S A Article on I.Q. vs Lojik

How are we supposed to keep up with a guy that can time shift, write articles in the future, and have them published back in real time?

He's accidentally stumbled into the basis of 99% of pop and country music.

He's also leaving out Zen and the punishment-reward system that we all run on.

In other words, he's attempting to come up with a fancy way to describe laziness and apathy.

I should probably stop there, before I delve into the hostile takeover of our critical thinking skills, by government. It's a recipe for disaster.

Reported as spam.

I did not report it as a rambling collection of self-serving gibberish, which it also is.

When will you accept the fact that your BS is not worth wasting time on.

I'd look for some sites where whackos gather and let them praise you. You ain't gonna get it here.

Now wait just a minute! Spam?

It's a Scientific American article that's worthy of discussion. The "Lojic" term is a pain in the butt, but it's not spam.

The author, (of the article), knows something's wrong, but is having difficulty identifying the source of the problem.

...which is that the poverty pimps don't see the loss of critical thinking and survival skills as a problem, but as a blueprint for societal evolution, with government fully in charge and unchallenged by a dependent population.

Common Core anyone? Free phone? Hungry? How about a computer for games? Healthcare?

We'll do it all...you folks just relax.

Especially the "Amateur Scientist" column. Sure that many people here got more interested in science and engineering because of them. Lots of neat scientific/engineering things for a few dollars, not tens of thousands of dollars.

Good Luck, Old Salt

I quit Popular Science for the same reason.

...and Discover Magazine come to think of it.

My post merely points out how the condition mentioned in the OP exists across our entire collective existence...at least here in the US.

The damage that is being done is real, and yet so many, (still over 30%), are incapable of recognizing the sheer wrongness of it. Bitter clingers comes to mind.

I liked you better as an ANON

Who, me? I think I may have posted a few times as anonymous when I'd lost my password.

Don't know what you are on about in your 1st post, kram. If it's a joke, maybe its funny, but I don't get it. About your second post - not everything in the universe is about politics.

Lyn - get some sleep.

John - I haven't had a subscription to Scientific American in a long time. Has it degenerated that much? I know all print publications are under terrible financial pressure now, so it wouldn't surprize me if they'd been bought out by the Enquirer!

logiq? Whats you lojik behind that?

I think the answer is simple, it seems to be in my case. We did an IQ test when I joined the Royal Engineer, The personnel selection officer said, "Extremely high intelligence, I don't think we'll make you an officer."

I was amused, but later realized that the high IQ people with whom I worked, had difficulty making decisions because they were very much aware of the information they didn't have and this interfered with their decision making.

The people who made better decisions were those that made them based on the information that they did have on hand.

This is the reason that engineers need managers, detestable though they may be.

Rather reminds me of my college experience the second time around.

I did a bunch of tests of sorts to see if I qualified for any grants or financial aid as an older than average student.

Basically I scored almost perfect except on the last test where the computer conveniently locked up half way through.

After being reviewed to have scored 100% on the first 5 - 6 tests and 100% on the half I had completed of the last test they basically told me that clearly I am smart enough to find my own money.

Really what they meant was you're a generic white guy. Sucks to be you now.

If my observations are correct I feel that I am observing the most informed generation ever to walk on earth but will die in near total ignorance. CR4 members are excluded from this observation for the most part.

Over the years I have met many people with far higher IQ than mine.

It has always amazed me that there is a substantial number of them that get totally "locked in" on a certain element of a problem or challenge causing them to miss the obvious.

Some refer to this thought process as "lack of common sense" while others just degrade the person's IQ because they can.

To me it was just that person's moment in time wherein they as an imperfect human being, were guilty of simple oversight.

It happens to all of us at one time or another in life and often more than once.

It happens...a problem gets re-stated, and the the new party to the problem assumes the intelligence of the preceding parties to have identified/ stated the obvious, and goes into full dedication mode......down the pipes!

I do not follow this site enough to understand the apparent dislike of you, so I will give it a go at what I got from the article you referenced.

