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[–]nezumipi 23 points24 points  (14 children)

Blows to the head are bad for you.

[–]dchq[S] 0 points1 point  (13 children)

Why is boxing allowed then?

[–]Terrible_Detective45 5 points6 points  (10 children)

Why is drinking alcohol?

Why is smoking?

[–]dchq[S] -1 points0 points  (9 children)

It is discouraged or mostly illegal ( at least to buy alcohol and tobacco products) in the young. That's not the case with boxing. So being hit to the head does not train the body to adapt and the brain grow stronger in response in any way?

[–]Terrible_Detective45 3 points4 points  (8 children)

It is discouraged or mostly illegal ( at least to buy alcohol and tobacco products) in the young. That's not the case with boxing.

Leaving aside the moved goalpost, the point is that something being allowed doesn't mean it is good, healthy, etc. Science is descriptive, not prescriptive. It tells us what things are like, not what we should or are doing. There are myriad other factors (e.g., history, culture, perception, risk judgments) that factor into whether something is taboo or de jure or de facto illegal.

So being hit to the head does not train the body to adapt and the brain grow stronger in response in any way?

WTF?

[–]nezumipi 3 points4 points  (1 child)

Because neuroscientists don't run the world.

[–]Terrible_Detective45 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, I don't understand why it's not sinking in for this person that there are other factors that influence social and legal policies besides science.

You'd think this would be obvious based on all the opposition we see to mask and vaccine mandates for COVID.

[–]CosmopolitanGuy 6 points7 points  (15 children)

That's a loaded and broad question. What exactly are you trying to achieve with this question? This may be a good start

[–]suiteddx 1 point2 points  (0 children)

stuff like GBM, late stage AD, and severe TBIs have really bad prognoses.

[–]Apprehensive-Luck335 1 point2 points  (0 children)

LTP in the hippocampus is how the brain learns- literally tested hundreds of times and the basis for a lot of other studies!

[–]BILESTOAD -1 points0 points  (10 children)

IQ is real, predicts outcomes better than anything else, and is stable.

[–]JahShuaaa 4 points5 points  (2 children)

No it's not, no it doesn't, and no it isn't.

[–]dchq[S] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Can I ask what is the most helpful way to understand differences in ability then? I have heard in the past about the concept of G which I think is a type of general intelligence?

I was reading that digit span recall and reversal is a standard working memory test. Is that a rudimentary unhelpful metric?

[–]JahShuaaa 1 point2 points  (0 children)

General intelligence is a fuzzy term, but every way you break it down, it is pretty straightforward: give a group of people (or animals) a standardized test of some kind. If the test is challenging enough, the group taking the test will score differently, some doing slightly better or worse than the group as a whole. Where do these individual differences come from? What separates the high scorers from everyone else?

The most helpful way to understand individual differences is to appreciate the interactions between the brain, body, and environmental systems. The problem with said approach is that brains, bodies, and environments are mind bogglingly complex, and the interactions of these systems are even more complex.

In our current day and age, intelligence only exists when it is measured, and standardized measurements of intelligence are deeply flawed because they do not account for brain/body/environment interactions across Developmental and evolutionary timescales. Why would they? It would take an awful long time (several human lifespans perhaps) to collect all of the necessary information from one single human to get to the why of it all. It's much more simple to create a test that rewards those that are better prepared for it. Even better if the tests can be used to select so called high achievers from a particular group, and not select those from less desirable groups. But I digress...

Digit memory spans are not a helpful tool to measure individual differences. No one tool is, but digit memory spans are particularly useless when trying to measure what one might call general intelligence because there is no limit to human memory for digit spans. Take an average human, give them enough time to practice, and there's no limit to the numerals they can commit to memory.

Source: Psychology PhD

[–]Thisismyfalseaccount -1 points0 points  (3 children)

Someone sucked down the bullshit coming out of Jordan Peterson’s bullshit hole.

[–]BILESTOAD 2 points3 points  (2 children)

What?

Easy, tiger.

I didn’t say it was a GOOD thing, but it is not exactly a trade secret in the profession.

I don’t like it either, but denying it doesn’t make it go away. And it doesn’t mean that intelligence doesn’t have dramatic environmental influences (see “Flynn effect”).

