From: tob@world.std.com
Newsgroups: alt.humor.best-of-usenet
Subject: [rec.arts.sf.science] The Future of Human Intelligence. Large Bulbous Heads?
Date: 30 Oct 1997 19:21:02 -0700

Subject: Re: The Future of Human Intelligence. Large Bulbous Heads? 
From: zapspam.fofp@holyrood.ed.ac.uk (M Holmes)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.science

David Mitchell (mitchell@jersey.net) wrote:

: So when you start to talk about intelligence you must first define what it
: is that you are talking about.  There are about 30 different psychological
: models on human intelligence, and each one uses a different definition of
: what intelligence is.

However, scores correlate pretty well however you test it. That's why
"g" was posited in the first place.

: If for example you are talking about iq [which means
: absolutely nothing in real life]

Except that it correlates well with any other kind of intelligence test
that's been tried.

: then you would have to concede that
: humans are more intelligent than any other animal on earth since they all
: do poorly on iq tests.  [Bobo, what number comes next in this series... ?] 
: Most descriptions of intelligence have the underlying assumption that
: humans are the top of the heap, but that is not necessarily true.  And
: since they have this underlying bias all tests strongly lean in favor of
: human type intellect.  

Perhaps that's because they're generally designed to test variation
amongst humans. If you think IQ has a bad rep amongst the folks in
Personnel, just imagine how they'd feel about applications based on
someone getting 160 in the "Barks Most Like A Dog" test.

: As far as our
: cognitive abilities are concerned we consistently make bad judgements.  The
: old addage "He wasn't born with the common sense god gave a dog" takes on
: new meaning when you realize that people can be easily misled by
: charlatans, politicians, our faulty memories, folk tales, etc...

Meanwhile a dog will try to hump your leg. You can't take missing the
point much further than that now can you? Cats can be fooled into
chasing reflected sunbeams. Somehow I get the feeling that spiffy sense
of smell or not, we're not dealing with geniuses here.