I was just talking to a friend in the coffee shop. He asked what I think of Martin Luther King (Jr.) day. I made a gesture with an accompanying noise. Many would think it inappropriate because they wish this day to honor the man. I have no problem with the man. I like what he stood for. I like what he did. I would consider it an honor if I were able to befriend him. Of course, I can’t. It’s the day I have a problem with. I also have a bit of a problem with the people who treat it like a holy day.
My grievances.
Although Mr. King’s political views were visionary and extended far past the problems of black Americans. His efforts, though, were focused there for all but the end of his life. All of his successful efforts were also in this area. Had he lived, had he not been assassinated, those efforts and his successes would almost certainly have broadened. However, that was not the case. Why single out this man for a day, that day being all about him. Many others have had outstanding personal beliefs. Many others have put themselves in mortal danger for the benefit of those oppressed. Many did this without any public recognition. They, in fact, risked everything for no personal benefit other than the good feeling of having done what is right. Mr. King enjoyed notoriety and political clout. His actions were indirect, and the importance of them is due to the enormous quantity of people that acted behind those actions. Had it been Mr. King espousing his beliefs without that backing I dare say he would have been completely ineffectual.
Gandhi was a great figure in the arena of equal rights. Why do we not celebrate MG day? To this question my friend pointed out that that was a global issue, not a national one. For us to have a federal holiday it need to be a national issue. I can see the logic in that, Christmas and Easter aside.
We don’t celebrate the efforts of untold numbers of persons who individually made an impact in the lives of black Americans. Many times that impact was the saving of their lives. Doctor King’s efforts resulted in black to drink from the same fountain I drink from. The efforts of those who operated the underground railroad resulted in blacks being able to breathe the same air that I breathe. The right to life, in the non-abortion related sense, is greater than any other right we enjoy. What we celebrate on this day is the celebrity of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It is not a celebration of human rights. This celebration is set around his birthday, although it is adjusted to a Monday so that it’s a long weekend. It’s not to commemorate any other event in the struggle for human rights than the birth of this figurehead in that effort.
My solution.
Prior to the civil rights revolution in the United States an interracial relationship in the south could get both parties killed, again, the right to life being the most supreme of our rights. The defining difference that Dr. King made was in the lives of the post Civil War southern blacks, who were so terribly and unjustifiably oppressed, and that difference is most evident in the freedom of interracial relationships. If you want to celebrate the difference that this man made in America, celebrate it by a public display of affection with a member of another race. A white man (/woman) walking down the street holding hands with a black woman (/man) is the legacy of Martin Luther King. Feel free to do so today.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Various thoughts on IQ
I have noticed in the past several months an interest in IQ, level of knowledge, level of education, correctness, vocational success, life success, etc. all tied together with a mixture of assumptions about what one means to the others. I have fielded questions, I have read questions in forums, I have listened to stories told by friends about what people have asked them recently. I don’t watch much tv but imagine that there is some emphasis put on intelligence this season. Perhaps a lot of people are left feeling dumber than a 5th grader.
Here are my thoughts, far from perfect. People want to measure IQ, but want to do it by measuring knowledge. They are different things. I think IQ has a positive relationship to a cap on knowledge. The average IQ is 100, by definition. So let’s call an average level of knowledge 100. An IQ of 150 is genius, an IQ of 50 is, well, not. The person with an IQ of 150 will have a cap on attainable knowledge higher than the person with an IQ of 50. That is to say, there’s a whole lot that the person at 50 will never be able to learn, a lot that the person at 100 will never be able to learn, and some that the person at 150 will never be able to learn. The relationship isn’t necessarily linear, it may follow Gaussian rules (the bell curve) or it may be exponential. I’m going with time biased Gaussian, and saying that there are different learning characteristics at different IQ levels. So we divide our bell curve into different areas. The lowest represents knowledge that is so rudimentary that it is known by all: pain hurts. The middle part is known knowledge. It graduates from accepted to revolutionary and controversial. Arithmetic is accepted, string theory is revolutionary and controversial. The earth is round and not the center of the universe, these tidbits were revolutionary and controversial, but are now accepted. This is an example of time biasing and I will let that serve as close enough to a definition. The upper end taper is unknown knowledge. It was not known that the earth was not the center of the universe before that known knowledge was revolutionary and controversial. Another example of time bias. This had to be discovered. This bell curve can be used as a rough guideline for the cap on attainable knowledge when it is lined up with the IQ curve. But it has to have wiggle room when we go from theoretical to practical. We would expect that the 150 IQ would have more knowledge than the 50 IQ. We would also expect the 55 IQ to outdo the 50 IQ. In practice we often see a person with a slightly lower IQ posses a slightly higher level of knowledge compared to a counterpart. How do we account for this. And now we get to the meat.
