Today I went to the post office to request an estimate of the cost of shipping a parcel. I did not bring the parcel with me but I did have the dimensions and the destination city (but not ZIP code). (Before you tell me I was stupid to not take the box in with me, I'm not telling you the whole story.)
The gentleman behind the counter said he can't give me a figure. He has to put the box on his scale, which of course gives the weight, and enter the ZIP code. He said he had no way to get a ZIP code from just the name of the city (post offices used to have ZIP code directories out on the counter for all to use; but now you're expected to use the USPS web site).
I said that the system requires no brain. (He took it personally, so I apologized.)
What I meant was not that this gentleman did not have a brain, but rather that, the way his equipment works, a brain is not required. Not his nor someone else's.
It all started with cash registers (or, to be more up-to-date I guess I have to say "point-of-sale terminals") that calculate the customer's change. I can calculate my change in my head—and faster than the machine--but if the person working the register had to do it using mental arithmetic, they'd probably have a problem. And it seems as though machines more and more are making it unnecessary to do any calculating, thinking, or any mental work whatsoever.
The brain can be compared to a muscle: if it is not used, it grows weaker. So if our jobs don't require us to do a little mental exercise-—calculating change in our heads or finding out something else for the customer—if we leave that to the machines, we grow dumber.
This is just one more of countless examples of the Dumbing of America.
Copyright © 2013
Showing posts with label intelligence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label intelligence. Show all posts
Monday, May 13, 2013
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Human Infants Compared to Dogs, etc.
A recent online article was headlined "Dogs as smart as tots, study says."
I'm not terribly surprised. The intelligence of extremely young human beings should not be overestimated. For example, at birth, a human infant and a chimpanzee infant are really very similar in their cognitive abilities. Of course at some point–and I forget what age this is—the development of the human infant really takes off and leaves the chimp far behind.
And, as to dogs, anyone who knows and loves dogs knows they are smart. The study cited in the article says "Even the average dog has the mental abilities of a 2-year-old child."
A lot of birds, too (such as parrots) are very smart. And then you’ve got dolphins. And squirrels.
So, to look again at the human infant: at some point, at least, being human is more about potential than about present skills and abilities.
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
I'm not terribly surprised. The intelligence of extremely young human beings should not be overestimated. For example, at birth, a human infant and a chimpanzee infant are really very similar in their cognitive abilities. Of course at some point–and I forget what age this is—the development of the human infant really takes off and leaves the chimp far behind.
And, as to dogs, anyone who knows and loves dogs knows they are smart. The study cited in the article says "Even the average dog has the mental abilities of a 2-year-old child."
A lot of birds, too (such as parrots) are very smart. And then you’ve got dolphins. And squirrels.
So, to look again at the human infant: at some point, at least, being human is more about potential than about present skills and abilities.
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Presumed Stupid, until Proven Otherwise
Stupid people will assume you are stupid—like themselves. Seems they can't imagine an intelligence greater than their own.
Smart people, like members of Mensa, are used to the majority of people being stupider than they are—so they will assume you are stupid (even if they know you are another Mensa member).
People like doctors get used to dealing with the lowest common denominator, so they assume you are stupid.
So—sort of like innocent until proved guilty--you are presumed stupid until proved intelligent.
Maybe I am the sort who tends to hide his light under a bushel. I have found people who seemed to interpret everything I said as evidence that I was stupid.
It doesn't help that I stutter. This can have two consequences: One, what I'm saying is not understood (maybe because the steady rhythm of normal speech is very important and, if you interrupt it, communication is inhibited). Two, many people, simply out of ignorance, associate impaired ability to communicate with subnormal intelligence.
Copyright © Richard Stein
Smart people, like members of Mensa, are used to the majority of people being stupider than they are—so they will assume you are stupid (even if they know you are another Mensa member).
People like doctors get used to dealing with the lowest common denominator, so they assume you are stupid.
So—sort of like innocent until proved guilty--you are presumed stupid until proved intelligent.
Maybe I am the sort who tends to hide his light under a bushel. I have found people who seemed to interpret everything I said as evidence that I was stupid.
It doesn't help that I stutter. This can have two consequences: One, what I'm saying is not understood (maybe because the steady rhythm of normal speech is very important and, if you interrupt it, communication is inhibited). Two, many people, simply out of ignorance, associate impaired ability to communicate with subnormal intelligence.
Copyright © Richard Stein
Thursday, June 11, 2009
The World Is Ruled by "C" Students
It may be widely thought that the most intelligent people are not the most successful. To put it another way—assuming that grades in school are a good measure of intelligence, which I admit may be a faulty assumption—the world is ruled by the B (or C, or C-) students.
When George W. Bush was president we often heard that he had been a C- student in school. Whatever you think of that man, being President of the United States has to be considered being successful.
I belong to Mensa, the high-IQ society. In Mensa we often talk about the fact that having a high IQ is no guarantee of success and that intelligence (or, again, I'm using grades as a proxy for intelligence) does not correlate with success (as measured by income, I believe). I've seen a graph published in Mensa publications that showed grades plotted against some measure of success (again, I surmise it was income). Success increased with grades, up into the average grade of B; and then it declined for those earning A's.
One might want to think about the reason for this. One probably simple and unarguable way to put it might be that success requires a kind of "smarts" that does not and never will correlate with simple IQ or book learning. Or, in a more contemporary lingo, the people with the good grades or high IQs may have one kind of intelligence but they may lack "social intelligence." In fact, IQ (as measured on IQ tests) and social intelligence are quite different attributes of an individual and may not correlate very well with one another.
One last word on intelligence and public office. Of course Dubya was not the only person in politics whose smarts might not have been of the highest. In the Bill Maher film Religulous, there is an interview with a Congressman from a Southern state who admits that there is no intelligence test for public office. On the other hand, Bill Clinton supposedly is very smart, and I don't think anyone doubts that Barack Obama is smart--both exceptions to the generalization stated above. I wonder if it can be coincidence that both of these men, highly intelligent presidents, are Democrats.
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
When George W. Bush was president we often heard that he had been a C- student in school. Whatever you think of that man, being President of the United States has to be considered being successful.
I belong to Mensa, the high-IQ society. In Mensa we often talk about the fact that having a high IQ is no guarantee of success and that intelligence (or, again, I'm using grades as a proxy for intelligence) does not correlate with success (as measured by income, I believe). I've seen a graph published in Mensa publications that showed grades plotted against some measure of success (again, I surmise it was income). Success increased with grades, up into the average grade of B; and then it declined for those earning A's.
One might want to think about the reason for this. One probably simple and unarguable way to put it might be that success requires a kind of "smarts" that does not and never will correlate with simple IQ or book learning. Or, in a more contemporary lingo, the people with the good grades or high IQs may have one kind of intelligence but they may lack "social intelligence." In fact, IQ (as measured on IQ tests) and social intelligence are quite different attributes of an individual and may not correlate very well with one another.
One last word on intelligence and public office. Of course Dubya was not the only person in politics whose smarts might not have been of the highest. In the Bill Maher film Religulous, there is an interview with a Congressman from a Southern state who admits that there is no intelligence test for public office. On the other hand, Bill Clinton supposedly is very smart, and I don't think anyone doubts that Barack Obama is smart--both exceptions to the generalization stated above. I wonder if it can be coincidence that both of these men, highly intelligent presidents, are Democrats.
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
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