Marilyn vos Savant Slam
Benjamin J. Tilly
rd...@curry.edschool.Virginia.EDU (Raymond Dwayne Smith) writes:
> r...@gnu.ai.mit.edu writes:
> > You act like an expert on everything mr yodaiken yet your displayed
> > knowledge in practice seems to be very limited. I'm reminded of Marilyn
> > vos Savant.
> >
> > -rjc
>
> I don't know anything about MvS outside of Parade Magazine and
> Guiness. Could you please explain? Do you have more info than
> that we can acquire from Parade and Guiness?
I have added sci.math because there has been a lot of discussion of
some of her more spectacular mistakes there. And there have been some
beauts!!! Also Guiness has now stopped listing her as the highest IQ in
the world. In fact a number of questions were raised about whether
there was cheating on the test that she took. (The exact details of
which I do not remember.)
So while I do not know what rjc knows, I do know that Marilyn Vos
(Idiot) Savant has a lot less respect with people who know what she is
talking about than people think.
Cheers,
Ben Tilly
Andrew Rogers
>I have added sci.math because there has been a lot of discussion of
>some of her more spectacular mistakes there. And there have been some
>beauts!!! Also Guiness has now stopped listing her as the highest IQ in
>the world.
I once wrote to her and asked how anyone could have a higher IQ than the
people who create IQ tests. Never got an answer...
Andrew
Michael Melnyk
Well, if you could provide a reference citing the alleged cheating, I'd
appreciate it.
BTW, I'm no fan of hers - in fact, I think her surname's pretty damn
absurd - but I get a vague feeling that the Marilyn bashing above is
somewhat motivated by jealousy. Correct me if I'm wrong (as if I had to
ask...).
Sincerely,
Mike Melnyk
Benjamin J. Tilly
mel...@bostech.com (Michael Melnyk) writes:
> >I have added sci.math because there has been a lot of discussion of
> >some of her more spectacular mistakes there. And there have been some
> >beauts!!! Also Guiness has now stopped listing her as the highest IQ in
> >the world. In fact a number of questions were raised about whether
> >there was cheating on the test that she took. (The exact details of
> >which I do not remember.)
> >
> >So while I do not know what rjc knows, I do know that Marilyn Vos
> >(Idiot) Savant has a lot less respect with people who know what she is
> >talking about than people think.
> >
> >Cheers,
> >Ben Tilly
>
> Well, if you could provide a reference citing the alleged cheating, I'd
> appreciate it.
>
> BTW, I'm no fan of hers - in fact, I think her surname's pretty damn
> absurd - but I get a vague feeling that the Marilyn bashing above is
> somewhat motivated by jealousy. Correct me if I'm wrong (as if I had to
> ask...).
I heard about this second hand, so I am not saying that you should take
it as gospel. But the test that she took is called the Mega test. She
was apparently one of the people who was involved in making it up. This
already seems suspicious to me. This particular test is one where they
send it to you, you have as long to do it as you want, and then you
send your answers back. There are no safeguards for cheating.
Apparently people got suspicious since the questions that she got wrong
were relatively easy. (ie everyone who got above a certain score, other
than her, got them.) Furthermore there is a question of how to compare
results on that test with other tests. Lastly someone else managed to
tie her on the same test.
For more details, including the details on how to take the Mega test,
you will need to go through the old debate where someone posted the
details a while ago on sci.math. Either that or rely on some kind soul
having archived it and posting it again. Could anyone do that?
As for the mistakes, you should follow the same discussion on sci.math
and rec.puzzles. The most spectacular was her critique of Andrew Wiles'
purported proof of FLT. It was total hogwash and all that she managed
to do is demonstrate a complete lack of knowledge about what an axiom
system is and what the relationship between two axiom systems are.
Literally if she understood a standard encyclopedia article on the
topic then she would not have made that kind of mistake. There have
been others, but that was IMO the worst.
Cheers,
Ben Tilly
Chris Cole
>I heard about this second hand, so I am not saying that you should take
>it as gospel. But the test that she took is called the Mega test. She
>was apparently one of the people who was involved in making it up. This
>already seems suspicious to me. This particular test is one where they
>send it to you, you have as long to do it as you want, and then you
>send your answers back. There are no safeguards for cheating.
>Apparently people got suspicious since the questions that she got wrong
>were relatively easy. (ie everyone who got above a certain score, other
>than her, got them.) Furthermore there is a question of how to compare
>results on that test with other tests. Lastly someone else managed to
>tie her on the same test.
I've heard this rumor before. Marilyn's IQ score of 230 was on the
Stanford Binet taken at the age of 10 (she received a perfect score,
which the test book equates to a mental age of 23, and 23/10 = 230
percent). This is the score that got her into the Guinness Book of
Records. She also scored a 46 out of 48 possible on the Mega Test, but
Ron Hoeflin, the author of the Mega Test, claims that a raw score of 46
equates to an IQ of something around 180, not 230. Since then, other
people have achieved this and higher scores on the Mega Test.
Please note that I have not stated that I believe that the Stanford
Binet can be used to measure IQs this high, nor have I stated that I
believe that IQs measure anything at all. Guinness no longer lists
anything about IQs.
Paul Neel
> In article <2krq7c$l...@dartvax.dartmouth.edu> Benjamin...@dartmouth.edu (Benjamin J. Tilly) writes:
>>In article <CLvIr...@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>
>>rd...@curry.edschool.Virginia.EDU (Raymond Dwayne Smith) writes:
>>> r...@gnu.ai.mit.edu writes:
All of the MvS bashing seems to be based on some vague correlation
between math skills and IQ. MvS has demonstrated monumentally bad
judgment in showcasing her weakest skill in Parade magazine,
however, IQ scores are not based exclusively (or even largely) on
math skills. I have known many Mensans over the years, who could
not balance their checkbook. On the other hand, I know many people
who can perform mathematical magic but can't score above average
on IQ tests. (And, of course, everyone has heard of cases of
people with severe mental handicaps who could do anything
mathematical but couldn't perform even basic functional tasks.)
IMHO, MvS (who may or may not be the world's smartest person) is
only guilty of bad judgement. On the other hand, those who are
bashing her because of her mathematical failings are probably
mathematicians.
Try to enjoy life, it just isn't that serious.
PN
Wilhelm Friedrich Mueller
to me that intelligence is something that is almost impossible to put a label
on, because there are so many different ways that people store and process
knowledge. How does one begin to compare the intelligence of, say, an English
professor and a Physics professor? "Well the Physics professor can read and
write, but the English professor can't even begin to argue about the validity
of Quantum Mechanics, therefore the Physics professor is more intelligent." I
think not. We don't even understand rat intelligence yet, how can we even
pretend that summing up human intelligence into an all encompassing IQ number
has anymore meaning than a person happened to know (or not know) certain
answers to certain questions at a certain time.
---Wilhelm
Jan Willem Nienhuys
# math skills. I have known many Mensans over the years, who could
# not balance their checkbook. On the other hand, I know many people
# who can perform mathematical magic but can't score above average
I think I know something about math, but making calculations like
"balancing a checkbook" I can't do either. JWN
J. S. Greenfield
>I once wrote to her and asked how anyone could have a higher IQ than the
>people who create IQ tests. Never got an answer...
Ignoring the inherent silliness of this question...
IQ stands for Intelligence Quotient. It is defined as an individual's
intellectual/mental age divided by their chronological age multiplied by 100.
A ten-year-old who solves problems at a twenty-year-old level (whatever that
means) would have an IQ of 200.
Certainly, even by your reasoning, a twenty-year-old with an IQ of 100
could design a test to reveal a 200 IQ in a ten-year-old.
(None of this should be interpreted as suggesting that I have any reliance
in IQ's or IQ tests.)
--
J. S. Greenfield gre...@top.cis.syr.edu
(I like to put 'greeny' here,
but my d*mn system wants a
*real* name!) "What's the difference between an orange?"
Michael G. Kurilla
>
> I've heard this rumor before. Marilyn's IQ score of 230 was on the
> Stanford Binet taken at the age of 10 (she received a perfect score,
> which the test book equates to a mental age of 23, and 23/10 = 230
> percent). This is the score that got her into the Guinness Book of
> Records. She also scored a 46 out of 48 possible on the Mega Test, but
> Ron Hoeflin, the author of the Mega Test, claims that a raw score of 46
> equates to an IQ of something around 180, not 230. Since then, other
> people have achieved this and higher scores on the Mega Test.
How about putting an end to this Marilyn thread?
The IQ scores are really bogus at both the high and low ends.
Most of all the standard intelligence tests use 100 as a mean
and either 15 or 16 as the standard deviation. That means that
over 130 (or 132) puts you into the realm of less than 2.5% of
the population. The problem you find in that area is that not
enough people have been tested (by one particular examiner or
small group of examiner for internal consistency) to generate
meaningful statistics. Generally, the examiner simply
concludes that the test results may underestimate the IQ of the
individual and calls it 130 (or 132). Some of the tests allow
you to extrapolate to higher value but there is no statistical
verification, that those numbers are meaningful (except to the
test taker, maybe).
>
> Please note that I have not stated that I believe that the Stanford
> Binet can be used to measure IQs this high, nor have I stated that I
> believe that IQs measure anything at all. Guinness no longer lists
> anything about IQs.
>
I'll state that they can't. It would no different than having
a weight lifting competition and having the top finishers all
lifting the maximum weight brought to the match. Then to pick
a winner by measuring how fast that maximum weight was lifted,
then trying to extrapolate how much weight they could have
lifted from their speed of lifting.
An alterantive would be give everyone a test that they all
score perfectly, then decide who gets the higher grade by how
fast they finished the test.
IQs as a single number are not very useful. Their main utility
is in identifying particular deficits that may detract from
certain skill acquisition and allowing focussing on those
deficits.
Now enough of Mariyln!
Mike K
Gerald Edgar
If you really want to know (which was not clear from your post),
I am sure asking in sci.psychology would get you references to
recent literature on the subject.
--
Gerald A. Edgar Internet: ed...@math.ohio-state.edu
Department of Mathematics Bitnet: EDGAR@OHSTPY
The Ohio State University telephone: 614-292-0395 (Office)
Columbus, OH 43210 -292-4975 (Math. Dept.) -292-1479 (Dept. Fax)
Kari Nenonen
measure what you know but what you realize. That's maybe the biggest
difficulty in constructin those test: they tend always to remain more or
less culture bound no matter what and learning increases your IQ to measurable
amount. But there are tests (mainly for children and mentally handicapped)
that you can take even if you don't know how to read and write.
But you are right: there are meny kind of intelligence or should I say many
kinds of talents, which cannot be measured by only a one test.
> ---Wilhelm
*Kari
--
* kauh...@mits.mdata.fi * * Kari Juhani Nenonen *
* Helsinki - SF *
john baez
> Try to enjoy life, it just isn't that serious.
Ever noticed how hard it is to enjoy life when someone tells you
something like this?
Hannu Helminen
I think that you are confusing two different issues. Your Physics
professor and English professor may know a lot from their own fields,
but that is not what I would call intelligence.
You say that there are many ways that people can process knowledge.
True. Obviously intelligence is not the information processing
capability of a person. (Otherwise we could call computers
intelligent.)
IMHO, intelligence can be characterized much better by the ability of
a person to cope with problems he has not encountered before.
It would be foolish to think that a small integer number could
describe the entire human mind. IQ is no such number. It is simply a
useful tool.
But it would also be foolish to think that IQ is meaningless. It has
positive correlation with certain human characteristics. People with
high IQ are often funny, playful, quick in solving problems, and very
imaginative. They can solve certain problems quickly. On the other
hand, they are often bored or depressed. Often they don't get very
well along with people.
