h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Yeh, Playboy,

Rant. Glad it gave you a good laugh. I'm only half-serious when I wear my shirt that says Stop Plate-Tectonics.

Arpeggio, who tests out absurdly high on tests designed by geniuses to test genius for genius, but can't do grocery shopping, or logarithmic functions in her head, or remember appointments, but has the entire Krebs' Cycle of Cellular-Respiration of Plants stored in a place in her brain from which she could draw it, despite not ever having used it for anything in 26 years...

Intelligence. What a rum idea. I'd rather just be happy? That is a real question, incidentally.

Laughs are always good.

Cheers!

*clink*

GTB

Mycroft wrote:

>Just like most exams, IQs are far easier once you know the
>sorts of things examiners are looking for, and there are several
>techniques you can adopt to improve your score.

In my opinion, these techniques serve about the same purpose they do on college entrance exams -- they make you feel more comfortable taking the exam, and may well help you score 10-15% higher than you would have otherwise. Differences in scores of 10% or less are almost never considered significant (either statistically or clinically), and many practitioners/researchers don't pay attention to any difference in scores less than 20-25%.

(On the other hand, it's actually not unheard of for students who have been "coached" on IQ tests to actually do worse than they did when they were "test-naive" -- they focus to hard on what they think the test is looking for, rather than on just doing their best, and start second-guessing themselves too much.)

Mikey

Right I've added on quite a lot - sections on intelligence and the brain, and some of the main debates about intelligence. Also problems with the IQ tests. Thats enough for today

I was typing away manually on the h2g2 site when the damn thing crashed on me - Lost some of the entry and had to redo - damn Trillian warned me about that!

Ok the entry's definitely improving, but I think still some way to go.

I agree with the comments of Mikey(?) earlier about the uses of IQ tests. They all sound good. IMHO it would be useful if you said that the results of IQ tests should never be interpreted on their own. They only prvoide one view of a person. When Binet created them to discover Parisien childeren who had learning difficulties, they were only one part of a process that also involved talking to them. The attraction of IQ tests is that they reduce people to a number, but this is their key limitation.

The later stuff about intelligence through genetics could do with expanding. Ultimately it usually comes down to what the researcher wants to believe. Are people stable, unable to learn beings or is intelligence something that can be taught and improved?

Personally I don't remember twins studies showing more than about 50% genetic influence, which means that 50% is due to the environment. Early studies of intelligence supported the existence of 'g' by stating the case of children who are good at one subject at school are usually good at the others, hence they are intelligent. It totally neglects to look at environmental factors e.g. the influence of their parents (e.g. supportive homelife), their response to teaching methods and the way that teachers teach them.

Enough for now. It's definitely getting better. Keep plugging away

BBS

Okay Everybody, hold on:
Here comes the Pedagogic Demagogue from Hell Again...

Playboy, this is *better*. I'm going to do a RUDE thing. I'm going to more or less copy out your article and mark it up as a teacher would. I am doing this for several reasons, the primary one being that I can get absolutely specific in fewer words this way. Fewer words from me would probably be a relief to everyone. At this point, I should like to make clear that I do not think anything I am saying is a 'significant contribution' in terms of *content*, so I am NOT trying to muscle in on your article. The only places where I've added content (as opposed to questions, corrections, or requests for elaboration) will be extremely well marked, and you are, of course, free to disregard.

Why I feel the need (let alone the right) to do this, when I would not like it at all if someone did same to me: first, you know you can't spell , and this way I can put the corrections in brackets where the errors are, rather than trying to write out in which paragraph. Second, I think you have about 3/5ths of a good article here, but there are significant places which need greater depth and expansion, if you are to treat the subject matter responsibly. Human intelligence is not a subject I believe should be treated lightly, ever, by anyone, for any reason (lots of complicated personal and irrelevant stuff behind that, which you can ask at my space, if you care to know). So, this is an attempt to make sure that what you end up doing with this article follows the responsibility I believe you have for its seriousness. That is my imposition of my values onto you and your work, and strictly interpretive on my part. If you disagree on that score, please disregard everything except spelling and punctuation corrections.

It is *shouting* to use all caps, but I cannot format my responses in italics. If I'm going to we wordy, I'll enclose within [brackets]. Corrected spellings and punctuation will likewies [likewise] appear corrected, or present if they are missing. You have a tendency to leave full stops off the ends of sentences. I could do a shrewd psychological analysis could tell you 15 things about you from that item of info alone, and, given that 'shrewd psychological analyses' are largely smoke and mirrors, be right on all counts, without actually ever saying anything of significance.

If this is Really Not Done here at h2g2, please forgive my ignorance. I've been here about three weeks, and have a tendency to dive in headfirst when something interests me, and notice the flotsam later. Someone who Knows, can tell me Don't DO that, and I shan't do it again. Sometimes it is just easiest for a teachery person to be a teacher than to try to make up new and different ways of making points. So far, the things I have said have not been *substantive*, so here's an attempt on my part, at *substance*. If one must 'yikes' this entry, please leave me a note at my space, saying who, why, and how to do what I'm trying to do more appropriately in future. Thank you, all.

O, and Mikey, you know your stuff. It is not that any of the things you have said is not accurate. It is the foundational principle I'm questioning. Your knowledge in this area is professional and excellent. Playboy, I really do think you're doing something right, and all the places I do *not* respond, you did just fine. I'll make a point to say so if I think something is especially good, too. Nice teacher. Good behaviour modification techniques. I'm making me sick. Please bear with me. For lots of reasons, I just want to see this be all the paper it can be.

BTW, when I type online, especially in Guide ML, I regularly right-click, 'select all', 'copy', and paste to a notepad .txt file. I do this about every paragraph or so. This ensures that I have a back-up of the actual coded entry. I've been poofed out of existence by h2g2, too, when I clicked to update, or to preview. If you hit your browser BACK button at once, you can still save to a .txt file that way. The info is not gone. Just don't try to keep going without saving. If you must, you can close everything, reboot, and start back up by clearing the entire entry field, and right-clicking and pasting back from your .txt file. This has saved me so much time, that now I always have four or five open .txt files sitting on my desk, from which to copy, paste, and to which to save updates, especially when I work on my website, online (who crash regularly, and save nothing...ever).

Arpeggio, not a professor -- by choice and by default.
Born a professor into an academic family, and now living on too much education, too little money, with too little intellectual stimulation.
for LeKZ (see our space to learn more).
____________________

Intelligence
Entry ID: A564563
Edited by:
Playboy Reporter

Date: 23 May 2001

Intelligence is something we all think we have but which actually is all too lacking in many of us. Intelligence is also something thats [that is] still quite mysterious and not really understood. MORE [or start below instead].

A common sense view of intelligence is that its [it is] how knowledgeable and intellectual a person is. For example[,] if someone you [2nd Person -- a style decision for you: do you want to use this? It is informal, but not wrong. Eds. discourage, I think, though not as much as 1st Person.] know often makes statements such as: 'Yo man, I gonna hit the road and gonna go to that them shops for some beers and stuff' you may assume he [or she, or s/he] is an imbecile. [Try rephrasing? The quotation-assumption style is rather superficial and makes you sound nonserious.] If[,] on the other hand he [/she] regularly makes remarks such as 'A non-zero cosmological constant in General Relativity has effects similiar to the zero-point quantum vacuum energy' you may think hes [he or she is] a raving genius! [Too informal for my taste, and not consistent with style throughout. I shall mark sections like this [inf.] below.]
'Imbecile', 'moron', 'cretin' are all words from the French, which make use of specific numeric values on the IQ Scale, to state at specifically what level of functioning a person is (not). You might mention this. You definitely do not want to use a word like that, to just mean 'unintelligent'. 'Raving genius' is also a bit loaded. Since you talk specifically about 'genius and madness' (oooo, I hate that graphic! ) later, it's not the best word choice here, do you think?