Drive and Opportunity. These make the difference. No matter how hard the 50 tries at the very best schools, he’s never going to understand the things the 150 struggles with in the same classes. There is a marked difference, however, between the level of knowledge actually attained by a 100 who is stranded alone on an island and one who has a burning desire to learn and is at a fantastic school. If we accept that this is, in fact, a marked difference then we must concede that the same marked difference in a 99 will overlap most of the 100’s range. Since we’re using an IQ scale anyway let’s use a Standard Deviation of 15. Disregarding the island scenario, I feel comfortable with the idea that a lazy 100 will achieve the same level of knowledge as a progressive 85. That would give a level of knowledge range of +- 7.5 from nominal. In normal situations there is only so stupid a smart person can ever be. Some of the things the 50 could never understand the 120 can’t help but understand. A 120 will be able to learn a substantial bit that a 100 never could. This must be tempered, of course, by specialization. To this point I have addressed the ability to learn in general terms. If you go to college and pursue a major, you get information in small chunks that you can digest, incorporate into your existing knowledge base and then build on. This is the same as time bias but on a personal level. It is also the technique used by cults to indoctrinate people. Provide false knowledge, drive it in until it’s accepted and trusted then provide more. I’m thinking Scientology in specific terms, but the method is used elsewhere and this blurb has broad application. Remember it is not how many people who endorse it, nor the qualifications of the presenter or originator that make information valid or knowledge correct. These are intrinsic values. Now I’m thinking different Christian churches and can homosexuals be pastors or not, same bible in churches that say yes as in churches that say no, and their leaders are all well qualified. The ultimate truth is true because it’s true. A personal truth is honesty and isn’t always true. That just means that honest people aren’t lying, they’re just sometimes wrong. Now I’m back on Scientology. And now I’m back on track. Discovering new knowledge will be almost exclusively the realm of the upper echelons. Once discovered that knowledge will be absorbed by the many more eager smart people, then disseminated to the average, then to the sub-average. This process of a population assimilating new information will almost always follow this chronology. I think it has to do with language. The brilliant speak a different English than the dull. The average can translate. We all have trouble learning things we don’t believe. It would be very difficult for me to learn that 1 + 1 = an apple. I don’t believe it. Very few can recognize, and so be able to believe. Many can grasp an explanation and believe, often to their detriment when the explanation is false. Others can only decide that everyone else believes it so it must be alright. In this construct the motivated 110 could appear to be a 115 and may seem smarter than a 120.
Mostly so in testing. As I said, we want to measure IQ with level of knowledge. A large part of the flaw in this is that when you learn how to take the test or learn how to figure out the answers you display a higher level of knowledge, even without changing that level. So what is IQ? The ability to learn? The ability to problem solve? The ability to figure out what IQ is? I think yes, kind of. Of importance is the idea that there are multiple intelligences. I am relationally stupid. I know a lot of people who are relational genii. I know people who can only make a pile of books, never a stack. I know people who are incredible engineers. Some people can hunt deer with a sharp stick, some people can’t order off a menu. We mostly recognize the areas from school. We also don’t give much weight to other areas. I’m good at math, engineering, science, etc. but don’t have a lot of traditional fun. I’m not much of a partier. I have a great time sitting in the coffee shop talking with people who “get it.” People who have something to say that isn’t gossip or a synopsis of a movie. These people stimulate my mind and leave me feeling invigorated. Some people are only ever invigorated by who said what about who and did you know he’s sleeping with her behind his girlfriend’s back. That seems to correlate on those curves, too.