> ---Wilhelm
--dm
--
Hannu d...@stekt.oulu.fi || You have been hacking too long when you
Helminen d...@phoenix.oulu.fi || talk of people as users (or end-users)
Seth Gordon
ch...@questrel.com (Chris Cole) writes:
>
>I've heard this rumor before. Marilyn's IQ score of 230 was on the
>Stanford Binet taken at the age of 10 (she received a perfect score,
>which the test book equates to a mental age of 23, and 23/10 = 230
>percent).
IQ scores are not based on mental/physical age anymore. Depending on
which test, it's normed at 15 or 16 points per standard deviation.
So Marilyn's IQ 230 because her score was at least eight standard
deviations above the mean. The statistics wonks reading this can
translate that into a percentile.
--
seth gordon // se...@gnu.ai.mit.edu // standard disclaimer // pgp2-compatible
"In fact, many decisions in life are more like entering an uncontrolled
intersection at the same time as three drunk drivers: It is
impossible to know rationally what to do, and the system is ill-defined."
-- Stanford economist Brian Arthur
Andrew Rogers
>In article <2kt0ah...@suntan.hi.com> rog...@suntan.hi.com (Andrew Rogers) writes:
>>I once wrote to her and asked how anyone could have a higher IQ than the
>>people who create IQ tests. Never got an answer...
>
>intellectual/mental age divided by their chronological age multiplied by 100.
That was true nearly a century ago, when Binet invented the IQ test for
diagnosing learning disabilities in children.
The concept of a "mental age" is meaningless in adults; consequently, when
the US Armed Forces devised the earliest adult IQ tests, they based the
scoring system on the bell curve. 100 is "average" (OK, median), and each
standard deviation from the median is 15-20 points, depending on the test.
For a couple decades now children's IQ tests have also been scored on a bell
curve.
>A ten-year-old who solves problems at a twenty-year-old level (whatever that
>means) would have an IQ of 200.
By your line of reasoning, so would a forty-year-old who solves problems
at an eighty-year-old level.
>Certainly, even by your reasoning, a twenty-year-old with an IQ of 100
>could design a test to reveal a 200 IQ in a ten-year-old.
Sorry, but that's *your* reasoning, not mine. My question stands: how can
a group of individuals with, say, five-sigma IQs can devise a test to reveal
a six-sigma IQ?
>(None of this should be interpreted as suggesting that I have any reliance
>in IQ's or IQ tests.)
Nor, obviously, any clue as to how they are scored.
Andrew
Kurt Strain
: In article <1994Feb28.1...@bostech.com>
: mel...@bostech.com (Michael Melnyk) writes:
: As for the mistakes, you should follow the same discussion on sci.math
: and rec.puzzles. The most spectacular was her critique of Andrew Wiles'
: purported proof of FLT. It was total hogwash and all that she managed
: to do is demonstrate a complete lack of knowledge about what an axiom
: system is and what the relationship between two axiom systems are.
: Literally if she understood a standard encyclopedia article on the
: topic then she would not have made that kind of mistake. There have
: been others, but that was IMO the worst.
I have only read a couple of things Marilyn wrote, and one was this critique.
I thought she made sense, but I am not a mathematician. This is what I recall
her statement being: That FLT was originally based on a set of axioms
for standard Euclidean geometry. The theorem proposed assumed this set.
Andrew Wile's proof used non-Euclidean geometry, and was a whole new set
of axioms. Therefore, if Wile proved anything, he did not prove it under
the original rules, and therefore did not uphold the idea that the
first proof existed. That seems logical to me. Where's the total hogwash?
I'm curious. Are you sure you're not reading more into her than you ought
to be? It does remind me of all the derisive jokes about her with her
Monty Hall puzzle. Seems like some insecurity thing.
By the way, my local newspaper wrote about a young boy in Junior College
breezing along with his "off the scale IQ". In other words, there is no
accurate measurement of his IQ, and is considered somewhere in the neighborhood
of 250-260. He's trying to take life slower than Doogie Howser. The guy is
local to our area. Maybe he should be in Guiness instead.
Patrick Jost
--
Patrick Jost % jo...@itd.nrl.navy.mil % (703) 905-3648 % (703) 905-3745 [fax]
U.S. Department of the Treasury % Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN)
need an aggressive, dissonant bassist in the DC area? call me...
Warwick Corvette Fretless, Trace Elliot BLX-80
Mark Kantrowitz
--mark
J. Peerson
>
>IQ scores are not based on mental/physical age anymore. Depending on
>which test, it's normed at 15 or 16 points per standard deviation.
>So Marilyn's IQ 230 because her score was at least eight standard
>deviations above the mean. The statistics wonks reading this can
>translate that into a percentile.
She's in the top (10 to the minus 15) -- pretty neat trick, considering
the total number of humans ever born probably doesn't exceed 10 billion.
-- J. Peerson
Karen Horn
: But it would also be foolish to think that IQ is meaningless. It has
: positive correlation with certain human characteristics. People with
: high IQ are often funny, playful, quick in solving problems, and very
: imaginative. They can solve certain problems quickly. On the other
: hand, they are often bored or depressed. Often they don't get very
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
: well along with people.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Is this last bit really true? I thought that the Louis Terman Studies
(albeit done some time ago) seemed to disprove this "popular myth".
Could someone in the field give any evidence for or against "people
with hi IQ's are often bored, depressed...don't get along well with
others".
Karen
David G Radcliffe
: I have only read a couple of things Marilyn wrote, and one was this critique.
: I thought she made sense, but I am not a mathematician. This is what I recall
: her statement being: That FLT was originally based on a set of axioms
: for standard Euclidean geometry. The theorem proposed assumed this set.
: Andrew Wile's proof used non-Euclidean geometry, and was a whole new set
: of axioms. Therefore, if Wile proved anything, he did not prove it under
: the original rules, and therefore did not uphold the idea that the
: first proof existed. That seems logical to me. Where's the total hogwash?
(a) FLT has never been based on the axioms of Euclidean geometry.
(b) Wiles' proof does not use non-Euclidean geometry, according
to the experts who have seen the manuscript.
(c) Non-Euclidean geometry does not require a new set of axioms,
because it can be constructed within Euclidean geometry.
(d) It is perfectly legitimate to use non-Euclidean geometry to prove
theorems in Euclidean geometry, just as it is legitimate to use
complex numbers to find the real roots of a cubic polynomial.
Will Bell
>In article <1MAR1994...@utkvx.utk.edu>,
>Wilhelm Friedrich Mueller <zmue...@utkvx.utk.edu> wrote:
>>This whole IQ thing, and what it represents doesn't mean much to me. It seems
>>to me that intelligence is something that is almost impossible to put a label
Please, folks. This discussion is being posted to 9 completely different
newsgroups. I claim that it is relevant to, at most, rec.puzzles.
It certainly is not relevant to misc.jobs.misc, and it does not appear to
belong in soc.women, soc.men, sci.econ, or misc.legal.misc.
Please edit the Newsgroups: line in future posts to this thread.
Thanks
WBB
--
Will Bell -- be...@cs.tamu.edu -- Live from the heart of Scenic Central Texas
"It must be inordinately taxing to be such a boob."
Robert J. Keller
>IQ stands for Intelligence Quotient. It is defined as an individual's
>intellectual/mental age divided by their chronological age multiplied by 100.
>A ten-year-old who solves problems at a twenty-year-old level (whatever that
>means) would have an IQ of 200.
Does that mean that a 57 year old person with an IQ of 200 can solve
problems with the acuity of a 114 year old?
--
Bob Keller (KY3R) r...@telcomlaw.win.net Tel +1 301.229.5208
r...@clark.net CompuServe 76100,3333 Fax +1 301.229.6875
john baez
>I have only read a couple of things Marilyn wrote, and one was this critique.
>I thought she made sense, but I am not a mathematician. This is what I recall
>her statement being: That FLT was originally based on a set of axioms
>for standard Euclidean geometry. The theorem proposed assumed this set.
>Andrew Wile's proof used non-Euclidean geometry, and was a whole new set
>of axioms. Therefore, if Wile proved anything, he did not prove it under
>the original rules, and therefore did not uphold the idea that the
>first proof existed. That seems logical to me. Where's the total
>hogwash?
Well, the total hogwash is that it's complete bullshit, if you'll pardon
the mixed metaphor. FLT was not originally intended to be proved using
the axioms for Euclidean geometry, and Wiles' proof did not assume the
axioms for non-Euclidean geometry. In other words, she just made up a
story that's rather unrelated to the actual facts of the matter.
Chris Cole
I was told by Ron Hoeflin that Marilyn's 230 was derived by dividing her
chronological age at the time (10) by her "mental age" as given by
the test interpretation book for a perfect score (23). So perhaps
this is how it was done 30+ years ago, when she was ten?
I would not have wasted the bandwidth on this comment, except I want to
question the number 10 billion for total number of human beings ever to
have lived on Earth. I seem to recall reading somewhere the number 74
billion, but that was a few years ago. This number comes up every few
months in rec.puzzles, but we never have had a consensus form. Does
anyone have a reference that derives this number?
Chris Thompson
> people with severe mental handicaps who could do anything
> mathematical but couldn't perform even basic functional tasks.)
Really? "Anything mathematical"?
There have, of course, been several instances of people with extraordinary
arithmetical skills who were otherwise mentally retarded. I doubt whether
it would be correct even to say that most of these "could not perform even
basic functional tasks".
Chris Thompson
Internet: ce...@phx.cam.ac.uk
JANET: ce...@uk.ac.cam.phx
john baez
>From article <2l02jo$8...@galaxy.ucr.edu>, by ba...@guitar.ucr.edu (john baez):
> No. How so?
Can't you take a joke??? Relax and have fun, now, okay?
Doug S. Caprette
In article <2l14av...@uwm.edu> radc...@alpha2.csd.uwm.edu (David G Radcliffe) writes:
(Points a and b deleted without comment. However:)
>
>(c) Non-Euclidean geometry does not require a new set of axioms,
> because it can be constructed within Euclidean geometry.
Then what is it that makes such a geometry non-Euclidian? Do you refer
to geometries which augment Euclidian geometry with new axioms that do
not contradict Euclid's original postulates?
Recalling my high school geometry, Euclid's parallel postulate states in
effect:
Given a line in a plane and a point not on that line it is possible to con-
struct one and only one line through that point which does not intersect the
first line.
The two oldest non-Euclidian geometries originated from attempts to prove
Euclid's parallel postulate (which would make it into a theorem) by
contradiction. They resulted from _replacing_ Euclid's parallel postulate
with either:
Given a line in a plane and a point not on that line it is not possible to con-
struct any line through that point which does not intersect the first line.
Or,
Given a line in a plane and a point not on that line it is possible to con-
struct infinitely many lines through that point which do not intersect the
first line.
>(d) It is perfectly legitimate to use non-Euclidean geometry to prove
> theorems in Euclidean geometry, just as it is legitimate to use
> complex numbers to find the real roots of a cubic polynomial.
If, and only if, one is using a geometry which includes all of Euclid's
original postulates, right?
--
d...@gemini.gsfc.nasa.gov
| Regards, | Hughes STX | Code 926.9 GSFC |
| Doug Caprette | Lanham, Maryland | Greenbelt, MD 20771 |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"A discussion is an exchange of knowledge whereas
an argument is an exchange of ignorance." -- D.S. Caprette
Kurt Strain
Collectively, I'm sure you know more about this than me or Marilyn. So
thanks for clarifying it. I got seven letters from mathematicians all
over the world correcting my belief in Marilyn's position. I haven't
had such good response from the net in such a long time. Thanks to
all the contributors.
Kurt
David Karr
>In article <2l14av...@uwm.edu> radc...@alpha2.csd.uwm.edu (David G Radcliffe) writes:
>>(c) Non-Euclidean geometry does not require a new set of axioms,
>> because it can be constructed within Euclidean geometry.
>
>Then what is it that makes such a geometry non-Euclidian? Do you refer
>to geometries which augment Euclidian geometry with new axioms that do
>not contradict Euclid's original postulates?
