Teaching Kids to be Dumb Adults

[Dirty Hipsters]

I once read that genius is as common as dirt, the challenge is to retain the capacity in the face of the system.

Whoever said that is either mistaken to the point of imbecility, lying, or had been lied to. The relative percentage of genius level intellects is highest in developed countries with an organized school system. In addition, while the US seems to be faring a little more poorly than some others in that category, the difference is almost smaller than the estimated error bars.

Well of course the relative percentage of genius level intellects is highest in developed countries with organized school systems, who do you think does the IQ tests?! There could be just as many genius level kids anywhere else in the world, but no one ever knows about their mental capabilities because rather than sitting in class they spend their time in a factory making Nike shoes for $0.25 an hour, or working on a farm, or begging on the street. A much higher percentage of people in developed countries get their IQs tested than in 3rd world countries, so of course the possibly of finding someone with a high IQ in those countries is higher. Doesn't mean that those countries necessarily have higher rates of high IQs though, it's just sampling bias.

 

[Heronblade]

I once read that genius is as common as dirt, the challenge is to retain the capacity in the face of the system.

Whoever said that is either mistaken to the point of imbecility, lying, or had been lied to. The relative percentage of genius level intellects is highest in developed countries with an organized school system. In addition, while the US seems to be faring a little more poorly than some others in that category, the difference is almost smaller than the estimated error bars.

Well of course the relative percentage of genius level intellects is highest in developed countries with organized school systems, who do you think does the IQ tests?! There could be just as many genius level kids anywhere else in the world, but no one ever knows about their mental capabilities because rather than sitting in class they spend their time in a factory making Nike shoes for $0.25 an hour, or working on a farm, or begging on the street. A much higher percentage of people in developed countries get their IQs tested than in 3rd world countries, so of course the possibly of finding someone with a high IQ in those countries is higher. Doesn't mean that those countries necessarily have higher rates of high IQs though, it's just sampling bias.

A greater portion of the population in developed countries is indeed tested. All this means however, is that the tested average in those countries is more likely to be closer to the actual average. It does not mean (at least in and of itself) that there is a sampling bias, nor that the tested average found in third world countries is not reasonably accurate.

Given that we now know that raw IQ is heavily impacted by environment and nutrition during early childhood, and that children who get sufficient levels of both are rare in third world countries, I would actually be rather suspicious if a test sampling came back with any other result.