posted
Are less intelligent people less interested in learning "intellectual" things because they don't care, or because the system is set up to make it harder for them to learn?
That might sound confusing...so I'll explain what I'm trying to get at using an example. A guy I work with is really interested in history and evolution and religion. He likes asking questions and figuring out why things work the way they do. He's inquisitive and a relatively intelligent person. But he never went to college, has no formal education in these subjects, and knows mostly only what he sees in tv specials. He says he tried reading some scientific magazines(like scientific American) before but couldn't understand what the heck they were saying so gave up. I've also brought in some non-fiction books before and he seems to really enjoy the introductions but gets lost when the meat of the book actually starts. So he has in effect, been turned away from learning more about the things he is interested in, because A) his vocabulary isn't up to par to understand certain words, as well as overall meanings of sentences. B) and his lack of education in the underlying basic theories that are talked about preclude him from understanding the more complex extensions of those theories.
When I say "the system is set up" I'm not trying to imply that there is a group purposefully writing things so less educated people can't understand, but just simply, that that is the way things are. As far as I know there is no "idiots guide to: evolution, quantum physics, relativity, etc..". Though i could be very wrong, and they might all exist after all.
So, back to my initial question, in the particular example i gave, the individual wanted to learn more but was blocked by his lack of education/understanding of the concepts being talked about and vocabulary being used. But is that the norm? In general do you think there are lots of people interested in learning more but being turned away or demoralized for whatever reason? Or...is the man i know a minority representation? Are most people who are ignorant to certain issues that way because they just don't care or have any desire to learn more? Now, that's obviously someone's choice to care or not care about learning more, I'm making no judgment either way. I'm just curious as to what it is that stops people from learning more.
I ask because I don't ever purposefully force myself to learn anything. I enjoy learning new things, it gives me pleasure. So I do it because it makes me feel good. I don't know why I am that way. Maybe it's genetic, maybe it's not. Whatever it is, it's not something i'm aware of on a conscious level. I don't strive to learn. I do it with the same effort that i put into watching tv or movies, or playing games. I do those things because I enjoy them. If I didn't "enjoy" learning would I still force myself to do it because I thought that I "should". Would I "care'? I don't know.
Posts: 8741 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
A lot of the people I grew up with and went to school with were ignorant because they were slow learners early on in school. Whether they learned to read late, or were developmentally disabled, or had undiagnosed dyslexia or whatever, they just had a hard time with school.
Some of them put their noses to the grindstone and caught up, but some of them simply decided that, since it was difficult for them, learning wasn't worth it. They shunned school, and they picked on or scorned those were successful at it. Everyone knew kids like this. The ones I knew were motivated by a crippling fear of failure that they coped with by never trying.
So, personally, I think people like that are victims of self-fulfilling prophecies. They think they'll never be good at school, and they never pick up the tools to educate themselves.
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posted
I'd really like to write a lengthy response to this, but don't have the focus - one of the roubles of 'racking at work.
In short, though:
1) People learn differently - the "system" is set up to cater to very specific kinds of learners, and it takes a specific kind of learner to effectively take information away from a book read in their spare time. Some people thrive like this. Others, like the guy in your example, do not.
2) If he's having trouble comprehending concepts and vocabulary, there was probably a deficiency - his or the school's or his teachers' or even all three - in his learning experience.
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posted
Okay, now to my opinion: you don't have to be formally educated to enjoy learning, and even be good at it. However, our formal education system does seem to be set up so that if you don't learn a certain way, or are not naturally driven to learn in your own way and so can ignore the teacher or classroom setup if it's not the way you learn and learn anyway, you don't learn. There are programs being started in some schools to try to adapt to different learning styles, but many programs are designed to change a person's learning style-- and what would make you hate learning more than someone trying to force you to change how you learn? I always thought you ought to be able to choose a "learning track" that your grade and learning assessment would be based on, suited to your learning style, and be judged on that rather than the uniform criteria.
