Is Intelligence A Zero Sum Commodity?

[jwoodie]

Aside from congenital limitations and external impairments, it seems that most "high achievers" in one area possess corresponding deficits in other areas. On a macro level, the people who are most driven to succeed in business are less likely to maintain successful family circumstances. On a micro level, individuals who become overly focused on one facet of intellectual pursuit may become blind to other seemingly related facets. Perhaps the greatest example of this was the genius Isaac Newton, who believed in alchemy his entire life.

More modernly, we have great minds like Stephen Hawkins who can understand quantum mechanics but cannot contemplate complex philosophical questions except in the most simplistic statistical terms. For example, the likelihood of life on other planets is "proven" by the simplistic device of multiplying some infinitesimal probability by infinity in order to arrive at absolute certainty. According to this self-deluding process, one can "prove" the existence of anything, including one's alter ego somewhere in the universe.

As with movie stars giving their opinions on all manner of subjects, we should be wary of so-called "experts" who stray from their delineated fields.

 

[Dogmaphobe]

As with movie stars giving their opinions on all manner of subjects, we should be wary of so-called "experts" who stray from their delineated fields.

One of the worst in this regard is Noam Chomsky. His work in linguistics may be inspired, but his political opinions are so formulaic, derivative and hackneyed as to display that no real intelligence is being assigned to the subject. Heck, all a person has to do is read Bin Laden's letters to America and then read Chomsky on the same subject and it is little more than all the warmed over talking points dressed up in purple prose.

I always found it amusing that a fellow who writes about "Manufacturing consent" is so much in the business of manufacturing opinion.

 

[shart_attack]

Aside from congenital limitations and external impairments, it seems that most "high achievers" in one area possess corresponding deficits in other areas. On a macro level, the people who are most driven to succeed in business are less likely to maintain successful family circumstances. On a micro level, individuals who become overly focused on one facet of intellectual pursuit may become blind to other seemingly related facets. Perhaps the greatest example of this was the genius Isaac Newton, who believed in alchemy his entire life.

More modernly, we have great minds like Stephen Hawkins who can understand quantum mechanics but cannot contemplate complex philosophical questions except in the most simplistic statistical terms. For example, the likelihood of life on other planets is "proven" by the simplistic device of multiplying some infinitesimal probability by infinity in order to arrive at absolute certainty. According to this self-deluding process, one can "prove" the existence of anything, including one's alter ego somewhere in the universe.

As with movie stars giving their opinions on all manner of subjects, we should be wary of so-called "experts" who stray from their delineated fields.

C'mon now: tell us the source from which you copied and pasted that.

We all know you sure as shinola didn't write it yourself.

 

[jwoodie]

I will take that as a compliment.