This is not neccessarily [necess-] the case[,] because one of the most popular ways in [with] which psychologists have tried to define intelligence is that its [it is] a capacity for general learning. [Or, one of the popular definitions... general learning.] It [Intelligence] measures WORD[reflects, or consists in, or comprises. MEASUREMENT is a different subject, which you discuss later.] a [omit 'a'] potential learning ability[,] not how knowledgeable one is[.] REVERSE SENTENCE STRUCTURE: ['Int. is not about how knowledgeable one is, but is rather reflects one's potential learning ability.' Try to end sentences (and paragraphs) with positive, rather than negative statements. Yeah, I taught writing. Obviously, I still do...]

The [F]irst [I]ntelligence tests - Binet and Terman


In 1904[,] the French minister of education wanted to find a way to determine [whether] school children with [had] special needs. SPECIFY: KIND OF NEEDS? [Dr]Alfred Binet[,(or degree) who was the (____) at (____),] was the one [person, psychologist, education minister?] given the job of selection principles[.] EXPLAIN 'PRINCIPLES' and [I]t is he that [who] devised the first proper tests to try [with the intention of?] to actually measure a persons 'intelligence'. The term IQ [you have to write it out, once, and then abbreviate THUS: 'Intelligence Quotient', or 'IQ'. ['Terms' go in 'inverted commas'.]] was coined by [Dr]Lewis Terman[or, PhD] of DEPT., Stanford University in 1916. Terman had revised Binet[']s tests and designed a test he called the Standard-Binet, which measured the 'IQ'[.] ADD MINOR FACTS.

A [T]heory of [G]eneral [I]ntelligence - Spearman and Burt

It was the Englishman JOB? WHERE? Charles Spearman who[,] between 1904-1927[,] argued for the existance [-ence] of a general factor of intelligence, which he called [']g[']. [BE SURE HE USED LOWER CASE, and always put in 'inverted commas'] Sir Cyril Burt was one of Spearman's students [at (___)],[.] but [H]e unfortunitly [-ately]bought disrepute to the field [of int. research?] by apparently [to whom?] making up data [that said what?] on 'twin studies' which was supposed [by whom?] to prove that intelligence is largely genetic[.] CLARIFY.

What is IQ?

IQ can be defined in two different ways:

Ratio IQ: IQ as an 'Intelligence Quotient' A person[']s mental age [div-]devided by their [her or his, his/her] chronological age and multiplied by 100.WRITE OUT NUMERALS For instance[,] a person who was [omit 'person who was'?] 10 years old [ten-year old who has?] but had the mind of a 20 year old would have an IQ of 20/10 x 100[,] LEAVE EQUATION IN NUMERALS or 200.WRITE OUT. Children usually have their IQ[s] defined this way. ['IQs of children are usually defined...' mostly, it's not the kids who have their IQs defined. ]
You need to explain what is meant here by 'mental age', because the whole point of the test is to compare this unknown, to the known chronological age. How they arrive at mental age is a big part of what the IQ test is, so this needs to be explained in more detail. The tests are used to determine 'mental age', then the ratio is of age is applied, and that score is called the 'Ratio IQ'. Because children are young, the ratio is relevant. Otherwise it would not be. The evaluation being made is not against other children, or against themselves, but rather as compared to a standardised chart depicting 'average mental ages and how to tell them apart'. You're going to have to find a way to work that stuff in, or you end up saying 'Kids' IQs are tested by testing their IQs'. .

Deviation IQ: A measure of *how rare a person with a certain intelligence* [the occurrence of certain IQ within the population] is. The [D]eviation IQ's[no apostrophe] are defined to obey a perfectly normal distribution (thats the famous bell-shaped curve showing the frequencies of the IQ's). This is the modern IQ definition for adults.
You shall have to explain the statistics in significantly deeper detail. Not everyone has even heard of the 'famous...curve', which indicates presence, usually by percentage, of a feature or item in a given population. 'Normal Curve' is jargon, and it is best to assume no one has ever heard it -- leastways, that is what the Eds told me about use of jargon. And for the record, the plural is 'IQs', no apostrophe, so I don't say it again and again.

There are different deviation IQ scales because different tests have different numbers for whats called the mean, and standard deviation. EXPLAIN JARGON Confused? Don't worry. [Sentence frags, and you really need to explain 'mean' and 'standard deviation'... 'don't worry' does not really help you make your point, does it?] *The point is that* [omit] [A]ll the different tests can be converted to the same deviation IQ scale for comparison, HOW? [If you explain the stats, then the conversion of different curves is not a problem] which by convention has a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 16. NAME OF TEST To avoid confusion[,] thats [that is] the scale we'll 1ST PERSON talk about here when we DITTO refer to IQ[.]
Mean, as in average, and median, as in average, are both relevant to, and used with regard to anything on a normal curve. The IQ scale you are referring to happens to be the one where the mean and median intersect at 100. This is the 'average' test of 'average' IQ. It's worth *my* pointing out to *you* that although one can convert tests with other median values to the same scale, the bell shape is very different. There really is *not* much statistical reason for *doing* this conversion. You MUST explain mean and median, and how they both mean 'average' in different ways. If you're going to make reference to 'standard deviations', you need to explain that, too.

'I test out just shy of norm+four standard deviations', while it happens to be true, is not a meaningful sentence to most people. See what I'm getting at? I hate stats. The worst thing about them is that everyone presupposes that anyone understands them. Most people wouldn't know a marginal or specious table if it bit them on the arse. So if you're going to bring stats in, you have to either really do your homework, and Explain It All in short words in friendly, big letters, or say 'There is a standardised set of criteria by which the overall occurrence of range of intelligence, as distributed throughout the population, can be drawn. Since extremes of both low and high functioning -- in any area, not just IQ -- are rare, if the chart is drawn based upon incidence by percentage of population, the shape one draws ends up looking like a bell. This is the 'bell curve' of which some people.... Then, you can go on to say there are tests designed such that where the 'average' (median) falls is above or below the 100 plus or minus 16 scale (and why... because there is zero validity outside two standard deviations, and *most* people think validity outside .5 standard deviations is nil, for legitimate statistical purposes) if you want to, but do you want to? This adds a lot of extraneous, yet possibly interesting or relevant information. It is particularly related to the 90-110 range you mention below, which it would explain completely (the range may *seem* narrow, but that's looking at the curve from the *median*) obviously, the mean is going to be where most people are. It is interesting how fast the curve drops off outside of that range, but not at all surprising that the range is 'narrow', because of all the variables between 90-110... See what I mean about needing to expand this a LOT?

The average IQ is in the range 90-110. Half the population falls into this really narrow range. NOTE ABOVE.

An IQ of 133 or better indicates a [']gifted['] person, WHO SAYS? and qualifies you to join Mensa, the [a] society for the very intelligent. Only 1 in 50 people have an IQ this high or better [higher -- 'better' is a judgement].
Mensa is a society of people who score high on intelligence tests; another case of a high IQ meaning you have a high IQ, and not having much to do with intelligence. Membership in Mensa is not particularly related to intelligence, except in the minds of Mensa members, of course. Went to one meeting... what a posturing bunch of bl--dy loonies!

An IQ of 150 or better NOTE ABOVE indicates a potential genius[.] [Many people define 'genius' as simply 150+. Either talk about the 'potential' issue more, here, or skip it until later?]

