Posted on 01/21/2005 11:06:50 AM PST by MikeHu
“There is a strong inverse association between intelligence test scores and suicide,” Finn Rasmussen, an associate professor at the institute, said in the report published in the British Medical Journal.
Rasmussen and his team called for more detailed studies to investigate the possible underlying reasons for suicide.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
Well, considering that the Democratic Party is committing political suicide, we can see where their IQ ranges.
Like an average of sub-60?
But then you have guys like the dude last week whose failed attempt to kill himself with a chainsaw would depbunk this whole theory.
I'll bet if we give these people enough funding, there could determine if there is any link between suicide and decreased lifespans....
Can you please cite that study for us 100 IQers, please?
In other news, people who breathe regularly live longer than those who breathe rarely, or not at all.
I agree with the earlier post --- lots of highly intelligent people seem more likely to experience psychological problems and lower emotional intelligence. Thus, depression and such may actually be more prevalent in this group than many others. However, we can infer based on this study that most of the intelligent people, depressed or otherwise, seem less likely to choose suicide than their less intelligent counterparts. Perhaps truly intelligent people are smart enough to apply a cost/benefit analysis to the option of suicide and, even when truly depressed, are able to conclude that the costs of suicide will always outweigh the benefits.
Why study this? Just stop giving the stupid test and there won't be any relationship between test scores and suicides. Problem solved, cost $0.
Let me save these folks some money:
Smart people can see more options in any given situation and so have more choices. Smart people are smart enough to leave dangerous relationships. Smart people have the ability to leave bad working environments. Smart people manage money better. Young people of any I.Q. are not as smart now as they will be 10 years from now.
Now go research something else.
Darwin Theory at work.
Note that the article does not necessarily indicate an intention to take one's life. The Darwin Awards offer substantial documentation that yes, stupid people do kill themselves from time to time, and it has little to do with depression, schizophrenia, financial success, etc.
I don't buy the explanation that a lot of brilliant people are all messed up. What is intelligence if not the manifestation (life) of that individual? We're so used to accepting the liberal hypocrisy of saying one thing and doing something else, that we don't say, "Wait a minute, does this make sense at all?"
Intelligence is the life force, the strategies for survival and increasing one's chances in life -- not the score one gets on intelligence tests. The presumption in intelligence tests is that the tester is the ultimate limits of intelligence. The tests fail when they aren't -- because they cannot conceive that there knowledge beyond their own.
Remember the movie Forrest Gump? -- how everyone thought he was an idiot because he didn't seem to know what all the "sophisticated" people did -- yet everything worked out extremely well for him. A less intelligent person thinks the more intelligent person is less intelligent than he is -- because he thinks he is the measure of intelligence. A really intelligent person will always be open to the possibility he doesn't know everything.
Now isn't the former very similar to these liberals calling the president and others idiots because they don't know what they do? Look at the pictures of yesterday's protesters. The President is not the reason for their depression.
"lots of highly intelligent people seem more likely to experience psychological problems and lower emotional intelligence."
I suspect that we notice the high scorers with these problems, but there are many very normal high scorers that go hapilly undetected. Me for example, er, bad example, but there are many.
All I'm saying is that I, as someone who scores very high on IQ tests and has been surrounded by similar individuals both professionally and socially, have noticed a distinct correlation between intelligence, social problems, and some specific psychological problems. I've never researched the issue to try and discover why this correlation exists, but it's there, and probably from an early age (think of the stereotypical high school nerd). Make of it what you will.
Can you please cite that study for us 100 IQers, please?
He's right. For some reason, extraordinary IQ seems to be associated with mental illness. For example, the movie "A Beautiful Mind" is based on a true story. The challenge is that these people are much smarter than the doctors trying to treat them, meaning the patient knows where the doctor is going long before the doctor can get there, and are able to deflect the course of treatment.
The other side is that extraordinary intelligence is not very common (obviously, or it wouldn't be extraordinary), so there is not a huge amount of case studies available.
Bell Labs had a scientist like this in the 60's. He had his own personal psychiatrist whose only job was to look after him. He fianlly got away from his caregivers, ran to the top of the building and jumped off.
Laura Ingraham played a recording of some leftwing nut yelling into a microphone, saying that Bush destroyed jobs.
He said, "How many of you have skipped work to be here?"
Crowd: "YYYYYYYEEEEEEEAAAAAAAHHHHHHH"
He, "How many of you don't have jobs?"
Crowd: peep
It was hilarious.
Formerly, information was fragmented so that something true in one field was thought to have unique and peculiar laws unto themselves -- so that there is one set of laws, experts, and methodologies that don't apply in any other, and so one can be a genius in taking intelligence tests but manifest it in no other way. As long as one has this "out" that he is brilliant but can't apply his intelligence to any real world problems, his intelligence will always be useless.
Once he realizes he has to apply that intelligence to his problem or he is not intelligent, the delusion ceases to exist. Intelligence is what intelligence does.
I disagree with you in that "intelligence if not the manifestation (life) of that individual" seems to be meaningless. The argument of "what defines intelligence" would take a whole book all by itself. Is it powerful memory? advanced pattern recognition? Imaginative conceptions of reality?
If Einstein was such a genius, why couldn't he play the accordian? If Mozart was such a genius, how come he couldn't draw pictures better than I? Were both "geniuses"? Yes, but not the same kind. Did both of high intelligence? They must have because they were both geniuses... really?
Before the issue can even be discussed (ahem) intelligently, there are to be some general agreement on just what "intelligent" means.
The perception of life to a highly intelligent person is likely so radically different than your or my perception that us discussing it is like a couple of rabbits in a field presuming that their field of vision is the same as an eagle soaring 1000 feet in the air.
Maybe its the lonliness such people must feel that finally drives them nuts.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.