• Due to ongoing issues caused by Search, it has been temporarily disabled
  • Please excuse the mess, we're moving the furniture and restructuring the forum categories
  • You may need to edit your signatures.

    When we moved to Xenfora some of the signature options didn't come over. In the old software signatures were limited by a character limit, on Xenfora there are more options and there is a character number and number of lines limit. I've set maximum number of lines to 4 and unlimited characters.

"Super Genius" comes up with revolutionary new theory for the universe?

Also as someone who is trying to become a scientist, the number one skill/attribute you need is the ability to work hard and put in the long hours. You want to come up with a startling new discovery, you're going to have to spend long hours get funding, collecting data, analysis your data, writing up your results, getting your results rejected, trying again and again and again.

Patience also helps :)
 
Hi.

I'm wondering what you would make of this stuff. Supposedly (I looked this up), the guy has a huge IQ of like 195 or 200:

http://megafoundation.org/CTMU/CTMUnet/CTMU.html
http://www.iscid.org/papers/Langan_CTMU_092902.pdf

Is this any good insofar as being a workable scientific theory goes? I'd want to hear commentary from people who are real experts in the relevant fields, or at least as close to that as are available here.

As far as I can tell IQ test only test for a few stuff (spacial reasoning, syntactic resoning, and a few logic point) it does not test for scientific knowledge or udnerstanding of falsification or evolution. And that link shows it. Furthermore once you are in the long tail, IQ over 140/150 are pretty meaningless and more of a vanity things.
 
Anyone with an average IQ wouldn't reference Dembski unless he had an agenda.
ID is a religion, Mike, it has nothing to do with science. It means that ID cancels out IQ.

From the paper footnotes:
The paper is published in an online journal that Dembski is the executive director of. The 'journal' is just a slick ID propaganda site.
 
If you are representing the evidence reasonably accurately - or are making an understandable mistake - then you'll get a serious answer.

Ah.

Hmm.

There are a lot of standard creationist tropes, but everyone in the field has seen them a million times, so they'd get a pained sigh and another patient explanation with little hope of achieving anything.

To get laughter, you'd have to come up with something novel.

I didn't limit the questioning to be coming from a viewpoint of creationism, despite that a sort of creationism is essentially what this thread concerns. I was thinking more in general. And if one is really interested in learning something, as opposed to just pushing dogma, then how would the explanation have "little hope" of achieving anything?
 
And if one is really interested in learning something, as opposed to just pushing dogma, then how would the explanation have "little hope" of achieving anything?

I am yet to see a single pro-ID guy who isn't, quite obviously, just interested in pushing his dogma.
 

So, he solved an IQ test he allegedly saw in a science/science fiction magazine? That's it? Not very convincing, to say the least.

Not to mention that high IQ has little to do with understanding of science. Would you care about the worlds no. 1 chess players insights into quantum mechanics? Mr. Carlsen is very good at solving chess problems after all, that beats years of scientific training, doesn't it?
 
I can't help thinking: If "Super Genius" Langan stabbed himself in the foot with a garden fork accidentally and swore, would that outpouring be looked on with the same amount of awe and wonderment as this crapulence he has come out with, just because it was a "Super Genius" Langan who said it?

Je pense que non.
 
LOL! :)




Hmm. And if you don't even understand what you're critiquing, you can't critique it properly (he seems to have some beef with evolution). Yet if their "IQ" is so high, why would they fail to be able to grasp such theory? Does this mean that "IQ" does not measure one's capability to understand scientific theories?

IQ is a measure of how well you do on an IQ test.
 
from the PDF, this guy is a woo philosopher not a scientist:
Given an object, event, set or process, it is usually assumed to have come about in one or both of just two ways: (1) its existence owes to something prior and external to it; (2) it is uncaused and sprang forth spontaneously and pointlessly in a something-from-nothing, rabbit-out-of-the-hat sort of way, as if by magic. A similar assumption is made with regard to its behavior: either it is controlled by laws that are invariant with respect to it and therefore existentially external to it (even though they control it through its intrinsic structure and properties), or it is behaving in an utterly aleatory and uncontrolled fashion. This has given rise to a dichotomy: determinacy versus randomness, or a total absence of causation versus causation by laws that are ultimately independent of the determined entity.
he is wrong, the dichotomy is of his own making,
IN QM you can be causal and probabilitics, in classical models you can be causal and probablistic.