I recently reviewed one such geometry. Take an ordinary sphere in
Euclidean 3-space. Call each pair of antipodal points on the sphere
in the Euclidean space (the points where a line through the center of
the sphere intersects the surface) a "point" of the new geometry.
Call each great circle on the sphere in the Euclidean space (a circle
on the sphere of the same radius as the sphere itself) a "line" of the
new geometry.
The result is a model of a real projective plane, in which *every*
pair of distinct lines intersects at a unique point. (Notice that as
soon as I started speaking in the context of the real projective
plane, I dropped the quotation marks around "line" and "point".) So
the axioms of this geometry most definitely contradict the axioms of
Euclidean geometry, but you can construct all objects in the
projective geometry using only Euclidean geometry. (Just draw
whatever you need on the sphere, being careful that whenever you
include a point in a figure, you also include its antipodal point.
Notice that I'm talking about the Euclidean geometry again, so "point"
once again refers to a point in the Euclidean geometry.)
>>(d) It is perfectly legitimate to use non-Euclidean geometry to prove
>> theorems in Euclidean geometry, just as it is legitimate to use
>> complex numbers to find the real roots of a cubic polynomial.
>
>If, and only if, one is using a geometry which includes all of Euclid's
>original postulates, right?
Wrong. In fact what you have in mind would *not* work: if your
"non-Euclidean" theorem depends on the "extra" axioms, then it is
not a theorem of Euclidean geometry.
What (d) above actually meant was not that a theorem in one geometry
was necessarily a theorem in the other, but that you can somehow
*translate* a theorem from one axiomatic system to another that is
related via models. Using complex analysis to find roots of real
polynomials is one example (you get a root in the real numbers only if
the imaginary part of the complex root is zero). Another example: in
my model above, there are theorems that translate directly to theorems
about spheres just by substituting "pair of antipodal points" whenever
the word "point" appears and "great circle" wherever the word "line"
appears. Yet another example is to project the spherical model of the
real projective plane onto a plane in Euclidean space by a point
projection from the center of the sphere; then lines in the real
projective plane translate to lines in the Euclidean plane and points
translate to points, except for a single line (the "equator" of the
sphere) and the points on it, which don't project onto the plane at
all and so have to be handled specially (for example, distinguish the
equator by calling it the "line at infinity" in the projective
geometry, and then "lines whose intersection is on the line at
infinity" become "parallel lines").
Now it's possible that the above may not be the most cogent and
accurate explanation of the mathematics involved (and if not, I
welcome comments from people who know better, since I'm doing a small
project in projective geometry right now). But in any case I would
have expected the smartest person in the world to understand the
mathematical concepts and explain them to the public in an accurate
and comprehensible fashion.
-- David A. Karr (ka...@cs.cornell.edu)
Leo Broukhis
>the total number of humans ever born probably doesn't exceed 10 billion.
About 75-78 billion.
--
Leonid A. Broukhis | Misce, Da, Signa: After each e-mail message.
Abraham S. Mantell
>-- J. Peerson
I think the total number of humans ever born is closer to 50 billion...
Abe
Dan Astoorian
>(c) Non-Euclidean geometry does not require a new set of axioms,
>because it can be constructed within Euclidean geometry.
How can a geometry be both Euclidean and non-Euclidean?
Non-Euclidean geometry is generally taken to mean all geometries in
which the Parallel Postulate (%1) has been rejected and replaced with
other axiom(s). Generally, the new axiom set is inconsistent with the
Parallel Postulate; otherwise, one would not describe the geometry as
non-Euclidean.
Consequently...
>(d) It is perfectly legitimate to use non-Euclidean geometry to prove
>theorems in Euclidean geometry, just as it is legitimate to use
>complex numbers to find the real roots of a cubic polynomial.
...the analogy doesn't hold: R is a subfield of C, but the axiom set of
Euclidean geometry clearly cannot be a subset of that of any geometry
inconsistent with it (ie. non-Euclidean geometries).
(%1) Actually, the fifth postulate of Euclidean geometry is that if two
lines intersect a third in such a way that the sum of the angles on the
same side of the third line is less than ninety degrees, then the two
lines intersect on that side if extended far enough; however, the
Parallel Postulate is equivalent to this axiom.
-- People shouldn't think that it's better to have
Dan Astoorian loved and lost than never loved at all. It's
Mississauga, Ontario, Canada not, it's better to have loved and won. All
dj...@utopia.druid.com the other options really suck. --Dan Redican
Tim Smith
>Sorry, but that's *your* reasoning, not mine. My question stands: how can
>a group of individuals with, say, five-sigma IQs can devise a test to reveal
>a six-sigma IQ?
Devising a test is not the same as taking a test.
--Tim Smith
Robert Beals
>David G Radcliffe writes:
>>(d) It is perfectly legitimate to use non-Euclidean geometry to prove
>>theorems in Euclidean geometry, just as it is legitimate to use
>>complex numbers to find the real roots of a cubic polynomial.
>...the analogy doesn't hold: R is a subfield of C, but the axiom set of
>Euclidean geometry clearly cannot be a subset of that of any geometry
>inconsistent with it (ie. non-Euclidean geometries).
... and C is inconsistent with the axioms of R (since, for example, in R
one can prove that -1 is not a square, which is false for C). This doesn't
mean that it is invalid to use complex numbers to investigate properties
of the reals.
In any case, what does this have to do with whether or not it is acceptable
to use non-Euclidean geometry in a proof of FLT? FLT is not a statement of
Euclidean geometry. It is a statement about natural numbers. Natural numbers
arise in many divers branches of mathematics. Wherever they arise, it is
perfectly acceptable to study their properties.
And, what does *that* have to do with Wiles's proof? Haven't several
knowledgeable posters informed us that it does not use hyperbolic geometry?
-- Bob
Woody Weaver
>pee...@neyman.ucdavis.edu (J. Peerson) writes:
>>In article <2l0gs7$9...@bronze.lcs.mit.edu> se...@silver.lcs.mit.edu writes:
>>She's in the top (10 to the minus 15) -- pretty neat trick, considering
>>the total number of humans ever born probably doesn't exceed 10 billion.
>I think the total number of humans ever born is closer to 50 billion...
Total number of humans born should be closely approximated by a
geometric sum, sigma( a r^n ) where r is the average family size. The value
of the sum should be about 1/(r-1) * current value. The current value is
around six billion, right? So that would mean that the average family size
would have to be as low as 1.1, which seems much too low (particularly since
until this last generation large families were the norm).
Anyone have any concrete statistics on the average number of offspring?
--woody
--
Robert Weaver office: 510-631-4416
Department of Mathematical Sciences home: 510-680-1986
St. Mary's College of California fax: 510-376-4027
Moraga, CA 94575 data: 510-376-1554
Paul Neel
Arthur Rubin
>David G Radcliffe writes:
>>(d) It is perfectly legitimate to use non-Euclidean geometry to prove
>>theorems in Euclidean geometry, just as it is legitimate to use
>>complex numbers to find the real roots of a cubic polynomial.
>...the analogy doesn't hold: R is a subfield of C, but the axiom set of
>Euclidean geometry clearly cannot be a subset of that of any geometry
>inconsistent with it (ie. non-Euclidean geometries).
Yes it does: the axiom set for R is not a subset of the axiom set for C.
--
Arthur L. Rubin: a_r...@dsg4.dse.beckman.com (work) Beckman Instruments/Brea
216-...@mcimail.com 7070...@compuserve.com art...@pnet01.cts.com (personal)
My opinions are my own, and do not represent those of my employer.
Daryl McCullough
zmue...@utkvx.utk.edu (Wilhelm Friedrich Mueller) writes:
>This whole IQ thing, and what it represents doesn't mean much to me.
>It seems to me that intelligence is something that is almost
>impossible to put a label on, because there are so many different ways
>that people store and process knowledge. How does one begin to
>compare the intelligence of, say, an English professor and a Physics
>professor? "Well the Physics professor can read and write, but the
>English professor can't even begin to argue about the validity of
>Quantum Mechanics, therefore the Physics professor is more
>intelligent." I think not. We don't even understand rat intelligence
>yet, how can we even pretend that summing up human intelligence into
>an all encompassing IQ number has anymore meaning than a person
>happened to know (or not know) certain answers to certain questions at
>a certain time.
I sympathize with your skepticism about the meaningfulness of IQ
scores. However, whether or not IQ tests measure "objective
intelligence", they do test a kind of puzzle-solving ability, not only
for logical puzzles but also sociological puzzles. It is clear to me
that IQ tests *do* measure the test-taker's ability to figure out what
the test-makers had in mind. Does that make them culturally biased?
You bet it does. However, I don't think that is so bad. In an article
a few years ago in the magazine The Atlantic, there was a
controversial article about intelligence. The author claimed that
scoring well on IQ tests is the single best predictor of job
performance (at least among the factors studied). I don't remember all
the details, but the article claimed that IQ tests are better at
predicting job performance than even education level: high-scoring
people with no college training typically outperform lower-scoring
college graduates. And this was true even for jobs that are not
normally thought to demand high intelligence.
Of course, judgements of job performance is often subjective. But the
subjective nature of IQ tests and the subjective nature of job
performance seem to match extremely well. Maybe IQ tests really
measure some kind of docility, the ability to get along and thrive in
society. In any case, while IQ scores may not measure any kind of true
intelligence, empirically they do have predictive value, and are not
simply a measure of "the ability to do well on IQ tests".
Daryl McCullough
ORA Corp.
Ithaca, NY
Jan Bielawski
Dean Steede <sdl...@iac.net> wrote:
<
<In Vos Savant's case, when she took this test, she received a score showing a
<mental age of 22 years. Since her chronological age was 10 years, 22/10 =
<2.2, which is multiplied by 100 to give an IQ of 220. This is a truly
<exceptional score, one she never even approached before or after in similar
<testing.
But doesn't this only show an earlier than usual mental development?
There are children who can do, say, calculus at 9 years of age and
then grow up to be average mathematicians. Einstein didn't even
begin to talk until he was almost 4 if I remember correctly. This
scoring method is pure nonsense if used as you describe.
--
Jan Bielawski
Computervision, San Diego
j...@cvsd.cv.com
Kevin D. Quitt
>a group of individuals with, say, five-sigma IQs can devise a test to reveal
>a six-sigma IQ?
By realizing that someone more intelligent than yourself will be able
to solve the same problems *faster* than you can, not just harder
problems than you can. You can therefore either allow a shorter time
for the same test, or factor in the length of time it took to generate
the "correct" responses.
Calibration would be a pain, but then, isn't it always?
--
#include <standard.disclaimer>
_
Kevin D Quitt 91351-4454 96.37% of all statistics are made up
Kevin D. Quitt
>In article <1994Feb28.1...@bostech.com>
>> Well, if you could provide a reference citing the alleged cheating, I'd
>> appreciate it.
>
>Cheating is not necessarty to accomplish what Marilyn Mach Vos Savant did. I
>recall from the article I read about her some years ago, she took a standard
>IQ test at age 10 in 1960 or 1961.
...
>... since her claim is based on a single, unique score, and not on a
>series of tests that show a consistent elevation of IQ, it is arrogant to
>claim that the single score is the truth, and the other tests can be ignored.
I have heard that she regularly (3 or 4 times a year) takes (an/the?)
IQ test. While not 'cheating' per se, I should think that familiarity
would drastically increase her score.
Benjamin J. Tilly
k...@prof.jpl.nasa.gov (Kevin D. Quitt) writes:
> Thus wrote rog...@suntan.hi.com (Andrew Rogers)
> >My question stands: how can
> >a group of individuals with, say, five-sigma IQs can devise a test to reveal
> >a six-sigma IQ?