Perhaps the most frustrating thing about IQ, intelligence distribution, differing mental capability at different IQ levels and the interpretation of those differing capabilities follows. Most people exist in the middle region. They may not agree with each other but they can understand the thought processes of those near their level. The people in the higher end of the bulge normally rise above those at the low end. So most of the supervisors and managers will be in the 115 area. Lets say that they can at least see the logic, faulty as it may be, within a SD, that’s down to 100, up to 130. This person will know that they have better ideas, and more sense than the low end of normal, that’s 90 – 100, who’s ideas and interpretations just don’t make sense to the 115. those with an IQ between 90 and 100 represent 25% of the population. The next SD away, 75 – 90, accounts for another 20%. Beyond that are people who inspire a sense of pity instead of frustration. That’s almost ½ of the population that doesn’t even make sense to him, and that because they are ‘relatively’ stupid. Now let’s look the other way. That 1st SD that makes some kind of sense goes to 130. The total percentage of population above that is 2%. Nearly that entire amount, all but about 1/10th %, are in the SD of 130 – 145. That top 1/10th % are the revered genii. (I’ve used that twice, hopefully someone gets it.) Here’s the thing. The 115 isn’t equipped to make the distinction between 90 and 140. He simply doesn’t understand the logic of either. So where is that 2% categorized? Approximately 47% of the population doesn’t make sense to this guy and isn’t obviously mentally approximating a rock. (It only sounds disrespectful because it has to for this rant.) When they can’t distinguish the difference there is no distinguishable difference. This means that either they treat that 45% as smarter than they are or the 2% as dumber. How many people in charge remain in charge if they treat the ideas of that 45% as superior to their own? I think none. Even if they own the company, because they go bankrupt. The mentally superior are grouped together with the stupid in the course of day to day life. I have watched businesses unnecessarily falter or fail and will watch a friend die because I am ‘obviously’ stupid. It is unfortunate to see something bad happen to someone you care about, it is sorrowful when you know it could have been avoided, it is frustrating when you saw it coming but your warnings were dismissed.
Then there are pet peeves. Mine, I mean. I try to stay out of public forums. People will spontaneously vomit a post. I was recently lured into an astrophysics board following a news article. I was lured by some brilliant comments by a guy defending a fringe theory that is generally dismissed, but has a lot of merit. I’m familiar with the theories, but don’t understand them. See above 1 + 1 = an apple. There’s just too much weirdness or maybe just not enough preconditioning (keep in mind the cult danger) for me to get it. The article has a picture of a double Einstein ring. It’s pretty. The article is not about it’s aesthetic value. The discussion should not be about it’s aesthetic value. How many posts are about it being pretty? Too many. How many posts aren’t even related as remotely to the subject as how it looks? Too many. I wish people who can’t possibly take part in a conversation just wouldn’t. Barring that, I wish moderators would take out the nonsense. I must admit at this point, this is hard to accomplish in a generalized discussion that wanders through different aspects of different scientific fields to bring up a sentient point, and this one does. By that I mean that how many people know whether a discourse on quantum mechanics and it’s effect on matter-antimatter pairs has anything to do with Einstein rings? It doesn’t directly but some aspects of it transfer laterally into the discussion, so it’s not nonsense. Even if a moderator doesn’t understand it or realize that it is pertinent, at least they should know that it’s scientific and must mean something to the people that are in the real, relative conversation. Hopefully that same moderator would realize that a post about I showed it to my art teacher and they liked it doesn’t belong. Or posts just bashing the guy who wholeheartedly believes in the fringe theory don’t belong, even though they don’t have language that would make a sailor blush. So a pet peeve in this realm – injecting the non-sequitur into a forum. Another is people who don’t care enough about the subject to learn anything about it but want to ask questions. In a discussion about the practical application of the Mandelbrot set questions about what is convergence or how does a derivative work are not valid. Do a Google search, read some introductory material, download podcasts of entire lecture series. Do not hope to start from scratch and get a 4 year degree from a 20 line response to a lame question.