IQ Tests

We WHO? try to measure IQ with an 'Intelligence Test' The traditional NAME? WHO USES? form of IQ test consists of variations on the Stanford-Binet tests. These tests usually have a mix of verbal, logical and numerial questions, and are supposedly measuring [']g['], a general form of intelligence.

Other types of intelligence test are called aptitude tests and are used to guage [gauge] skills in various academic areas - most well known are the Wechsler Scales WAIS and WISC, SPELL OUT ACRONYMS and the infamous WHY? Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT)[.]
Uh, no. 'Aptitude' tests are meant to measure 'g'. They are not in specific areas of academic or even particularly specific cognitive areas. The SAT is an aptitude test in that it is *not* a how-much-maths-do-you-know test, so much as a how-well-can-you-work-out-maths-problems test, and likewise in the area of reading. The Weschler Adult Intelligence Scale includes spacio-kinetic testing, drawing, memory, and many other 'aptitude' features. Academic tests, of the standardised, multiple-guess variety, in the US include the Educational Testing Service' (Princeton, NJ, who also publish the SAT, the exams for Medical, Law, Business, and Liberal Arts advanced degrees) High School Subject Achievement Tests. There are the Advanced Placement exams by the United States' College Board. There are Muni, State, and National exams for achievement. In the UK, as I understand it, the 'O Levels' are comparable to sitting for a 'Graduate Equivalency Diploma' here in the States, basically indicating one has the knowledge/info expected in a person who has completed what is considered 'minimum' education. 'A Levels' are for people who want to pursue further education? Maybe those are academic tests (the GED is), but that is totally different from an 'aptitude' test. Sorry, but you have to fix that one.

There are also types of test that have been developed to try to eliminate cultural or educational biases. NAMES? WHO MAKES? These consist mainly of questions asking one to identify visual patterns. Ravens [apostrophe, but since I don't know whether it is Raven's or Ravens', you'll have to look it up] Progressive Matrics 'MATRIX'? is a well known TO WHOM? one of this type[.]

There are loads of links [inf.] to online tests at The Uncommonly Difficult IQ Test Page. A good WHO SAYS? one is the Queendom Culture Fair IQ Test (40 minutes, automatically scored).

These online tests are fun and you might *learn a little about how smart you really are* REALLY? but [O]f course they prove nothing[.]
[No space]
To really know your IQ you need to take a test validated by a professional psychologist and properly supervised.
This gets very dicey. If I were you I'd avoid the subject by saying something general about the only *valid* IQ tests being ones administered and evaluated by educational or psychological professionals and leave it. To *really* know your IQ is to invalidate the tests and their results. Neuropsychologists and others have to assume people do not understand the test-design, in order for the questions to have any legitimacy. There is no more closed-mouthed creature alive than a diagnostic neuropsych who designs measurement instruments. People are allowed, by law, to see their scores. I tried to subpoena my raw codes on a neuropsych exam (after a brain injury), and ran across so many 'those are so confidential, nobody is ever going to see them' hurdles that I gave up. The raw data compromise the integrity of the test. ANY understanding of the test compromises the integrity of the test. So... to really know your IQ is basically out of the question, or you have already changed it. Skip?

IQ testing - Uses and Problems

A [The] major problem with IQ tests is that there is still no generally accepted theory [definition?] of what intelligence actually is, so no one knows for sure what it is that IQ tests are measuring! SAY THIS AT THE BEGINNING OF THE PAPER [And how do you devise tests to 'measure' a thing you don't understand, and cannot define? And how do you know what the tests mean, if you don't know what they are measuring? But I repeat your point.]

If there is a general form of intelligence, [']g['], the IQ tests are supposed to measure it,[.] but [I]f[,] on the other hand[,] there is actually an independant [-dent] set of multiple intelligences [functions that together work to create intelligence?] that we 1ST PERSON all have, then IQ could only be measuring the average of some of them. STRUCTURE So summing up intelligence with a single number doesn't [does not] tell us our strengths and weakness in specific areas[.] SAY MORE [This is a good point, and worth elaborating. Not sure about 'independent' -- did you mean 'interdependent'? If intelligence is based on a variety of different variable working together, it's the latter.]

Another big problem with IQ tests is their accuracy. All tests will have biases of some sort or another. Biases are questions that favour one group of people over another due to [because of] differences in culture or education. This is pretty serious UNDERSTATEMENT, because, *for instance* it may [cause the tests to produce results which] discriminate against [social, cultural, or racial] minority groups, *such as other races*. [Omit] Another example of bias is of people who have had plenty of practice with IQ tests having [have] an advantage over those who haven't [do not have practice.]
Actually, biases are absolutely anything that invalidates the data. Culturally or linguistically biased questions produce cultural and linguistic biases in tests. Those are the most common biases, and the ones that come under the most regular criticism. Leading questions, questions with implicit 'right' and 'wrong' answers, questions that people would prefer not to answer truthfully, and any other sort of question that elicits a distorted response is a bias and invalidates the instrument. Experience taking the tests does per note re: know your IQ.

The way tests are administered and the way the results are used can also be grossly unfair. Unless instructions are understood and followed precisely, the results won't [will not] be reliable. Differences in IQ scores could be HAVE BEEN used to justify discrimination - racism for instance. Sterotyping people according to a single test number like IQ is ludicrous OPINION, but unfortunitly [-tunately] this is the purpose*s to which these tests are sometimes put*. REPHRASE [Maybe something about once a tool is available, anyone can use it to advance any agenda?]

Recently[,] eminant[-nent] biologist Stephen Jay Gould published a best selling book TITLE discussing these problems. He high[-]lighted [use present tense] several part 'PAST'? shocking abuses of IQ tests. STRUCTURE [He described... abuses of tests... in the past.] For instance, IQ tests were used to determine positions in the US army in WWI. TO WHAT EFFECT? [Meaning, did the ones who scored poorly get thrown in front of the grenades or what?] The tests were carried out in poor conditions such that certain minority groups were not given an opportunity to understand the instructions properly. THIS HAS NOT CHANGED. Another example was the use of IQ tests in 1920's to discriminate against immigrants - some of the questions were ridicuously biased. CITE EXAMPLES. [Here, you're using words like 'shocking', and 'abuses', and 'ridiculously', and you make a person curious, and then don't cough up the stories... now is that nice?]

Despite all these problems with IQ tests they are more widely used today than ever. This is because they are so useful[.]
Um. I don't really need to say anything, do I? Try reading it aloud.

Tests which are properly administered and designed do seem to capture some part of intelligence[.] - [T]he tests do seem to quite accurately predict academic and job performance. Thus they are used for selection in education and many professions. If properly used this actually helps stop discrimination because it identifies talent [ability, aptitude?] irrespective of WORD CHOICE? race, religion etc.
[Omit space]
At the turn of the century the top positions in French schools largely went to the upper [economic] classes, but Binet[']s testing opened these positions to any one with talent, providing opportunities for many people that [they] would never have had *them* otherwise[.] [Omit 'them'.]

Another major use of IQ testing is in the study of intelligence itself and in helping people to discover their strengths and weakness[es.] TWO TOTALLY SEPARATE THOUGHTS -- two sentences.
But didn't you say IQ testing is testing something that people do not really know what it is? So how is it applied in the study of intelligence itself? And didn't you also say that 'intelligence' might be a matter of many values, rather than one, and that IQ tests are not useful for evaluating individual strengths and weaknesses? Just checking.


In conclusion, IQ tests have their uses, but until more is known, its [it is] best to simply regard IQ tests as a rough estimate of certain mental skills and not take them too seriously[.] [This isn't actually your conclusion, just to this section... I know: picky picky picky.]




