Date: Fri, 24 Dec 1999 02:59:04 -0600
From: Sandi and Scott Spaeth <vespass-AT-toast.net>
Subject: Re: (no subject)



At 07:46 PM 12/23/99 -0500, OOTSONATI-AT-aol.com wrote:
>No. IQ is not accumulative. Its kind of sad too, because the highest possible
>human IQ will eventually reach its limit and further advance will be
>impossible. Hopefully by that time we will have created computers with higher
>intelligence than we have.

Uh, oots, I gotta disagree.  First, IQ is essentially meaningless.  It's 
supposed to judge a combination of accumulated knowledge and reasoning 
power, but accumulated knowledge is vague (I certainly know much more about 
physics than Isaac Newton - actual math excepted - but my IQ on a 
standardized test would surely be lower than his) and reasoning power is 
poorly measured using (again standardized) assumptions of a finite variety, 
and a person interested in doing well could familiarize themselves with 
those types of questions.  Does that really mean that person is 
smarter?  And then, the whole idea of "smartness" is just silly.  There's 
nothing physically preventing me from understanding as much of the world as 
Richard Feynman did, it would simply require more of my time, but there's 
nothing he could know that I can't know and the same goes for anyone with a 
remotely functioning higher brain.

IQ is just one more way for sad, insecure folks to feel superior to 
others.  It's just not immediately obvious, that's why they get away with 
it.  doubt it?  Go hook up with your local chapter of Mensa and see the 
percentage of those geeks whose lives revolve around their supposed 
superiority and nothing else.

cheers,
Scott

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