Intelligence Level of Guitar Tricks Community

Originally Posted by: Dr_simonI know plenty of people that dropped out of PhDs..... because it was right over there head ! Infact I can name about half a dozen off the top of my head that I have known in the last 3 years !

I will also respectfully remind you that I have spent the last 15 years in various universities in two different continents and have a great deal of experience in this matter.

I will also remind you that, interms of the argument you are presenting:
1) you were not dropping out of a US institution (where the stats I quoted were applicable)

2) you were not dropping out of a doctoral degree (where the stats I quoted were applicable)

3) PhDs are NOT BSc they are PhDs and require a different set of intellectual tools. Being one of the few people on this site who have completed both I feel I am quite well qualified to point this out !!

There is a reason why they are called different names !

I don't know exactly what your education/achievements blah blah mean to you, but I'm getting the feeling that you're taking this to mean that a PhD ain't much, which is not what I'm saying.
Be that as it may, we're talkin about intelligence here, people's intelligence to be specific, and when we get into the ways in which people display their intelligences, we're basically into behaviour science, and behaviour has a lot more to do with it than just intellience.

If you'd like to compare the dropout rates from different levels of an education system as a measure of how intellectually challenging a level of education is, here in Kenya, as a percantage, the drop out rate from primary(grade for you) school is higher than that from University. There's questions of poverty and all that, but primary school isn't more expensive than university, so I don't know.

And consider a famous dude like Einstein. I'm told he was working in a Library( and he did not have a PhD) when he came up with the theory of relativity. I'm also told that he'd variously described as slow and unteachable( which was why he was working at the Library, instead of, for instance, teaching). But look at what he did. I'm sure relativity is still studied and used in some form even at PhD level, but the dude who came up with it didn't even have that degree to begin with.

That's an example of why I say your level of education (Einstein was somewhere post high school, but not vety far post high school) may not have anything to do with how intelligent you are(Special relativity).

And as for your having finished both a Bsc and a PhD making you better qualified to judge what it takes to judge both, and both requiring a different set of intellectual tools, I have been thro' nursery, primary high school and university. And altho' all these education levels require different sets of inttelectual tools, I've talked to former teachers from all these levels,and all of them give a similar verdict regarding my intelligence.

Coz intelligence is there through out, whether you're trying to figure out what 6 times 7 is (around grade 2 0r 3 ), or figuring out ,for example, what your doctoral thesis was about.

And when you tell me there's a reason why PhD's have a different name from Bsc's, you're just being plain patronising, I'm sorry to say.

Originally Posted by: iamthe_eggmanReally? [sarcsam]Well, we weren't sick of reading it...[/sarcasm]

Don't hate on hmm... I'll kill.

I don't know about the whole mystique thing, but that might be because I just don't care. :eek:

Originally Posted by: kingdavidAnd consider a famous dude like Einstein. I'm told he was working in a Library( and he did not have a PhD) when he came up with the theory of relativity. I'm also told that he'd variously described as slow and unteachable( which was why he was working at the Library, instead of, for instance, teaching). But look at what he did. I'm sure relativity is still studied and used in some form even at PhD level, but the dude who came up with it didn't even have that degree to begin with.

He was working at a patent office. No learning happening there, but I'm sure there was plenty of time to think.

Google'll probably tell you how much education he had, but I always thought he was a high school dropout, not a college dropout.

Originally Posted by: kingdavidI don't know exactly what your education/achievements blah blah mean to you, but I'm getting the feeling that you're taking this to mean that a PhD ain't much, which is not what I'm saying.
Be that as it may, we're talkin about intelligence here, people's intelligence to be specific, and when we get into the ways in which people display their intelligences, we're basically into behaviour science, and behaviour has a lot more to do with it than just intellience.

If you'd like to compare the dropout rates from different levels of an education system as a measure of how intellectually challenging a level of education is, here in Kenya, as a percantage, the drop out rate from primary(grade for you) school is higher than that from University. There's questions of poverty and all that, but primary school isn't more expensive than university, so I don't know.

And consider a famous dude like Einstein. I'm told he was working in a Library( and he did not have a PhD) when he came up with the theory of relativity. I'm also told that he'd variously described as slow and unteachable( which was why he was working at the Library, instead of, for instance, teaching). But look at what he did. I'm sure relativity is still studied and used in some form even at PhD level, but the dude who came up with it didn't even have that degree to begin with.

That's an example of why I say your level of education (Einstein was somewhere post high school, but not vety far post high school) may not have anything to do with how intelligent you are(Special relativity).

