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PhaedrusZ
01-14-2006, 12:08 PM
...Not complaining at all, but giving my views on what you will find here.Understood...I was just trying to explain what I was trying to do with this poll. Which does not qualify as actual research by any stretch of the imagination! Not to mention I'm almost always too lazy to use emoticons, even when I should.


I'm curious who said that his/her IQ is 211 or higher. I don't even think Einstein's is that high. LOLThe estimates I've read on other internet sites place Einstein's estimated IQ at 160. I've only read of one person from history who had an estimated IQ score higher than 211. That would be Leonardo DaVinci with an estimated IQ of 220.

Interestingly enough, we also had exactly one person who responded 211 or higher on the other mb where I first read about this topic.

VenusGoddess
01-14-2006, 12:26 PM
^ Is this test asking for actual scores or wishful thinking? LOL

VenusGoddess
01-14-2006, 12:34 PM
That's really interesting, VG, given the purported link between mathematical and musical abilities.

Well, it is true that you can break musical tones and vibrations, scales, intervals, etc all down into mathmatical formulations. However, music is wholly something that is FELT or HEARD and has nothing to do with math. I don't graph equations on a piece of paper to figure out where on the staff the next note should go. I do not find the sum of two parts to figure out which two notes should (or should not) be played in unison, etc.

Just because someone is stellar in mathematics, does not mean that he'll understand the music in which he loves. And, just because someone can write/perform beautiful music does not mean that they will more easily comprehend math. There is a student research paper that sums it up pretty well:

"In conclusion, my research into math and music does seem to suggest that music enhances mathematics skills. Music targets one specific area of the brain to stimulate the use of spatial-temporal reasoning, which is useful in mathematical thinking. However, as to the question of whether or not music is the magical portion that will elevate anyone's ability to do math, the answer unfortunately, would be no. Just because most mathematicians are fond of music, dosen't mean that all musicians are fond of mathematics. I found a letter posted on the web written by a fourteen-year-old overachiever to a mathematics professor. The student expresses his fraustration that even though he is an excellent musician, math is one of his weakest subjects. In math, he is not making the grades that he needs to stay in a certain prestigious academic program (4)." --Cindy Zhan

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro02/web1/czhan.html

seraya
01-14-2006, 01:00 PM
^^ Great post VG.

I was a Music Major and i hated the fact that they would enforce maths on the pupils. I am great at music but i suck at math's.. Dunno how i passed. I'm going back to school for business but the thought of having to do math's scares me... enough to put me off of going.


Seraya.

scarlett_vancouver
01-14-2006, 01:08 PM
I've tested twice, once at 143 and once at 145.

Strange though, like the poll results, everyone I've ever talked to about IQs has scored somewhere between 120-160. Everyone's a genius! Where are all the dumb people, lol?

I think IQ tests are bunk- if you're used to puzzles (like scrabble, crosswords, soduku), you'll do well.

I judge people's intelligence based on their chess game. It seems you can't learn to be amazing at chess- either you are or you aren't. I'm not :(

TorontoGuy
01-14-2006, 11:49 PM
According to the poll responses, over 52% of respondents are in the brightest 3% of the population.

I call bullshit.

Nicolina
01-15-2006, 01:10 AM
You don't find many people on the short bus getting tested, since their deficiencies and disabilities were generally apparent to anyone caring enough to notice.


Not true, actually. Kids with disabilities are usually subjected to frequent batteries of cognitive skills tests (particularly if they have parents who give a fuck about getting them into an appropriate educational program.) However, they don't necessarily grow up to post their IQ results on stripper-obsessed internet forums...

Mastridonicus
01-15-2006, 02:21 AM
VG,

Among many of the hobbies I had destroyed by my accident, the musician in me suffered, and still suffers, almost as much as the struggling artist.

Part of the reason is because nothing, NOTHING, gets in touch with me like music. When I first learned how to play guitar, I had already learned Piano, trumpet, and baritone <not like to an expert level, but to a fun functional level> my teacher first taught me how to tune, but he taught me to FEEL the vibrations and not listen to the tone. That lesson opened my perception to music and made me begin to enjoy different types of music in a different ways.

Music entices so much of my passion and desire, and since I am retraining my hands, I find in my frustration, that sitting back, closing my eyes, and listening to soft jazz, classical, or even Type-O's october rust, it has stopped being about what you hear, but what you FEEL. I love music that operates on all wave lengths.


I am scared to add to the I.Q. thread in much more detail. I say this because I know enough to know I know very little. However I have learned that I.Q. imo has about as much bearing on a person's intelligence as their social security number.

2 pesos.

