guy with basicaly no brain.

How is anything I said a trick? I merely observed that you don't know much about IQ. There's nothing wrong with that. We're all ignorant about different things. I'm just saying before you say something like "IQ is meaningless," or "IQ is a pseudoscience," you should try to know something about it first. You shouldn't assume knowledge where there is none.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iq

No. We absolutely do use our brains. Moreover, there is a strong correlation between brain size and IQ. There are exceptions where people of normal brain size or even small brain size have high IQs, but generally, smarter people have larger brains.

This guy has an IQ of 75, which they say in the article isn't technically retarded, but it's certainly not something to be proud of either.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

Here you can see where 75 is in respect to the population average. It is, however, still amazing that his IQ is that high considering how much of his brian is left.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

This case is interesting, but hardly unique. I learned about cases such as this back in school. The brain is amazingly adaptable, especially when we're young.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Wow...the writer went straight from telling us about the guy to taking a stab at religion, and ranted on the rest of the article. Hmm...

"The worst of these religious villains has been Christianity, where followers live totally on “faith” in a magical invisible external god and the angels that surround them to guide them blindly through life and when their existence ends, to carry them off to a beautiful kingdom called Heaven. This belief system has made humans lazy and unwilling to work to develop both spiritual and mental capabilities, Donahue argues."

"What would our society be like if we all could achieve the mental capabilities enjoyed by Donahue? Until we are willing to shuck these enslaving religious systems and drive the alien angelic energies off this planet, we will never find out."

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Your ability to link to Wikipedia is very impressive, and no doubt correlates highly with your IQ.

 

I don't think that many people research their posts on sciforums as though their jobs depended on it.

The last independent review showed wiki as almost as accurate as maiinstream encyclopaedias. Almost any subject you are trying to get information on includes the site. If it wasn't accurate, it wouldn't be used.
It's like eBay, it succeeds against the common sense view which says that people only act in their own interest. Hard to believe, but maybe People are basically friendly and honest.

What is wiki worth? Many Billions of Dollars.
Why don't they sell it? Or am I being cynical?


As regards IQ, I feel that neither you nor Francois would score poorly on them.

IQ tests are easy to learn how to do.
Many years ago I was interested in them. Mainly due to insecurity, and their results praised me. When I first tested my intelligence I got a good result. After a few tests, I was very very good. Of course I was! I was intelligent enough to understand the nature of the problems and improve my ability at them.

The puzzles are ridden with cultural influences.
The puzzles show you how good you are with dealing with the problems which confront a modern Westerner.
This does not make them valueless. I'm sure that the people of Ethiopia (Western IQ 63, supposedly) have their own means of selecting leaders in which average Westerners would not do very well.

 

so what about his other functions? I can't imagine intelligence was the only thing affected.

 

Oh well. I guess there's hope for the mods on this forum, eh?

 

If someone were to invent a multiple-choice 'Talent Test', claiming that it accurately ranked participants on a linear numerical scale, with 100 being 'average talent', they would provoke thunderous mirth far and wide. 'IQ Tests' are perceived as different from this scandalous inanity only because large numbers of people will readily accept , like the apes that they are, 'facts' issued by the sanction of purported authoritah and consensus. Even the talent test would eventually arrive at this exalted state, were its advocates persistent enough, via Schopenhauer's famous formula.

Psychometrics are still far too primitive to indulge in the conceit that they are capable of measuring, except in the most ham-handed ways, either intelligence or 'g'. The sceptical and reserved nature of claims made by honest intellectuals properly indicates this. Claims made by interweb PhDs in Pop Psy and by those who have some particularly potent emotional stake in the validity of IQ tests typically do not.

 

Yeah it comes in packets of eight and is either called Paracetamol or Ibuprofen, dealing with things above the call can often cause headaches and well now you know the secret of how to deal with them

 

Darn, I've been using alcohol to numb the brain.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

I'll get the Brufen asap.

 

I posted the Wiki link because it contains a lot of good information about IQ. It pretty closely represents what science knows about IQ. The wiki is a very good summary, and therefore good for somebody who doesn't necessarily know much about it.

 

I've heard of something like this before. Its the rare condition called "hydrancephaly," in which the cerebrum- the part of the brain responsible for everything from communication to personality- is entirely absent.

Thus the head is filled mostly with cerebrospinal fluid. Those who suffer from it can really only perform the most basal human functions: sucking (i.e. from a bottle), kicking legs, smiling. Usually it can go unnoticed for the first few weeks as an newborn, seeing as that's all babies do anyway. Life expectancy is understandably grim. Anyway, here's the kinda cool part:

If you happened to shine a flashlight through the infant's skull, you could see the tiny 'brain' surrounded by the fluid (a baby's scalp and skull are usually pretty thin). nifty.

peace.

 

I guess this goes right in the face of all those posters declaring that the brain is the ultimate cause of selfhood

 

How does it do that?

 

this guy is 44 years old, and worked as a civil servant in france, it was not even noticed all through his life. he was seen as an average person. not retarded or close to it, he lived a regular life and worked a regular job.

he was fully functional.


peace.

 

a computer could work ok if you took away many parts of it, right? so... it's kind of similar with the brain.

 

and lightgigantic.
puts a whole new slant on being empty headed, doesn't it.

 

Not important parts, like the motherboard or the CPU inside. Break off the front cover of the case and it would still work, but thats not the same.

 

If he had his head thumped, would it vibrate? If he shook his head, could he hear it sloshing?

 

no, but the brain wouldn't work either if you took away important parts. there are many parts which people don't use, like the part which allows you to communicate telepathically. that's why you can have a small brain and still be normal.

taking away the motherboard and CPU would be like taking away the whole brain...