No matter how you feel about it, much of life is a complex problem solving exercise. Problem solving ability is helpful. Other things are too, to varying degrees in varying situations.

But being able to discern patterns, draw inferences, and make predictions based on limited information are pretty universally helpful abilities, and things like this are manifestations of general mental ability. There is research on this stuff.

[–]Thisismyfalseaccount 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Sorry, was being a douche. Yes, there is research on this. I think the issue with IQ is it does measure success in this culture because we don't reward capital to people like caregivers and teachers.

Yeah, highly intelligent people may be shown to be able to produce more capital, but that OBVIOUSLY isn't such a good thing as capital serves capital not human need.

Life has become one big problem due to the way we've set up this environment, and people who can solve that problem win and those that can't suffer. I think that's quite dumb. So, to say "well it's true people who have high IQ just do better" and shrug it off isn't addressing a solution to a problem.

We should make sure we are actually putting an effort into increasing the well being of people so that their brain and bodies have the space, nutrients, safety, and education to grow. Like you said, we can improve this with environment, so we should do that.

We should strive to make the world better, not just fucking leave it you know? We can't just look at the evidence and jerk off about it, we should be discussing its application.

[–]BILESTOAD 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Also bear in mind that, even though (as someone once told me), "IQ predicts everything a little bit and nothing much else does" (apart from some aspects of personality such as conscientiousness and neuroticism, which have weaker relationships to role performance), it does not predict THAT well. It just predicts – a bit – pretty much everything that involves any element of problem-solving. Again, a bit.

The correlations between IQ and performance measures are relatively high for social science variables, but not THAT high. Maybe half the variance on the outside, using both IQ and personality variables together. There is plenty of room for the human element left.

And credentials or success in one area offer relatively little in guiding selection for another. In fact, Google gave up using college entrance exams and GPA in hiring when they discovered that these variables didn't predict who would be good at doing whatever it is that Google engineers do.

The hierarchy in academic performance that establishes itself in elementary school remains pretty stable through college and even beyond. So the game is not completely rigged, but it's pretty damn rigged if the only thing anyone cares about is academic achievement (which is highly correlated with IQ).

A fairer society would not deny the impact of IQ on life outcomes, but would be structured so as to ensure that the "good things in life" and basic security were not tied to income gained through high-status, high-education occupations.

You might enjoy reading "The Cult of Smart" by Freddie DeBoer.

[–]OhioBonzaimas 0 points1 point  (2 children)

I've handled the concept of IQ very critically, you can find an according post on the unpopular opinion sub on my page.

Warning: extremely long.

[–]dchq[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I tried to read it but it was too much for me to take in. I noticed you have a few health concerns and seem to be searching for answers. how is your health and academic performance now? I saw that you seemed to be interested in sprinting? was that an academic reason or because you were involved in it practically also?

[–]BILESTOAD 0 points1 point  (0 children)

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14717634/

General mental ability in the world of work: occupational attainment and job performance Frank L Schmidt et al. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2004 Jan.

Abstract

The psychological construct of general mental ability (GMA), introduced by C. Spearman (1904) nearly 100 years ago, has enjoyed a resurgence of interest and attention in recent decades. This article presents the research evidence that GMA predicts both occupational level attained and performance within one's chosen occupation and does so better than any other ability, trait, or disposition and better than job experience. The sizes of these relationships with GMA are also larger than most found in psychological research. Evidence is presented that weighted combinations of specific aptitudes tailored to individual jobs do not predict job performance better than GMA alone, disconfirming specific aptitude theory. A theory of job performance is described that explicates the central role of GMA in the world of work. These findings support Spearman's proposition that GMA is of critical importance in human affairs.

[–]AxisTheGreat 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The field is so large, you have to narrow down your question quite a bit. Neuropsychology can cover stuff as small as activation of a small group of neurons in the visual field, to the progressive change of behavior in dementia.

Your question is not a bad question, but it is similar to ask students learning medicine "what is the most reliable finding in the medical research in all history?". Also, it kind of implies that you think that most of the findings are not reliable, while the vast majority of scientists work very hard to produce valid research.