Actually, the one thing that most people with abnormally high IQs have in common is that they have failed a lot in life, especially in school and in the workplace. Einstein failed the entrance exam for Zurich Polytechnic. Thomas Edison, despite being amazingly intelligent, tried over thousand times before he created the lightbulb. Also, a recent study showed that children with high IQs generally have lower grades than children of average intelligence.

oh, and for those who are interested, I finally dug up the Epicurus quote I was talking about earlier;

Every man should examine his own genius, and consider what is proper to apply himself to; for nothing can be more distant from tranquility and happiness that to be engaged in a course of life for which nature has rendered us unfit.

An active life is not to be undertaken by an inactive person, nor an inactive life by an active person; to one, rest is quiet and action labor; to another, rest is labor and action quiet.

A gentle man should avoid a military life, a bold and impatient man the easy; for one cannot brook war, nor the other peace.



I don't think I need to explain why he is my favourite philosopher.

I guess almost half the forum are geniuses who will go on to be professors and rocket scientists then. :rolleyes: Obviously I dont know these people, but according to this thread, the Beth forums are a breeding ground for little man Tates. Yes, most professors have around a 150 I.Q. (seen in a study) and even if they dont, I doubt many people on here are smarter than them anyway.

Fun thought experiment. Wherever you see IQ replace it with E-Peen. Yes, the irony is staggering (even in this post).

Edit
IQ doesn't equal anything. Your not going to spontaneously turn into a caveman dirt farmer because you have an IQ of 90, nor will you turn into a professor spontaneously with an IQ of 140+.

Ha ha - I got that too, but wasn't sure if that was part of the test and I had to figure something out. :blush: I'm guessing my IQ isn't too high.

Fact: Every single thread on every single forum on the internet is essentially an e-peen contest in disguise.*




*I might have made that up

Hahahahah! This calls for a dance (of E-Peen). Oh my god there's no dance icon, oh well this will have to do. :foodndrink:

Just because someone has scored well on an IQ test doesn't mean anything about their later career in life - IQ tests have been shown to predict academic performance, which have been shown to predict career performance, but that's about it.

Also, a lot of people reporting IQ scores here are likely joking around. Or, they are putting down IQ scores from a different standardized intelligent quotient test, because not all IQ tests use the same scoring system.

Thats what I figured.


Which pretty much validates my opinion.

Didn't you know that only the elite are allowed online? Everyone on the internet is a genius, a black belt, has worse problems than anyone and everyone but not by their own fault because they're also right about everything, is a hacker, deemed insane by The Man for their eccentric wonder, and also probably a werewolf or something.

Fact, my IQ is 10*.











*^100x100

Despite the fact that it had already been invented? He tried 1000s of times to improve the electric light bulb (Minor irk there).

However, intelligence isn't everything. It is working on the right problem at the right time. Hamming (When he was working at Bell Labs) did a great lectures on "How to be great".

Quote from it (IDK if it is paraphrased):

You make Corky from Life Goes On look like Kim Ung-Yong...Just kidding. Unless thats a small squared sign right of 10.

I'm going to try to put this thread back on its tracks by expanding my previous post.

I said that children with high IQs often had trouble in school. They are also often labeled trouble kids. This is because they are bored with the subject, they understand it better than the other kids and the lack of challenge makes them frustrated and uninterested. Teachers don't like smart children because they challenge them with real questions (not bashing teachers, it's just a fact).

Another thing worth mentioning is that people with a high IQ usually have other psychological problems, the most common one is ADHD, with depression and anxiety following in the second and third place.




TTHHPPTT!! my argument still stands.

100% agreed.

I went to a school for gifted kids during grade-school and high-school. The prevalence of psychological disorders (ADHD prime amongst them) was, it seemed to me, to be quite high overall, which lends anecdotal credence to your post. Plus I've read studies that have found an association between high IQ and ADHD / depression.

I find the talk about ADHD and ADD more interesting than I.Q.s etc. I think those things are crutches, made up by the drug companies. Do some kids have legit problems with attention etc. Sure, but not as many as are given drugs these days. Where were all these kids with ADD when I was growing up? Oh yeah, they were labeled hyper and they either turned out fine, or as ditch diggers. I would say ADD and ADHD are one of the most over diagnosed 'diseases'.