Some bona fide geniuses:
(Totally personal peeve here: the Latin 'bona fide', pronounced 'BO-na FEE-deh' means 'in good faith'. It really does not mean 'well-known', 'famous', or even 'real'.)

Chris Langan has featured on the program 20/20 as 'The Smartest Man in America' His IQ is estimated at 195 and less than 1 in 100 million people would be expected to have a score this high.
[Omit space]
He founded the Mega Foundation, [which is] devoted to helping the ultra-gifted.HOW? He claims to have developed a theory of everything called CTMU (Cognitive-Theoreotic-Model-of the Universe). Among other things this theory is supposed to prove the existance of God. REALLY? HOW?

Marilyn vos Savant is a woman who was listed in the *World*[omit] Guiness Book Of [World] Records UNDERLINE TITLE as having the highest [IQ]ever recorded *IQ* [omit] in childhood. AT WHAT AGE? Her ratio IQ score of 228, corresponds to a deviation IQ score of 188. [Even though I *know* stats, I'd like to see that explained. And if you want people to be duly impressed, you'll need to have talked about the 'norm' a whole lot more, earlier. '188', as a number, even though you said half the species fall within 90-110, is not really significant in most people's minds.]
--Also, if you're at all good at explaining maths, it would be important in the 'bell curve' discussion to mention that this is a PARABOLIC function, not a linear one. The further from the median you get, the further apart the numbers are, which is why outside of .5 standard deviations, results get so meaningless. Or, you can skip this, of course.--

Gregory Smith FROM WHERE? was one of the youngest kids ever to enter College and his IQ is said to be off the scale. WHICH SCALE? At 10 years of age he embarked on a college course aiming to become president of the US, design space stations and cure all the worlds major diseases. SO, WHERE IS HE NOW?... gossip, more gossip!

Central debates about Intelligence[:]


*Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus [That's a book title. If you aren't reviewing the book, probably better not to use it.]

There *isn't believed* SURE THERE IS--REPHRASE to be any mean differences in IQ between the sexes, but it is thought that males display more extremes of intelligence. BY WHOM? WHY?

In terms of specific skills, females do best at the verbal and social, where as males excel in spatial and logical ability[.] ACCORDING TO? AND SO?

*A question of race[:]

There appear to be differences in mean IQ between races, as summarized in the controversial best selling book BY___ ?'The Bell Curve' DATE AND PLACE The debate WHICH DEBATE? is focused on the cause of the difference, with critics contending that the IQ tests are biased or that differences in socio-economic status is to blame[.] RESTRUCTURE
[Omit space]
Though there may well be real differences in IQ between races REALLY?, this knowledge would appear to have no practical benefit [unless you're a neo-Nazi, or a White-Supremacist -- you have to rephrase that], and because such knowledge could be used to support racist propoganda or other such political clap-trap [inf., also understatement] a strong case can be made for dis-continuing this line of research[.] [So find a slightly more balanced, and clearer way to say this.]

*Are we getting smarter? [I didn't know people thought we were.]

Some studies JOURNAL, OR PUBLICATION? in the 80's by a New Zealander, NAME? UNIVERSITY? Flynn (1984, 1987) show something pretty interesting [inf.]- all over the world, average raw scores on IQ tests have gone up massively![inf.] The gain is close to 14 IQ points over a 46 year period.
[Omit space]
What is the cause? Are aliens bombarding our1ST PERSON brains with some sort of ray?[inf.] Some theories WHOSE? are that we1ST PERSON really are getting smarter due to [as a consequence of] better nutrition and increased stimulation. On the other hand, perhaps we are not actually getting any smarter and people are scoring higher on the tests simply because they are becoming more familiar with the types of abstract question found in them[.]ANY OPINION?

*Is it our genes or our environment? [Genes, or Environment? Your subheader style is not consistent with itself.]

Extreme environmentalists EXPLAIN such as Kamin(1947)WHO IS THIS PERSON? hold that there *isn't any* [is no] evidence at all for genetic determination, saying that most differences in intelligence could be caused by the environment, such as diet and stimulation. TWO SENTENCES.

On the other hand[,] geneticists such as Jensen (1969) and Eysenck (1979) WHO? WHERE?. maintain that genes play a fairly strong role in explaining IQ differences. SAY MORE...

One way in which these theories are tested is by studying identical twins who have been [separated] seperated at birth. Recent NAMES? LOCATIONS? NUMBERS OF PEOPLE STUDIED? [If you make reference to studies, it is really helpful to let people know that stuff. Especially the 'n' number. A study of 6 pairs of twins over 2 months, and a 25 year longitudinal study of 150 pairs of twins are not the same thing.] twin studies appear to favour the genetic theory, but the degree to which differences in intelligence are caused by genes is still un certain [unknown?]. Figures for modern America range from 40% (Plonin, 1989) and 80% (Eysenck)[.] [Who are these guys, what did they write, and what figures do those reflect, exactly?]

Genius, IQ and madness
LOOK OUT! IT'S THAT MAD GENIUS AGAIN! This is where I may contribute some items by way of *content*. Everything else is really stylistic, or detail stuff so far as I'm concerned. What you do or do not use is, of course, altogether your business. This happens to be one of my areas of study, like for the last 15 years or so... if not all my life.

Genius and intelligence are not the same thing. REALLY?[Many people think so.] Genius is beleived BY WHOM? to be a combination of a number of different mental traits, which are:

*High IQ
*Intense concentration
*Creativity
*Rationality
*Persistance
*Specialist skills
SOURCES, PLEASE.

That's not a very complete, or even very common list of 'genius' traits. Try looking at some of Piaget's work, and look up 'Relativistic Thinking' and 'Paradoxical Thinking'. There is overlap between 'genius' and everything from mysticism to music, with room for athleticism in between. The features *I* have seen most often equated with, or ascribed to 'genius' incude, but are not limited to: intense concentration, imagination, creativity, intuition, high neuro-transmitter rate, level of complexity of sensory analysis (different from and broader than non-genius), interpretive structure, self-reflexive thinking, paradoxical thinking, nonlinearity, ability to percieve and think in 4+ dimensions, global thinking, complexity of number of mental tasks going on at once... et cetera ad nauseam. The main thread that ties all of this together is a qualitative, recognisable (but undefinable, at least by most people) 'difference' in terms of how a 'genius' perceives self-in-relation-to-reality/others. Since no one has been able to advance any *one* idea of what this difference is, we get a fuzzy/meaningless word like 'genius'.

People have said, often, 'genius is an intuitive grasp of the blatantly obvious', because once someone SAYS e=mc2, well, DUH. Sure, I can see that, too, NOW. How Albert came to see it, from a conceptual framework in which it was not at all obvious is what makes him the genius. It was lying there, waiting to be seen. But no one was looking that way. So he thinks sideways? THAT is the sort of 'otherness' about 'genius' that makes the whole idea of trying to explain the phenomenon rather goofy. From the point of view of the 'genius', it IS obvious. Most 'genius' types don't know that everyone else does not see things as they do until at least school, if not later. Many do not realise that there is anything 'different' about them, except from the hostility and/or obsequience of others. I'm IN my head, so how'm I supposed to know how other people don't think, if it's obvious to me?