Jenny
01-15-2006, 07:42 AM
Actually I have the idea (picked up from somewhere) that IQ tests were originally designed to measure stupidity, not intelligence. So the higher your score the less meaningful it is, and the lower your score the more exact. And the tests are not neutral - like apparently the first time they administered it girls scored higher, on average, than boys, so they doctored the test (added more sports analogies etc.) to fix it.

(I saw a documentary on "Stupidity" a couple of years ago. Did anyone else see it? Susan Wayward? I know you're a movie person. It was called "Stupidity.")

And isn't it generally accepted that IQ tests cannot measure your potential to discover a black hole, prove a mathematical formula, write or perform a great concerto or paint a masterpiece - or for that matter your ability to any of these things but only to a "barely satisfactory measure. They can measure whether or not you need to ride the special bus - which is really what they are for.

Although - TorontoGuy - the average is not really 100. As you get a more educated population, and a more educated population being tested the average naturally rises. Like the tests were designed for the mentally challenged, to distinguish them into groups of potentially functioning (able to learn even basic skills, like eating and tying shoes) and the not. So the numbers being cited are probably true. They just don't actually mean anything.

TorontoGuy
01-15-2006, 08:46 AM
The IQ standard is adjusted every decade or so, to keep 100 as the 50th percentile. This is because our changing environment (ie video games, computer use) is training our brains from childhood to do some tasks with greater proficiency and throwing off what limited value an IQ score has... I think we're all geniuses based on the original standard. Since the population being adjusted for is the modern Western civilization we currently live in, the average education level is not pushing the average above 100.

Also, it is impossible to get an IQ over 195 on the Wechsler scale or 201 on the Stanford-Binet scale. Those scores indicate about 6 standard deviations from the mean respectively, which is impossible because there aren't enough people in the world to be smarter than!

Mastridonicus
01-15-2006, 08:54 AM
Although - TorontoGuy - the average is not really 100. As you get a more educated population, and a more educated population being tested the average naturally rises. Like the tests were designed for the mentally challenged, to distinguish them into groups of potentially functioning (able to learn even basic skills, like eating and tying shoes) and the not. So the numbers being cited are probably true. They just don't actually mean anything.

I don't know what it's like up there in Can nah dah ;-) but down here, as our population grows, the rift between what used to be common sense and now has to be taught but probably isn't becomes greater :/

I agree the the higher the number, the less useful it is, however, I don't believe the number is useful at all. Its such a broad generalization that supplimental tests were created <normally by testing groups or schools> to make up for what they believe the I.Q. test failed at. <at least in my area> I know my testing center had a supplimental test that was supposed to cover action and reaction to common sense situations. The test was so long and boring that my A.D.D. was totally begging me to go change the lightbulb or re-alphabetize the damn books...god those things were fucking with me. Obsessed much?

Mast.

threlayer
01-15-2006, 12:31 PM
...Also, it is impossible to get an IQ over 195 on the Wechsler scale or 201 on the Stanford-Binet scale. Those scores indicate about 6 standard deviations from the mean respectively, which is impossible because there aren't enough people in the world to be smarter than!

Have you heard of the word, "outlier" ? Almost anything is possible unless the laws of physics (the natural world) prevents it, and even then, those all those laws are not understood well.

threlayer
01-15-2006, 12:42 PM
Well, it is true that you can break musical tones and vibrations, scales, intervals, etc all down into mathmatical formulations. However, music is wholly something that is FELT or HEARD and has nothing to do with math. I don't graph equations on a piece of paper to figure out where on the staff the next note should go. I do not find the sum of two parts to figure out which two notes should (or should not) be played in unison, etc.

...There is a student research paper that sums it up pretty well:

"In conclusion, my research into math and music does seem to suggest that music enhances mathematics skills. Music targets one specific area of the brain to stimulate the use of spatial-temporal reasoning, which is useful in mathematical thinking. ...." --Cindy Zhan

It would become a nightmare in musical notation to describe all the subtleties involved in what it takes to be truly musical, that is, shaping each musical phrase and especially each note. You can teach it and even verbally describe it slightly, but you cannot document it. Even if you could score it, each player would interpret it differently

Math is involved certainly, but to me it is in counting and in dividing out the tempo. Now if one is involved in the acoustics area, and very few musicians are, then math is a good part of that. To me there is more physics and biology (and wood and metal care technologies) than math in what most musicians encounter.

But what fascinates me is how much learning an instrument, or even voice, aids in the development of those little minds and socializes the personalities as well. I recall that musical ability has sort of an IQ test, the Seashore test, which tests musical ability: discrimination of pitches, dissonance, rhythmical figures, and intensity; as well as an ability to remember melodies.