>
> By realizing that someone more intelligent than yourself will be able
> to solve the same problems *faster* than you can, not just harder
> problems than you can. You can therefore either allow a shorter time
> for the same test, or factor in the length of time it took to generate
> the "correct" responses.
>
> Calibration would be a pain, but then, isn't it always?
Why should speed be correlated with intelligence? I know that the
traditional tests, as well as SAT's and GRE's, design their tests with
that in mind. (A fact which I am grateful for because I think quite
fast...) However many people in history who I would consider extremely
intelligent, such as David Hilbert in math, were also very slow
thinkers. In the long run it does not only matter how *fast* you come
up with your ideas, but also how *good* they are.
IMO having all tests consistently be timed selects for something other
than what I think of as overall intelligence. Considering the
importance of these tests in our society I think that our society is
consistently selecting against certain individuals who have something
to contribute. Lest people think that this is a theoretical point only
ETS is quite concerned about the fact that women get lower scores on
the SAT's than men, and women do better in college *in the same courses
as men*. Both figures are statistically significant. Their research
indicates that the result is at least partly due to the fact that women
are less likely to take shortcuts than men. This slows them down which
hurts them on the SAT's. This also improves the quality of their work
which explains the college scores (and presumably . For whatever
reasons this consistent bias exists in our society.
Not that I have any real solutions. :-(
Ben Tilly
Tal Kubo
Benjamin...@dartmouth.edu (Benjamin J. Tilly) writes:
>
>
>Now the above comments notwithstanding what she said is *still*
>hogwash. She tried to claim that non-Euclidean geometry does not fit
>into the same reality as Euclidean geometry, and actually goes so far
>in her book as to try to claim that the two contradict each other. This
>is where she does not understand axiom systems. Let me explain them
>briefly. [...]
Here is an example which I've used to put the point across to some
non-math-savvy friends who saw MvS' infamous column in Parade. It seems
pretty effective: after hearing it, one of them remarked, "oh, so
the non-Euclidean geometry is just a *model* in terms of which to analyze
the number theory problem", which is a good way of looking at it.
---------
"Non-Euclidean" geometry refers to changing the way distance is measured.
For example, on a city map with parallel and perpendicular streets,
Euclidean distance is measured as the crow flies whereas one type of
non-Euclidean distance can be defined by measuring walking distance. vos
Savant's book and column make much hay of the fact that you can't "square
the circle" -- but in this new geometry, a circle (=all points at fixed
distance from a given center) IS a square (from the point of view of
Euclidean geometry-- in the non-Euclidean setup it is not obvious what,
if anything, "square" should mean).
Now, contrary to what Marylin claims, such considerations can and do
impinge on number theory: a generalization of the N=2 version of Fermat's
problem, namely determining which integers n can be expressed as sums of 2
squares [n=x^2 + y^2], can be solved using exactly this kind of
non-Euclidean geometry where distance is redefined so that the circle
becomes not quite a square, but a slightly more complicate convex figure.
(This is the so-called "geometry of numbers".)
There are other, stranger, geometries used in number theory, and
Euclidean is neither special nor isolated among them.
Bao Dinh Nguyen
>How does one begin to compare the intelligence of, say, an English
>professor and a Physics professor? "Well the Physics professor can read and
>write, but the English professor can't even begin to argue about the validity
>of Quantum Mechanics, therefore the Physics professor is more intelligent." I
>think not. We don't even understand rat intelligence yet, how can we even
>pretend that summing up human intelligence into an all encompassing IQ number
>has anymore meaning than a person happened to know (or not know) certain
>answers to certain questions at a certain time.
Humans are more intelligent than rats, and physicists are more intelligent
than English professors. IMO It doesn't take a large amount of intelligence
to get a PhD in English, but you have to have some talent to be able to
predict an atomic reaction with nothing more than math and theory.
>
> ---Wilhelm
Bao
Nosy
Please take this thread out of misc.jobs.misc.
Thank you.
V-X
ago. I'm not a great Letterman fan, but I really admired him that
night. She spent the entire time making clumsy passes at him, and he
finally burst out "You can't be the smartest person in the world! I know
I'm smarter than you!"
BTW, whoever was talking about her genius at making up puzzles--you
really don't believe she makes everything up in her column, do you? I've
got news for you--a sweatshop draws "Garfield" and Jim Davis signs it,
Gary Trudeau just barely pencils "Doonesbury" and a guy at the syndicate
does most of the drawing and inks it (or so Bill Griffith says), and Ms.
Savant doesn't spend any of her busy week making up brain-teasers for
Parade--that's what staffs are for, dahling.
--
v...@teleport.COM "He felt he was in posession of some impossible good
news, which made every other thing a triviality,
but an adorable triviality."
--G.K. Chesterton, _The Man Who Was Thursday_
This space intentionally left blank
>
>I'm 38. I can solve any problem a person who is 380 years old can solve.
>Does that mean I have an IQ of 1000? See?
I don't know if you have an IQ of 1000 or not, but if you can solve any
problem a 380 year old can solve would you answer a question for me: How can
I live to be 379 years old?
-- Mike "I'll take it from that point!" Bartman --
==============================================================================
| I didn't really say all the things that I said. You probably didn't read |
| what you thought you read. Statistics show that this whole thing is more |
| than likely just a hideous misunderstanding. |
==============================================================================
==============================================================================
If you think health care is expensive now, just wait until it's free.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This space intentionally left blank
>ch...@questrel.com writes:
>How about putting an end to this Marilyn thread?
But I just got here! ;^)
>> Please note that I have not stated that I believe that the Stanford
>> Binet can be used to measure IQs this high, nor have I stated that I
>> believe that IQs measure anything at all. Guinness no longer lists
>> anything about IQs.
>
>I'll state that they can't. It would no different than having
>a weight lifting competition and having the top finishers all
>lifting the maximum weight brought to the match. Then to pick
>a winner by measuring how fast that maximum weight was lifted,
>then trying to extrapolate how much weight they could have
>lifted from their speed of lifting.
Ummm...there would be a certain amount of validity in that method...
The speed of the lift is dependent on how fast the weight moves. Since the
weight starts at rest, any velocity it has was imparted by the lifter. The
higher the acceleration, the greater the velocity reached over the lift
distance and the shorter the total time to lift. Acceleration is dependent
on the force applied, since the mass being moved and the gravitational
attraction are pretty much identical for all lifters. A greater applied
force is equivalent to a greater strength, and hence an ability to lift a
greater weight.
>An alterantive would be give everyone a test that they all
>score perfectly, then decide who gets the higher grade by how
>fast they finished the test.
This is also a valid method. Speed of solving novel problems would
certainly be one indicator of IQ (at least by my definition of IQ).
For example, I am more intelligent than an octopus. On one of the Cousteu
shows they presented a problem to an octopus (a lobster in a glass sphere.
There were three openings in the sphere: two very small ones, and one big
enough to get the lobster through, but the big one was sealed with a large
cork plug). The octopus discovered the test quickly, reached through the
small holes and felt the lobster (much to the lobster's consternation...),
but couldn't pull the lobster out through the small hole. It took the
octopus over 4 hours to figure out that the cork could be removed and how to
do it...at which time it got a lobster dinner. I suspect that I could have
solved the same problem in considerably under 4 hours, say, about 5 seconds?
In this case at least, speed of solving the problem correlates very well
with IQ. This sort of test has been repeated with other animals and people,
and the correlation is usually the same.
>IQs as a single number are not very useful. Their main utility
>is in identifying particular deficits that may detract from
>certain skill acquisition and allowing focussing on those
>deficits.
If you want to be negative, yes. They are also useful in identifying
particular advantages that may help certain skill acquisitions and allow
those advantages to be used to speed overall learning. I.E. Don't bore the
quick ones with a rate of presentation designed for the slow ones.
Before the PC folks try to eat my lunch let me point out that "quick" and
"slow" are relative both to the individuals involved and to the subject
matter. For example, I was always very quick to pick up science subjects
(biology, physics, chemistry, engineering, etc.), but had a lot of trouble
with math (never did manage to get past Differentials and didn't really
understand much after integrals).
-- Mike "learning every day, and getting better at it" Bartman --
==============================================================================
| I didn't really say all the things that I said. You probably didn't read |
| what you thought you read. Statistics show that this whole thing is more |
| than likely just a hideous misunderstanding. |
==============================================================================
==============================================================================
What did Romanian people use for light before they used candles? Electricity.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kevin D. Quitt
>problem a 380 year old can solve would you answer a question for me: How can
>I live to be 379 years old?
Avoid death.
>==============================================================================
>| I didn't really say all the things that I said. You probably didn't read |
>| what you thought you read. Statistics show that this whole thing is more |
>| than likely just a hideous misunderstanding. |
>==============================================================================
--
mar...@brtph678.bnr.ca
>mg...@Virginia.EDU (Michael G. Kurilla) writes:
>>
>>An alterantive would be give everyone a test that they all
>>score perfectly, then decide who gets the higher grade by how
>>fast they finished the test.
>
>This is also a valid method. Speed of solving novel problems would
>certainly be one indicator of IQ (at least by my definition of IQ).
>
>For example, I am more intelligent than an octopus. On one of the Cousteu
>shows they presented a problem to an octopus (a lobster in a glass sphere.
>There were three openings in the sphere: two very small ones, and one big
>enough to get the lobster through, but the big one was sealed with a large
>cork plug). The octopus discovered the test quickly, reached through the
>small holes and felt the lobster (much to the lobster's consternation...),
>but couldn't pull the lobster out through the small hole. It took the
>octopus over 4 hours to figure out that the cork could be removed and how to
>do it...at which time it got a lobster dinner. I suspect that I could have
>solved the same problem in considerably under 4 hours, say, about 5 seconds?
>In this case at least, speed of solving the problem correlates very well
>with IQ. This sort of test has been repeated with other animals and people,
>and the correlation is usually the same.
Assuming it was agreed that the above test is a valid
indicator of relative IQ, that would seem to imply
that you are 69120 times more intelligent than an octopus?
Does that seem like a resonable correlation?
For the record, I have ABSOLUTELY no idea.
--
Andy Markham
mar...@bnr.ca
BNR, Inc.
Benjamin J. Tilly
mi...@vishnu.eco.twg.com (This space intentionally left blank) writes:
> In article <2l2qka$2...@paperboy.gsfc.nasa.gov>, d...@gemini.gsfc.nasa.gov (Doug S. Caprette) writes:
> >
> >I'm 38. I can solve any problem a person who is 380 years old can solve.
> >Does that mean I have an IQ of 1000? See?
>
> I don't know if you have an IQ of 1000 or not, but if you can solve any
> problem a 380 year old can solve would you answer a question for me: How can
> I live to be 379 years old?
Be born a tree or a turtle!
Of course since 380 year olds already followed this advice they cannot
tell you this themselves.
Ben Tilly
Doug S. Caprette
>>
>>I'm 38. I can solve any problem a person who is 380 years old can solve.
>>Does that mean I have an IQ of 1000? See?
>
>I don't know if you have an IQ of 1000 or not, but if you can solve any
>problem a 380 year old can solve would you answer a question for me: How can
>I live to be 379 years old?
>
>
> -- Mike "I'll take it from that point!" Bartman --
>
>
>==============================================================================
>------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
Easy, just put off dying for another 359 years or so.
Folow ups
--
d...@gemini.gsfc.nasa.gov
| Regards, | Hughes STX | Code 926.9 GSFC |
| Doug Caprette | Lanham, Maryland | Greenbelt, MD 20771 |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Who put the tribbles in the quadrotriticale?" -- Capt. James Tiberius Kirk
Jerry Donovan
>In article <2l5dv4$f...@prof.jpl.nasa.gov>
>k...@prof.jpl.nasa.gov (Kevin D. Quitt) writes:
>> Thus wrote rog...@suntan.hi.com (Andrew Rogers)
>> >My question stands: how can
>> >a group of individuals with, say, five-sigma IQs can devise a test to reveal
>> >a six-sigma IQ?