I am sure he is setting up the philosophy argument that order implies design. Or something

woo wooo

But there is another possibility after all: self-determinacy. Self-determinacy is like a circuitous boundary separating the poles of the above dichotomy…a reflexive and therefore closed boundary, the formation of which involves neither preexisting laws nor external structure. Thus, it is the type of causal attribution suitable for a perfectly self-contained system. Self-determinacy is a deep but subtle concept, owing largely to the fact that unlike either determinacy or randomness, it is a source of bona fide meaning. Where a system determines its own composition, properties and evolution independently of external laws or structures, it can determine its own meaning, and ensure by its self-configuration that its inhabitants are crucially implicated therein.

No evidence please that would spoil his fantasy.

A system that evolves by means of telic recursion – and ultimately, every system must either be, or be embedded in, such a system as a condition of existence – is not merely computational, but protocomputational. That is, its primary level of processing configures its secondary (computational and informational) level of processing by telic recursion. Telic recursion can be regarded as the self-determinative mechanism of not only cosmogony, but a natural, scientific form of teleology.
fatasy express, all aborad.
 
I was an anthropology major and specialized in physical anthropology (which has to do largely with evolutionary theory), and right now I'm working on my grad degree in biology and anthropology. Certainly, I am no expert, merely a student, but I've read a lot of papers on evolutionary studies and related subjects, and I know HOW to read and interpret such papers.

I started reading this guy's paper. It does not read like a scientific paper. It reads like a convoluted philosophy paper. He just waxes ecstatic about linguistics and mathematics and physics without constructing any sort of coherent theory about what they have to do with his overall point. I've read several pages and he's just...he's just typing words. There's no POINT to it. He doesn't list any clear hypothesis, or evidence, or, you know, those pesky things that we call facts.

This guy thinks if he just types enough words which he considers impressive (look Mom, I know what isomorphism is!), and then defines said words in the most convoluted way possible...that somehow proves anything.
 
Last edited:
The type of question I was thinking about was something like: "To me, this evidence here doesn't seem to support <some component of evolutionary theory>, because <insert reason here>. Could <component> be wrong?"

And what kind of attitudes would result in them laughing?


Well, why don't you ask those questions on these forums?

Before you do, though, why not search the forums and the internet for some answers.

The kind of attitudes that would result in them laughing, getting pissed, or dismissing you would include: arrogance, smugness, cockiness, disinterest, presumptiveness, and unreadiness to listen. Your not having a clue what your are talking about, or obviously not having thought about the problem (but reciting standard creationist challenges) would also do the trick.
 
Actually, they don't lie, they're delusional. They're heard that high IQ = being a genius, because that's the public's perception of IQ. Since such folks just "know" they are geniuses, they assign themselves the "appropriate" IQ they "surely" have.


Some of them would happily lie about that.
 
I didn't limit the questioning to be coming from a viewpoint of creationism, despite that a sort of creationism is essentially what this thread concerns. I was thinking more in general. And if one is really interested in learning something, as opposed to just pushing dogma, then how would the explanation have "little hope" of achieving anything?
If someone is pushing one of the standard creationist lines, odds are high that they are a creationist. They'll still get an answer, but creationists are not, for the most part, interested in learning. If they were, they would not be creationists. Hence the pained sigh.

But you can see on these forums that dumb-but-honest questions about evolution (or other science) will get very detailed and helpful responses. And we're not even paid for it!
 
Having a high IQ offers surprisingly little defense against believing in (and doing) really stupid things.

As the inner workings of MENSA show only too well.

I know people with supposedly 'high IQ' that I wouldn't trust to boil a kettle.
 
The smartest woman - heck, the smartest person - who ever lived appears here:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/19550880/...eory-A-oneact-play-with-seven-blackouts#stats

I have an uncle who was raised in Newton, Ma. At the time (don't know if this is still true, as this was decades ago), they gave IQ tests to all public school students at a certain age. He had the highest IQ ever recorded for that town (at the time of him taking the test, that is).

