quote:Originally posted by Bella Bee: (But seriously, it just bugs me when people use 'England' when they mean 'Britain', because there are three different countries in GB, not one. And if you really did mean England, you need to watch the show more often.)
What about Northern Ireland? That's part of Great Britain, but it isn't English or Welsh or Scottish.
quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head: This is why I feel perfectly justified in not getting it right -- even the people who jump up and down when I get it wrong get it wrong.
Northern Ireland is in the United Kingdom. It is not part of Great Britain. GB is only the large island containing England, Scotland and Wales, and their respective islands.
I was being quite specific, as I don't remember there having been an episode of Doctor Who since 2005 set in Northern Ireland.
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Bella, I happen to be very good at geography. I said England because I meant England. Since, as I said, I have not seen every episode in the past five years or however long its been running, I might have missed one that was set in the USA. But all the episodes I have seen where Doctor Who visited earth were set in England proper--meaning London or the countryside around it. Not Wales, not Scotland. If I had meant Great Britain I would have said Great Britain.
That is one of the reasons why the show has for so long seemed so provincial. I mean, really, how can this time-traveling alien visit all over the galaxy, but when he comes to earth, the whole world for him seems to be England.
I did happen to see one episode last year, where Doctor Who was visiting Venice, Italy.
If Doctor Who has visited the USA this season, then I have not seen it, since as I said I don't currently get BBC-A.
Lisa, why the gratuitous insult, saying I need to have things translated into "Neanderthal" so I can understand them? My IQ has been tested at 150. Can you match that? Do you really think it is civilized discussion to say to someone you may disagree with about some things, "You're stupid"? That's all you're doing. Not very intelligent or witty conversation. You would get a big zero in a formal debate.
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quote: But all the episodes I have seen where Doctor Who visited earth were set in England proper--meaning London or the countryside around it. Not Wales, not Scotland. If I had meant Great Britain I would have said Great Britain.
The Doctor stops by Cardiff in numerous episodes (every time he's recharging at the rift). That's in Wales. The queen/werewolf episode is in Scotland. The Madame de Pompadour episode has him go to France. For the episode Dalek he's underneath the US. You'd have to have missed a significant proportion of the recent episodes to not have seen an area outside England.
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While boasting about your IQ is in pretty poor taste, attacking others for (supposedly) having a low IQ is much worse.
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IQ is one of the most idiotic measurements I know of. There was a guy who worked where I do now... when we were considering him, the developers, myself among them, were given his resume to look over. My boss is smart enough to know that he isn't competent to vet someone when it comes to programming. The resume, honest to God, listed his Mensa membership. We hired him anyway, but he never heard the end of it.
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I'm confused by this thread. I think I read it too quickly. But I think if Smallville ended with Clark not visiting America enough because of his low IQ, I can see why some people were less than thrilled with it.
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If I remember right, Mensa only requires an IQ of 140 to get in. But I also read from some critic that Mensa mainly meets in bars--which seems like a dumb place for smart people to have their meetings, since alcohol kills brain cells.
Cute, docmagik. But that brings up a complaint I had begining with the first Superman movie. Here he was supposedly endowed with vast learning during his long trip to earth, all the most advanced scientific topics. But not in any of the movies, nor in any of the TV series, did Superman exhibit any signs of above-average intelligence. I began rooting for Lex Luthor, because at least he seemed really intelligent. If it weren't for being sociopaths, the mad scientists of the comic books and fantasy TV would make great superheroes--since they invent their own powers.
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Mensa also lets you join if you are a national merit scholar without taking a IQ test. National merit requires an PSAT score in the top half of the top 1% and mensa says that is good enough.
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Scholar or semifinalist? All semifinalists meet that top 0.5% cutoff, and to get from semifinalist to finalist to actual NM scholar requires several things, but none are scored tests of any type, as I recall.
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quote: Lisa, why the gratuitous insult, saying I need to have things translated into "Neanderthal" so I can understand them? My IQ has been tested at 150. Can you match that? Do you really think it is civilized discussion to say to someone you may disagree with about some things, "You're stupid"? That's all you're doing. Not very intelligent or witty conversation. You would get a big zero in a formal debate.
I'm no expert, but I don't remember, "I am this smart!" being a classic rhetorical ploy used in formal debate. One thing I am pretty sure about, though, is that in formal debates, when people challenge you directly to demonstrate a point, you have to actually show evidence rather than just drop the topic for a few weeks and then come back bragging about how super-smart you are.