>>
>> By realizing that someone more intelligent than yourself will be able
>> to solve the same problems *faster* than you can, not just harder
>> problems than you can. You can therefore either allow a shorter time
>> for the same test, or factor in the length of time it took to generate
>> the "correct" responses.
>>
>> Calibration would be a pain, but then, isn't it always?
>Why should speed be correlated with intelligence?
I agree.
I think a better answer would be that the collective intelligence of
a group is higher than that of any individual. This assumes that
there is a distribution of what areas a single individual is able
to do, and that given the uniqueness of individuals even at that
level, that combinations of intelligence will be greater. Therefore
a certain size group could devise a test for the rare single one of
the next level. It would be a challenge though.
I think that is the logic used in many martial arts ratings. They often
use a test where an individual will take on a group of indivduals at a
lower level. Thereby when a person is able to do what a certain number
of lower individuals can do then they have reached the next level.
(I have been totally wrong on many things in the past and could be here
also. If so, I'm sure someone will point out the error in my ways.)
Jerry Donovan
Seth Breidbart
Woody Weaver <wo...@altair.stmarys-ca.edu> wrote:
>Abraham S. Mantell (man...@alum01.its.rpi.edu) wrote:
>Total number of humans born should be closely approximated by a
>geometric sum, sigma( a r^n ) where r is the average family size. The value
>of the sum should be about 1/(r-1) * current value. The current value is
>around six billion, right? So that would mean that the average family size
>would have to be as low as 1.1, which seems much too low (particularly since
>until this last generation large families were the norm).
>
>Anyone have any concrete statistics on the average number of offspring?
You also have to adjust for the number who die before breeding.
Also, large families have a statistical advantage in statistics: if
there are 55 families in a town, 5 with 10 children and 50 with one
children each, then half the children are from a large family, even
though only 9% of the families are large.
Seth
Trif
This space intentionally left blank <mi...@vishnu.eco.twg.com> wrote:
>This is also a valid method. Speed of solving novel problems would
>certainly be one indicator of IQ (at least by my definition of IQ).
>
>For example, I am more intelligent than an octopus. On one of the Cousteu
>shows they presented a problem to an octopus (a lobster in a glass sphere.
>There were three openings in the sphere: two very small ones, and one big
>enough to get the lobster through, but the big one was sealed with a large
>cork plug). The octopus discovered the test quickly, reached through the
>small holes and felt the lobster (much to the lobster's consternation...),
>but couldn't pull the lobster out through the small hole. It took the
>octopus over 4 hours to figure out that the cork could be removed and how to
>do it...at which time it got a lobster dinner. I suspect that I could have
>solved the same problem in considerably under 4 hours, say, about 5 seconds?
>In this case at least, speed of solving the problem correlates very well
>with IQ. This sort of test has been repeated with other animals and people,
>and the correlation is usually the same.
Oh, please. You've encountered hundreds of corks throughout your lifetime,
how many do you think this octopus has? Let's put you on equal footing
with the octopus here, put you in water, and tell you that you have to
figure out how to catch, kill, and eat the lobster without any damage to
yourself. The octopus would probably think you pretty stupid for not
figuring out how to do it within a few seconds. But then, the octopus
has encountered this problem hundreds of times in its life. And octopi
are pretty darn smart---smarter than a lot of people give them credit
for.
A more interesting test would be to see if the octopus learned about
corks from this one encounter. Would it have similar difficulties
when later presented with an identical test? How many instances of
dealing with a cork does it take the octopus to learn the concept of
"cork" such that it can rapidly solve another very different "cork"
Jonathan Haas
>You're on "Let's Make a Deal." [snip]
>If you have chosen the car, he will show you
>the lower numbered of the remaining two doors. You will then be
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>given the opportunity to switch doors.
>
>You start out by choosing door #2. Monty shows you a goat behind
>door #1. Should you switch? Does it matter?
Ah, an interesting variant! Thanks, Rob.
When you chose door number 2, you knew that
if the prize was behind door number 1, Monty would show you 3.
" " " " " " " 2, " " " " 1.
" " " " " " " 3, " " " " 1.
Well, Monty showed you door number 1, eliminating the first possibility.
Therefore, the prize is behind door number two or three, with equal
probability. It makes no difference whether or not you switch.
To generalize: no matter *which* door you pick, if Monty opens the
lower-numbered of the doors you didn't pick, it makes no difference
whether or not you switch. If he opens the higher-numbered door,
switching guarantees you the prize.
--
__/\__ Jonathan S. Haas | Jake liked his women the way he liked
\ / University of Michigan | his kiwi fruit: sweet yet tart, firm-
/_ _\ posi...@eecs.umich.edu | fleshed yet yielding to the touch, and
\/ Finger for PGP 2.3 key | covered with short brown fuzzy hair.
Keeper of the Internet Automated Bidding Server. Send email with
BIDSERVER for the Subject and HELP in the body for info.
Michael G. Kurilla
> In article <1994Mar1.1...@Virginia.EDU>, mg...@Virginia.EDU (Michael G. Kurilla) writes:
> >ch...@questrel.com writes:
>
> >How about putting an end to this Marilyn thread?
>
> But I just got here! ;^)
>
> >> Please note that I have not stated that I believe that the Stanford
> >> Binet can be used to measure IQs this high, nor have I stated that I
> >> believe that IQs measure anything at all. Guinness no longer lists
> >> anything about IQs.
> >
> >I'll state that they can't. It would no different than having
> >a weight lifting competition and having the top finishers all
> >lifting the maximum weight brought to the match. Then to pick
> >a winner by measuring how fast that maximum weight was lifted,
> >then trying to extrapolate how much weight they could have
> >lifted from their speed of lifting.
>
> Ummm...there would be a certain amount of validity in that method...
>
> The speed of the lift is dependent on how fast the weight moves. Since the
> weight starts at rest, any velocity it has was imparted by the lifter. The
> higher the acceleration, the greater the velocity reached over the lift
> distance and the shorter the total time to lift. Acceleration is dependent
> on the force applied, since the mass being moved and the gravitational
> attraction are pretty much identical for all lifters. A greater applied
> force is equivalent to a greater strength, and hence an ability to lift a
> greater weight.
>
There are several problems with your above analysis. First of
all, the weight of the arm would have to be considered unless
you consider lifting no weight as no work. Under those
conditions, you should have infinite acceleration and zero time
for the lift. In fact, there is a an upper limit to the speed
because of the inherent limits of a biological system.
Unfortunately, the pure physcis approach is nt always valid
when dealing with biological systems.
Physics would indicate that going downhill would take negative
energy output (that is potential to kinetic), but biological systems
expand energy going downhill (like walking down steps).
> >An alterantive would be give everyone a test that they all
> >score perfectly, then decide who gets the higher grade by how
> >fast they finished the test.
>
> This is also a valid method. Speed of solving novel problems would
> certainly be one indicator of IQ (at least by my definition of IQ).
>
Speed is and tie is used in scoring most IQ type tests. The
problem breaksdown at the extremes. The difference in solving
a problem in 5 seconds verses 3 seconds is just not significant.
> For example, I am more intelligent than an octopus. On one of the Cousteu
> shows they presented a problem to an octopus (a lobster in a glass sphere.
> There were three openings in the sphere: two very small ones, and one big
> enough to get the lobster through, but the big one was sealed with a large
> cork plug). The octopus discovered the test quickly, reached through the
> small holes and felt the lobster (much to the lobster's consternation...),
> but couldn't pull the lobster out through the small hole. It took the
> octopus over 4 hours to figure out that the cork could be removed and how to
> do it...at which time it got a lobster dinner. I suspect that I could have
> solved the same problem in considerably under 4 hours, say, about 5 seconds?
> In this case at least, speed of solving the problem correlates very well
> with IQ. This sort of test has been repeated with other animals and people,
> and the correlation is usually the same.
>
Perhaps the test is culturally biased against octopi (?). You
might flunk a test designed specifically for octopi. :)
> >IQs as a single number are not very useful. Their main utility
> >is in identifying particular deficits that may detract from
> >certain skill acquisition and allowing focussing on those
> >deficits.
>
> If you want to be negative, yes. They are also useful in identifying
> particular advantages that may help certain skill acquisitions and allow
> those advantages to be used to speed overall learning. I.E. Don't bore the
> quick ones with a rate of presentation designed for the slow ones.
>
Also true although many people who get tested (with the
involved tests that take several hours) do so because of
perceived learning difficulties.
> Before the PC folks try to eat my lunch let me point out that "quick" and
> "slow" are relative both to the individuals involved and to the subject
> matter. For example, I was always very quick to pick up science subjects
> (biology, physics, chemistry, engineering, etc.), but had a lot of trouble
> with math (never did manage to get past Differentials and didn't really
> understand much after integrals).
>
Screw the PC folks. They're probably the ones who did poorly
on the IQ tests. :)
> -- Mike "learning every day, and getting better at it" Bartman --
>
> ==============================================================================
> | I didn't really say all the things that I said. You probably didn't read |
> | what you thought you read. Statistics show that this whole thing is more |
> | than likely just a hideous misunderstanding. |
> ==============================================================================
>
> ==============================================================================
> What did Romanian people use for light before they used candles? Electricity.
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
Mike K
Mark Hopkins
From Benjamin...@dartmouth.edu:
> as men*. Both figures are statistically significant. Their research
> indicates that the result is at least partly due to the fact that women
> are less likely to take shortcuts than men. This slows them down which
> hurts them on the SAT's. This also improves the quality of their work
> reasons this consistent bias exists in our society.
where it's statistically significant on an individual-by-individual basis on
the basis of gender. I've seen the exact same phenomenon in other contexts
(e.g. a study of managerial skills where I found a 0.5 SD difference).
No society has the power to induce that kind of difference, especially one
that's so omnipresent and probably even universal across all cultures. It can
only to amplify one that is already given to us by our biology (or attenuate
it).
(Women seem to make MUCH better managers too, by the way. Hell if I know
why)
###
Vera Izrailit
: Humans are more intelligent than rats, and physicists are more intelligent
: than English professors. IMO It doesn't take a large amount of intelligence
: to get a PhD in English, but you have to have some talent to be able to
: predict an atomic reaction with nothing more than math and theory.
How many PhDs in English did you get?
--
--Vera Izrailit---...@kruuna.helsinki.fi--
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,o,,,,,,,,,,,o
Kill files are for weenies! '''''''''' . vvvvvvvvvvvv
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,/ ,, ) ,'''''''''''''''''
/ /''+,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,/ '
< ) < )
''' '''
Robert Vienneau
You're on "Let's Make a Deal." Monty shows you three doors and
truthfully tells you there's a car behind one door. Behind the other
two doors, there's a booby prize, say a goat. He tells you that
after you pick a door, he will show you a goat behind one of the
doors you did not pick. If you have chosen the car, he will show you
the lower numbered of the remaining two doors. You will then be
given the opportunity to switch doors.
You start out by choosing door #2. Monty shows you a goat behind
door #1. Should you switch? Does it matter?
Rob Vienneau
--
**********************************************************************
* The above does not represent OIT, UNC-CH, laUNChpad, or its other users. *
**********************************************************************
Herman Rubin
>In article <CM0IL...@ucdavis.edu> pee...@neyman.ucdavis.edu (J. Peerson) writes:
>>She's in the top (10 to the minus 15) -- pretty neat trick, considering
>>the total number of humans ever born probably doesn't exceed 10 billion.
>About 75-78 billion.
Even the grounds for calculation require the assumption that IQ is
normally distributed. Now the psychologists often juggle scales so
that this is apparently the case, and thus this part of the scale is
unknowable. But even if it was, to have a normal distribution would
require the possibility of negative IQ's.