He still believes every single chain e-mail he ever gets. I'm constantly getting forwards from him with ridiculous urban legend warnings (AIDS infected needles in movie theater seats) and emails that are clearly scams (a Nigerian prince needs help and will pay you back ten times your investment)! I can't even tell you how much money this guy has lost by scam artists...yet he keeps falling for them!
 
Feynman had a meager IQ of 125 and was one of the greatest physicists of the 20th century.


I rest my case.
 
IQ scores typically measure your ability to learn (assuming you assign any validity to them). A higher IQ score generally indicates someone who can grasp new concepts more quickly (all other things being equal...if you don't care or don't try, you still won't learn). They say nothing about the quality of what you learn, how easily you change what you've learned or believe, or how likely you are to be right. A high IQ, in and of itself, doesn't mean you're more likely to be right. It just means you can go through your reasoning chain (whether valid or not) quicker :)
 
A couple of comments.

  1. IQ test scores measure skill at scoring well on IQ tests - or luck.
  2. IQ test scores correlate fairly well with success at other things (like earning money). That's why they're sometimes taken seriously. But there's plenty of scatter in those correlatons.
  3. Very high IQ scores are more or less meaningless because there aren't enough data points to establish correlations with anything else, and therefore their numerical value doesn't convey much useful information.
  4. If many people, all with the same IQ (e.g. defined by their average score were they to take the test many times) each take the IQ test once, the results will have a spread around the mean. In any such spread there will be outliers at the high end. These outliers are no more intelligent than the rest; they simply scored higher due to luck (or a mistake in scoring the exam, or computer or data entry error, etc.).
  5. These outliers could become famous merely due to the fact that they are outliers, even though - with these assumptions - they are no more intelligent than anyone else.
  6. If a billion blind monkeys throw darts, a few will hit the bulls eye several times in a row. Every week someone wins a lottery with odds of millions to one against.
  7. The best way to distinguish a meaningless statistical anomaly from a truly interesting event/individual is to collect more data. In this case, the additional data indicates the guy is an arrogant fool, not a genius.
 
Last edited:
Hmm. I remembered something from a biography of this guy I read online (which I'd like to find but can't seem to), that he (paraphrasing at least) "thought he had more to teach his professors than they had to teach him" or something like that. This suggests a sort of egotism or perhaps just overconfidence,

Delusions of granduer.
 
Brad Lemley is a friend of mine.

He was instrumental in giving Marilyn her gig via the Parade Magazine article.
He had to remind her, that being as she was the smartest person in the world, that she should be able to eek-out a living on that.

He also wrote an article about me; cover of the Washington Post Sunday magazine.
he hung out with me, quite a bit, trying to create a marketable story about my adventures in passive solar homes, via my history as a stone-mason...the quaint aspect...which i rejected, out-right.

Brad told me, right out, that he considered me much more intelligent then Marilyn.

For the reasonable doubters here, please do some googling.

I have a rational claim to being the smartest person in the world.

Yet, between me and you, I'm a freaking retard.

(I'm the hippy geek on the cover of that magazine article; please don't make me dredge it up...its all too hilarious and pathetic.)

Nevertheless, I am the smartest person you will ever meet.

And I'm considering bailing out. I'm in pain. I have little hope of having sex again, much less other fun. I'm in the way.

Which is why I plan to write something good here, before I'm done.

If you check out Brad Lemley's literary career, you will know I'm not kidding.

I am/was the "undaunted man".

Now, I'm daunted, big time.

All I did to get this moment was build a cheap house that required no heating or cooling; completely off the grid; utterly hip in most regards.

Pity is, that was in the early 80's.

I have learned so much more since then.

And still,

I know I am stupid beyond belief.

Just a lot smarter than Marilyn.

I.Q. is absolutely nothing compared to a good guitar riff.

Its time for me to get really funky here.
My time is near an end.

Because I'm in pain, I'm also on drugs.

But I'm still hellish smarter than Marilyn.
 
Yet if their "IQ" is so high, why would they fail to be able to grasp such theory? Does this mean that "IQ" does not measure one's capability to understand scientific theories?

Of course. That doesn't surprise you, does it?
 
Feynman had a meager IQ of 125 and was one of the greatest physicists of the 20th century.

To be a physicist requires a certain minimum level of raw technical ability. Past that minimum more can help, but only a little.

