How Machines Have Changed Humanity In Clive Thompson’s essay, “Smarter than You Think” he argues that technology enhances humanity. That it allows for deeper thought and easier access to knowledge. He presents these arguments by opening with a story about how the game of chess changed with the arrival of computers. He uses this story along with techniques like evidence, claims, and assumptions to further his point and strengthen his argument.
Both Langan and Oppenheimer had genius level IQs, yet Oppenheimer was an outlier and Langan was not. Gladwell explores their different childhoods and concludes Oppenheimer's success was in part due to his parents wealth and parenting. Moreover he concludes Langan’s lack of success was due to his parents lack of wealth and absent parenting. Gladwell completes his theory by explaining Langan’s lack of success wasn’t due to his lack of intelligence, but instead due to his lack of support from others, “He’d had to make his way alone, and no one- not rock stars, not professional athletes, not software billionaires, and not even geniuses- ever makes it alone.” (Gladwell
In Clive Thompson’s essay, “Smarter Than You Think”, he argues that computers and search engines such as Google actually improve our memory and therefore our ability to analyze information. Thompson bases his theory on the concept of Transactive memory, a social system in which information is shared collectively in a group, with different people assigned key pieces of that information to remember. In Thompson’s opinion, the internet has become that “collective memory” for the people that use it, storing and dispensing knowledge and details more efficiently and accurately than any human could. Though he admits that when humans store information on a computer we’re less likely to personally recall it, he persists that historically human beings
In Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, discuss that “If intelligence matters only up to a point, then past that point, other things – things that have nothing to do with intelligence – must start to matter more,” (86). “To be a Nobel Prize winner apparently, you have to be smart enough to get into at least as good as Notre Dame or the University of Illinois. That’s all,” (Gladwell 83). The author is explaining that getting to the well-known university doesn’t means you’re likely going to win a Nobel Prize.
Malcolm Gladwell insists that IQ is not the determining factor in one’s ability to achieve success because he believes that opportunity and chance play critical roles in one’s journey to achieve success. In Outliers, Gladwell includes Christopher Langan story growing up. Langan has an IQ of one ninety-five, “The average person has an IQ of one hundred… Einstein one fifty” (Gladwell 70). Langan is considered “the smartest man in America” and sometimes “the smartest man in the world”.
Intelligence is what gets us by everyday; it gets us jobs and helps to provide for ourselves and others. I'm not saying you need to be the smartest person ever to be successful, but you at least have to be smart enough. Gladwell mentions that "Langan’s IQ is 30 percent higher than Einstein’s. But that doesn’t mean Langan is 30 percent smarter than Einstein. That’s ridiculous.
Anton Tompert Mrs. Veitch 3rd Period 2.15.18 Balance of Awareness Would it be worse to have an IQ of 204 or 68? Would it be worse to know everything but not be able to talk with anyone without frustration or know nothing but not be able to talk of anything more complex than third grade level? In the short science fiction story, “Flowers for Algernon” by Daniel Keyes, Charlie Gordon with an IQ of 68 and has a difficult time learning anything as simple as reading or writing is given the option to triple his intelligence with a suspicious surgery. Charlie, ignorant of the suspicion or risk that comes with this surgery is desperate to become intelligent as it is his only wish and nothing is more important to him. His teacher, Miss Kinnian recommend him for the surgery out of anyone in the class due to his egre and positive outlook on intelligence.
¨Outliers in a particular field reached their lofty status through a combination of ability, opportunity, and utterly arbitrary advantage”Gladwell writes. In this quote he explains how people cannot reach success through simple intelligence. In the course of two chapters he gives us a variety of examples to better help us understand the threshold that IQ and success has. The two main examples he uses include analyzing Lewis Terman's ¨ Genetic Studies for Geniuses¨, and comparing the life of two geniuses (one successful and the other not). Terman was deluded with the results of his research since they concluded the fact that intellect and achievement are far from perfectly correlated¨ as he said.
The root word stupid,[3] which can serve as an adjective or noun, comes from the Latin verb stupere, for being numb or astonished, and is related to stupor.[4] In Roman culture, the stupidus was the professional fall-guy in the theatrical mimes.[5] According to the online Merriam-Webster dictionary, the words "stupid" and "stupidity" entered the English language in 1541. Since then, stupidity has taken place along with "fool," "idiot," "dumb," "moron," and related concepts as a pejorative appellation for human misdeeds, whether purposeful or accidental, due to absence of mental capacity. Definition Stupidity is a quality or state of being stupid, or an act or idea that exhibits properties of being stupid.[6]
Besides his 2006 research, another IQ researcher, Catherine Cox, said in a 1926 study that there were eight American presidents who are geniuses; Adams was on the list. She based her research on biographies of famous people and worked out a method to estimate their IQs based on their achievements during their childhood and adolescence. Cox’s study served as the basis of Simonton which he cross-referenced with biographical information to build an intelligence matrix for all the presidents until George W. Bush. After Adams, Thomas Jefferson came in second place and John Kennedy in third place on Simonton’s list.
The Meaning of Intelligence In many instances in everyday life, we always ask this question to ourselves,“What if I were smarter?” Daniel Keyes answers this question well, showing the benefits and hazards of intelligence. In the science fiction story Flowers For Algernon, 37 year old Charlie Gordon goes through a precarious and risky situation in order to improve his 68 IQ intelligence to fit in with others. Struggling through the everyday necessities that others may find effortless, such as reading and writing basic phrases, Charlie is desperate to undergo a surgery that will triple his IQ.
Binet believed that intelligence is far too complex of a concept to simply be put into one whole number. He thought that ranking children based off one number would be unfair, he considered subjects’ individual independent factors. Terman believed that the scores from his intelligence could be translated into a single number. And Weschler introduced the variety of mental abilities, that was scored in subgroup of a verbal score, and a performance score
It simply doesn’t matter what our IQ is as long as our IQ is high enough. Gladwell explains that IQ has a threshold and that it’s very similar to height in basketball. “Does someone who is five foot six have a realistic chance of playing professional basketball? Not really. You need to be at least six foot or six one to play at that level, and, all things being equal, it’s probably better to be six two than six one, and better to be six three
The G factor is a good indication of school performance Disadvantages/weakness of Charles Spearman’s theory: 1. The backlash and criticism regarding how the G factor only measures General Intelligence 2. The G factor doesn’t take into account other various activities such as motor abilities, perception and musical abilities. HOWARD GARDNER: MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCE Multiple Intelligence: Howard Gardner (1943-current) originally identified and stated that there are 7 (later 9) specific types of intelligence. Gardner argued that students across a broad scale would retain information better if the information was displayed in a number of ways, due to the fact that an individual’s cognitive ability varies in the different types of multiple
The Great Genius Dream The warm sunshine shone across the window and heated my quilt. After stretched myself with a lazy yawn. I rubbed my eyes with my two hands and put my face into the woolen pillow, trying to hit the snooze again.