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I am absolutely flabbergasted that people are getting on his case for claiming to be pretty smart but have nothing to say about the claim that he's really dumb, which is what prompted his claim in the first place.
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As for me, it's not the claim that he's really smart, it's the claim that he's really smart along with the, "You wouldn't go very far in formal debate!" Right after smugly citing one's IQ score in a setting in which it cannot be substantiated in any way. Basically it's the constant suggestion/claim of very high standards that he is living up to while detractors are failing to do so that's drawing my mockery, at least.
Well, that and the whole cutting and running thing too.
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But the thing is, he's right. Lisa's comment is just about the lowest form of ad hominem. It's beneath every single person on this board. Lisa deserves to be called on it.
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Well yes, he is right-that Lisa's remark was a low-class insult and Lisa should be called on it. That's fair.
I guess I just get a kick out of Ron's obvious hypocrisy, too. Perhaps if it were an isolated thing-like, if he weren't normally like this, and Lisa's insult had just stung him and he responded that way, it'd be one thing. But it's not. *shrug*
I also disagree it's beneath every single person on this board. It should be, but it's not-Ron and Lisa being two such people, with not a little regularity, actually. Which is why I had my little fun pointing out the contradiction.
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rivka- you're right. Being a semifinalist is the part based on test scores. Though I seem to recall having to send them my SAT scores though there was no rule on what you had to get- just part of the packet. I just remember mensa saying that as a national merit scholar, I could join without doing an IQ test. My response was, why would I want to join? It seemed to me like a bunch of people congratulating themselves on something they had very little role in doing. They were born smart. Big whoop.
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So, we've got Lisa displaying genuinely bad behavior, and we've got Ron, failing to live up to exemplary behavior (and kinda making himself look like a child), and he's the one you call on it?
I suspect it has more to do with Ron's comments making him such an easy target. Which is a pretty poor reason to take shots at him.
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quote:I suspect it has more to do with Ron's comments making him such an easy target. Which is a pretty poor reason to take shots at him.
If by 'Ron's comments' you mean 'Ron's routine attitude towards others in disagreements on discussions of current events, politics, and religion', then yes, absolutely. As for why Ron and not Lisa so much for me personally, well, Lisa hasn't insisted to me directly, repeatedly, that I'm a lazy, stupid, dishonest American-something that can't be said of Ron. She also hasn't, when challenged on all of that, failed to offer substantive response. In other words, my experience with her lately is different, that's all.
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quote:Originally posted by Bella Bee: Ron, the first two episodes of this season were not only set but actually filmed in the US.
True, but if you want Ron to understand that, you'll have to use Google translate or something to convert your statement into Neanderthal.
I was referring to Ron's calling Lois and Clark the equivalent of a "chick flick". I guess anything that isn't a brawl constitutes a chick flick to him.
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quote:Originally posted by scholarette: rivka- you're right. Being a semifinalist is the part based on test scores. Though I seem to recall having to send them my SAT scores though there was no rule on what you had to get- just part of the packet.
I recall the packet, but not most of what went in it, except I think there was an essay. And letters of recommendation from teachers, maybe?
Or do I have that mixed up with college applications?
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: That sounds right. I was a semi-finalist but never got around to doing the essay.
Man, my HS principal would have skinned me alive if I had pulled that. I was a finalist -- even though I knew that as someone not going straight to college I was going to end up ineligible for the scholarships.
But it was something to put on applications, and for my (very small) HS to brag about.
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quote:I was referring to Ron's calling Lois and Clark the equivalent of a "chick flick". I guess anything that isn't a brawl constitutes a chick flick to him.
As far as superhero shows go, I have to say that Lois and Clark was pretty chick-flick-y. (It's not just about the ratio of brawls to romance. There's a certain quality to the romance that feels quintessentially chick-flickish to me.
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: That sounds right. I was a semi-finalist but never got around to doing the essay.
Man, my HS principal would have skinned me alive if I had pulled that. I was a finalist -- even though I knew that as someone not going straight to college I was going to end up ineligible for the scholarships.
But it was something to put on applications, and for my (very small) HS to brag about.
Yeah. I kinda had a crappy adviser.
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quote:Originally posted by scholarette: I just remember mensa saying that as a national merit scholar, I could join without doing an IQ test. My response was, why would I want to join? It seemed to me like a bunch of people congratulating themselves on something they had very little role in doing. They were born smart. Big whoop.