A recent study actually shows that ADHD is a neurological disease and not a behavioral disorder. I'm trying to find a link to the research right now but I can't for the life of me remember where I saw it

EDIT: actually I think it was my psychologist who mentioned the study, which explains why I can't remember web page it was on. Anyway, I agree that ADHD is extremely over diagnosed these days, but that's because there are a lot of doctors who aren't doing their jobs, it's not because ADHD isn't a real disease. I'm guessing that less than half of the people diagnosed with ADHD actually have the neurological disease. But I'm just guessing.

I'm sorry, but whenever anyone states that, when they were younger, people didn't have X mental disorder (typically ADHD, autism and / or depression), it really drives me up a wall, both as a budding psychologist and a person who has friends who suffer from ADHD and minor autism spectrum disorders. Simply because a disorder wasn't diagnosed back 20-odd years ago doesn't mean it didn't exist - it simply wasn't diagnosed as well because psychologists were unaware of it / the instruments used to diagnose a given disorder were not as well developed.

Also, as Exorince mentioned, there is evidence that ADHD is actually a neurological disorder versus a behavioral one. So, if that is true, it means people with ADHD have neurological wiring that causes them to act the way they do. Which also may help to explain why cognitive behavioral therapy has a good success rate helping people who have ADHD.

I would like to read that, even if I dont beleive it. It seriously didnt bother us for the last 4000 years of recorded history, but now its every where apparantly. Same thing with disciplining kids, anyone see the mother that gave the kid hot-sauce for lying? Tell me older members, would you of rather taken the hot-sauce, or a mouth full of Lava soap like I used to get?



Again, the world needs ditch diggers too. If ADHD and ADD is real, then its natural selection filling in the lower rungs of the social status quo. Even then, its still over diagnosed and has become a racket for the drug companies.

Maybe this discussion should go in another thread though.

He, he, I grew up eating roasted jalapenos for breakfast. It wouldn't have been a very effective deterrent in our household.

Exactly what I was thinking.

of course I don't have any education in this field, I'm no psychologist or anything. I just read a lot and I've been fighting my own brain since I was a child, so I've talked a lot to psychologists.

I'm loving this discussion though, it's been a while since I've been able to have a proper, intelligent discussion on the forums.

Brain hurt. Why...? :sadvaultboy:

Edit
Oh my god yes, it all makes sense now. Xarnac is just waxing [censored] nostalgic about the good old days.

Fine, go read these:

http://www.springerlink.com/content/h3kl772401805442/, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-8749.2009.03407.x/abstract and http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ddrr.41/abstract.

I... I.... what?

First of all, you have no sources of information to back up your claims about ADHD being over-diagnosed (though I believe you are correct in general). Secondly, how does natural selection have anything to do with social status?

Brain hurt?


Well, if it is real and it goes undiagnosed/untreated I figure such people would have a hard time in school and maybe getting a good job. If its real, then its most likely natural and some form of natural selection like most everything is. I dont need to see a study to know a racket. Half of my sons class is on some ADD drug, like they all need that. Back when I went to school its a wonder how we all sat there and passed. Where was all this ADD/ADHD then? :rolleyes:

... that makes no sense.

First, natural selection is a biological process, yes? Which means, generally, that individuals of a given species that have some helpful advantage will prosper / have more offspring than those who do not have that advantage. This means that, over time, those without the advantage will die out / be subsumed by the advantaged group, who have better chances of having offspring due to their advantage. It's, from what I've learned and understood, a biological version of a goodness of fit test between the individuals and their environment - those who have a better fit / advantage in their environment will likely have more offspring than those who do not have such an advantage. It has nothing to do with social status. That's an entirely human construct. Not to mention that humans, in general, aren't simply letting natural selection take hold of our destiny.

ADHD and ADD could, in theory, have a specific cause in the environment that has only recently occurred. I don't know for sure. But also, I know that 30+ years ago, most kids who had some form of ADD / ADHD weren't able to function in a classroom because there was no medication. Thus, they weren't in your classroom because they would simply have been too disruptive / unable to learn. They, likely, would have been placed in a classroom alongside kids with Down's Syndrome, for example, which is why you never saw them.

I am so tempted to make a thread about that....