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posted
One of the smartest people I know (and I work in a university) doesn't have a lot of formal education. He just reads everything he can get his hands on. I swear he knows stuff about everything!
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posted
My opinion: lack of persistance is the only thing that stops people from learning. I won't denegrate formal education -- ideally, it is the fastest, most efficient way to learn something. (Note the presence of that qualifier: "ideally".)
However, no one learns anything without a certain amount of effort. It is far easier to be spoonfed with a TV than it is to do the hard work of reading, especially when the writing is dense. There is no substitute for persistence.
My mom is dyslexic. When she was in grade school, one of her teachers told her she'd never be good at school because she wasn't a good reader. That scarred her in a lot of ways, I think. But she proved that teacher dead wrong. What she lacks in speed, she makes up in shere determination. I've never seen anyone so determined to learn something. She holds 4 degrees and now works in a technical college. She has zero aptitude with computers, but her persistence allows her to be at least competent at using one.
Learning styles only determine a person's most natural way of learning -- it doesn't mean that they can't learn other ways as well. Ultimately, they just gotta want it enough to persist through the hard parts.
Posts: 5948 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
Y'know in your friend's case it sounds like the inability to gain understanding and definitions of words from written context alone. I think its a problem in other people too.
I mean I've virtually never had to "learn" a word. I'll occasionally look a word up in the dictionary to verify that the meaning is what I thought it was, but that's different. While I may be missing a nuance of the word, in general, my personal definition is pretty close to Webster.
AJ
(This lack may be able to be overcome through sheer determination. However, I think those of us who it comes easily for, radically underestimate the difficulties of someone for whom, understanding things in written context is not as natural a learning style. It's the same with understanding math abstractions, and why many people do so much better with geometry than they do with algebra.)
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quote:Learning styles only determine a person's most natural way of learning -- it doesn't mean that they can't learn other ways as well. Ultimately, they just gotta want it enough to persist through the hard parts.
While I applaud the sentiment and anecdote that leads you to believe this, I don't think you can generalize. It's like saying that anyone can be a rocket scientist, they're just not trying hard enough.
Posts: 4313 | Registered: Sep 2004
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quote: anyone can be a rocket scientist, they're just not trying hard enough.
Well is this true or false? Many people would say this is true. I personally held it as true for a long time. It's basically the operating premise of the cultural/social philosophy of the conservative movement of the United States.
The instant you say it is false, you are saying not everyone is created equal, and that your opportunity *is* limited by your education and intelligence.
quote:The instant you say it is false, you are saying not everyone is created equal, and that your opportunity *is* limited by your education and intelligence.
That's pretty much exactly what I'm saying - more that you're limited by your intelligence, rather than your education.
I wasn't aware that people actually believed intelligence isn't a limiting factor. Do you believe someone with an IQ of 50 is capable of the same things as a person with an IQ of 150? Posts: 4313 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
There's a vast difference between learning for the sake of learning and learning for the sake of having a job. Being a rocket scientist requires ability and persistence. My mom will never be a pro in the tech industry. It's not possible for shere persistence to make up for what she lacks in natural ability.
But she can certainly learn to be competent at using a computer.
The guy in the original anecdote wants to be an armchair historian, not a history professor. IMO, however, he isn't much even of an armchair historian if his main source of education is the TV.
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posted
Anyone can be a rocket scientist, just not everyone wants to be. Can you imagine a world where everyone over the age of, say, 25 was a rocket scientist?
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posted
"I wasn't aware that people actually believed intelligence isn't a limiting factor. Do you believe someone with an IQ of 50 is capable of the same things as a person with an IQ of 150?"
Actually, there are truck drivers with higher IQ's than Albert Einstein had. Not that I have anything the intelligence of truck drivers, but EINSTEIN!
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posted
I don't know any of you well enough to tell if you're being serious or not. Do you actually think anyone could be a rocket scientist if he or she wanted to?
