[AccessD] OT: Intelligence (or the lack thereof)

John Colby jwcolby at ColbyConsulting.com
Wed Feb 15 17:20:13 CST 2006


I had the honor to work with a guy who was a degreed Electrical Engineer.
It drove me crazy working with him - he would literally pull down the menus
in Turbo Pascal (this was in the mid 80s) and read the selections, then
choose one.  EVERY TIME.  He never "learned" the menus.  Trying to do
anything with him just drove me nuts.  The nicest guy, but just a click or
two above "average" intelligence.  I think he was the guy studying till
midnight every night in college, but he succeeded.

OTOH, I also worked with a guy that was in the "180" range.  Brilliant,
totally normal (which is not necessarily normal in that IQ level) etc.  He
was the author of the compression algorithms for Stac Electronics of Stacker
fame.  I would go in to his office with a question, something I was
struggling with.  He would be typing in 'C' code, never even stop typing,
and spit out the answer.  That is a humbling experience believe me.


John W. Colby
www.ColbyConsulting.com 


-----Original Message-----
From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Stuart McLachlan
Sent: Wednesday, February 15, 2006 5:10 PM
To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
Subject: Re: [AccessD] OT: Quote of the day

On 15 Feb 2006 at 14:31, Susan Harkins wrote:

> student -- in the top 20% -- but not exceptional by any means. When we 
> compared SAT scores, a friend of mine -- one of the top 10 seniors -- 
> was just increduous that my score was higher than hers. In fact, she 
> went so far as to claim they'd made a mistake -- she was truly angry. 
> I was just hurt. A teacher I was fond of later explained to me that my 
> friend had to work very hard for her grades. She studied relentlessly 
> and put 100% into everything she did and here I was -- doing good if I 
> handed in my homework and showed up for class 4 days out of 5, and I
scored higher than her.
> 
> Now, the point of that story is -- if, at the same time, that friend 
> and I had both taken IQ tests -- she's have probably scored higher than
me.

I doubt that very much.   Based on my reading of the people on this list,  
I reckon I could name several  people here who, in their school days were " 
in the top 20%"  and "doing good if I handed in my homework and showed up
for class 4 days out of 5".  They are the sort, who ace IQ tests if they can
be bothered to do them. 

The real smart ones are the one who work out early on just how much they
have to do to get by comfortably in school.

> My
> success with the SAT's and ACT's was the way they asked questions, not 
> the questions themselves. She memorized things, and she memorized a whole
lot.
> However, what she didn't memorize, she didn't know.  I just thought 
> through the questions and gave the answer that seemed the best. I 
> didn't know the answers to most of the questions. I reasoned many answers,
I didn't "know"
> the answers. 
> 
Exactly. Knowledge is not intelligence and you should never confuse the two.
Sounds like the people who design your SATs and ACTS are smart enough to
know this and are testing the right thing.


--
Stuart


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