In recent times, an egalitarian ideology has prompted many to argue that, except for the mentally challenged, we all have roughly the same intelligence. Those who demonstrate prowess in academics, chess or creative invention are no more capable than anyone else–they merely work harder and longer. In 1993, psychologist Anders Ericsson challenged the concept of …
In his seminal book *Thinking, Fast and Slow*, Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman wrote: Social scientists in the 1970s broadly accepted two ideas about human nature. First, people are generally rational, and their thinking is normally sound. Second, emotions such as fear, affection, and hatred explain most of the occasions on which people depart from rationality. …
Are the so-called Intellectuals Falling into the Politically Motivated Reasoning Trap? Read More »
Today’s post is an answer to the question above posed by Kay C. An overwhelming amount of research supports your assertion that intelligence has a strong genetic component. In 1990, Thomas J. Bouchard et al. published a seminal article titled, Sources of Human Psychological Differences: The Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart in which they assembled …
The United States is the world’s strongest economy and contains more Nobel Prize winners by far than any other nation in the world, but is its population as intelligent as the populations of other nations? According to a report on Forbes at Ranked: The 25 Smartest Countries In The World, the American population ranks 4th in intelligence among …
What Nations have the Most Intelligent Populations? Read More »
The media moguls understand that bad news sells more than good news. Consequently, we obtain a disproportionate amount of negative information in our newspapers, radio and television programs, prompting us to perceive the world as more hostile and dangerous than it is. A headline such as Alan Schmidlap achieved a Perfect Score in the International Mathematics …
Is the World becoming more Hostile, or is this just a Perception? Read More »
During the past two weeks, the world has watched 206 countries of the world showcase the athletic skills of their greatest amateur athletes. In these hotly contested competitions there are no participation trophies, no consolation prizes, and no excuses. All the contestants have worked endlessly for years to reach the highest echelons of achievement in …
It has been a popular notion that we are all intellectual equals. Several bestselling books have been published asserting that we all have genius within us and it’s just a matter of developing a passion and working hard to reach that status. This belief is comforting because it relieves us of the feeling that we …
During the remainder of 2021 and into 2022, the California Department of Education will be vetting its draft of the Mathematics Framework for California Public Schools: Kindergarten Through Grade Twelve. Throwing down the gauntlet in a challenge to the concept of giftedness the document asserts: An important goal of the Framework is to replace ideas …
Is America Declaring War on its Gifted Students? Read More »
This is an excellent item for testing analytical thinking and has been used in a variety of different guises for decades. While there are different ways to approach this question, a common form of reasoning proceeds as follows: • If it takes 5 minutes for 5 machines to make 5 widgets, then it will take …
One characteristic I’ve observed in the highly intelligent is their reluctance to form an opinion until they’ve gathered a substantial amount of information. Having reached an opinion, they continue to reserve judgment pending new evidence that challenges their belief. This contrasts with the behavior of those of lower intelligence whom I have observed to reach …
What is your basis of certainty in your opinion of “X”? Read More »