Putting on my professional hat, if we have a scale not defined by these
shenanigans, and therefore difficult to use in relationships, nothing is
normally distrubuted, and whatever other distribution assumptions are
usually made are likely to be wrong. Much harm has been done in grading
and education from using the idea of the normal distribution.
--
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
Phone: (317)494-6054
hru...@snap.stat.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet)
{purdue,pur-ee}!snap.stat!hrubin(UUCP)
Erik Max Francis
> . . . and Ms.
> Savant doesn't spend any of her busy week making up brain-teasers for
> Parade--that's what staffs are for, dahling.
I don't read her column myself, but all the discussions in sci.math
that I've seen concerning problems she's put forth in _Parade_ are all
ones I've heard of before.
Erik Max Francis, &tSftDotIotE ...!uuwest!alcyone!max m...@alcyone.darkside.com
USMail: 1070 Oakmont Dr. #1 San Jose, CA 95117 ICBM: 37 20 N 121 53 W __
AGCTACTGTACGTACGTTTGCACGTATGCTGTGCAXTGCATACTGACATCGTGACTGATCTGCATGACTTGCA / \
"Omnia quia sunt, lumina sunt." (All things that are, are lights.) \__/
Benjamin J. Tilly
d...@u.washington.edu (Trif) writes:
Actually this is doubly hard on the octopus. Since it has no bones it
is *very* hard for them to tell the shapes of objects. Which is a large
handicap in this test. On the other hand they have a very good sense of
position, and on a variety of maze problems they do a good deal better
than mice. Incidentally lab mice do better than you do at running
mazes, so does that make mice and octopi smarter than you?
Ben Tilly
Erik Max Francis
> Physics would indicate that going downhill would take negative
> energy output (that is potential to kinetic), but biological systems
> expand energy going downhill (like walking down steps).
This isn't entirely fair; you're perfectly able to fall down the
stairs, expending no significant energy.
Bryan McGuire
>I would not have wasted the bandwidth on this comment, except I want to
>question the number 10 billion for total number of human beings ever to
>have lived on Earth. I seem to recall reading somewhere the number 74
>billion, but that was a few years ago. This number comes up every few
>months in rec.puzzles, but we never have had a consensus form. Does
>anyone have a reference that derives this number?
So what? If she is in the top 10 to the minus 15, then she is
one in 1,000,000,000,000,000 (Thats a bit more than either 10 or 74
billion!) Can anyone else besides J Peerson come up with that figure?
holy cow? this thread is going to all of those groups?!?!!!!???! (Just
peeked at the newsgroup line) I insist on taking this out of
sci.econ, misc.education, misc.legal, misc.jobs.misc, and soc.culture.usa.
Wally Bass
: Humans are more intelligent than rats, and physicists are more intelligent
: than English professors. IMO It doesn't take a large amount of intelligence
: to get a PhD in English, but you have to have some talent to be able to
: predict an atomic reaction with nothing more than math and theory.
Actually, of the problems that society faces (which includes people
who make judgements such as the one above), "predict(ing) an atomic
reaction" are amoung the simpler ones to solve. The truly difficult
problems involve peoples behavior, and the general tendency of people
to make this planet a less and less inhabitable place. It seems to me
that physicists are not only extradinarily unqualified to solve these
problems, they are in large part inclined to run away from them. Of
the two (physicists and English Professors), I think I would put my
money on the English professor, who, thru the study of literature, has
at least spent a substantial portion of his/her education dealing with
the thoughts, asperations, wisdom, and advice of many people thoughout
history who have had the guts to tackle the truly difficult problems
that face the world.
Wally Bass
Robert J. Mc Caw
>
>: Humans are more intelligent than rats, and physicists are more intelligent
>: than English professors. IMO It doesn't take a large amount of intelligence
>: to get a PhD in English, but you have to have some talent to be able to
>: predict an atomic reaction with nothing more than math and theory.
>
intelligence to get a PhD (read: "any old PhD") in Physics, but you do have
to have some talent to be able to figure out the impact of ballad and epic
performance on 18th-century historical writings.
RJM
Benjamin J. Tilly
d...@martha.utcc.utk.edu (David DeLaney) writes:
> Benjamin...@dartmouth.edu (Benjamin J. Tilly) writes:
> >d...@u.washington.edu (Trif) writes:
> >> A more interesting test would be to see if the octopus learned about
> >> corks from this one encounter. Would it have similar difficulties
> >> when later presented with an identical test? How many instances of
> >> dealing with a cork does it take the octopus to learn the concept of
> >> "cork" such that it can rapidly solve another very different "cork"
> >
> >Actually this is doubly hard on the octopus. Since it has no bones it
> >is *very* hard for them to tell the shapes of objects. Which is a large
> >handicap in this test. On the other hand they have a very good sense of
> >position, and on a variety of maze problems they do a good deal better
> >than mice. Incidentally lab mice do better than you do at running
> >mazes, so does that make mice and octopi smarter than you?
>
> This doesn't follow; I can distinguish different shapes with my tongue,
> so I see no reason the octopus should have any trouble simply from
> lacking bones...
Your tongue is not quite as good as you think, but even there you have
the advantage that it is in a limited enclosure which has a fixed
shape. For keeping track of where your hands are all that you need to
do is keep track of what is happening at a very few joints. By contrast
for an octopus the information needed to keep track of the exact shape
of just one tentacle is larger than the information that we need to
keep track of every part of our body simeultaneously. Since that would
take an impractical amount of information processing the octopus does
not do this. On tests they perform very poorly on such "simple" tests
as telling a cube from a pyramid by touch. By contrast they keep track
of their overall geographical position, and have a very good spatial
system. Thus if you lead them in a path over a rough surface for an
extended period of time then give them a signal to go back to where
they started from they manage to go back there in practically a
straight line, even if this means taking a route over territory that
they have never been through before. By contrast none of the
vertebrates tested (including people I believe) could do this.
This is about the limit of what I know. My information is from an
interesting article on invertabrate intelligence in _The Oxford
Companion To The Mind_. (Very good book, I highly recommend it.)
Ben Tilly
Wilhelm Friedrich Mueller
Speaking as a physicist in training (PhD candidate at UTK), it has been my
experience that physicists are not any more unqualified, or "run away" from
the problems like those stated above anymore than people any other field.
Physicsists, like those in any other field, cannot be generalized like the
statements such as that made above. There are "geeky" physicsists and "cool"
physicists, "conservative" physicists and "liberal" physicists, physicists who
don't give a shit and physicists who care.
IMHO, the truly difficult problems that face the world will only be solved when
the physicists, linguists, psychologists, sanitation workers, and everyone else
learn to work together.
---Wilhelm
Brian K. Yoder
>Actually, of the problems that society faces (which includes people
>who make judgements such as the one above), "predict(ing) an atomic
>reaction" are amoung the simpler ones to solve. The truly difficult
>problems involve peoples behavior, and the general tendency of people
>to make this planet a less and less inhabitable place.
If you are going to post such propaganda here you had better be prepared
to defend this absurd assertion. The Earth is a whole lot more habitable
today than it ever has been! For humans to live on Earth requires the
existence of farms, homes, roads, tools, and so on, and without them
the Earth would be almost entirely uninhabitable. To assert that by
converting useless plains, mountains, and deserts into farms, mines, and
cities we are making the Earth less inhabitable really misses the point.
100 years ago the Earth could NEVER have supported 5 billion people. When
in the past has the Earth had the capacity to support the current population?
Nex year there will be even more people and the capacity will increase again.
--Brian
--
+------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------+
| Brian K. Yoder | "The children who know how to think for themselves, spoil |
| byo...@netcom.com| the harmony of the collective society that is coming, |
| US Networx, Inc. | where everyone (would be) interdependent" --John Dewey |
+------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------+
Mark Evans
: In article <CM3vr...@aston.ac.uk>,
: Mark Evans <eva...@mb48026.aston.ac.uk> wrote:
: >Culture and language bound.
: >
: >Also learning about the construction of the tests can increase the result.
: Yes. The language is very important (even if it's your native language, you
: might not be able to express yourself as you wish). That's the main reason
: I'm angry that my native language is Finnish, I mean here in nets. Icannot
: experss myself as I wish. And my occupation is a writer (novellist). Here I
It could be worst, you could have a net full of something which is almost
but not quite your native language. (i.e. that from the .edu sites)
: have to use a foreign language to me and mostly I sound stupid in the ears of
: them who speak english as their native language. So I'm mostly silent. And as
Personally I would far prefer someone who actually admits their native language
is not english, that the huge numbers of people for claim (falsely) that it is.
: I have seen, soo are mots of the other whose native language is not english.
: Of course thei've got hrein own newsgroups. But they are small and concentrait
: in more local questions. Hmm... I think that last class of wine was too much
Geoff Miller
Is this the name of a new breakfast plate at Denny's?
Geoff
--
-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
Geoff Miller + + + + + + + + Mountain View
geo...@netcom.com + DoD #0996 + California
-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
J. Peerson
>In article <1994Mar3.0...@zycad.com> l...@zycad.com (Leo Broukhis) writes:
>>In article <CM0IL...@ucdavis.edu> pee...@neyman.ucdavis.edu (J. Peerson) writes:
>
>>>She's in the top (10 to the minus 15) -- pretty neat trick, considering
>>>the total number of humans ever born probably doesn't exceed 10 billion.
>
>>About 75-78 billion.
>
>Even the grounds for calculation require the assumption that IQ is
>normally distributed. Now the psychologists often juggle scales so
>that this is apparently the case, and thus this part of the scale is
>unknowable. But even if it was, to have a normal distribution would
>require the possibility of negative IQ's.
Several people besides you have pointed out to me that there is no reason
to assume, as I was doing, that IQ's are deliberately designed to fit the
normal curve. I suppose that the moral of the story is that the statement
"MvS's IQ is 8 standard deviations above the mean" is even more
meaningless than most statements about IQ, if that's possible.
-- J. Peerson
Susan T. Graul
>
[...]
>
>It could be worst, you could have a net full of something which is almost
>but not quite your native language. (i.e. that from the .edu sites)
>
>
>Personally I would far prefer someone who actually admits their native
language
>is not english, that the huge numbers of people for claim (falsely)
that it is.
>
Sue, posting from one of those confounded .edu sites
Robert J. Mc Caw
[stuff deleted]
>
> A point: Physicists read English. That is not, however,
>commutative. The reverse is not true since English Professor's rarely
>read physics. In fact, you can probably extend that. Physics
>professionals are likely to know more about the social sciences and
>liberal arts than social scientists and liberal artists (?) are likely
>to know about the physical sciences.
>
> David L. Burkhead
> r3d...@dax.cc.uakron.edu
>
Your statement shows just how unaware you are of what English professors
and other humanities and social students really do. Literary scholars don't
always merely "read" books, in the sense of flipping through Tolkien or
Dickens when they're not busy teaching. We think rather obsessively or
frequently about books, as well as things related to books and writing--
canons, poems, structure, forms, meter, myths, images, signs, stereotypes,
context, intertext, portrayals of race and gender, parody, satire, orality,
voice, authorities...and so on.
Physicists-- and other people who do not dedicate themselves to full-time
study and thought of literature and the arts-- appeal to English, or "liter-
ature" in general, on its most popular level: as entertainment. Nothing
wrong with that. To get out of the library, I go hiking and walking outdoors,
but I wouldn't confuse my fascination for nature with the sophisticated
fascination that a botanist or geologist would have.
It isn't necessary to dedicate the majority of your waking hours to any
particular subject to appreciate it. I appreciate the things that scientists
make a living off of, and literate physicists appreciate the things that
humanists, writers, historians, and other word-oriented intellectuals make
a living from.
"Appreciation," however, is very different from "Dedication." Show me a
physicist who spends most of her time reading old and new texts, studying
languages or philosophies of language, poring over historical minutiae
of ancient and modern times, and writing, talking, and debating about
any or all of these things (and even dreaming about them!), and I'll
show you a person who is no longer a physicist.
