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Why a High IQ Doesn't Mean You're Smart

D1gital_Prob3 writes "How can a 'smart' person act foolishly? Keith Stanovich, professor of human development and applied psychology at the University of Toronto, Canada, has grappled with this apparent incongruity for 15 years. He says it applies to more people than you might think. To Stanovich, however, there is nothing incongruous about it. IQ tests are very good at measuring certain mental faculties, he says, including logic, abstract reasoning, learning ability and working-memory capacity — how much information you can hold in mind."

3 of 808 comments (clear)

  1. Re:419 Scams by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    More importantly, why do African Americans as a group do so much worse on IQ tests? I don't buy the argument that IQ tests are biased towards Western culture seeing how African Americans have lived in the USA for many generations and have grown up within that same culture.

  2. Re:Cart and Horse by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    Yes, the whole blame America first crowd. Of course you simply forget bigotry wasn't limited to skin color. Or did you forget all the old Polish Jokes, and things the Irish ghettos, Italian slums, Spanish barios and .... Appalachia.

    It is easy to ignore the things that don't fit your own biases.

    If you ask me, it is catch-22, one leads to the other, and it not cart/horse but rather chicken/egg.

    The real question is, why after a generation of post civil rights marches and such, things haven't really changed? Why haven't more Black people not availed themselves to free education?

    My personal view is that recruiting football and basketball stars for college isn't helping get people out, and if you really want to help black Americans, you'd stop making excuses for them.

    There is no excuse today why a black american cannot succeed other than cultural prohibition against it. After all, if you succeed you're simply labeled Uncle Tom and traitor.

    It is really sad if you ask me.

    --
    Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
  3. Re:Cognitive ability by pureevilmatt · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    I have mod points... but I'd rather reply to your idiocy in the small chance that you might learn. Let's put it this way: There's no evidence for invisible pink unicorns living on the moon... But there's no evidence that there's NOT invisible pink unicorns living on the moon. I'm sure we'd all feel better if we knew for sure one way or the other. I'm sure such a discovery would win some kind of prize... Just as sure as I am that the pimples on my ass are more intelligent than are your thoughts on this matter. Your dermatologist wife agrees.