Potential

[Iam_a_Maid]

Re: Potential

I agree with Maid. Taking a placebo can totally change your outlook on life.
(Do you even know what an amino acid is?)

No, we obviously don't have the potential to do anything. I'm going to skip over the IQ debate, I've already said my disdain about IQ elsewhere. People just put way too much weight on it IMO. I like foreign guy's opinion: You don't have to be smart to be a sports pro, yet making millions of dollars clearly shows that you're successful.

My talk of placebos has more to do with my point than just showing that I think that taking L-Tyrosine would be as useless as taking L-glutamine. They make you think that you're going to feel better, and so you feel better. Any pill you take is doing absolutely nothing and yet you feel better. Why? Because you think you'll feel better, or hope you will, or want to. That same can be said for thinking that you can succeed at anything. By putting yourself in a positive frame of mind, you'll automatically think that you can do better at something than you currently do and so you'll try harder to do well at it, and so you WILL do better at it because you try. I know, its pretty juvenile, but in this sense, I agree with your friend. Also, even if you're not very good at something and there's no point in trying at doing whatever that something is, you're automatically never going to do it. If you don't try, you have no possibility, which is less than a small possibility.

Thing is they do have an effect, all we have here is your absolute word that they have no effect what so ever. While I do agree that thinking that you will feel better, does get you better. But completely dismissing, non-neccessary nutrients as placebo, is rather weird without proof to the contrary.

[flamingspinach]

Re: Potential

The tired old burden-of-proof argument again... the fact is, when it comes to science, "invalid until proved valid" is generally the rule. Occam's razor, anyone?

[Reach]

Re: Potential

I can't resist....

Flamingspinach:
IQ is standardized so that your score is not actually the total of the marks you get on the test, but is a comparison of what your score is to other people your age who take the test. For example, if you scored 60 on the test, and the average for someone your age is 60, then you have an IQ of 100. If you scored 61 though, your IQ would be 102. (61/60*100). Average IQ is (or at least was at some point) 100 because it was designed to be that way. So no, your IQ won't go up as you get older unless you're becoming smarter than the average person your age, even though people clearly get more intelligent as they age.
I've heard that average IQ now though is actually above 100, indicating that compared to when the tests were standardized, overall, people are getting smarter.

The first paragraph refers to what is called the ratio quotient. It's generally considered a more skewed measure of intelligence than a deviational IQ. It's used on children under 16, a deviational IQ is used after 16.

They decided to do this because testing showed people stopped doing better on IQ tests at age 16.


The ratio IQ is often skewed because they're found IQ is nearly 80% environmental in children. This essentially means it is pretty easy to boost a childs score with lots of training, even as much as 50 points. However, in these cases they've found by age 16 the IQ of the person tends to drop dramatically on the new scale.

( For example, classically to the bellcurve, IQ = 160 = 1 in 31500. However, they found people were scoring 160 at a statistical value of about 1 in 2000 on the ratio scale.)


And actually, the average worldly IQ has dropped to about 90 and will probably fall further. This has to do with plenty of different reasons. The flynn effect, or the effect of rising IQ's is only happening in certain places within certain populations.

By putting yourself in a positive frame of mind, you'll automatically think that you can do better at something than you currently do and so you'll try harder to do well at it, and so you WILL do better at it because you try.

The almighty environmental factor. Indeed, it is real and what you are saying is the truth.

However, testing still shows it can only affect the outcome as much as 30%. The reality is, a retard isn't going to be smarter than a genius because he thinks he's smarter.



Not that I think IQ is everything. Quite the opposite, actually. But I do recognize its statistical importantance, and accept the fact there are real genetic differences between people that just doesn't give us all the same potential.

I like foreign guy's opinion: You don't have to be smart to be a sports pro, yet making millions of dollars clearly shows that you're successful.

I'd like to point out, while an interestingly true sentence, irrelevant to the situation at hand.

This doesn't really have anything to do with potential XD

[Tokzic]

Re: Potential

Even though it's come down to IQ lately I'd like to go back to willpower for a minute: While various people are born with various potentials, willpower is an enormous role in how you end up. Someone could be born deaf but still really want to become an excellent violin player, and a normal person who wants to make a living off of playing violin but not as much as the deaf person. If the deaf one is determined enough, she can beat the normal person out.

I'm an excellent example - I am extremely smart and want to do well in school, however, I also like to have fun. If I have an assignment that is due in a matter of days that I have not started yet, I will know that I must start, and yet I do not want to enough to stop having fun until it is crunch time and I have no other choice to begin. Sometimes even then I will put it off until I am late. Smart though I am, my willpower is crap, and though I know I must improve it, I do not have the willpower to. People less intelligent than me are doing better than me in school.

Which reminds me, I should really work on my procrastination problem now that I'm almost in university... ehh, maybe later.

[Cavernio]

Re: Potential

Since when is believing in yourself purely an 'environmental factor'? Are you saying genetics play no role at all in one's general state of mind is? In any case, I meant it in the sense that we have control over what we can and can't do. I really don't want to get into a nature/nurture debate. They're pointless.

I wasn't aware that the 'ratio quotient' disappeared after 16. I was under the impression it was still used, except that after a certain age, 16 I guess, the age was now simply 'adult', and one's IQ was still measured against a standardized average of all 'adults'. I am still under that impression.
I'm not sure how you can be so certain about the 'statistical significance' of IQ while knowing the limitations of it. You yourself pointed out that it doesn't follow a bell-curve, (at least you've acknowledged this in children). A key assumption in many stats psychology studiers use is that the dataset must come from a larger population where there exists a standard distribution. And since the IQ of the world is clearly not stable and/or it is not actually standardized so that 100 is the average...
(Yes, lots of stats assume other data shapes than a bell-curve, but you'd be surprised at the bold assumptions which no one seems to remember that are done when analyzing data.)
Furthermore, not that I don't think the world IQ can drop, but I sincerely doubt that people are getting dumber. Rather, I would put any acknowledged decline in IQ today versus yesteryear a result of more diverse testing of people than white, native english speaking kids in middle/upper class American schools. No, I don't expect Brazilians to know basic American knowledge as well as Americans.
Also, I hardly think that my mention of sports stars is aside the point. The original post clearly talked about becoming famous and becoming successful. If IQ is truly a measure of success, it is probably because people who believe it is are probably also the people who define success as being intelligent, as in the intelligence which IQ measures. Not that I'm saying sports stars aren't intelligent. Well, maybe the one's who've sustained head injuries aren't too bright. :-p