Try explaining 'genius' to one, which is what you're essentially doing, and you're going to get responses like the ones I'm making. I DID NOT KNOW that other people ever actually did the reading for school. I had no IDEA that everyone else was not anticipating the professor's lecture for the following week. I was totally UNAWARE of what people meant when they said a subject, concept, or anything cognitive was 'hard'. The first time in my life that I ran into any subject which was not completely intuitive was at the age of 22, when I studied statistics for the first time. I HAD NEVER not been able to do all the problems, in my head, while drunk. I did NOT know how to cope with having difficulty following the professor, because it had never happened to me before. All of a sudden, I got a feeling 'Oh my God, OTHER people feel like this all the time??' But that was impossible to believe, because other people would have all killed themselves if that was the case, so I didn't believe it. Which goes to show how empathic I was not.

Being on the 'other' side of 'other', I, and people Over Here, know exactly what it is. Language does not, for the most part, accomodate explaining something essentially incomprehensible across this 'otherness' to people who are not Here. We know each other when we meet each other. Regular people, who are not Out Here, have a different Weltanschaung and I could not begin to pretend I understand it, or them, or have any idea what it is like to be 'regular'. From Here, trying to explain Here, is like trying to explain a very ordinary and sensible mechanical device, like a water-mill, to a person who has 'running water' and 'wheel', but doesn't have 'mechanical device'. There's a comprehension gap. It goes both ways. Trust me on this one. Being accelerated two grades in primary school, when you're little, funny looking, foreign, and are still about two years ahead of your classmates is a Socially Traumatic Experience.

O, and it's Not Nice to say 'I'm really, really smart, and I know it, and I'm okay with that'. In fact, it's the sort of thing that alienates people. So, eyes firmly fixed to the ground, doing logarithms in base eight to keep from losing one's temper around the latest mean trick pulled by bigger, dumber, kids, the little 'genius' starts reading Edgar Allen Poe at age 6. (THAT was a Bad Idea, but nobody said not to... since it never crossed their mind that one would.) If we say it, we're arrogant snobs, who think we're better than other people (which I say is horse-doody, I've been being told I think this all my life, by people who are insecure, and like to blame me...?), and if we don't say it, we curl up in a mental, foetal ball of boredom and loneliness and start to come dangerously frayed around the sanity....

So a person with a high IQ alone will not [necessar-]neccessarily be a genius[.], *whereas a people with a very average IQ may well be*. [I think you mean, 'A person whose IQ is average might be a genius.' SOURCES AND REFS]In general though, geniuses do have above average IQ's. SOURCES SOME MORE.
You didn't actually say very much there, except that high IQ and genius are not the same, which is inarguably true, and that people of average IQ may be 'genius' for which I would need some pretty strong evidence. The correlation between 'genius' and high IQ is virtually 100% (barring various kinds of autistic-savantisms). It just doesn't work the other way. High IQ is not a guarantee of 'genius'.

It has long been beleived that there is a connection [connexion] between high IQ and mental illness. HOW LONG? SOURCES, REFS Some early studies DITTO seemed to suggest that the higher a person[']s IQ, the more suspectible [susceptible] they are to suffering from mental illness at some point their lives, but today the claim is still unproven. [Unproven, yes, unprovable, probably, undoubtedly true, also yes] This could well turn out to simply be a popular myth. ['Myth' is a legend or tale with its roots in sociocultural and religious beliefs. I think you mean 'fallacy'.]

Never the less ONE WORD through-out DITTO history there are examples of geniuses who did not remain completely sane. A famous example is that of the artist Vincent Van Gogh, who cut off his ear. So...should one start to feel strange urgings to shave off body parts, this could indicate signs of genius.[inf., and nonserious]

Vincent van Gogh, and a lot of painters, went mad as a result of heavy-metal poisoning from the pigments used in his paints. Poor choice of example. What about Joan of Arc, or the person who wrote/raved the book of Revelation (a wholly insane piece of semiliterate hallucinatory madness from beginning to end, in the original language, and not much better in translation), or Famous Drug Users like Samuel Taylor Coleridge? Or Aristotle, for heaven's sake? Or Socrates? Or Jesus?

Actually, in virtually every ancient culture, from India to Greece to the Native Peoples of North America, 'madness' and 'wisdom' and 'soothsaying' and 'healing' have been overlapping conditions. Prophet, Alzheimers' sufferer, same thing. Mystics, visionaries, and delusional psychotics, same thing. Our modern psychological labels have turned phenomena which were once looked upon with awe, and occasionally with fear and hatred, into 'illnesses'. Dementia was once induced deliberately, in an effort to 'find God'. Now it is medicated away in an effort to 'find oneself'. The reality is that if a person is actually clinically psychotic, that person's Reality does not correspond to conventional definitions of Reality. The same is true of many people who are 'genius'. The reasons are different, and the results are as wildly divergent as serial murder and art.

However, given some of the things I said above, about the alienation and 'outside' feeling experienced by genius children, there are some solid facts:

In children with IQs at both ends of the bell curve, (barring those so low-functioning as not to be able to do much of anything intentional), there is the *possibility* of a phenomenon we now call Unattached Child Syndrome (see Magid, Ken, High Risk: Children Without a Conscience; HarperSanfrancisco, late 1980s) which is the precursor to a range of antisocial behaviours from the merely nasty to the extremely criminally insane. The 'unattachment' happens very early, and the child fails to bond with *anyone*, except self.

Society as a whole, and everyone in it, are there, but have no meaning, at any emotiional or moral level, for the child. This happens in kids at both ends of the spectrum, because they are 'different', and are treated as though they are 'different', and know they are 'different', and DO NOT LIKE IT. In low-functioning kids, the problem tends to start with parental rejection, and end up in a violent 'I'll reject you first' approach to the whole world. While many people of very low intelligence are unattached, there are functional limits on how dangerous they can be. In some cases, there simply is not enough cognitive function to 'get' morality. Those cases never leave the institutions.

Although the name of the disorder is the same, and the reasons for it very similar in the case of extremely high-end intellect children, the results are much more dangerous. Baby is smart. Baby is *very* smart. Baby is independent, and doesn't need fussing over, so parents feel rejected. Baby feels rejected. Baby notices things other people don't, and is interested in things they are too stupid to *see*. Baby is confused. What is the matter with them? Why aren't they interested? Baby is angry. THIS IS IMPORTANT! No one notices. Baby is alienated. Baby is still smart, so Baby makes everybody believe Baby is Nice, and Good, and doesn't let on about the animals Baby likes to vivisect. I do not exaggerate.

These are the kids who grow up to be everything from shady lawyers, to corrupt politicians, to directors of Secret Agencies, to serial murderers. My male parent was a sociopath. Sociopathy, or psychopathy, more properly called Antisocial Personality Disorder (APD), has existed as long as people have. The name and ways of understanding it have changed, but the behaviours remain the same: cold, amoral, unscrupulous, intensely self-protective, solipsistic, jealous, demanding, angry, totally self-preoccupied, manipulative, sneaky, overbearing, intimidating, charming, sly, in charge, and totally without remorse.

Children of average intelligence are less likely to *become* unattached in the first place (not rejected, and need their parents more) and much less likely to stay that way than are children at the extreme ends of the intelligence scale (say 60-, or 160+). Per Magid and other research, Unattached Child Syndrome, if not 'cured' (very very difficult, and some people think not possible at all) before age seven, WILL develop into a full-scale APD; at that point, the *best* one can hope is that the person will not get into a path of escalation, and decides instead that it is to his/her (stats say about 80%/20%, but I suspect that is just because girls are sneakier and less inclined to lose their heads and just get violent than boys) advantage to seem 'respectable', even to people who know him/her well. There is such a thing as 'criminally insane', and APD is it.

