Politics And Current Events

[MR25]

Why the **** would you have an automated tweet for that?

[slappybrown]

Wat

[MWB]

The way you stated it, you seemed to say that it is more likely the surgeon could be a plumber than vice versa. That's where I think the disagreement lies, unless I misunderstood.

That is what I said. The subset of the population that would have the abilities necessary to be a plumber is much, much larger than the subset of the population that would have the abilities necessary to be a surgeon. Hence, it is much more likely that a surgeon could also hack it as a plumber than a plumber could also hack it as a surgeon. I'm not saying that anyone could be a plumber, but the skills necessary to be a plumber are much more common than the skills necessary to be a surgeon.

I'm surprised this is even generating any dissent. If I were to say that the vast majority of Americans are not strong enough, fast enough, coordinated enough—in other words, are lacking in the physical wherewithal—to ever be a professional athlete, I think the vast majority of people would say "Well, duh." But say (as indeed I am saying) that the vast majority of Americans likewise do not have the mental wherewithal to become something like a professional engineer or physician, and suddenly there seems to be lot more pushback.

I don't think you're getting much pushback, as I believe I'm the only one disagreeing with you. I'm a nurture guy. Given the opportunities, exposure, and proper upbringing, most people could attain the profession they want.

I do think there are "freaks" out there who are just naturally gifted in a specific area, but I think that's a minuscule group.

[shafnutz05]

I don't think you're getting much pushback, as I believe I'm the only one disagreeing with you. I'm a nurture guy. Given the opportunities, exposure, and proper upbringing, most people could attain the profession they want.

That is one of the craziest things I've ever heard. It sounds nice, but it is simply not true:

The general figure for the heritability of IQ, according to an authoritative American Psychological Association report, is 0.45 for children, and rises to around 0.75 for late teens and adults. In simpler terms, IQ goes from being weakly correlated with genetics, for children, to being strongly correlated with genetics for late teens and adults. The heritability of IQ increases with age and reaches an asymptote at 18–20 years of age and continues at that level well into adulthood. Recent studies suggest that family and parenting characteristics are not significant contributors to variation in IQ scores; however, poor prenatal environment, malnutrition and disease can have deleterious effects

In essence, I agree with you that bad parenting and whatnot can ruin someone that had potential, but not the other way around. Intelligence is mostly determined by genetic factors, and there is a small subset of humans that are intelligent enough to be a neurosurgeon.

[Viva la Ben]

He's an dadhole, but this is pretty funny.
https://twitter.com/foxnews/status/877694093601656832

[Gaucho]

That is one of the craziest things I've ever heard.

[CBear3]

That should definitely get him impeached. He's breaking the law (of physics).

[Viva la Ben]

[inhales through teeth]

[shoeshine boy]

This trope has gotten more play that it deserves, imo. The guy was raised in the district, and is only living outside the district on a temporary basis while his GF finishes med school. There is no requirement in GA that representatives live in their district; further, there is also no Constitutional requirement that members of Congress live in the district they represent. It's a nothingburger.

while I agree with you that it SHOULD be a nothingburger in the real world to an average voter it looks bad that the candidate doesn't live there. the gf is going to med school at Emory which is, at most 20 minutes away from the Eastern edge of the 6th district. the PACs got a lot of play by telling the voters that Ossof lived in D.C. even though that was, at best a half truth.

[MWB]

I don't think you're getting much pushback, as I believe I'm the only one disagreeing with you. I'm a nurture guy. Given the opportunities, exposure, and proper upbringing, most people could attain the profession they want.

That is one of the craziest things I've ever heard. It sounds nice, but it is simply not true:

The general figure for the heritability of IQ, according to an authoritative American Psychological Association report, is 0.45 for children, and rises to around 0.75 for late teens and adults. In simpler terms, IQ goes from being weakly correlated with genetics, for children, to being strongly correlated with genetics for late teens and adults. The heritability of IQ increases with age and reaches an asymptote at 18–20 years of age and continues at that level well into adulthood. Recent studies suggest that family and parenting characteristics are not significant contributors to variation in IQ scores; however, poor prenatal environment, malnutrition and disease can have deleterious effects

In essence, I agree with you that bad parenting and whatnot can ruin someone that had potential, but not the other way around. Intelligence is mostly determined by genetic factors, and there is a small subset of humans that are intelligent enough to be a neurosurgeon.

How much of being a neurosurgeon is related to iq? In other words, can someone learn enough to become a neurosurgeon, even with an average iq? If so, what you quote above isn't that relevant to what I said.

