Quote:
geonuc wrote:
Not sure your test is descriptive of the issue, Mike. How about this:
Take 1000 Mahattanites with 500 being in a low IQ group and 500 high. Put them in the outback (not together - this is an individual thing). Devise a metric to judge how well they do, say survival time. I submit the mean survival rate of the high IQ group will probably be significantly longer than that of the low group.
To illustrate the mechanism, I imagine a member of the high IQ group quickly realizing that the situation is dire and immediately thinking about survival needs: water, food, shelter, protection from things that kill you and signaling for help. He may not know much about these things, but he's smart enough to know he has to figure a way out or die. He will know to be very careful - a broken leg will mean death. The low IQ person will wonder why his cell phone has no bars and start wandering in search of better reception.
Same thing in reverse, although all 1000 of the aborigines will probably get locked up by Homeland Security before a day is up.
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Again, we may be thinking along divergent paths. The particular abilities needed for survival in a particular locale will depend intimately
both upon the individual's previous experiences and the sum of his or her abilities. I shared a lab with a very smart PhD back at NIH who destroyed her automobile because she never checked the oil and ran it until the engine seized up. The car was another black box to her. My wife has no idea how an auto works beyond turning the key; she grew up in Manhattan and cars weren't part of the experience. But she can navigate the subway system from the Bronx to Coney Island blindfolded, and I would be (and have been) hopelesly lost. She also has a doctorate in theoretical chemistry, so by one standard measure she must be quite intelligent. But she has no idea that faint tapping in the engine means a lifter is sticking and a very expensive repair is on the way.
I guess my point is that any abstract measure of intelligence is pretty useless until it is applied in a given situation.