Another item, and you can find lots of info on this at my website, and zillions of others online, is that multiple personalities *only* occur in children with IQ potentials well above 135. Some researchers say it is not possible without an IQ potential at birth above 150. Since there is increasing evidence that some 3+% of multiples are born multiple, usually as a result of maternal complications during late pregnancy, or birth complications, this suggests the level of awareness at work in those babies is so high, that their minds are adapting to traumatic events before they have even seen other people. Seen with their eyes, that is. (I BELIEVE there are theories connecting such extreme and early awareness to autism, too, but you'd have to look that up.)

There is a vast body of anecdotal evidence, and some recent clinical evidence (and probably quite a lot of classified governmental Intelligence agency evidence, because the idea was quite faddish in the 50s and 60s) correlating multiple persons and 'parapsychological phenomena', like 'ESP'. As a person who has experienced these things, I can only say, to me it *appears* that the information I percieve, via sensory organs etc. is both greater in quantity and detail, and available to me at levels of analysis that are not generally available. I don't do anything except see what is there. I've been called 'uncanny' and 'mind-reader' and crap like that all my life. So obviously, 'seeing' by my brain is different from 'seeing' by a nonmultiple and/or nongenius brain.

To some extent, this makes a kind of really obvious sense if (and if I had the citation, I would cite it, because I know I read it once, and it is so gone...) one knows that clinical studies on the brain activity of multiple persons vs. nonmultiple persons indicate that, as most people have heard, the average nonmultiple person uses about 10-15% of his/her brain at any given time. The average multiple person uses 80-95% of his/her/their brain at any given time. Our neurotransmitter levels are outrageously high, as are other electro/magnetic and electrochemical brain activity indicators. Our brain chemistry is *different* from non-mps. We are, in fact, not quite the same sort of person, insofar as brain-function goes as non-mps, and in some cases, that fact was later enhanced intentionally. Nobody can make a non-mp into an mp, or vice-versa. Once mp is present, though, there have been people trying to take advantage of it since the Middle Ages. I'd cite refs here, but Nice Moderator would just take them off. Instead, I'll just mention CIA projects MKUltra, Project Monarch, Project Bluebird -- all declassified in the mid '90s, and add that all the world powers thought, at the time, that the best weapon in the world was a human who could be turned into a weapon, Manchurian Candidate style, only long-term. The Illuminati have been taking advantage of the 'daemonic' inhabitants of 'possessed' people since there have been Illuminati -- ref also withheld to save Moderator the trouble.

I am a product of intentional intellectual enhancement, as well as native ability. (I have no way of knowing whether it enhanced, disabled, did nothing, obviously, since it was my brain They drugged, stimulated, shocked etc.) Only the fact that I became mp prevented me from becoming more dangerous than the man who sired me. I, and most mps now, do not consider multiplicity a form of insanity at all. In about 1990, the US Diagnostic and Statistical Manual III(R) changed the entry on 'Multiple Personality Disorder' to 'Dissociative Identity Disorder', and stopped listing it as a 'mental illness'. It was changed to a 'personality disorder[sic] secondary to trauma'. Well. Trauma, yes. Plenty. The mp is not particularly disordered, except insofar as it is a slightly full-tilt way to exist. There are so many secondary disorders to a history of extreme, violent child abuse, that it is hard to tease them all apart.

Most mps, however, at least, the several hundreds with whom I've had contact in the last 10 years or so, feel that if we are 'insane', it is only because we were in absolutely impossible situations for most of our formative years. We live in a world where even a 'genius' feels misunderstood, let alone mps, who are genius by definition -- that last is understood to be fact. The only mps who are not 'genius' are ones who sustained severe enough physical brain damage to actually reduce their intelligence, and that is *very* hard to do to an mp. A high-calibre bullet at point-blank range would do it. Being thrown 88 yards from a car by an oncoming train slowed one mp we knew down, to the point where she did not test out 'genius' any more. A head injury which would have left the average non-mp being spoon-fed in an institution for life left another functioning on the high side of an IQ of 90, but with few really good abstract strengths.

It *is* a little crazy-making to know that there is a vast body of 'controversy' in the reputable scientific literature, in which people who cannot possibly understand me, sit and debate whether I *exist*, or am crazy, or am a delusion, or another symptom of some other dysfunction a nonmp might have.

So, IQ, 'genius' and madness, was it?

About the above all, if you want to use any significant chunk, credit me. If not, it's there fyi. You can also use it as a basis to do research. Everything on APD is from 'the literature' as they say in the Psych biz. Everything on mp is from ditto and personal experience. The 'genius' material was stream-of- typing, and comes out of what is, to me, a rather broad-based and widely informed body of general knowledge. If you want to call me a source, fine. If you want to research further, also fine. If you want to leave the whole thing out, just do. Cheers.

Gardner's Theory Of Multiple Intelligences

In the 80's a man named WHAT Gardner , FROM WHERE? put forward some new theories about intelligence. Rather than there being a single factor for intelligence, [']g['], argued Gardner, there exist a number of largely independent intelligences WHERE? [Meaning, coexist in the same mind? It's not clear.]

Gardner came up with 7 general types of intelligence: SENTENCE FRAGS BELOW.

Linguistic: Dealing with words and their meanings. Language stuff. [inf.] Important for poets and writers! Verbal skills were part of what was measured by traditional IQ tests[.]

Spatial: The ability to visualise things and manipulate them in your head. Architects and chess players seem to excel in this skill[.]

Logical-mathematical: Part of traditional IQ tests. The ability to reason things out and to draw correct conclusions about things. Mathematicians and scientists *will need*[omit, use 'have'] this skill. [Musicians, too.]

Musical: The ability to compose music and to understand it - pitch (notes), timber [timbre] (the sounds of the different instruments) and rhythm are the main aspects of music. Important for musicians obviously![inf., also, those are 'auditory' properties of music, but there are very complex mathematical properties to music, and there is the visual element. Does Gardner talk about these?]

Interpersonal: Social skills - the ability to understand and get along well with people in general. Useful for politicians, leaders and those working in the social sciences[.] [Also hairdressers, bartenders, prostitutes, and psychotherapists... but I repeat myself...]

Intra-personal: The ability to understand and control ones inner self. Motivators and coaches excel here[.] [What about military? Gardner put them where? Curious.]

Body-kinesthetic: The ability to co-ordinate ones physical actions and to understand ones own body. Dancers and athletes would rate highly here[.] GOOD SECTION. [I'd like about a sentence or so more on who else Gardner would put in each area, especially if it is something not terribly obvious, like aeroplane pilot, which involves many of those things at once.]




Intelligence and the [B]rain (...do they have the cartoon 'Pinky and the Brain where you live? Sorry, I love that silly show! I hate tv, but that is a great cartoon.)


The seat of intelligence lies somewhere in the mass of convoluted grey goo[inf.] thats [that is] sitting inside our heads - this is the human brain[.] [Well, that's what they think now. The seat of all emotion used to be the heart, and the seat of compassion was the bowels. We shan't be here to see what future Guide entries say about the state of neuropsychology in 2001, but they will probably be laughing. ]

The major region of the brain is called the ['C]erebrum['][.] and [I]t consists of at least 10 billion nerve cells called neurons. Each individual neuron is *on the average* [omit] connected to about 10[, or .] 000 other neurons by something called a dendrite[.] [Do you want to throw in 'dendrites' and stuff, and then not go into them, or do you want to not mention the micro-neurological bio, or do you want to do it all out? It's just a matter of deciding how deep you want to get into this technical end, and how relevant you think it is. I don't think it is relevant at all, to a discussion of intelligence. Interesting, but not relevant. Now, the speed at which how many electrical impulses travel through the human brain at any given time is another matter... I'd like to see that.]