[count2infinity]

As with most things it's somewhere in the middle. How good of a golfer would tiger had been if he did lent have a father driving him to do it since he was 2? Obviously there are people that are just more apt to do certain things. There are some activities or school topics that just click with people, but there's also the ability to beat that activity and/or school topic into a person's brain and make them good at it.

[columbia]

IQ tests don't measure creativity, which I believe to be the most important type of thinking.

YMMV

[Troy Loney]

How much of being a neurosurgeon is related to iq? In other words, can someone learn enough to become a neurosurgeon, even with an average iq? If so, what you quote above isn't that relevant to what I said.

Yes, at least that's my experience. My Dad's fiance's daughter is studying to be a neurosurgeon. She's probably the most disciplined worker that i've ever seen, but she's not brilliant or anything like that.

[Viva la Ben]

Mark "The Super Genius" Madden often boasts of a tested IQ score of 166.

[MWB]

I don't think you're getting much pushback, as I believe I'm the only one disagreeing with you. I'm a nurture guy. Given the opportunities, exposure, and proper upbringing, most people could attain the profession they want.

That is one of the craziest things I've ever heard.

Circling back to this, because I'm surprised you think this is so crazy... Do you basically think that each person has a "ceiling" job then? Say you have an IQ of 95, does that mean you could never be in an administrative position? Or work as a computer engineer? Or a doctor? If so, then we should just track everyone's IQ and save people a lot of time and money and eliminate what jobs they are not fit for, IQ-wise. Of course, we also have to account for the variability of scores in different IQ tests. Also, it would probably be good to look at the different areas of an IQ test to see what made someone score so low. Otherwise, someone who wants to be a computer engineer but didn't qualify because of a low verbal comprehension score might not be too happy.

[count2infinity]

I feel with enough work put in (and of course the money and guidance to allow such a thing) you could take any person of normal brain power and get them be average at any profession. But there's way more involved... opportunity, school costs, passion for the job, natural talent for the job, etc. perhaps this is a better discussion for the education thread.

[shafnutz05]

Do you basically think that each person has a "ceiling" job then? Say you have an IQ of 95, does that mean you could never be in an administrative position?

I don't think the IQ score is the end-all, be-all, but yes. I firmly believe that most people have a ceiling, and some are higher than others. I think that the harder people work, the closer they can come to that ceiling, but it's there.

[Troy Loney]

There are jobs that exist that require mental capacity that not all humans possess. To attribute that mental capacity to their parents being smart and successful is kind of silly.

[Troy Loney]

Do you basically think that each person has a "ceiling" job then? Say you have an IQ of 95, does that mean you could never be in an administrative position?

I don't think the IQ score is the end-all, be-all, but yes. I firmly believe that most people have a ceiling, and some are higher than others. I think that the harder people work, the closer they can come to that ceiling, but it's there.

There are definitely variations on people's mental capacity, the argument is that you need smart parents to be smart.

[MWB]

I feel with enough work put in (and of course the money and guidance to allow such a thing) you could take any person of normal brain power and get them be average at any profession. But there's way more involved... opportunity, school costs, passion for the job, natural talent for the job, etc. perhaps this is a better discussion for the education thread.

That's pretty much my point. Intelligence is only one part of the equation. Yes, people may have a ceiling to their IQ, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are cut off from certain jobs. I would take someone with drive, grit, passion and an average IQ over someone who is lazy and indifferent, but has a high IQ.

[AuthorTony]

Do you basically think that each person has a "ceiling" job then? Say you have an IQ of 95, does that mean you could never be in an administrative position?

I don't think the IQ score is the end-all, be-all, but yes. I firmly believe that most people have a ceiling, and some are higher than others. I think that the harder people work, the closer they can come to that ceiling, but it's there.

That sort of goes back to the minimum wage/living wage debate. The (adult) people working fast food jobs, retail, low skilled manufacturing, etc. are likely not Mensa candidates who are just too lazy to get educated. Yet whenever they talk about wanting the min. wage increased, the rallying cry against it is, "Those jobs aren't meant to live on. They need to work harder, get an education, etc." Some people just aren't able to work smarter or attend collage or a trade school. Should those people be destined to live a life below the poverty level because they had a losing ticket in the genetic lottery?

I'm really not committed to a side, just putting it out there for debate.

[Viva la Ben]

It is revealed
https://twitter.com/politico/status/877916830609817601

[Viva la Ben]

https://twitter.com/cnn/status/877923717023547392

[eddy]

https://twitter.com/bpolitics/status/877928138876960768

[columbia]

lol