And as for your having finished both a Bsc and a PhD making you better qualified to judge what it takes to judge both, and both requiring a different set of intellectual tools, I have been thro' nursery, primary high school and university. And altho' all these education levels require different sets of inttelectual tools, I've talked to former teachers from all these levels,and all of them give a similar verdict regarding my intelligence.

Coz intelligence is there through out, whether you're trying to figure out what 6 times 7 is (around grade 2 0r 3 ), or figuring out ,for example, what your doctoral thesis was about.

And when you tell me there's a reason why PhD's have a different name from Bsc's, you're just being plain patronising, I'm sorry to say.

Having established that degrees are not the only indicator intelligence oh about 50 posts ago... your point is ?

As far as being patronizing... well yes. If you think that BSc and PhDs are the same then I suggest you have another look !

They are DIFFERENT like apples and telephones !!

Would you like me to post the criteria that makes them different ?

Originally Posted by: Dr_simon...If you think that BSc and PhDs are the same then I suggest you have another look !...

Talk about putting words in someone's mouth :rolleyes:

...Would you like me to post the criteria that makes them different ?

I know you were being sarcastic,but now that you mentioned it, please do post.
And try and tell me something that I don't already know.

Is it really time for me to lay the smackdown on someone here? :rolleyes:

Think what you like, I neither have the time or inclination to get further into this absolutely asinine argument !

Originally Posted by: Dr_simonabsolutely asinine argument !

See that alliteration!? Bow before the traditional tools of rhetoric! By the way, he's right, a Phd is indeed hard to achieve.

I guess if I fancy myself as an intelligent guy, then I should know when to call it quits, and now seems fine enough.
To close:
I haven't said anything that hasn't been said by a few other people on this thread, so I really don't understand the doctor's particularly vitriolic reaction to my comments, vis a vis his reactions to the other people's comments.
I don't like to psycho-analyze people, so I won't even attempt to offer an "explanation" for this I'd say rather uncharacteristic behaviour, which( the explanation) is something I'm not qualified to do.
My late mother got her B. Ed(which was her only degree) when I was about 12 or 13 years old. When we went to her graduation and I got to see this sea of really learned people, being a bright kid at school(the type that are top of the class for six years in a row), I welled with desire to be like them(Aside: In Kenyan public Universities, a typical graduation congregation will consist an average of 3000 - 4000 graduands, so you can imagine all those mortar boards and gowns and what have you). My mother wore the typical black gowns worn by Bachelors graduates, and the degrees were conferred by no less than the President of the Republic of Kenya. The faculty dean would call out the names(surnames only, they were too many to call out in full), the President (who until last year was the Chancellor of all public universities), would do his conferment statement, the graduands would curtsey/bow and that was about it.
The Ph D graduands, on the other hand, wore ornate rich red velvet gowns with very different mortar boards, and their names were read out in full, they walked to the dais, knelt down and had the Chancellor personally confer them their Doctorates and he would give them their degree certificates on the spot( all the other graduands would pick up their certificates later from the University).
After the ceremony, one of my mom's friends said to me to work hard at school and be like my mom so I can get to wear a gown like her's. I told the friend that I wanted to get to wear the red gowns(the ones worn by PhD's). And he wished me well.
I respect knowledge.
And an education is one hell of a way to acquire knowledge.
And when I joined the University of Nairobi, Iwanted to go all the way. But a combination of factors including the facilities, the quality of instruction, money(if I had the money, I'd have opted for a well reputed american, british or german physics programm, and may be things would be different-it is telling that not a single African educated in african institutions has ever won, for instance, a nobel), I quit. Because it wasn't what I hoped it would be.
And there you have it.
Now I'll go and see what the word asanine means.

And that proves......?

What are we arguing about again?

i'm intelligent enough not to post in this thread!

.... dayum!

Originally Posted by: iamthe_eggman...What are we arguing about again?

I'm wondering that too, coz all I said was that your level of education was not the only measure of intelligence( and quite a few posters expressed similar sentiment).
Then somewhere Dr. pointed out that there was a reason why the drop out rate from PhD programs was so high( read that it's intellectually challenging-which it is, although again every stage of education and indeed life has it's own intellectual challenges),at which point I begged to differ(the last time I checked, that phrase is used when you want to disagree politely), saying that dropping out is not necessarily as a result of being intellectually incapable of handling stuff. It could be, no doubt, but not necessarily.
That was it.
And look what happened.
Like Doc said, this is, indeed, an asinine argument.
(I checked the meaning in the MSWord thesaurus. It means silly, dim, unintelligent, stupid, etc. I usually don't mind doing my homework).