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Posted on 11/20/2011 9:02:21 AM PST by Pharmboy
HOW do people acquire high levels of skill in science, business, music, the arts and sports? This has long been a topic of intense debate in psychology.
...what seems to separate the great from the merely good is hard work, not intellectual ability...Malcolm Gladwell observes that...snip “Once someone has reached an I.Q. of somewhere around 120,” he writes, “having additional I.Q. points doesn’t seem to translate into any measureable real-world advantage.”snip..
But this isn’t quite the story that science tells. Research has shown that intellectual ability matters for success in many fields — and not just up to a point.
...David Lubinski and Camilla Benbow...tracked the educational and occupational accomplishments of more than 2,000 people who...scored in the top 1 percent on the SAT by the age of 13. (Scores on the SAT correlate highly with I.Q). ... The remarkable finding of their study is that, compared with the participants who were “only” in the 99.1 percentile for intellectual ability at age 12, those who were in the 99.9 percentile — the profoundly gifted — were between three and five times more likely to go on to earn a doctorate, [etc.] A high level of intellectual ability gives you an enormous real-world advantage.
...we have discovered that “working memory capacity,” a core component of intellectual ability, predicts success ... snip..
It would be nice if intellectual ability and the capacities that underlie it were important for success only up to a point.... But wishing doesn’t make it so.
None of this is to deny the power of practice. Nor is it to say that it’s impossible for a person with an average I.Q. to, say, earn a Ph.D. in physics. It’s just unlikely, relatively speaking. Sometimes the story that science tells us isn’t the story we want to hear.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
“I would say that people who are exceptionally talented at a particular sport have a brain that is just as focused and agile in the manner of sports as mine is in the manner of academics.”
1. True enough, but....the issue is not “brain function” but “intelligence”. Until people like Gardner decided that the term “intelligence” needed to be redefined to make the relatively less intelligent feel good about themselves, no one would have confused the ability to throw or hit a ball well with “intelligence”.
Certainly these skills require certain brain functions to occur, just as walking does. But the involvement of the brain doesn’t mean that a pirouette or a pass has much at all to do with intellect. While a ballet dancer must have superior sense of balance and superior endowments in all the other brain functions required to dance at a high level, there are many other non-brain “assets” required involving body-type, heart-lung capacity, flexibility, etc. While these with training can add up to a high level of skill, none of this is what we mean by “intelligence”.
2. The point of the example was not address what today’s culture is like. Instead the point was to illustrate that we accomplish nothing by engaging in a kind of self-esteem therapy that describes things incorrectly. Doing math requires among the lowest levels of kinesthetic abilities (the ability to move a pencil accurately, let’s say), while ballet and boxing require extraordinary levels of kinesthetic ability. On the other hand, being a nose tackle, boxer, or ballerina doesn’t require high IQ.
Some of the people doing those things may have high IQs, of course, just as a mathematician may also be a good baseball player. A high IQ, however, is not an essential part of boxing, football, or dancing, just as being able to hit a baseball well has nothing to do with being a good mathematician.
Thanks for your post #8. I would not pretend to know anything about physics but I am convinced that you are right: no average person could master physics.
If you can show me where and when Einstein actually said that—a well-documented source—I’ll make another donation to FR.
There are artists who illustrate science! I've seen some beautiful representations of biological processes.
I can handle Classical/Newtonian physics fairly easily.
Thought I wanted to major in Physics in college (just a B.S., mind you).
Got to the first class in the Physics major - DOOM.
Switched majors post-haste.
The other principle is that the more you know, the more you learn. Children who learn the basic facts of field at a young age have a tremendous advantage, and later appear as geniuses. Einstein got started on Euclid’s Elements as a young boy. Richard Feynmann’s father bought him encyclopedias and math books and then went through the material with him. They are smart people, no doubt, but their aptitude and love for a particular field, and then learning the basic facts of that field at a young age is what puts them so far ahead of everyone else. Many young geniuses are able to become the students of genius teachers, which continues to keep them far ahead of everyone else.
“If you can show me where and when Einstein actually said that—a well-documented source—I’ll make another donation to FR.”
If you can do your own research, you’ll be a better man. Make a donation whether you find it or not.
Um, I do donate to FR. And I’m not a man. My point was that the internet is full of quotations and they’re so often attributed to either Einstein, Lincoln, or Jefferson, even though they have a rather modern sensibility and it’s impossible to find the quote in any of the great man’s writings or speeches.
Thanks.
I have a problem with testing for intelligence. I’d prefer to simply let people show what they can do.
I really don’t know if Einstein - or even a different Einstein - actually said or wrote
the quote. Only that it is attributed to him.
In any case, it illustrates a great truth.
Donate again anyway :-)
When I get another check, I will. I love this place.
You may enjoy this...
quoteinvestigator.com
Thanx!
People with intellectual intelligence without “emotional intelligence, do not do so well in the real world.
Fortunately, emotional intelligence, unlike IQ, can be improved.
Some employers are starting to do that. Grandson #2 passed the screening processes and interviews, and will be observed and evaluated before they sink any serious money into his training and education. I like it!
How politically incorrect? Their bottom line must be hurting.
So the Bell Curve is real?
Their contention that PhD = success is nonsense and detracts from the story.
Nicely played.
In the Land of the Blind; the One Eyed man is KING.
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