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posted
Let us start with the limiting cases. That kid with Down's, who couldn't get a McDonald's job because he couldn't learn to give correct change - can he be a rocket scientist?
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
Actually, I think the vast majority (>90%) of adults could be a rocket scientist if they really wanted to.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Let us start with the limiting cases. That kid with Down's, who couldn't get a McDonald's job because he couldn't learn to give correct change - can he be a rocket scientist?
No one said he'd make a good rocket scientist, only that he could be one if he wanted.
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posted
He could try to be a rocket scientist. He could call himself a rocket scientist. But if he couldn't actually do the science, would he really be a rocket scientist?
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quote:Actually, I think the vast majority (>90%) of adults could be a rocket scientist if they really wanted to.
I happen to agree that there are many adults who could, with the right motivation and the right help be rocket scientists. But the statement I was responding to was that ANYONE can be a rocket scientist - and "anyone" includes people with extremely limiting mental handicaps. Does anyone actually believe that ANYONE can be a rocket scientist? Or is this one of those, "oh, no, I meant anyone except THEM obviously" situations?
quote:The instant you say it is false, you are saying not everyone is created equal, and that your opportunity *is* limited by your education and intelligence.
I say it is false, but only because natural ability with persistence will always trump persistence alone.
People aren't equal, if equal means identical ability. I don't define equality that way, but some people do, I guess.
And I think that to some degree, persistence can only improve a person's lack of natural ability to a certain degree. A person with no singing voice is never going to be able to learn or train their voice into being the next Carrie Underwood. Learning can't make up for what she has in natural ability.
Is that making any sense? Excellence comes from natural ability AND persistence. Competence can be acheived with less natural ability and strong persistence. Talent with no persistence at all equals mediocrity, and one of the true crimes of Life, IMO.
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posted
Although I always did well in most subjects in school, history has always been my downfall. The key reason is that it requires a tremendous amount of effort for me to remember names, particularly when there are many new ones to remember at once. (I also have trouble remembering faces, but that's irrelevent.) For me to get any value at all out of most history books, I have to make a detailed list of every name that comes up, so that when that person is mentioned again ten pages later I know who it is. I want to learn more history, but it's not something I can do at the end of a long day. Memorizing traditional Chinese characters is easier for me than learning history.
posted
I don't get this great emphasis on IQ. It's mostly just a measure of how many redundant facts you know. For a lot of people , encouragement is a big deal too. Most adult savants take well to encouragement, such as the guy (whose name I can't remember, but I saw him on t.v. ) who can work out any basic sum in his mind in a moment, but I doubt anyone would be encouraging him to be a particle physicist or a rocket scientist, or recognise an anility of his that would make such a thing possible. As a result, I'm sure that guy will never make a great contribution to society, sad as that sounds.
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quote:Do you actually think anyone could be a rocket scientist if he or she wanted to?
I think it is a concept that is perpetuated as a building block of U.S. society, whether or not it is actually true. It is taken to be part and parcel of "all men are created equal".
We tell our children that they can be anything they want to be. That their potential is unlimited.
Are we lying to the children who haven't had proper early childhood nutrition, cause their brains *won't* develop the same way, even with the school lunch programs?
Are we lying to the kids who do their best in school and dream big dreams and want to be rocket scientists, yet can't ever pull a grade higher than a B, even if they work their butts off?
Are we lying to all of the kids who get decent grades in high school, and yet go to college and find out that there are just some subjects their brains won't comprehend, such as Calculus II? They've been tutored, taken and retaken it to the maximum number of times allowed by the college, and still can't grasp it.
Are we lying to every teenage girl that thinks they can be a supermodel, if they starve themselves enough, even if they just plain don't have the symmetry body type for it?
posted
Excuse me. How can a guy who cannot reliably add above twenty be any kind of scientist? (Well, ok, maybe a sociologist.) I mean, you need to do experiments, right? And that means counting. One, two, three, many, lots. If you cannot do this, then you can certainly call yourself a scientist, but that doesn't make you one.