I see the pressure of our society to get answers quickly as the main culprit here. We have been trained to get results quickly - not sit and actually analyze a situation as required. I failed the first one because I wanted a quick result. Didn't want to waste time on a meaningless obvious question. When l I realized what was going on and took time to actually analyze the question posed, answers were correct. It's not that we are stupid - we are in too big a hurry to get on to the next item we face. It's about the time factor - not poor logic. What do our youth do for entertainment? They sit in front of screens and make snap judgements very quickly to survive in a game. Stop to think, and you are eliminated. Answers in this environment almost never require a true thought process. (maybe not just youth - my 62 year old wife wastes most evenings trying to quickly crush candy - there maybe some logic required there, but not to the depth posed by the articles questions)

One merely has to look at OPs history to see the irrational thinking they exhibit. "Let's all talk gibberish because I want you to."

Psychology, and intelligence tests are both as useless as the OPs zeal for speaking in tongues.

I tried to wade through the SA trash but got tired trying to care if one of the three lookers was married.

I'm not into psychology or IQ tests either, but puzzles are very interesting..

So how did you do on the "tests" in the article? You apparently don't care for puzzles much.

Read the article - it really points out my supposition that we are all being trained by our dependence on PC's to make decisions way too fast. Business expects us to operate at the speed of our PC's these days, not at the speed of Bob Cratchit, who would have aced the test questions. Try to answer the way you would "normally" and you will be wrong. Take the time to delve into the questions and you see the then obvious "catch" phrase that makes the answer the not so obvious one. It's not a loss of logical thinking as much as a loss of time to analyze problems.

The way I see it is opposite of the "experts" opinion.

To answer those questions, one is forced to make assumptions/guesses that have no basis in fact.

Word games do not precipitate well reasoned, logical decisions.

As Sgt. Friday said, "just the facts, mam".

Okay - so maybe it doesn't belong in SA, as it really isn't "scientific", but the questions are still interesting puzzles. I guess I got caught up in the mind games and didn't think about what the article really was supposed to be about. The authors could certainly start a fine magazine of puzzlers to keep the mind sharp.

Some people like word games, some don't. I don't.

I've never had an IQ test.

Over the years, I've made my share of decisions.

I examine the facts at hand, evaluate them and make a decision.

Once the decision has been made, I never go back and try to rethink it.

If it's wrong, it's wrong. Lesson learned.

Here is one part of the article that bothers me.

. Jack is looking at Anne, but Anne is looking at George. Jack is married, but George is not. Is a married person looking at an unmarried person?

• A) Yes
• B) No
• C) Cannot be determined

More than 80 percent of people choose C. But the correct answer is A. Here is how to think it through logically: Anne is the only person whose marital status is unknown. You need to consider both possibilities, either married or unmarried, to determine whether you have enough information to draw a conclusion. If Anne is married, the answer is A: she would be the married person who is looking at an unmarried person (George). If Anne is not married, the answer is still A: in this case, Jack is the married person, and he is looking at Anne, the unmarried person. This thought process is called fully disjunctive reasoning-reasoning that considers all possibilities. The fact that the problem does not reveal whether Anne is or is not married suggests to people that they do not have enough information, and they make the easiest inference (C) without thinking through all the possibilities.

In my professional opinion, there is "NOT" enough information in the question (kind of like most ANON posters) to make a 100% correct answer of "A" or "B" and I believe "C" is the most logical answer and in my opinion is the correct answer after analyzing every possibility, otherwise you are just GUESSING!

What if the question was posed like this?

1. Jack is holding a wire with 120 volts AC and is phase "A" .
2. Anne is holding a wire of unknown voltage and phasing.
3. George is holding a wire with 120 volts AC and is phase "B".
4. Are you going to connect Anne's wire to Jack's or George's?
5. Which hospital are they going to take you to when you are burned by the arc flash?

Are you going to "GUESS" that Anne's wire will be the same voltage and phasing of the other wires. You do not have enough information with the described situation and are putting lives at risk with your "Assumptions".

If this is the way people are going to start making critical decisions, I'm going to stand back and watch the meltdown!

Case 1. Anne is married.

Simple - Anne (married) is looking at George (unmarried).

Answer A.

Case 2. Anne is unmarried.

Again, simple - Jack (married) is looking at Anne (unmarried).

Answer A.

The only assumption is that someone is either married or unmarried - no third state is allowed.

Where in the question does it confirm that Anne is married?

it doesn't. re-read my post.

And that is my point. The question forces you to either guess or assume one way or the other. There is NOT a 100% confirmation of her status. I guess this the way younger people are being taught. Just "ASSUME" it's the way you want it to be and there it is.