Its the region known as the cerebral cortex which appears to be associated with abstract thinking. The cerebral cortex is the outer most layer of the cerebrum and its what gives the brain its gooey appearance. [I never noticed a gooey appearance. Are you sure you're not thinking of something else? Do you mean the whorled shape?]

The major link with intelligence discovered so far involves the devision of the cerebrum into two hemispheres, the left and the right. WHEN DISCOVERED, BY WHOM, ETC [you said this is the 'major link, so let's have it?] It appears that verbal abilites are specificly linked to the left hand hemisphere[.]
Giggle. No. Just bad word-choice. The *right-brain* governs the movements of the *left hand*, so 'left-hand hemisphere' is the 'right-brain'. Stick to the usual terminology, and you'll be fine. So you know: The 'right-brain' is the part of your brain behind your right eye. It controls the motor function of the LEFT half of your body (left arm, leg, etc), and the 'left-brain' does the reverse. (DO NOT SAY THIS: I'm only telling you because it's interesting -- in *some* kinds of identical twins, called 'mirror twins', right-brain and left-brain function, and all internal organs, are reversed in one of the twins. In *some* left-handed people, it is hard to prove where speech is vested, exactly, or their brain function seems turned around, though their internal organs are arranged the usual way.) The speech centre is called 'Broca's area' after the researcher you certainly want to add a line about. Damage to the right-brain (like my head trauma) seems to interfere with spatial, numeric, and some kinds of mathematical ordering functions. Damage to Broca's area can leave people unable to speak, or understand spoken language, because they lose the hang of the whole concept of language, per se. Aphasia (loss of speech) associated with right-brain trauma is nearly all at the level of simply not being able to make sense of the bit about getting words/sounds/concepts into a line, than because they don't know what it is they *mean* to do. In practise the two things can be similar, for the person outside. Right-brain injuries that cause loss of comprehension have to be really *bad*. It is harder not to be able to *hear* in a line, than not to be able to think in one. -- all trivia. Do mention Broca, though.

These WHICH? fascinating discoveries were made by Roger Sperry and Robert Ornstein in the early 70's and have led to theories which attempt to devide [divide] intelligence into two different parts - logical, verbal thinking which is said to be 'left-brained' and creative, visual thinking which is said to be 'right brained'[.] MORE?

Another major attempt to link intelligence to the brain lies in brain waves. Neurons give off electrochemical impsulses which can be detected using a machine known as an EEG (An electro[-]encephalograph)[.]
[Omit paragraph]
Recently a certain kind of brain wave has been discovered which appears to be linked to IQ. This is known as the 'evoked potential' - it occurs in response to a stimulus such as a bright light. The very bright [use a different word if you use 'bright light'] appear to have more complex wave forms (Eysenck, 1988) ARTICLE, JOURNAL? and the theory is that this is because messages in the brains of bright [ditto] people can travel more easily and memories are more readily layed down[.] [This I readily believe. Say more!]

Non-Human Intelligence

There have been some fascinating studies of animal intelligence. A [very] rough attempt to estimate the intelligence levels of animals is to compare their brain weight to their body weight. As a general rule *of thumb* [omit -- don't use 'rule of thumb'], the larger the brain to body ratio the more intelligence the animal seems to show. For example, the brain to body ratio in man [human!] is about 1:50, where as in chimpanzees the brain to body ratio is about 1:150. REALLY? [That different? Could you double-check? Thanks.]

The most intelligent animals aside from man [human beings. If you insist on referring to Humanity that way, it takes a capital M, but please don't insist...] appear to be the chimpanzees, followed by dolphins and dogs. GORILLAS? Certain kinds of bird such as the parrot also show signs of high intelligence. Its been found that chimpanzees can be taught to speak a form of sign language. GORILLAS TOO. Marine labs in Hawaii, Flordia and the Bahamas have determined that dolphins can talk to each other using a complex systems of high pitched sounds. [Maybe a little more on marine mammal language, which has been researched for a long time, or Koko the Talking Gorilla, or one of the other well-known research subjects, and whoever trained that animal-person...?]

Heres a recent translation of two dolphins speaking which proves their intelligence:
Dolphin One: Beep, Whistle, squeak, squeak. ('So why do you keep performing all these silly tricks for the humans - catching frisbees and jumping through hoops and so on?')
Dolphin Two: Whistle, Whistle, peep, peep ('You can get an endless supply of free fish from the humans!')
Dolphin One: Whistle, peep, beep, beep, squeak ('Great! I'm gonna get myself captured and get on the gravy train too!')
Sorry, really not appropriate. It takes away too much from the paper.

Of great interest TO WHOM? is the quest to design machines which behave intelligently, so-called artificial intelligence. [Do you want to go into computer intelligence, heuristics, etc? If so, a paragraph would be good. If not, you may want to omit this entirely, rather than giving it the cursory mention?]

There is also the on-going search for extra-terrestrial intelligence, a search which has so far returned only negative results.[Actually, it has so far not returned any results of which we know, which isn't precisely the same thing... pick, pick, pick]

NOW WRITE CONCLUSION/SUMMARY Under a separate header.

_______________________
Thank you for your patience and indulgence, and for giving me an opportunity to write for fun about something on which I know a bit, but am no 'expert'. PLEASE do not hesitate to 'Yikes' this if it is not ok. I wrote it as much for myself as anything, obviously. This is YOUR paper, Playboy, not mine.

I don't want you to write it as I would write it. I don't want you to feel you need to do anything beyond fix grammar and spelling, which I DO want you to do.

If anyone found anything here that s/he wants to use anywhere, so long as it's not verbatim, or very close to it, please do. The parts that are all me are very obvious. The rest is take, leave, take under advisement, or forget. Obviously.

I had fun writing this, so thank you for providing me the place from where to add the comments and questions. I really think if you flesh out the places where I said MORE, you'll have an excellent paper here.

Take care,

Arpeggio for LeKZ
Leïlah el Khalil Zendavesta, MAR

Titles of books in the Guide are italicized, not underlined

Hi,

Okay, italicise.

I guess I'm not surprised that got Yikesed. I thought about posting it at a different place, like on his page, instead of here. Perhaps it was just a Bad Idea.

Whoever did the actual Yikesing, could you please let me know what House Rule you felt I contravened, and how I should go about not Doing That?

I would appreciate that very much.

Sincerely,

Arpeggio, for LeKZ

You didn't break any rules. Your posting was referred to me, that's all, the moderator was seeking advice. Sorry about the delay, it's back now.

And thanks for posting such a comprehensive review.

Hullo Peta,

Well, I couldn't find in the House Rules where it says: 'Do not quote the entire article and mark it up, English-professor style.'

Nobody ever told me not to shave the cat, either. One doesn't always know....

I signed up as a sub-ed. I decided if I was going to do anything that cheeky, I ought to do it under someone's actual authority.

As for writing it... dunno, it seemed important, or I shouldn't have done so, I expect. But I'm glad you thought it was all right.

Arpeggio, for LeKZ
Less worried now...

You did good. And it was a very nice bit of work. Are you going to apply to be a Sub or have you already done so?

Thought I already did. Sub-eds page, thread 'Bagged Another One'...?

Glad you found it a good piece of work. I got so angsty that I went and posted a Thing at my space called 'Cheek, Overenthusiam, Gall, and Editing.' Any and all comments on my editing, Guide rules, etc, should probably go there, rather than here, no?

Thank you, Peta, for being a *reassuring* h2g2 Support Person. I did sweat this a bit, after the fact. And really, until Playboy says he is or is not offended, I probably shall keep doing so....

If you need, just check my 'space' for where I posted, in case I Got It All Wrong.

