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Comment by oblio

1 day ago

> Across every known measurement, human (and animal) intelligence is convergent. Being better at one thing correlates with being better at another thing.

LOL. Human (and animal!) intelligence is notoriously jagged. We're all basically idiots except for very narrow areas where we focus.

8 comments

oblio

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howunfortunate  1 day ago

This is simply untrue. I tried to think of an animal example so I could give a concession, and there just...aren't any.

Smarter just means smarter.

  • hennell  1 day ago

    As anyone who's needed to provide IT support to a doctor, lawyer, lauded academic or host of otherwise "smart professionals", can assert, you can be very very smart in one area and very stupid in another.

    See for example Paul Framton https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/mar/30/physicist-mode...

    • howunfortunate  1 day ago

      Ah I see.

      This is the classic error in mixing up knowledge / experience and intelligence.

      Intelligence is the ability to quickly process, understand, learn, and use information. It does not imply having already been exposed to any given information.

      A smart doctor may have terrible computer skills. But this is from lack of experience and interest, not lack of ability to learn how to use computers.

      But take that smart doctor, and a relatively dumb person who is equally inexperienced with computers. Now give them a month and incentive to learn computers. The doctor will learn much more; that's intelligence.

      2 replies →

  • dragontamer  20 hours ago

    Cats famously have more brainpower than dogs. But dogs understand us humans far better than any cat.

    Someone who actually works with real animals (farmers? Ranchers??) would come up with better examples. But I'm just city boy over here who only meets cats and dogs on a regular basis.