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posted
I say we're lying. I say it's the greatest lie of our society. And you know, maybe it's a good lie. Maybe it's even a necessary lie. But that doesn't mean it's not a lie.
Besides, if you tell your kids they can be anything they want to be and they, like in your example, still can't grasp Calculus II, what are you telling them? That they really didn't want it in the first place? That they're not trying hard enough?
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quote:I think it is a concept that is perpetuated as a building block of U.S. society, whether or not it is actually true. It is taken to be part and parcel of "all men are created equal".
We tell our children that they can be anything they want to be. That their potential is unlimited.
We also tell them that there's a Santa Claus, and an Easter Bunny.
quote:Are we lying to the children who haven't had proper early childhood nutrition, cause their brains *won't* develop the same way, even with the school lunch programs?
Are we lying to the kids who do their best in school and dream big dreams and want to be rocket scientists, yet can't ever pull a grade higher than a B, even if they work their butts off?
Are we lying to all of the kids who get decent grades in high school, and yet go to college and find out that there are just some subjects their brains won't comprehend, such as Calculus II? They've been tutored, taken and retaken it to the maximum number of times allowed by the college, and still can't grasp it.
Are we lying to every teenage girl that thinks they can be a supermodel, if they starve themselves enough, even if they just plain don't have the symmetry body type for it?
Or, can you be anything you want to be?
Of course we're lying to them.
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quote: Actually, I think the vast majority (>90%) of adults could be a rocket scientist if they really wanted to.
I disagree mph. I'm absolutely certain that *you* could be a rocket scientist if you wanted to. I probably could have too. Though I have been to the point where my mind actually cracked and stopped functioning at rocket scientist levels. I might not have been able to as a result.
But I think the people who are capable of being such grossly overestimate the amount of the population who truly are capable of it. Why? Because it would make us arrogant elitist snobs, if we actually believed deep down, that only a small percentage of people can do these things. (And there are many geeks who are arrogant elitist snobs.) So in order to retain our humanity and humility, we lie to ourselves and tell ourselves that everyone can do what our brains can do. But it's a lie. A necessary lie perhaps, but still a lie.
quote:But I think the people who are capable of being such grossly overestimate the amount of the population who truly are capable of it. Why? Because it would make us arrogant elitist snobs, if we actually believed deep down, that only a small percentage of people can do these things. (And there are many geeks who are arrogant elitist snobs.) So in order to retain our humanity and humility, we lie to ourselves and tell ourselves that everyone can do what our brains can do. But it's a lie.
Where you see "arrogant elitist snob," I see "realist." I think being human is in recognizing where to drawn the line between encouraging hopes and invalidating lives, not deliberately lying to yourself to make yourself seem like a better person.
quote:You almost make it sound like you don't believe. I bet you got a lump of coal this past Christmas.
If by "coal" you mean "two shirts and a jacket," then yes.
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posted
Ersomaniac, don't you agree that someone who actually knows about the IQ test months, or even years, before a test has a much better chance of scoring higher than someone who's never heard of it? i.e. IQ tests are not great determinants of intelligence because the questions involved can be anticipated and prepared for.
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quote:Ersomaniac, don't you agree that someone who actually knows about the IQ test months, or even years, before a test has a much better chance of scoring higher than someone who's never heard of it. IQ tests are not great determinants of intelligence because the questions involved can be anticipated and prepared for.
I agree that IQ tests can be prepared for, but the ones administered by professionals cannot be, purely because they change in form almost constantly and are largely subjective.
With that said, do you honestly believe someone that would ordinarily test with an IQ of 50 could ever cheat enough to score the equivilant of an IQ of 150?
The situation would never arise and, more importantly, it doesn't matter: you're still ignoring the question.
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posted
I'll grant that there's a flaw with IQ tests, but that's beside the point. Are you saying that everyone is of equal intellectual capacity?
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"With that said, do you honestly believe someone that would ordinarily test with an IQ of 50 could ever cheat enough to score the equivilant of an IQ of 150?"
