in a week"

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1369595/Jacob-Barnett-12-higher-IQ-Einstein-develops-theory-relativity.html

My 12 year old could beat up that kid.   

Do let us know how far that gets him in life 

[Pirate]

Good, then you're wrong.

Why does being physically able to do something make you any smarter than someone who understands how but can't?

[Dublagent66]

Yeah, he's a pretty smart kid but if he doesn't get to see Wopner at 11:00, then he loses his shit.   

[rumborak]

And we have the word "smart", which just means good analytical skills.

Gonna have to disagree here.  I feel that someone who, say, is good at rote memorization of historical facts but is bad at math can be considered "smart" in the same way that a physicist could be considered "smart."

Remotely, maybe, but I would certainly not fully agree with the memorization as being "smart". But, let's not stick with "smart", let's rather use "intelligent", because that is more to the point. I wouldn't consider a rote memorizer as particularly smart. And I've met exquisite example of that over the years.

rumborak

[SPNKr]

Yeah, he's a pretty smart kid but if he doesn't get to see Wopner at 11:00, then he loses his shit.   

15 minutes to Wopner.

*3 minutes left*

OH I'M GETTING ANXIOUS AND NERVOUS WRRRRYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

[ReaPsTA]

The real problem is IMHO just the fact that nobody wants to be called non-smart. So, they create different interpretations of "smart".

I know what you mean.

I just think of it this way.  Smart is having an objective and being able to meet it.  Let's say you have a janitor who knows he's not smart enough to graduate from college.  So he does his job well and eventually lands a gig at a place where the pay isn't great (he's a janitor), but the benefits are good.  He doesn't live outside his means and saves his money so he knows his family won't go belly up.  He makes sure his kids don't slack off at school and actually married a woman he loves.

I'd say he's smarter than a very large percentage of the population.  He knows what he's capable of and maximizes that potential.  How many people can honestly say they've done that?  Very few.

[rumborak]

Dunno, Reapsta. That sounds much more like "prudent" than "smart".

rumborak

[Pirate]

"responsible"?

[ReaPsTA]

Dunno, Reapsta. That sounds much more like "prudent" than "smart".

rumborak

Aren't those things synonymous in a lot of ways?

I don't care how much expertise you have at, say, theoretical physics, if you slack off, waste your abilities, and create interpersonal drama wherever you go.

Think of a person like a car (weird, I know, just roll with it).  If the engine has a lot of horsepower, that's nice, but what if the suspension/turning/tires/computers are all crap?  Would you still say it's a good car?  Probably not.

I really get the idea that people shouldn't all just be considered "smart in different ways."  It cheapens the idea of being smart.  Even the most shallow of women usually have some fashion sense.  They're smart in that way, sure.  But to say she's smart at fashion, just like Bill Gates is smart at running one of the most successful businesses ever and living a fulfilling personal life is incomprehensible.  Gates' brain is so much more highly evolved you can practically classify him as a different species.

But to go back to the theoretical physicist.  Calling him "smart" isn't right for the same reason.  He's smart at one thing.  Great. So is the brain dead girl who can dress herself.  Really, at least she can get things done socially.  The physicist will toil away at solving equations in his mom's basement because he keeps getting fired for jobs.  At least the girl will file tax returns.

Not that being smart means you're a productive method of society necessarily.  But it's not the pure calculatory power of your brain either.  The best real life example of this is Chris Langan.  His mind is truly special, but what has it amounted to?  

Other than some fame, nothing really meaningful.

[j]

But to go back to the theoretical physicist.  Calling him "smart" isn't right for the same reason.  He's smart at one thing.  Great. So is the brain dead girl who can dress herself.  Really, at least she can get things done socially.  The physicist will toil away at solving equations in his mom's basement because he keeps getting fired for jobs.  At least the girl will file tax returns.

Not that being smart means you're a productive method of society necessarily.  But it's not the pure calculatory power of your brain either.  The best real life example of this is Chris Langan.  His mind is truly special, but what has it amounted to?  

The physicist is "smart" at something that (presumably) relatively few others are capable of succeeding at.  That alone places him in a different category.  Whether he uses it for good, evil, or not at all doesn't matter.  Just about everybody can dress themselves in the morning.

But I do agree with you, when I think of truly "smart" people in my book, they're the ones with not only the mental capacity, but considerable knowledge of a wide range of subjects, as well as the aptitude to apply their abilities.

-J

[Jamesman42]

Good, then you're wrong.

Why does being physically able to do something make you any smarter than someone who understands how but can't?

That is the exact opposite of what I said.