RJM
David L Burkhead
A point: Physicists read English. That is not, however,
Nosy
FOLKS, PLEASE EDIT YOUR NEWSGROUPS LINE. THIS HAS NOTHING
TO DO WITH MISC.JOBS.MISC, SCI.ECON OR QUITE A FEW OF THE
OTHER NEWGROUPS.
*AT LEAST* SET A FOLLOWUP:TO LINE.
THANK YOU.
NOTE FOLLOWUPS.
john baez
>eva...@mb48026.aston.ac.uk (Mark Evans) wrote:
>>It could be worst, you could have a net full of something which is almost
>>but not quite your native language. (i.e. that from the .edu sites)
>>Personally I would far prefer someone who actually admits their native
>language
>>is not english, that the huge numbers of people for claim (falsely)
>that it is.
>Is English your native language?
Clearly. Only a native could mangle it thus.
David DeLaney
>> corks from this one encounter. Would it have similar difficulties
>> when later presented with an identical test? How many instances of
>> dealing with a cork does it take the octopus to learn the concept of
>> "cork" such that it can rapidly solve another very different "cork"
>
>Actually this is doubly hard on the octopus. Since it has no bones it
>is *very* hard for them to tell the shapes of objects. Which is a large
>handicap in this test. On the other hand they have a very good sense of
>position, and on a variety of maze problems they do a good deal better
>than mice. Incidentally lab mice do better than you do at running
>mazes, so does that make mice and octopi smarter than you?
This doesn't follow; I can distinguish different shapes with my tongue,
so I see no reason the octopus should have any trouble simply from
lacking bones...
Dave "does this make my tongue smarter than my fingers?" DeLaney
--
David DeLaney: d...@utkux.utcc.utk.edu; "Supernatural beings do not have legal
standing." - S. Capsuto; Disclaimer: beable; Thinking about this disclaimer __
(or about theoretical particle physics) may cause headaches. Vicki .lqooooq' \/
http://enigma.phys.utk.edu for the net.legends FAQ, middle of page, public ftp
Alberto Moreira
>
> A point: Physicists read English. That is not, however,
>commutative. The reverse is not true since English Professor's rarely
>read physics.
In can't resist. I can't resist... :-)
English professors write English. The reverse is not true since
Physicists rarely read - or write - English.
And since one writes to be understood, who has the upper hand ?
_alberto_
Alon Drory
>In article <1994Mar8.0...@news.uakron.edu> r3d...@dax.cc.uakron.edu (David L Burkhead ) writes:
> In can't resist. I can't resist... :-)
>
> English professors write English. The reverse is not true since
> Physicists rarely read - or write - English.
Well, heck, I can't resist either. The reverse of "English professors
write English" is, at best, "English professors write English". Then,
of course, it could also be "English writes English professors". Btw,
would you consider this a failing in english or in logic ?
Cheers !
--
- Alon
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Furious activity is no substitute for understanding
-- H. H. Williams
Alon Drory
>In article <1994Mar8.0...@Princeton.EDU> rjm...@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Robert J. Mc Caw) writes:
[lots of stuff deleted]
> You have completely trampled a straw man. I never saind that
>English professors didn't do more in English than just read (ditto the
>social sciences). That does _not_ invalidate the point that
>Physicists tend to know more about English than English professors
>know about Physics. Likewise the arts.
The best statement I have read to that effect went something like:
" If we are to bridge the gap between the humanities and the sciences,
it is likely that the scientists will have to do most of the work. This
is because, while many scientists can play a musical instrument, very
few musicians can solve a differential equation".
Can anybody refresh my memory who said that ?
Wilhelm Friedrich Mueller
>>
>> A point: Physicists read English. That is not, however,
>>commutative. The reverse is not true since English Professor's rarely
>>read physics.
>
---Wilhelm
David L Burkhead
You have completely trampled a straw man. I never saind that
English professors didn't do more in English than just read (ditto the
social sciences). That does _not_ invalidate the point that
Physicists tend to know more about English than English professors
know about Physics. Likewise the arts. There are actually some quite
talented artists out there who happen to be physicists as well. (Have
you seen any of Feynman's work, for instance?)
And here at the University of Akron, the required social sciences
classes are the exact same classes that students majoring in those
fields take their first year, whereas the "natural science" courses
are _considerably_ watered down from those the physics, and chemistry,
and biology, students take in _their_ first year. Why is that, I
wonder? (And I've always wondered why the "students" who take these
watered down classes get as many credits for them as those who take
the much more intensive courses.)
David L. Burkhead
r3d...@dax.cc.uakron.edu
RLIN...@utcvm.utc.edu
byo...@netcom.com (Brian K. Yoder) writes:
>If you are going to post such propaganda here you had better be prepared
>to defend this absurd assertion. The Earth is a whole lot more habitable
>today than it ever has been! For humans to live on Earth requires the
>existence of farms, homes, roads, tools, and so on, and without them
>the Earth would be almost entirely uninhabitable. To assert that by
id the various species live before we came around/
>converting useless plains, mountains, and deserts into farms, mines, and
>cities we are making the Earth less inhabitable really misses the point.
>100 years ago the Earth could NEVER have supported 5 billion people. When
>in the past has the Earth had the capacity to support the current population?
>Nex year there will be even more people and the capacity will increase again.
ce/resources here.. Do you consider this a good thing?
>
>--Brian
--Russ--
john baez
>Physicists tend to know more about English than English professors
>know about Physics.
The way I prefer to see it is that smart people know more than
stupid ones, no matter what the discipline.
This also reminds me of a mathematician I know who, when at cocktail
parties people say "Oh! A mathematician! I'm terrible at math -- I
can't even balance my checkbook!" replies, voice warm with sympathy,
"Don't feel bad -- I can't read!" I've got to try this sometime.
bo...@cos.com
>Kari Nenonen (kauh...@mits.mdata.fi) wrote:
>: I think you got it a little bit wrong here. The IQ-test are not supposed to
>: measure what you know but what you realize. That's maybe the biggest
>: difficulty in constructin those test: they tend always to remain more or
>: less culture bound no matter what and learning increases your IQ to measurable
>Culture and language bound.
>Also learning about the construction of the tests can increase the result.
As in 'professional test takers, or lifetime students?
I always thought IQ numbers indicated the degree of horsepower
present but did not indicate anything about driving ability.
Bob B.
Robert J. Mc Caw
>In article <1994Mar8.0...@Princeton.EDU> rjm...@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Robert J. Mc Caw) writes:
>>In article <1994Mar8.0...@news.uakron.edu> r3d...@dax.cc.uakron.edu (David L Burkhead ) writes:
>>
>>[stuff deleted]
>>>
>>> A point: Physicists read English. That is not, however,
>>>commutative. The reverse is not true since English Professor's rarely
>>>read physics. In fact, you can probably extend that. Physics
>>>professionals are likely to know more about the social sciences and
>>>liberal arts than social scientists and liberal artists (?) are likely
>>>to know about the physical sciences.
>>>
>>> David L. Burkhead
>>> r3d...@dax.cc.uakron.edu
>>>
>> Your statement shows just how unaware you are of what English professors
>>and other humanities and social students really do. Literary scholars don't
>>always merely "read" books, in the sense of flipping through Tolkien or
>>Dickens when they're not busy teaching. We think rather obsessively or
>>frequently about books, as well as things related to books and writing--
>>canons, poems, structure, forms, meter, myths, images, signs, stereotypes,
>>context, intertext, portrayals of race and gender, parody, satire, orality,
>>voice, authorities...and so on.
>>RJM
>>
>
> You have completely trampled a straw man. I never saind that
>English professors didn't do more in English than just read (ditto the
>social sciences). That does _not_ invalidate the point that Physicists
No strawman at all, and my response addresses your point: you suggested
that a physicist's reading of English is fundamentally comparable to a
literay scholar's reading of English. This would be similar to claiming
that a non-scientist's conception of mass, energy, tension, force, and
viscosity is fundamentally comparable to a physicist's conception of the
same things.
If you claim that _having_ a conception (no matter how unscientific) of
mass, energy, and so on does not necessarily constitute some knowledge of
"physics," then your criterion for having knowledge of "physics" might be
the acquisition and use of skills such as advanced mathematics. But I could
counter-claim that "reading" English does not necessarily constitute a
knowledge of "English," given a similarly specialized criterion for such
knowledge such as immersion in literary canons, histories, languages, and
philosophies. Piecemeal knowledge or selective interest in canons, histories,
languages, and philosophies may be great for literate people who don't
consider themselves literary scholars or artists (most students know some-
thing about multicultural literary debates), but such an approach to
"English" or "literature" is a far cry from the more thorough education,
interest, and dedication of a typical literary scholar. Similarly, my
piecemeal knowledge and selective interest in "physics" is a far cry
from the more integrated and thorough understanding of a physicist.
But my spiel is based on the understanding that "physics" is something
elemental that every person is, as a sensory being, in contact with--
whether or not one chooses to call understanding of motion, heat transfer,
and velocity "Physics." If your idea of "physics" consists of a recondite
system of knowledge and method that only trained scientists can have
contact with, then the comparable idea of "English" would consist of a
culture, literature, and language in constant flux and diversity-- a
complex tradition or set of traditions that only trained experts can have
contact with.
But most English-speaking sentient beings "know" physics and English in
one way or another. It would be hard to quantify any person's knowledge
of the physical world and of the verbal world.
...Come to think of it, though: wouldn't English scholars, and other
literary scholars, know more about the historical, philosophical
developments that gave rise to modern physics? Just a guess, but
wouldn't humanities students be more likely to read Aristotle, Bacon,
Lucretius, Hume, and other "scientific" writers whose works have
helped to determine the nature of today's physicists' scholarly pur-
suits?
[...]
> And here at the University of Akron, the required social sciences
>classes are the exact same classes that students majoring in those
>fields take their first year, whereas the "natural science" courses
>are _considerably_ watered down from those the physics, and chemistry,
>and biology, students take in _their_ first year. Why is that, I
>wonder? (And I've always wondered why the "students" who take these
>watered down classes get as many credits for them as those who take
>the much more intensive courses.)
>
Again, the notion that "watered down" science courses have little to do with
understanding of the physical world. In order for social science majors to
advance in their major, they have to start at the bottom...like people in any
other major. It just so happens that their starting point is also a required
class for all students. In order for you to take standard science classes,
you had to study the same arithmetic, algebra, geometry, etc. that all
students-- regardless of major-- had to study. It just so happens that your
starting point was also required for all students.
In any event, don't confuse "taking classes" with "learning something."
I bet that some of the students in those "watered-down" science classes
are learning a lot about science, even if they aren't acquiring the skills
to conduct professional study and research in science. I wouldn't be sur-
prised if some of those students had a better conceptual grasp of science
than some of the hard-working, well-intentioned "hard" science students
who are struggling to keep up in the class!
RJM
Wally Bass
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Followup-To:
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Keywords:
In article <1994Mar8.0...@news.uakron.edu> r3d...@dax.cc.uakron.edu
(David L Burkhead ) writes:
>In article <7MAR1994...@utkvx.utk.edu> zmue...@utkvx.utk.edu
(Wilhelm Friedrich Mueller) writes:
>>In article <wbassCM...@netcom.com>, wb...@netcom.com
(Wally Bass) writes...
>>>Bao Dinh Nguyen (b...@oak.math.ucla.edu) wrote:
(stuff deleted)
>>>> ... physicists are more intelligent than English professors.
>>>The truly difficult problems involve peoples behavior, and the
>>>general tendency of people to make this planet a less and less
>>>inhabitable place. It seems to me that physicists are not only
>>>extradinarily unqualified to solve these problems, they are in
>>>large part inclined to run away from them.
>>Speaking as a physicist in training (PhD candidate at UTK)...