Here are my thoughts, far from perfect. People want to measure IQ, but want to do it by measuring knowledge. They are different things. I think IQ has a positive relationship to a cap on knowledge. The average IQ is 100, by definition. So let’s call an average level of knowledge 100. An IQ of 150 is genius, an IQ of 50 is, well, not. The person with an IQ of 150 will have a cap on attainable knowledge higher than the person with an IQ of 50. That is to say, there’s a whole lot that the person at 50 will never be able to learn, a lot that the person at 100 will never be able to learn, and some that the person at 150 will never be able to learn. The relationship isn’t necessarily linear, it may follow Gaussian rules (the bell curve) or it may be exponential. I’m going with time biased Gaussian, and saying that there are different learning characteristics at different IQ levels. So we divide our bell curve into different areas. The lowest represents knowledge that is so rudimentary that it is known by all: pain hurts. The middle part is known knowledge. It graduates from accepted to revolutionary and controversial. Arithmetic is accepted, string theory is revolutionary and controversial. The earth is round and not the center of the universe, these tidbits were revolutionary and controversial, but are now accepted. This is an example of time biasing and I will let that serve as close enough to a definition. The upper end taper is unknown knowledge. It was not known that the earth was not the center of the universe before that known knowledge was revolutionary and controversial. Another example of time bias. This had to be discovered. This bell curve can be used as a rough guideline for the cap on attainable knowledge when it is lined up with the IQ curve. But it has to have wiggle room when we go from theoretical to practical. We would expect that the 150 IQ would have more knowledge than the 50 IQ. We would also expect the 55 IQ to outdo the 50 IQ. In practice we often see a person with a slightly lower IQ posses a slightly higher level of knowledge compared to a counterpart. How do we account for this. And now we get to the meat.
Drive and Opportunity. These make the difference. No matter how hard the 50 tries at the very best schools, he’s never going to understand the things the 150 struggles with in the same classes. There is a marked difference, however, between the level of knowledge actually attained by a 100 who is stranded alone on an island and one who has a burning desire to learn and is at a fantastic school. If we accept that this is, in fact, a marked difference then we must concede that the same marked difference in a 99 will overlap most of the 100’s range. Since we’re using an IQ scale anyway let’s use a Standard Deviation of 15. Disregarding the island scenario, I feel comfortable with the idea that a lazy 100 will achieve the same level of knowledge as a progressive 85. That would give a level of knowledge range of +- 7.5 from nominal. In normal situations there is only so stupid a smart person can ever be. Some of the things the 50 could never understand the 120 can’t help but understand. A 120 will be able to learn a substantial bit that a 100 never could. This must be tempered, of course, by specialization. To this point I have addressed the ability to learn in general terms. If you go to college and pursue a major, you get information in small chunks that you can digest, incorporate into your existing knowledge base and then build on. This is the same as time bias but on a personal level. It is also the technique used by cults to indoctrinate people. Provide false knowledge, drive it in until it’s accepted and trusted then provide more. I’m thinking Scientology in specific terms, but the method is used elsewhere and this blurb has broad application. Remember it is not how many people who endorse it, nor the qualifications of the presenter or originator that make information valid or knowledge correct. These are intrinsic values. Now I’m thinking different Christian churches and can homosexuals be pastors or not, same bible in churches that say yes as in churches that say no, and their leaders are all well qualified. The ultimate truth is true because it’s true. A personal truth is honesty and isn’t always true. That just means that honest people aren’t lying, they’re just sometimes wrong. Now I’m back on Scientology. And now I’m back on track. Discovering new knowledge will be almost exclusively the realm of the upper echelons. Once discovered that knowledge will be absorbed by the many more eager smart people, then disseminated to the average, then to the sub-average. This process of a population assimilating new information will almost always follow this chronology. I think it has to do with language. The brilliant speak a different English than the dull. The average can translate. We all have trouble learning things we don’t believe. It would be very difficult for me to learn that 1 + 1 = an apple. I don’t believe it. Very few can recognize, and so be able to believe. Many can grasp an explanation and believe, often to their detriment when the explanation is false. Others can only decide that everyone else believes it so it must be alright. In this construct the motivated 110 could appear to be a 115 and may seem smarter than a 120.
Mostly so in testing. As I said, we want to measure IQ with level of knowledge. A large part of the flaw in this is that when you learn how to take the test or learn how to figure out the answers you display a higher level of knowledge, even without changing that level. So what is IQ? The ability to learn? The ability to problem solve? The ability to figure out what IQ is? I think yes, kind of. Of importance is the idea that there are multiple intelligences. I am relationally stupid. I know a lot of people who are relational genii. I know people who can only make a pile of books, never a stack. I know people who are incredible engineers. Some people can hunt deer with a sharp stick, some people can’t order off a menu. We mostly recognize the areas from school. We also don’t give much weight to other areas. I’m good at math, engineering, science, etc. but don’t have a lot of traditional fun. I’m not much of a partier. I have a great time sitting in the coffee shop talking with people who “get it.” People who have something to say that isn’t gossip or a synopsis of a movie. These people stimulate my mind and leave me feeling invigorated. Some people are only ever invigorated by who said what about who and did you know he’s sleeping with her behind his girlfriend’s back. That seems to correlate on those curves, too.
