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0 pointsnecovek3y ago0 comments

The article covers this as well: the author claims that studies show that all of those different intelligences correlate, so it is not very useful to categorise them individually.

The thing that is a main driver to "climbing to higher positions" is usually desire and motivation, which is a cultural trait. Intelligence has a high correlation because there are plenty of motivated people across all levels of intelligence, so highly intelligent are better at succeeding at such well-defined problems.

Smartness is sometimes about well-educated or simply experienced and knowledgable. Eg. even if I was more intelligent, I'd trust a medical doctor because they have a vast knowledge and experience that I lack.

Still, the article makes a nice distinction between well- and poorly-defined problems. It's definitely going in the right direction, so go and have a read!

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davidguetta3y ago

> The article covers this as well: the author claims that studies show that all of those different intelligences correlate, so it is not very useful to categorise them individually.

I would strongly doubt that they correlate tbh.. where would the "virgin math genius" cliché would come from ?

I have been versed into various socio evonomic and hobby environement over my life, and have met natural geniuses in several unrelated fields (sport, math, chess, boxing, military, art, entrepreneurs /investors, emotional connections and / or sex). I can assure you i didnt not observe such correlation.

At best what ive noticed is how some of them would be clueless about their gift, and pretty average on the rest.

necovekOP3y ago

> I would strongly doubt that they correlate tbh.. where would the "virgin math genius" cliché would come from ?

Article talks of scientific studies supporting that claim: you doubting it and sharing your anecdotal experience does not change what the stats say.

I do welcome you to challenge those studies (that's what science is all about), but that's not done with "doubting" them on HackerNews.

(Oh, and cliches are just that, cliches: they were never universally true, which is why we don't use words like "facts" for them)

davidguetta3y ago

I mean I understand and welcome you enthusiasm about science and research papers, unfortunately it's largely misguided in my opinion.

Even in actual scientific fields like computer science (In particular machine learning and reinforcement learning academic environement in which I work and hold a PhD) 'doubting' is necessary, since a large percentage of papers are unreproducible and largely biaised for publication... [0]

Regarding social sciences papers, I give 0 credit to any of them and that won't change soon.

First it's literally impossible define rigorously any term to differentiate (I mean seriously how are you going to "measure" emotional intelligence or entrepreneurship skills). Secondly there a large fraction of the field which is just pretending to do science and circlejkerking each other by accepting their own papers without rigorous due diligence, to the point they can't even detect hoax and fraud [1]

At the end of the day I am not here to fight you. If you don't believe me then be it but I stand by my assessment that various kind of intelligence are at best losely related. Some math genius are 100% clueless in emotional or business intelligence, some genius entrepreneurs are 100% clueless with math or girls, some really good artists completely clueless in business or academic stuff. Some athletes too... Of course some will have all but imo it's a lucky minority.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair

necovekOP3y ago

I am fine with doubting any particular study, and I certainly have my reservations about social science studies in particular (most of them try to categorise "poorly-defined problems").

But we can either doubt the entire scientific process and throw our hands in the air, or we can work to improve it and look at it critically. At the moment, it's the best thing we've got.

Thus, I dislike the generic "I don't believe results of any study disagreeing with my anecdotal evidence", which is exactly what our scientific process is set up to dispell with. Proper argumentation is about misinterpretation of data, misapplication of statistical methods, insufficient sample size, outright data fabrication or anything along those lines.

Eg. in all your anecdotal examples, you are misinterpreting what "correlates" means. In particular, all intelligences correlating does NOT mean that "some will have all" (a famous statistics observation that there is no representative ever matching your average/median result in any complex measurement: eg you can have an average height of a group of people being 170cm and nobody being exactly 170cm — yet you can still claim how people in the group are 170cm tall on average, and then we can debate if that makes sense depending on the distributiin, sample size etc).

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marvin3y ago

> all of those different intelligences correlate, so it is not very useful to categorise them individually

Maybe it's not useful for the sake of discussion to list them individually, but it's definitely useful to measure them individually. Or you'll mistake someone who's a master of rotating abstract shapes in their head for someone who manage to get things done in a complex environments. The full-scale IQ tests (WAIS?) do actually test many different manifestations of intelligence.

This is a bit on the side of the point, but it's an important distinction when you're discussing and trying to measure people's real-life abilities.

necovekOP3y ago

I am not making this claim, the article is based on a number of studies measuring different types of intelligence.

It actually does say that they are all almost exactly the same (sure, highly intelligent individuals will score better on one set of problems than on another, but they will score highly on most of them; similar for average or lower intelligence folks — their scores on each of them correlate but are not in a strict linear relationship). That suggests that they are ultimately one and the same (as per those studies).

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davidguetta3y ago

> The article covers this as well: the author claims that studies show that all of those different intelligences correlate, so it is not very useful to categorise them individually.

I would strongly doubt that they correlate tbh.. where would the "virgin math genius" cliché would come from ?

At best what ive noticed is how some of them would be clueless about their gift, and pretty average on the rest.

necovekOP3y ago

> I would strongly doubt that they correlate tbh.. where would the "virgin math genius" cliché would come from ?

Article talks of scientific studies supporting that claim: you doubting it and sharing your anecdotal experience does not change what the stats say.

I do welcome you to challenge those studies (that's what science is all about), but that's not done with "doubting" them on HackerNews.

(Oh, and cliches are just that, cliches: they were never universally true, which is why we don't use words like "facts" for them)

davidguetta3y ago

I mean I understand and welcome you enthusiasm about science and research papers, unfortunately it's largely misguided in my opinion.

Regarding social sciences papers, I give 0 credit to any of them and that won't change soon.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair

necovekOP3y ago

I am fine with doubting any particular study, and I certainly have my reservations about social science studies in particular (most of them try to categorise "poorly-defined problems").

But we can either doubt the entire scientific process and throw our hands in the air, or we can work to improve it and look at it critically. At the moment, it's the best thing we've got.

1 more reply

marvin3y ago

> all of those different intelligences correlate, so it is not very useful to categorise them individually

This is a bit on the side of the point, but it's an important distinction when you're discussing and trying to measure people's real-life abilities.

necovekOP3y ago

I am not making this claim, the article is based on a number of studies measuring different types of intelligence.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse