Slashdot Mirror
Web Geniuses Or Web Dimwits?
ScribeCity writes "The Washington Post has a provocative piece about online experiments at identifying experts. One wonders when someone will come up with a truly effective formula for measuring human intelligence — or take a stab at doing so — that exploits all the stuff people are publishing online." From the article: "This wisdom of the crowd could be outsmarted by what Michael Arrington, editor of the TechCrunch blog, recently dubbed the 'wisdom of the few.' Sites like PicksPal rely on input from the masses chiefly as a venue for auditioning prospective experts, on the theory that these virtuosos could provide even more accurate information and predictions than the crowd. 'If you figure out which ones did the best and get rid of the ones who have no idea, you'd do even better. Distill it down to the people who really know,' Arrington said."
Also, it certainly won't happen until we come to a common idea of what "intelligence" is. I've met plenty of people who are good at math who can't string a sentence together. I've known people who are good at math and writing, and just do the stupidest things. So what's intelligence made up of? Quick computer-like operations? Clear thinking and deep analysis? Good judgement?
It seems to me that many people have various levels of all sorts of different mental capabilities, all of which we lump into "intelligence", without really distinguishing. Any test you come up with will arbitrarily choose a subset of these capabilities and rate them to an arbitrary level of importance, and that's the best-case scenario, assuming everything is accurate. And what about people who are lacking specifically in the mental capabilities that make a person a good test-taker?
see also digg