Amelia, this is a deep question, and one that is vital to educators at all levels. A proper answer would require much more space than I have here, but I will try to outline an approach. As Einstein once observed, “The value of education is not the learning of many facts, but the training of …
In the STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) mathematics is the language in which the ideas are formulated, expressed and established. To communicate in these subject disciplines, you must be fluent in mathematics. Omni Magazine, in a famous 1979 interview with physicist Richard Feynman asked: Are physical theories going to keep getting more abstract …
Is there a correlation between being a great scientist and being good at math? Read More »
There is a positive correlation between intelligence and success in the US presidency, because the most intelligent people are found to be more likely to make good decisions and those who make the worst decisions are most often those who lack intelligence. However, that fact that there are many other factors that make for a …
Yes, a significant proportion of those brilliant people who defied consensus opinion were considered crackpots before their insights produced results. There is only enough space in this response to go into detail on one example, but I will provide links to brief bios of some others at the end of this post. At the beginning …
If we were to take the average IQ of those who have earned a Ph.D. (as opposed to honorary Ph.D.’s) we would find that it would be significantly higher than average because it would contain the IQ’s of some of the brightest people on the planet. In 2001, Lubinsky et al* published a study of …
Genius is generally measured by achievement. Someone who is classified as a “genius” is usually a person who has discovered or created something entirely new that is a great departure from what was already known or developed. For example, Albert Einstein was considered a genius because he changed the paradigm in physics by challenging the …
While IQ tests provide very good estimates of intelligence for most people, there are individual cases where the results are highly inaccurate. This can occur for a variety of reasons. Among the most common reason is a lack of familiarity with IQ test items. For example, some of the pattern recognition items that are found …
The good news is that we are all born with the innate ability to think abstractly and logically to some degree. However, we humans differ significantly in the extent to which we apply logical reasoning or engage in abstract thought. In his bestseller, Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman outlined the two modes of thinking …
On an IQ scale for which the mean is 100 and standard deviation 15, a person with an IQ of 140 is in the 99.616957th percentile. This means that they have scored higher than 99.6% of the population on the test, an achievement equalled or bettered by only 1 in 261 people. A person with …
What abilities or skills might a person with an IQ of 140 possess? Read More »
We are living today in an environment that is highly polarized and perhaps one of the most politically polarized in modern history. In the US, families gathering together at Thanksgiving and other festive occasions are often cautioned that politics is a divisive and potentially incendiary topic. The tribalism evident in the religious wars in history …