To be a great physicist - or a great almost anything else, for that matter - requires creativity, intuition, drive, and probably some luck.
 
The fact that it was "Intelligent Design" didn't bother me so much, right away. I figured I would at least hear him out.

The main flaw with his ideas is that he seems to want "information" to be fundamental, instead of matter an energy and such. But, this makes no sense. "Information" is actually emergent from fundamental systems. If there was no life to interpret the Universe, its matter and energy would still exist, but no sense of "information".
 
Does this mean that maybe it is good to try and question, say, evolution (you said question "everything"), but if the evidence stands firm, then you've got to accept it as true?
.
No one is obligated to accept a preponderance of evidence for anything as true, with true meaning absolutely correct.
Few things in reality are that "true", but when there is more evidence for any given situation, and that evidence is supported by many tests, then accepting it a fact, but subject to reinterpretation when other more weighty evidence comes along, is OK.
Science does this. Ideas need to be supported by fact. Ideas can be supported by evidence from widely varying fields of investigation, and this wide support considered factual.
Langan sounds more like a belligerent retard than intellect.
 
I think there are many kinds of intelligence that might be relevant to signficant scientific discovery, and I question the extent to which they are related to IQ.

Furthermore, I think there are attitudes, patterns of thought, styles of thought, and so on that can greatly affect the likelihood for such discovery.

IQ is only one factor, and I think it is easy to overestimate the importance of high IQ when considering this issue.
.
Many of the worker bees at Lockheed Flight Test, although not collitch gradu8s, had a better grasp of their particular fields of expertise than some of the graduates who were directing them.
IQ is only a measure of how you do on an IQ test, as mentioned above.
 
Brad Lemley is a friend of mine.

He was instrumental in giving Marilyn her gig via the Parade Magazine article.
He had to remind her, that being as she was the smartest person in the world, that she should be able to eek-out a living on that.

He also wrote an article about me; cover of the Washington Post Sunday magazine.
he hung out with me, quite a bit, trying to create a marketable story about my adventures in passive solar homes, via my history as a stone-mason...the quaint aspect...which i rejected, out-right.

Brad told me, right out, that he considered me much more intelligent then Marilyn.

For the reasonable doubters here, please do some googling.

I have a rational claim to being the smartest person in the world.

Yet, between me and you, I'm a freaking retard.

(I'm the hippy geek on the cover of that magazine article; please don't make me dredge it up...its all too hilarious and pathetic.)

Nevertheless, I am the smartest person you will ever meet.

And I'm considering bailing out. I'm in pain. I have little hope of having sex again, much less other fun. I'm in the way.

Which is why I plan to write something good here, before I'm done.

If you check out Brad Lemley's literary career, you will know I'm not kidding.

I am/was the "undaunted man".

Now, I'm daunted, big time.

All I did to get this moment was build a cheap house that required no heating or cooling; completely off the grid; utterly hip in most regards.

Pity is, that was in the early 80's.

I have learned so much more since then.

And still,

I know I am stupid beyond belief.

Just a lot smarter than Marilyn.

I.Q. is absolutely nothing compared to a good guitar riff.

Its time for me to get really funky here.
My time is near an end.

Because I'm in pain, I'm also on drugs.

But I'm still hellish smarter than Marilyn.

You should set that to music. I predict an indy rock hit.
 
Pity its true.

But you're right...

music is the outlet for my particular brand of mental dis-conformity.
 
I have an uncle who was raised in Newton, Ma. At the time (don't know if this is still true, as this was decades ago), they gave IQ tests to all public school students at a certain age. He had the highest IQ ever recorded for that town (at the time of him taking the test, that is).

Of course, "the smartest guy ever in Newton, Mass." is a bit like "the best-looking circus freak" or "the world's tallest dwarf"...

:duck:
 
I knew a genius named George who when we were teenagers told me that if a brown eyed person tried to change their eye color to blue using contact lenses they would be unable to see. He also tried to sell the idea of a hydrogen car that operated by sending water through a carbureator. Having a high IQ doesn't equal always being right.
 
As the inner workings of MENSA show only too well.

I know people with supposedly 'high IQ' that I wouldn't trust to boil a kettle.

I would not trust many people to boil a kettle, period. Molten metal and/or ceramics are dangerous things. ;)
 
Back
Top Bottom