Actually, I didn't really intend to single out physicists... it's just
that the original comparison by Bao Dinh Nguyen was in terms of
physicists and English professors, and it seemed awkward to make my
point while simultaneously changing the idiom.
>>It has been my experience that physicists are not any more
>>unqualified, or "run away" from the problems like those stated above
>>anymore than people any other field.
To some extent, by becoming physicists when the world's most serious
problems are elsewhere, they have already 'run away' from the problem.
I'm a technocrat myself, and I don't claim to have done any better
in this regard than your average physicist (or other technocrat). On
the other hand, I don't delude myself (as Bao Dinh Nguyen seems to be
determined to do) that we technocrats are the only people of value on
the planet.
> A point: Physicists read English. That is not, however,
>commutative. The reverse is not true since English Professor's rarely
>read physics. In fact, you can probably extend that. Physics
>professionals are likely to know more about the social sciences and
>liberal arts than social scientists and liberal artists (?) are likely
>to know about the physical sciences.
That's a meaningless comparison. Another meaningless comparison (which
helps illustrate how meaningless yours is) is how much 'physicists'
(again, I don't really want to single out that particular group of
technocrats) *don't* know about the social sciences as compared to how
much the social scientists *don't* know about physics. Since there is
so much, much, much more *to* be known about the social sciences than
there is to be know about physics (in part because the social sciences
are not the relatively simple endeaviors which can be largely reduced
to equations, in part because the truly difficult problems are in the
social sciences, and in part as a consequence of history), it seems to
me that physicists/techocrats have a much larger deficiency in their
knowledge of social science than social scientists have in their
knowledge of physics/technology (even when the social scientist knows
absolutely nothing about physics/technology).
Wally Bass
Bronis Vidugiris
soc.men, but that's actually where I'm reading it).
In article <CMBEp...@ucdavis.edu> pee...@neyman.ucdavis.edu (J. Peerson) writes:
)In article <CM9Au...@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> hru...@b.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) writes:
)
)>Even the grounds for calculation require the assumption that IQ is
)>normally distributed. Now the psychologists often juggle scales so
)>that this is apparently the case, and thus this part of the scale is
)>unknowable. But even if it was, to have a normal distribution would
)>require the possibility of negative IQ's.
)
)
)Several people besides you have pointed out to me that there is no reason
)to assume, as I was doing, that IQ's are deliberately designed to fit the
)normal curve. I suppose that the moral of the story is that the statement
)"MvS's IQ is 8 standard deviations above the mean" is even more
)meaningless than most statements about IQ, if that's possible.
/* digression alert */
To the extent that IQ is the sum of a fairly large number of independent
things (whether these things be answers to questions, physical/genetic
attributes, or even learned skills), it would seem logical that it be
approximately normally distributed to me.
The fact that IQ's are not less than zero doesn't impact this any more than
the fact that flipping coins, which has a Poisson distribution, is
approximately normal for large numbers of coin flipped. Even though it
is not _perfectly_ normal, as the number of coin flips is always greater
than zero.
However, at enough sigma away from the mean, it is unclear in general
how valid the normal distribution is. People use it all the time anyway,
though - they take the central limit thereom, use the fact that the
distribution is approximately normal, and assume this *approximation* is
always valid.
It's probably pretty reasonable, as long as one doesn't go out too many
sigma.
--
"The power of this battlestation is _insignificant_ when compared with
the power of the Farce." - D. Vader.
Keith Schneider
>>Physics professionals are likely to know more about the social sciences and
>>liberal arts than social scientists and liberal artists (?) are likely
>>to know about the physical sciences.
>That's a meaningless comparison. Another meaningless comparison (which
>helps illustrate how meaningless yours is) is how much 'physicists'
>(again, I don't really want to single out that particular group of
>technocrats) *don't* know about the social sciences as compared to how
>much the social scientists *don't* know about physics. Since there is
>so much, much, much more *to* be known about the social sciences than
>there is to be know about physics (in part because the social sciences
>are not the relatively simple endeaviors which can be largely reduced
>to equations, in part because the truly difficult problems are in the
>social sciences, and in part as a consequence of history), it seems to
>me that physicists/techocrats have a much larger deficiency in their
>knowledge of social science than social scientists have in their
>knowledge of physics/technology (even when the social scientist knows
>absolutely nothing about physics/technology).
It seems you're incorrectly assuming that both physcists and social
scientists know everything about their respective field.
Anyway, in college, the science majors still have to take humanities classes,
but in most schools, humanities majors don't have to take any science
classes. Why is this? Are scientists inherently more "well-rounded"
because of this?
Are the humanities classes "easier" than the science classes? Certainly
the intelligence required in each is of a different breed. Do people
think more or use more brain power when trying to write an essay, or
when trying to solve a math problem?
I think the brain is structured in a way such that there is extra "hardware"
to deal with verbal skills, while these math computations are very foreign
to the brain.
keith
Vera Izrailit
: A point: Physicists read English.
I am sure there is quite a few physicists in the world that do not.
: That is not, however,
: commutative. The reverse is not true since English Professor's rarely
: read physics.
I have no exact data on any of that, but I would suppose that physicists
read *professional* literature written by English professors as rarely as
English professors read *professional* literature written by physicists.
: In fact, you can probably extend that. Physics
: professionals are likely to know more about the social sciences and
: liberal arts than social scientists and liberal artists (?) are likely
: to know about the physical sciences.
I found that in general people rarely read serious research literature
outside of their own field. Anything that most physicists read about the
humanities or social sciences is usually a very watered-down, 'popularized'
version. And the only reason fewer humanities and social sciences scholars
read about physics is simply that there doesn't exist as many physics
books *for general public*, which is BTW too bad.
Also, different kinds of natural sciences, humanities and social sciences
have different degree of popularity. Also different stuff inside the same
discipline has different degree of popularity with laypeople. Walk into any
'normal' big bookstore, go to the shelf with the books on psychology, and
I can guarantee you that you'll find many more books on emotion, affection
and male-female relationships than, say, on aphasia.
Also, I don't claim to represent 'an average linguist', but I know much
more about physics than any physicist that I know knows about linguistics.
And also I know much more about physics than I know about sociology or
history.
--
--Vera Izrailit---...@kruuna.helsinki.fi--
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,o,,,,,,,,,,,o
Kill files are for weenies! '''''''''' . vvvvvvvvvvvv
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,/ ,, ) ,'''''''''''''''''
/ /''+,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,/ '
< ) < )
''' '''
Vera Izrailit
: And here at the University of Akron, the required social sciences
: classes are the exact same classes that students majoring in those
: fields take their first year, whereas the "natural science" courses
: are _considerably_ watered down from those the physics, and chemistry,
: and biology, students take in _their_ first year. Why is that, I
: wonder? (And I've always wondered why the "students" who take these
: watered down classes get as many credits for them as those who take
: the much more intensive courses.)
I wondered about that too. They did the same thing in Boston University.
As a humanities (linguistics) major I had to take some natural science
courses and some social science courses. In the natural sciences there
was a choice of watered-down versions. But I prefered to take the classes
for majors, becaause I've always found math and physics quite easy. But
in the social sciences there was no choice: I had to take a 'major' class,
which was very interesting, but way too hard for me. I always wondered why
people think that humanities and social sciences are 'easier' that math
and natural sciences.
Jan Bielawski
Kurt Strain <ku...@sad.hp.com> wrote:
<
<By the way, my local newspaper wrote about a young boy in Junior College
<breezing along with his "off the scale IQ". In other words, there is no
<accurate measurement of his IQ, and is considered somewhere in the neighborhood
<of 250-260. He's trying to take life slower than Doogie Howser. The guy is
<local to our area. Maybe he should be in Guiness instead.
IQ tests in younger people do not necessarily measure intelligence, they
only indicate the development is more rapid than normal in such cases.
There are both examples of people developing slower than average
(Einstein) and faster than average. Until the development stabilizes
these tests are wild extrapolations at best.
--
Jan Bielawski
Computervision, San Diego
j...@cvsd.cv.com
Doug S. Caprette
Well, you're both a couple of morons. Well educated morons, perhaps, but
only morons would cross post a pedantic flamewar like this accross numerous
newsgroups.
Note follow ups.
Doug S. Caprette
>In article <1994Mar8.1...@news.uakron.edu> r3d...@dax.cc.uakron.edu (David L Burkhead ) writes:
>>In article <1994Mar8.0...@Princeton.EDU> rjm...@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Robert J. Mc Caw) writes:
>
> [lots of stuff deleted]
>
>> You have completely trampled a straw man. I never saind that
>>English professors didn't do more in English than just read (ditto the
>>social sciences). That does _not_ invalidate the point that
>>Physicists tend to know more about English than English professors
>>know about Physics. Likewise the arts.
>
>The best statement I have read to that effect went something like:
>" If we are to bridge the gap between the humanities and the sciences,
>it is likely that the scientists will have to do most of the work. This
>is because, while many scientists can play a musical instrument, very
>few musicians can solve a differential equation".
>
>Can anybody refresh my memory who said that ?
>
>
Please refresh his memory in misc.education.
Wendy Sullivan
>
>>Actually, of the problems that society faces (which includes people
>>who make judgements such as the one above), "predict(ing) an atomic
>>problems involve peoples behavior, and the general tendency of people
>>to make this planet a less and less inhabitable place.
>
>to defend this absurd assertion. The Earth is a whole lot more habitable
>today than it ever has been! For humans to live on Earth requires the
>existence of farms, homes, roads, tools, and so on, and without them
>the Earth would be almost entirely uninhabitable. To assert that by
>cities we are making the Earth less inhabitable really misses the point.
>100 years ago the Earth could NEVER have supported 5 billion people. When
>in the past has the Earth had the capacity to support the current population?
>Nex year there will be even more people and the capacity will increase again.
>
One question before I start- why is this in so many groups?? I didn't
eliminate any of them because I don't know where Brian posted from.... I'd
like to get rid of some of the ones that no longer pertain to this thread
if possible... I'm posting from misc.jobs.misc (now that fits... NOT).
To the topic....
Aren't we jumping the band-wagon a little soon, Brian. I didn't see anyplace
in Wally's post saying we need to get rid of farms, homes, roads, etc- that
would be stupid.
Yes, our planet does support more people today than it could have without
much of our modern technology. But how much more can it support??
By increasing our population with technology, we have also created problems.
I don't know where to start. How about all the starving people in
third world countries- is that 'supporting 5-billion people' to you?
Look at the western US water situation. The western US is currently
depleting its main source of fresh water (the Ogalala resevoir) much faster
than it is being replenished. Not to mention the contamination hazards the
water faces with careless industrial waste. What does the western US do
when left with little water that's too toxic to drink? Look at the
over-population problem in China- is that how you want to live??
As you say, next year there will be more people on the planet- and more
after that. The earth contains certain limited resources that humans
can't replace- "can we say non-renewable resources"? What do we do when
these run out?
As for your comment about deserts, mountains, plains, etc being useless
until converted to human use.... That's stupid, too. It is the interaction
between all the different ecosystems that makes the earth inhabitable.
Pick up a biology/ecology book and turn to the section that describes
how rain occurs (ie fresh-water replenisher), or simply weather in general -
then tell me that all we need are farms and mines everywhere....
or do you believe wind, rain, snow, etc has no purpose either? ....
Wendy
Kari Nenonen
>
>As in 'professional test takers, or lifetime students?
>
>I always thought IQ numbers indicated the degree of horsepower
>present but did not indicate anything about driving ability.
Well, you are right there; that's what they are supposed to indicate. But to
indicate your horsepower you have to know at least something about driving.
If you aint got the key to start the engine the test result will be zero
horsepower even if you got 180.
>
>Bob B.
>
Kari
--
* kauh...@mits.mdata.fi * * Kari Juhani Nenonen *
* Helsinki - SF *