Of course we don’t recognize this or view it that way since we are on the “good” side of 100. People between 90 and 110 are “normal” and it is those who are above 110 that are the statistical freaks in a good way. But if we were to not look at absolute scores, but relative scores to your average STEM major (or, cough, cough, economist), dealing with your average “college educated liberal arts major” is indeed as painful as dealing with a mentally impaired adult.
People often confuse being “intelligent” with being moral and ethical…. i.e., a good person because they are smart. Doesn’t work that way.
Hitler possibly was a genius. Ted Bundy too.
One of your better recent ones IMHO Cappy Cap. Thomas Sowell alluded to this in a column a few years back, musing about the effects of having the lowest IQ professionals all being teachers, and what that would mean for the future of education. Except that that trend started being measured back in the 30s and 40s, so it’s normal.
There will always be divisions of ability, but also divisions of drive and ethics. My happy-to-work-80-hour-weeks days are behind me. I’d much rather spend time with my kids. This limits my professional advancement. But, if smart and able people don’t have kids then all our society has accomplished is for naught because our society will end with the first fully selfish generation. Going Galt from the government is one thing, but if you apply Darwinism to societies then any society that doesn’t perpetuate itself is a failure. I want our (conservative based) society to survive. I’ve got to spend enough time with my kids to counter-act the 90 IQ teachers ideas and some of the zany things that they’ll try to teach them (global warming comes to mind).
I was a Politics & Economics student at my university. I was required to pass 2 math courses (calculus and differential calculus), statistics, computer science, chemistry, physics and leadership, just to get into my 3rd year, when we could go into our majors/minors.
Anyone care to guess what school that is?
It was known as the “well rounded” student approach. The death of common sense originates in over specialization before a sufficient academic grounding in core subjects are completed. Instead of this we see specialists in Iberian literature with minors in Ionian poetry telling us how educated people know all about the science of climate change. I find many academics know their area of study, but are woefully misinformed on anything else. I most love the “97% of scientists agree” appeal to authority. Now I respond that “scientists” aren’t really all that bright, given 100% of the great unwashed know climate has changed and continues to do so.
It’s a societal problem brought on by technology, poor leadership and inattention to first principles of intellect. We have a generation of kids who will end up as unfit and uncritical adults, nice boring little sheeple ripe for the fleecing. The lucky ones will acquire real skills instead of waiting on tables while they pursue their irrelevant studies. They’ll become known as the rich who don’t pay their fair share.
That’s why the wave of limited government must come from the grass roots, lest the top down statists muddy the waters and poison the stream of critical thought and reasoning.
Can I guess what school that was??? If you spent 21 hours a semester or over 160 hours, and you took 4 semesters of calculus, phy chem, qual, quant, 8 semesters of material engineering, ROTC, stats, several physics, a few fluff courses to keep you from going crazy -computer programming, engineering drawing, crystallography, psychology, econ, modern German, and a bunch more that I can’t remember, and there was never any grading on the curve, then you might have gone to Carnegie. If not, you probably went to Pitt. Let us not get into a pi$$ing contest over schools. There are some very fine engineering schools out there that produce better shirt sleeve engineers than the top 10. All engineers think their school was hard.
I guess you missed the part where I said I was an Arts student, not engineering. Hint: I did go to a predominately engineering school. Not trying to get into a pissing contest or piss you off.
We are we are we are we are we are the engineers
If you could witness the antics before the PC days you would think those IQ scores were reversed
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Regarding teachers … We should not judge a few teachers based on the vast majority of their peers. Because surely there are a few teachers who have some smarts. I knew one once and he lasted one year.
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Since I mentioned the school name, I think I can say that CMU had one of the finest, most talented, and hardest arts schools in the country. Sill do. When the rest of us fell asleep exhausted, those dramats, stage design, and arts students were still pushing it. If you check the Tonys, emmys, and oscars, they probably do make more than the engineers, and deserve it. I’m talking about Ms snot nose who teaches finger painting to six year olds, and the like.
An artsman and an engineer once found a gallon can…
I did engineering at “the best engineering school in Canada” (which, at the time, it objectively was) and even then I could see the academic standards slipping. We routinely left off error analyses in our lab reports and were allowed to do so without penalty, and the pressure of the schedule meant that if a course went particularly bad we’d all get our marks belled and kicked forward into the next term regardless. I got a 67 in an Org Chem course where I got no higher than a 35 on any test, assignment or exam (and the class median was ~34 – the prof, on loan from the chemistry department, openly detested engineers).
And this doesn’t even take into account the overwrought post-Concordia handwringing about sexism in undergraduate engineering and the hamfisted attempts to “fix” the “problem”. Twenty-five years of scholarships, “mentoring” and various affirmative action programs and there are fewer female undergrads in engineering now than when I attended.
Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? there is more hope of a fool than of him.
“Six munts agoo I cud nut evin spill engineer, now I is one.”
Sure but it takes creativity and intelligence to survive some of the insanity engineering students brought down on themselves.
Been there had the T shirt.