Arpeggio, for LeKZ

Ah, I don't check the Sub-Eds page, Anna McGovern does. If you haven't heard anything yet you'll probably hear quite soon.

Thanks for being so nice about it.

Hi there Arp - I've only just seen your post - its ok.

You sure know a lot about this subject!

I'm definitly going to take some of your advice to fix the technical errors you pointed out.

But bear in mind I'm not actually trying to write a paper here. I didn't actually know much about the subject until I decided to do a bit of research for fun. Its not meant to be serious. If I was writing for college or a journal I'd probably work on it like you say but I'm just writing for fun ok? So take it easy!

Oh BTW for all the people mentioned I put links through to websites in the entry where people can find out more about them

Hey Playboy --

Glad to see you're not offended. I guess I must have been confused, because I am quite new here. I thought people submitted entries to Peer Review in the hope of getting them into the Edited Guide.

My *impression* is that the Edited Guide standards are roughly those of professional journals, in some areas, of this which would be an example. The tour-guide entries need to be informative and useful to tourists. The recipes have to be followable by people all over the world, who all use different weights and measurements.

Writing for fun is the best kind because there is no limit to the choices you can make for the angle you want to use. Since the article is here in Peer Review, I assumed (my assumption, obviously) that you wanted to present an overview of human intelligence. That certainly seemed to *me* to be the direction you were going. If you want to narrow the focus, and make it a bit of an article on online IQ tests, their pros, cons, and validity, you could do that quite easily. Or you could make it into a paper on educational and psychodiagnostic tools for evaluating intelligence. You have that about half-written.

'Intelligence', as a subject, is just too big to write about simply for fun. It would be fun to write about it. I found it so. But one can't do a half-baked job on something like that. It's a little like trying to explain 'Labour Movements' and omitting all references to the Industrial Revolution. It makes no sense.

I honestly do not mean to put you down. I'd like to see you take this up and do it really *well* . But I can't accept 'take it easy; this is for fun' on a topic as enormous as 'Intelligence' without feeling the need to suggest that maybe you should drop it from Peer Review, if that is how you feel. So long as it is here, I feel the need to see the subject gets the space, depth, seriousness, and detail it deserves. Otherwise, why bother? I apologise if I sound snarky or as though I can only see things one way.

In writng, (I'd say particularly in any branch of the human sciences, but I know it's true of absolutely any subject) there are many, many factors to consider before undertaking a topic. The best advice my master's thesis advisor gave me, before I wrote my proposal, was this: 'Pick a topic. Now figure out all the subtopics it would, could, or might involve. Eliminate all but the narrowest one. Now figure out all the subtopics a thorough paper on *that* would involve. Eliminate all but the narrowest one. From all the subtopics in *that* one, pick the one you find the most interesting, and don't be surprised by how much more you end up writing than you never expected'. He was right.

So, I guess it seems to me that you need to decide whether this is too big, and if so start shovelling out sections until you get it down to a piece that fits the level of analysis you want to use, or whether to not worry about it. In the latter case, I am not sure what Procedure is. I do not think you can be both superficial and write on this topic. If going into great depth would take the 'fun' out of it, why *do* it? I shouldn't, personally.

I realise I'm being difficult. That's part of the Peer Review process. If one is going to post a paper on something in which other people have more expertise than oneself, I should think one would rather expect and hope for help from those other people. Does this make sense?

On a related, but separate note, if I, who was raised Hindu, found an article on Hinduism that seemed to trivialise, misunderstand, or misrepresent Hinduism, I should certainly jump in and try to help. If for no other reason, I'd do it rather than be personally offended. In the same vein: if you write about 'genius', chances are, some genius/i will stumble across your work. Even genii (proper plural form of genius) get tired of having silly generalisations made about us by others. We spend our whole lives being misunderstood, secretly or overtly hated, and having to bite back pointless comments that no one would understand, anyway. It gets old.

So, I reacted. 40 years is a long time to live with people implying and saying things about me, that are *not true*, just because my mind works differently from theirs. It felt a little like it does when men Explain Women to women. Don't. Nobody asks the genii of the world whether they may talk about us in ways that are inaccurate or even insulting (and I am not saying you did the latter at all, this is a general rant). They just go ahead and sensationalise/trivialise our *lives*. I have some theories on why, but that is not relevant. What is relevant is: Don't try to explain the meaning of 'genius' to a roomful of genii. They are likely to get restless.

End of rant, and of message,

Arpeggio, for LeKZ

Mmm, ok, well I'm only writing it as a hobby but eventually I hope to get the thing into the guide. I've just updated it again by the way.

In terms of whats in it now, if you compare it to most of the other edited guide entries its actually longer and more detailed than most of them.

Also- a topic like this is pretty controversial you know Because so little is known anything someone writes is going to annoy someone somewhere. But anyone who takes a controversial topic on has to be allowed to state their viewpoint in peer review- otherwise no controversial subjects will ever be able to get into the guide from now on!

Tell you what, how about I nominate you (Arp) and Mickey to be the sub-editors for it. I'll finish writing the general ideas and you two can fix up the details. (So long as you dont add stuff or change what I was trying to say)

How about it?

Hmm...

I honestly don't know how the procedure works. If the article is chosen from Peer Review (recommended, right?) then it goes to sub-eds. I've volunteered for that, but I have not heard back.

I didn't know one could nominate sub-eds. I thought the Powers That Be sent things along, via whatever their system is.

Guess we'll see...

Arpeggio, for LeKZ

Well I dont know what the system is. I thought that once it gets accepted they pass it on to sub-ed's that are interested in the topic or something like that.

I think the peer reveiw is just supposed to be for suggesting general ideas - like - the detailed review you did and the mistakes you pointed out - all thats better off being fixed up behind the scenes by the sub-ed's.

I've not read the entry yet, but I'll just respond to this:

> "But anyone who takes a controversial topic on has to be allowed to state their viewpoint in peer review- otherwise no controversial subjects will ever be able to get into the guide from now on!"

BZZT!

That's a common viewpoint. Unfortunately, it's an incorrect common viewpoint, which doesn't make my life any easier, but there you are...

Guide Entries about controversial topics are definately welcome, but they 'should' be balanced and fair. If you want to state your own, personal, viewpoint, use something like the following:

One researcher's view of IQ tests can be summed up as:
Well, it's a load of rubbish, isn't it? I'm a number, not a name! Or is that the other way round?

Other techniques including writing "some people think"-like stuff. For example, "some people vomit in disgust every time they see Mark Moxon's beard" is balanced and factual, whereas "Mark Moxon's beard is vomit-inducingly disgusting" is unbalanced, and a matter of opinion. So while there is a touch of trickiness, it can certainly be done.

> "I think the peer reveiw is just supposed to be for suggesting general ideas - like - the detailed review you did and the mistakes you pointed out - all thats better off being fixed up behind the scenes by the sub-ed's."

And again...

Peer Review is for whatever Peers decide to Review... Some Peers focus on some things, others on other stuff. So you should find that you get a variety of criticism from many viewpoints - which is the idea!

Entries get passed on to random sub-eds. It's entirely possible that your entry will be passed on to a sub-ed that doesn't know about intelligence and/or isn't intelligent (j/k).

Another factor is that entries which have lots of spelling/grammar mistakes are a lot more work for the sub-eds, and hence consequently less likely to be picked. Fixing these kinds of errors thus improves your chances of getting into the guide.

Another problem is that if you leave it to the sub-eds to fix it - they'll fix it. Some people don't like people they don't know rewording their sentences and possibly changing their emphasis or meaning. If you're one of these - better try and get it right first time.