I have a friend who, despite being very bright, grew up under the impression that she was of below average intelligence (having been told that repeatedly by her parents, who should never have been allowed to raise kids) and having had that idea reinforced by some of her less perceptive teachers. For her, being able to get into MENSA in college was a huge deal. Her membership card gave her a physical object that acted almost as a totem, reminding her the negative messages of her childhood were wrong. It was hugely important for her. So while I generally don't see a lot of point to the organiztion, it can in very specific instances be a valuable thing.
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quote:Originally posted by scholarette: rivka- you're right. Being a semifinalist is the part based on test scores. Though I seem to recall having to send them my SAT scores though there was no rule on what you had to get- just part of the packet.
I recall the packet, but not most of what went in it, except I think there was an essay. And letters of recommendation from teachers, maybe?
Or do I have that mixed up with college applications?
It has been a long time but that sounds right. I wrote the essay but the rest of the stuff the counselors took care of (including the letters of rec).
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quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head: But the thing is, he's right. Lisa's comment is just about the lowest form of ad hominem. It's beneath every single person on this board. Lisa deserves to be called on it.
Then keep reporting her posts. She's already shown how inclined she is to maturity or personal reform (not at all) so there's nothing left to do but goad moderation where and when she acts out.
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The value of IQ is something that is rather heavily contested. Sixty years ago, IQ was given far more credence than it is today and IQ testing was much more routine in the schools. It was once believed that IQ was a constant that would only change due to traumatic injury. If at the age of 6 you performed at a 9 year old level, you had an IQ of 150 and it was presumed you would smarter than 999/1000 for your full life. We now know that isn't true. Children mature at different rates and child prodigies rarely perform extraordinarily as adults. Genius kids rarely grow up to be genius adults.
IQ is at most an indicator of potential and when you are a child (or even a young adult), potential is something to boast about. By the time you are Ron's age, you have to boast about your achievements not your potential. I think that's what Hawking was getting at when he said people who boast about their IQs are losers.
I have no idea whether Ron's accomplished anything worth boasting about. I hope he has. I understand his frustration at being called an idiot. He has a blind spot a mile wide, but he is not an idiot and did not deserve Lisa's insult.
I didn't call Lisa on it because we have a history I did not wish to repeat.
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I was not "bragging" about my IQ. Why is it questionable for me to mention my IQ in response to Lisa's uncivil, gratuitous insult, where she implied that I was a Neaderthal?
I might also mention that when I went back to college to change careers (I had been an assistant editor of two national trade magazines that served the construction industry, but then that industry suffered a severe recession and I lost my job in the ensuing staff cuts, so I decided to become a computer programmer) and received my associate degree in Computer Information Systems, I completed a two-year course in exactly one year--at one point taking 25 credit hours in core curriculum classes--and graduated cum laude. My faculty advisor told me that no one at Oakland Community College in Michigan had ever done that before. Could a Neanderthal, as Lisa implied I was, do this? Could you do this, Lisa? You are the one who have exposed yourself to ridicule. Would it cost you too terribly much to apologize, and admit you had no call to insult my intelligence?
The favorite recourse of people who find they cannot overthrow my position is to pretend that I am ignorant, or have a vast "blind spot" or something. They appear not to be able to stand the thought that I truly know everything they do, every fact, every evidence they cite (and usually have longer than they have been alive), and I still disagree with them based on the evidence. The only way they can avoid really dealing with my arguments is to dismiss me as ignorant. But that is only what they pretend.
kmboots, since you made your snarky remarks, let me inform you that I was administered the IQ test by the counseling and testing services of Andrews University. It was the Slausson Intelligence test, administered orally. I only missed two questions on the whole test. (One of them I still kick myself over--it was "Why would an anthropophagite welcome a visit from an anthropologist?" Perhaps it was the way the tester pronounced the words, but I failed to realize the first term involved Greek words I knew--I had taken Biblical Greek, and knew that anthropos was the koiné Greek word for man, and phagao was the Greek word for "I eat." So an anthropophagite obviously would would be a man-eater, a cannibal. Sigh. No matter how many times I recount that, I can't seem to change what happened.)