Cappy nails it academia is stupidity personified, self righteous and ignorant fools stroking each others egos
There is no real world grounding any more.
At one time European Engineering students had to have a ticket in the trades, before the universities would accept them.
Then they were encouraged to work school holidays in the field.
Now they don’t see real world until certified.
The ever relaxing standards have produced ignorant arrogant entitled masters, who cannot conceive their wisdom is not..
Soon the professional engineering associations will be seeking immunity from prosecution, rather than up their game.
Well ,I have finally realized I am not all that smart and am going over to the dark side .we Have slow /no growth in Canada and the world for that matter. We are going into deficit ( how much, let’s start a lottery ) with level gdpto minus wich equals debt as a lower ratio of gdp. I believe this is correct as I keep hearing it from Liberals and pundits. I didn’t think think I could afford a warm holiday ,but now realize I must apply their logic. Air transit is having a 40% off sale. If I buy 100 trips I will save so much money I will be able to spend the whole winter some place warm. If I can’t get you guys to pay for the trips I will just put them on Visa ! Please have a good laugh!
worked with a few engineers in my time. Most are a little short n common sense and long on ego, as John Robertson states.
David in Michigan,yup, and many people confuse knowledge and intellect.
I disagree with Cappy on much of his post. I’v seen rite-winger who used to be lefties, and they display a reasonable level of intellect, so it isn’t their political/social leaning being determined by their IQ, it’s they ideology that obscures their intellect. We’v seen a prime example of that in here, just go to the archives and read the “origins of math” thread.
Actually the early years are the most important in education as these are thevyears children are like sponges and can pick up all sorts of skills and knowledge like foreign languages.
But with progressive kindergarten they waste their time finger painting. Montessori schools show what can be done and the teachers are highly trained.
Poli-Sci = requisite IQ 45 and no moral compunction
I have to disagree with the Captain on some of this stuff. Sure teachers and journalists come from the bottom of the curve, but there are plenty of intelligent lefties. They just want different things that he does. The Captain wants a comfortable life, some money, and some security. Lefties want power, they don’t necessarily want money. What does it mean to “make a difference”? It means to have power. Lefties have constructed elaborate ideologies that have enabled them to grab power time and again. They are not stupid.
I think it is a little more mendacious than that, they project their carotid souls upon the rest of us.
They fear and hate independent people.
Their lust for power, usually by claiming to do good, masks their own vicious insanity.Insecurity.Self hatred.
Desperate grasping after power to tell other people how to live their lives, as long as we feed these parasites.
Freeloader syndrome, all ticks have it.
actually Occam, I worked with poli-sci major (masters) with a history minor, he used to debate pro Arab/Palli (he himself was Jewish) and I would defend the Israelis, except on some items then we’d switch. No, lefties are not all stupid, nor are all polisci grades stupid, fact there are some very intelligent right-wing polisci majors. Much of it is ideology, just as much of the stupidity in here is ideologically (religious) based
I don’t think that it’s that nefarious Tim. In my experience, the main difference between those on the right and those on the left is the relative weighting of experience versus theory. “Experience” including that of other people, and how you weight their words based on their previous words and actions.
When we on the right hear the words of someone on the left that sound good on the surface, we’ll often know where and when it has been tried but hasn’t worked in the past. Or we’ll weigh the possible outcomes, and predict the likely good or bad results along with the unintended consequences. It’s a lot like playing chess: most people play the move or the move ahead. Good players play 4-5 moves ahead (if this happens, then that will happen, then I’ll do this and they’ll likely do that…). Grand masters see 7 or more moves into the future. But that only works if you know your opponent – how will they react? We can simulate their thinking better than they can predict ours. Someone on the left who can “see” 10 moves ahead, but is wrong after 4 moves, is in worse shape than someone on the left who can only “see” 5 moves because they don’t see the wrong predictions of the other side.
We tend to predict their thinking better than they can predict ours. Not because we have higher IQs or by any objective measure are smarter, but because we are more likely to see the negative consequences based upon history and how we think others will react. Smart or stupid, ignorant or educated, when one if faced with an importance choice one will tend to go with what their heart and head tells them is most likely to be correct. We are more likely to think that what has happened before is the best indicator of what will happen. IMO, they are more likely to think that everything is different now, so with the right people in charge and making the choices, the results will be better. And that’s why they are doomed to failure – Shakespeare is still read because human nature doesn’t change, as much as the progressives want to think that it does. The tragedies of 400 years ago still sound true if and only if human nature doesn’t change.
As a sideline, that means that we can use associations to predict outcomes. Based on his track record, I’m comfortable saying that anything that Paul Ehrlich supports will be wrong. Not because I trust or can emulate his thinking, but because he’s been so publicly wrong in the past on the major ideas that he’s supported. He has been wrong so many times on so many things that I’m comfortable assuming that, if he supports it, it must be wrong.
drat, proofread and missed:
Someone on the left who can “see” 10 moves ahead, but is wrong after 4 moves, is in worse shape than someone on the right who can only “see” 5 moves because they don’t see the wrong predictions of the other side.