In my profession, we do not "ASSUME" anything because peoples lives depend on me being 100% correct on my decisions. I will not "GUESS" in respect to any persons life and safety.

I think you missed the point entirely. The lady's marital status is immaterial to the question. When you arrive at the correct answer, you still do not know if she is married or not because it doesn't matter either way.

There are always assumptions in every problem. Always. In this case cited above, the problem was constructed such that only two assumptions had to be made. 1) What is the answer if we assume she is married? 2) What is the answer if we assume she is not married. With either assumption, the answer is the same: A single person is looking at a married person. That's the entire answer. We don't come out of this knowing who the single person is or who the married person is.

So true. It doesn't matter.

Maybe I should just give up, and say Happy New Year and Good Night, but don't you try to chuck in all the possible things (fault conditions etc) that you can think of when designing a new system? If not, I would never put any business your way.

I think it to death and then pull back to a reasonable level. Happy New Years

Skip the (Quasi-Pseudo)Scientific American article and Google "kahneman and tversky".

http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/prospect.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Kahneman

IQ is not well-regarded amongst psychologists as the concept, while interesting, has proven too biased to be an accurate indicator of much of anything, including intelligence. There are respectful nods to IQ as a part of the story of psychology but history and further data have pretty much demonstrated it is a mistake to place much stock in IQ as a tool.

Kahneman and Tversky cover the subject of the SA article, but they won a Nobel prize for their work. (Imagine! Two psychologists winning the Nobel Prize in Economics!) Their work is even readable and accessible to the engineering mind, which means it more likely reflects physical reality than most of the soft sciences.

I feel like I stepped in this conversation and now I'm having to scrape it off my shoe. I understand the point of it now. However, I still will not assume in a life safety situation. I will always get my questions answered.

I suspect they may have goofed up on puzzle #4, the XYZ virus.

Happy New Year!

As we ponder the premise of this stupid article, one has to wonder...what would the world look like if all questions were required to be answered properly before moving forward?

We put a premium on tangibilities like an IQ score, and yet our heroes are the people that jumped into the muck without a clue of the outcome.

Would America exist if Britain had our current rules, regulations, forced union membership, OSHA, EPA.....? No.

Do Richard Branson and Bill Gates come up with bad ideas that defy an IQ test? Yes.

I'll be happy to team up with a low IQ person that goes out and buys a garbage truck, over a high IQ person that runs a f%^king college course on what to do with trash, any day of the week.

We owe everything we have to seeds that started in the minds of free individuals.

and yet...the supposedly intelligent president Soetoro, thinks that if government didn't build roads, all free men would simply stay in bed. "You didn't build that!"

I don't think so.

My New Years resolution is to put a stop to people that may have a high IQ, but are pure evil in their hearts.

My resolution is to not participate in my own enslavement, and to diminish the power of the high IQ people that are destroying any possibility of human freedom.

and one more thing...

Would the people that devise IQ tests, ever design them to put their own creators at the bottom?

I think not.

If I were charged by government to come up with such a test, I would go out of my way to make sure that I was on the top of the heap.

...and now we begin to pick the scab from the real problem....and hence, begin healing.

There you go again.

I hope you know that those words were.part of a larger statement BUTCHERED by Romney.

Lies repeated don't make it true.

Your blind hatred of the man is obvious! Once again.

I actually heard the words. You apparently just read the hit piece put out by the radicals.

Whats concerning to me is how many people I know who are in the same echo chamber as kramarat. I only hope my circle of friends is not typical.

Kramarat,

True. If I/We/They required every question to be answered 100% before moving forward, the product development cycle would be worse than Obamacare. The question I re-posted from the SA article is a relatively benign one and the answer does not affect life safety. In my position I must think of nearly every situation where a failure could occur. I hold myself and my crew to a much higher standard due to the fact peoples lives are at risk if we do not take the time to fully maintain these machines!

Here is a picture of the view from one of the cranes I'm responsible for.

I've known some real geniuses. Sometimes something seemed to have a simple obvious answer to me, but they would have a different answer and proved one way or another that they were right. And even then, I usually still didn't really understand why.

Mans got to know his limitations. - Dirty Harry

For more problems of this sort, see Baggini and Stangroom "Do You Think What You Think You Think?"