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quote: The favorite recourse of people who find they cannot overthrow my position is to pretend that I am ignorant, or have a vast "blind spot" or something. They appear not to be able to stand the thought that I truly know everything they do, every fact, every evidence they cite (and usually have longer than they have been alive), and I still disagree with them based on the evidence. The only way they can avoid really dealing with my arguments is to dismiss me as ignorant. But that is only what they pretend.
Well, no. You'll note that I, for example, have never disagreed with you about editing, computer programming, or the construction industry. I suspect but am not sure (I mean that as no slight, but only because I have no personal experience with you) that you actually do have the experience you cite, and are informed and knowledgeable in those area.
But-just as another for-example-when it comes to, say, politics. When we look over at the various discussions of President Obama's birth and what his grandmother did and didn't say, anyone can see many people repeatedly challenging you to substantiate your claims with something other than, "It's obvious. It's right there, you guys are just ignorant." I'm absolutely certain that if you used that kind of standard in your editing experience, you wouldn't have lasted long at all.
When you said, "She says this, it's in the video," and people said, "No...actually she does not, in fact, say that. We challenge you to show us where, exactly, she says that," you failed to do so. In fact you ended up dropping the discussion entirely. That's what happened, and it's right there in black and white for anyone to look at. Your claims of righteousness, your invocation of security with God's judgment, wont' change what happened.
You can change what happened, though. That discussion is still right there. If you're so right, if you're so thoroughly triumphant and your position so unassailable...well, that's a discussion where it cannot be any simpler to prove. Go prove it.
If not, though-if you don't do that-then it serves as an example of your standard of discussion when it comes to politics, and that's the kind of thing you get mocked for a lot around here.
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Would it cost you too terribly much to apologize, and admit you had no call to insult my intelligence?
You've shown that you have reading comprehension difficulties and poor self-esteem.
No one has any idea how intelligent Neanderthals were compared to us. Nor is "Neanderthal" generally used as a term for a person of low intelligence. What it is commonly used for is someone with primitive ideas, particularly sexist ones.
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I say we hold a battle royale with the center stage showcasing a one on one battle of the sexes. Lisa vs Ron! FIGHT!
Lisa takes a swing but just barely misses Ron's chin. He backs up, unsure of his next move. The crowd is cheering, but for whom? The contestants are evenly matched, it seems, but they each have a trick or two to spare. Ron steps forward, this time with determination, and Lisa backs away, watching her move. He goes for the blow, hitting Lisa in the eye. She staggers, clearly disorientated, but manages to catch herself. The two make eye contact for a brief moment, and then lunge at one another, catching each other in the air and falling to the ground. Full of hysteria, they start clawing at each other, frantically doing whatever they can. Lisa loses a wad of her hair, Ron loses an eye. Lisa pulls out a gun and shoots Ron in the foot, but then he takes the gun (somehow) and shoots Lisa in the arm! It's anyone's game now, folks!
Jeff and the other Hatrackers look on from the sidelines, looks of confusion spreading over their faces like waves of fat over an obese child with onset diabetes. No one had a clue what was going on, but it didn't matter. "Rip his freaking head off!" shouted Rakeesh.
"Stop the fighting!" protested Manji, but no one was listening to him.
Then, suddenly, the windows shattered. Figures dressed in black lept through the glass and grapled down the walls toward the crowds. "It's the Russians!" screamed Rivka, and everyone knew it was true. The Russians went to killing people fast, throwing grenades and using guns that should have been replaced decades ago.
Jeff managed to kill one of them, and then took the gun from the body. But before he could do anything, he was quickly surrounded (oh noes!). "Dasvedanya suki!" he declared in one of the worst fake Russian accents anyone had ever heard. They shot quickly, and he was dead, happy to be rid of the whole mess.
Suddenly there was a loud whistle sound coming from everywhere. It started out small, then grew exponentially. Everyone stopped to listen, and then they all looked up.
The bomb destroyed everything, including the puppies. And everyone died. All that was left was a crater, and for the rest of day, people remembered.
quote:Originally posted by Lisa: Nor is "Neanderthal" generally used as a term for a person of low intelligence.
Ne·an·der·thal/niˈændɚˌtɑ:l/noun
1: a type of early human being that existed very long ago in Europe —called also Neanderthal man
2informal + disapproving: a man who is stupid and rude ▪ I can't believe I was married to that Neanderthal for three years. b: a person who has very old-fashioned ideas and who does not like change ▪ Some Neanderthals continue to resist the education reform bill.
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