tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post2337819070222573896..comments2024-03-27T03:19:11.216-04:00Comments on Assistant Village Idiot: IQ EstimatingAssistant Village Idiothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01978011985085795099noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-54722881013633942122010-08-20T20:20:08.044-04:002010-08-20T20:20:08.044-04:00Haha, also I did my valedictory address on the sec...Haha, also I did my valedictory address on the second law of thermodynamics. It was intended to lose the audience. I was not a very nice person back then (arguably, still not). It was my way of saying FU to that hole of a high school. We should get together and rant about public school sometime.Annahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05456587175845040114noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-42135422685529499162010-08-20T20:17:31.448-04:002010-08-20T20:17:31.448-04:00To me, I don't need to look for gaffes to know...To me, I don't need to look for gaffes to know that Obama is really freaking dumb, just look at the content of what he says (or lack thereof). As in,<br /><br />"Israelis don't like me because my middle name is Hussein."<br /><br />Dumber than idiocy. <br /><br />Jaed, I was like that in school as well. A straight A+ student who was the biggest apathetic slacker in the student body (well maybe not the biggest, but large nonetheless.)Annahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05456587175845040114noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-71654320812776448602010-08-20T13:40:43.538-04:002010-08-20T13:40:43.538-04:00President Obama is too much of a blank to permit m...President Obama is too much of a blank to permit me to assess his intelligence. He seems like a fairly conventional thinker within his milieu, moderately facile with words but not demonstrating any unusual ability. He could be hiding either a mediocre or a stellar intelligence beneath all that slick opportunism.<br /><br />I wouldn't hold his ignorance of physics against him, though. He's probably never been exposed to the least training in that area, to judge from his background, and he wouldn't be unusual in that. He may have picked up enough buzzwords to make some silly and fashionable analogies to political systems. And when he co-writes a paper with an experienced writer, who knows which part is his contribution, if any?Texan99https://www.blogger.com/profile/10479561573903660086noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-47782805125161406682010-08-17T01:30:17.244-04:002010-08-17T01:30:17.244-04:00Hmm. If I had to guess, I'd guess Obama could ...Hmm. If I had to guess, I'd guess Obama could break 140 on a good day. I'm not sure why I estimate his IQ at this level; it's just an intuitive guess.<br /><br />But I do think I see some problems with executive function there. Problems decision-making in office, the trouble he had finishing his first autobiography, the fact he didn't publish anything but one note at HLR, all make me think prioritizing and action are problems. And if I'm not mistaken, deficits in executive function tend to go along with high IQ.<br /><br />Not standing out at his prep school would also go with this: smart people with trouble prioritizing, such as *cough* me for example, can do OK in school just on the power of their smarts, without studying. I know I did. (In fact, I didn't learn to study in school. I didn't really understand there was such a thing. Studying meant reading through the chapter and slamming through the assignment. You mean there are more ways to study??? A pox on educational systems that don't believe in giving smart children work that will stretch them. [Another rant altogether.])<br /><br />Doing this will be enough to get you through, but won't make you shine...<br /><br />...Until you get into an academic environment where your teachers' opinion of you starts mattering quite a bit more for your reputation than the work you do. If you're verbal, obviously bright, quick with ideas, you'll make an impression. If your work isn't quite up to par, this may be passed off as not an adequate reflection of your true quality. (Possibly not in a physics or engineering class, but Obama seems to have avoided quantitative disciplines during his education.)jaedhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03328666344764784829noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-23638517618357848182010-08-14T23:26:04.788-04:002010-08-14T23:26:04.788-04:00The point about the Tribe paper is that it is absu...The point about the Tribe paper is that it is absurd to reduce laws passed by assemblies of men to an application of quantum physics, not to mention Newtonian physics. <br /><br />It is even more absurd to do so when someone doing so has a minimal understanding of physics. While Tribe, being a math major, may have some understanding of physics, I doubt that BHO ever solved even a simple force and acceleration equation after high school, let alone an equation that dealt with quantum physics.<br /><br />Physics and Constitutional law are talking about different issues, and are in effect two separate universes. Apple, meet orange.<br /><br />Professor Sokal, in his deliberately nonsensical paper, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair" rel="nofollow">Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity</a>, that got published with nary a question from the social science types who edited the journal Social Text, put paid to the notions to reduce human affairs to physics.Gringonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-29395198035434785432010-08-14T11:23:57.762-04:002010-08-14T11:23:57.762-04:00I don't find Tipler's formulation convinci...I don't find Tipler's formulation convincing. For example, the whole point of the Schrodinger equation was to rewrite the Hamiltonian using wave operators because at small scales particles also acted like waves. I suppose you could hack a luminiferous ether theory with Newtonian gravity to look like GR, but it sounds even more complex than GR, which was hairy enough. That the "bones" of each of the new theories are the same as the old is not news.<br />I didn't read the whole paper, though I got as far (and like) his assessment of "Kuhn and his damn fool idea of paradigm."<br />I think a better formulation involves the concept of the domain of validity of a model. GR is equivalent to Newtonian physics if taken to one limit, QM to it if h goes to zero, and for massive enough (*) quarks at high enough momentum you can calculate cross sections with only a few Feynman diagrams. And you can trust your life to the Newtonian mechanics of a brake system or an Otis elevator safety without worrying about QM subtleties.<br /><br />So the weight of analogies with new insights in physics for new insights for Constitutional is on the other side--the old robust methods will still be valid.<br /><br />I have no reason to believe that the emperor-less suit has any insights on physics, and reason to disbelieve anything he asserts about the Constitution and how to apply it.<br /><br /><br /><br />(*) OK, granted, the mass of a quark is a little fuzzy: you can't perfectly know both the mass and the quark type.jameshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01792036361407527304noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-22341897959999690342010-08-14T04:57:55.396-04:002010-08-14T04:57:55.396-04:00I don't know offhand of any million/billion ga...I don't know offhand of any million/billion gaffes that Obama has made. Could you point me to some?<br /><br />Here are some numerical gaffes from politicians that caught my attention.<br /><br />Nancy Pelosi said that we cannot move fast enough on the Stimulus as there are <a href="http://hotair.com/archives/2009/02/04/pelosi-500-million-jobs-lost-every-month/" rel="nofollow">500 million jobs lost every month</a>.<br /><br />Senator Boxer of California recently repeated the canard that Obama had initially stated two years ago that the energy saved from <a href="http://hotair.com/archives/2010/05/14/boxer-takes-two-years-to-recycle-old-obama-line-on-tire-pressure/" rel="nofollow">inflating tires</a> could substitute for increased drilling for oil.Gringonoreply@blogger.com