That would simply be a matter of scoring 50 one time, and then later scoring 150. What's the big deal about that? Surely it couldn't happen overnight, but does that matter?
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quote:That would simply be a matter of scoring 50 one time, and then later scoring 150. What's the big deal about that? Surely it couldn't happen overnight, but does that matter?
Cheiros, have you ever taken an IQ test? They aren't difficult: most of them include questions that would be easy regardless of whether you're 14 or 40. The only major variance is between countries and cultures: they exclude questions about things like "which way does Lincoln's head face on the penny?" if you don't live in the U.S. They aren't designed to be a test of knowledge: it's a test for how fast and how thoroughly you think. IQ scores almost never change beyond 4-5 points in any given individual's lifetime.
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posted
No, I don't think everyone is of equal intellectual capacity, but I don't think IQ has anything to do with that.
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quote: Where you see "arrogant elitist snob," I see "realist." I think being human is in recognizing where to drawn the line between encouraging hopes and invalidating lives, not deliberately lying to yourself to make yourself seem like a better person.
I freely admit I struggle with that line myself. I think sometimes lies to yourself may be neccesary in order to make you actually *be* a better person.
Edit: Taking the case of the guy Strider mentioned in the first post who is obviously over 18 and didn't go to the best prep school in the nation or anything.
It's about conditioning. We often like to do what is easiest to do and what makes us feel good. When something is hard to do, it often makes us feel frustrated and less inclined to do it, especially if we see others who are really good at it zoom by us on the learning curve. IMO, we assume it's because they're naturally better than us at it, whether that's true or not. So we look for what we're "naturally" best at.
One thing that hasn't been mentioned yet is that it is harder to learn as you get older. One reason for this is memory. The older you are, in general, the longer it takes for you to remember something. We rely on memory a lot to learn new things. Another reason might be that a lot of neural pathways have already been formed and it is harder for an older person to form new ones than for a younger person. There's also the problem that you have to unlearn some bad habits and misinformation in order to learn new things as well. People who have better learning habits, have a more accepted base* of information to start with, and have been trained to think in a certain way will find it easier to learn.
*Notice I didn't say the "right" information. We don't know that what science has discovered so far is right, just that science seems to be able to predict a lot of things fairly often using the scientific method.
Premise 1. Not everyone is of equal intellectual capacity. Premise 2. Some jobs are more intellectually strenuous than others.
Can we all agree so far?
Conclusion. THEREFORE, unless all jobs are only as intellectually strenous as the person with the least intellectual capacity can handle, then not anyone can be a rocket scientist.
Hey, we're all on the same side.
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posted
"They aren't designed to be a test of knowledge: it's a test for how fast and how thoroughly you think. IQ scores almost never change beyond 4-5 points in any given individual's lifetime."
Actually, mine has gone up about 10 points each year for three years straight. Not to say that this will continue, it's simply that three years ago I was one of those people who couldn't learn like everyone else because of my lack of the basic knowledge, logic and interest that most people who grow up with high IQ's had. But even then I was always the best in my class at maths.
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quote:I freely admit I struggle with that line myself. I think sometimes lies to yourself may be neccesary in order to make you actually *be* a better person.
I suppose that's something that varies on an individual basis, but I can't imagine maintaining the intricate web of lies and truth that I'd need to in order to deceive myself to that extent. Because, if I'm understanding you correctly, you lie to yourself and say that you can do anything so that you are not limited by an artificial cap you've created for yourself. You need to lie to yourself well enough that it's convincing, or there's no point. At the same time, though, you need to be aware of the lie, or you'll end up living a life of continual disappointment as you fail to achieve things that are, in fact, beyond your potential as an individual.
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) who can work out any basic sum in his mind in a moment, but I doubt anyone would be encouraging him to be a particle physicist or a rocket scientist, or recognise an anility of his that would make such a thing possible. As a result, I'm sure that guy will never make a great contribution to society, sad as that sounds.