Perhaps the most frustrating thing about IQ, intelligence distribution, differing mental capability at different IQ levels and the interpretation of those differing capabilities follows. Most people exist in the middle region. They may not agree with each other but they can understand the thought processes of those near their level. The people in the higher end of the bulge normally rise above those at the low end. So most of the supervisors and managers will be in the 115 area. Lets say that they can at least see the logic, faulty as it may be, within a SD, that’s down to 100, up to 130. This person will know that they have better ideas, and more sense than the low end of normal, that’s 90 – 100, who’s ideas and interpretations just don’t make sense to the 115. those with an IQ between 90 and 100 represent 25% of the population. The next SD away, 75 – 90, accounts for another 20%. Beyond that are people who inspire a sense of pity instead of frustration. That’s almost ½ of the population that doesn’t even make sense to him, and that because they are ‘relatively’ stupid. Now let’s look the other way. That 1st SD that makes some kind of sense goes to 130. The total percentage of population above that is 2%. Nearly that entire amount, all but about 1/10th %, are in the SD of 130 – 145. That top 1/10th % are the revered genii. (I’ve used that twice, hopefully someone gets it.) Here’s the thing. The 115 isn’t equipped to make the distinction between 90 and 140. He simply doesn’t understand the logic of either. So where is that 2% categorized? Approximately 47% of the population doesn’t make sense to this guy and isn’t obviously mentally approximating a rock. (It only sounds disrespectful because it has to for this rant.) When they can’t distinguish the difference there is no distinguishable difference. This means that either they treat that 45% as smarter than they are or the 2% as dumber. How many people in charge remain in charge if they treat the ideas of that 45% as superior to their own? I think none. Even if they own the company, because they go bankrupt. The mentally superior are grouped together with the stupid in the course of day to day life. I have watched businesses unnecessarily falter or fail and will watch a friend die because I am ‘obviously’ stupid. It is unfortunate to see something bad happen to someone you care about, it is sorrowful when you know it could have been avoided, it is frustrating when you saw it coming but your warnings were dismissed.
Then there are pet peeves. Mine, I mean. I try to stay out of public forums. People will spontaneously vomit a post. I was recently lured into an astrophysics board following a news article. I was lured by some brilliant comments by a guy defending a fringe theory that is generally dismissed, but has a lot of merit. I’m familiar with the theories, but don’t understand them. See above 1 + 1 = an apple. There’s just too much weirdness or maybe just not enough preconditioning (keep in mind the cult danger) for me to get it. The article has a picture of a double Einstein ring. It’s pretty. The article is not about it’s aesthetic value. The discussion should not be about it’s aesthetic value. How many posts are about it being pretty? Too many. How many posts aren’t even related as remotely to the subject as how it looks? Too many. I wish people who can’t possibly take part in a conversation just wouldn’t. Barring that, I wish moderators would take out the nonsense. I must admit at this point, this is hard to accomplish in a generalized discussion that wanders through different aspects of different scientific fields to bring up a sentient point, and this one does. By that I mean that how many people know whether a discourse on quantum mechanics and it’s effect on matter-antimatter pairs has anything to do with Einstein rings? It doesn’t directly but some aspects of it transfer laterally into the discussion, so it’s not nonsense. Even if a moderator doesn’t understand it or realize that it is pertinent, at least they should know that it’s scientific and must mean something to the people that are in the real, relative conversation. Hopefully that same moderator would realize that a post about I showed it to my art teacher and they liked it doesn’t belong. Or posts just bashing the guy who wholeheartedly believes in the fringe theory don’t belong, even though they don’t have language that would make a sailor blush. So a pet peeve in this realm – injecting the non-sequitur into a forum. Another is people who don’t care enough about the subject to learn anything about it but want to ask questions. In a discussion about the practical application of the Mandelbrot set questions about what is convergence or how does a derivative work are not valid. Do a Google search, read some introductory material, download podcasts of entire lecture series. Do not hope to start from scratch and get a 4 year degree from a 20 line response to a lame question.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)