Just How Smarter Engineers Are Than Everyone Else 12

[SomptingGuy]

One Christmas we all (me, wife, parents, in-laws) all took the same IQ test. I peed all over it, but got the same score as mother-in-law who I rate way down on the intelligence (and oall other) scale. But then I've always been good under pressure and in taking exams.

I know it's management speak, but I admire people who really can think out of the box. Most research (at least in my industry) is incremental and has to promise a profit before it gets funding.

- Steve

 

[SNORGY]

FeX32,

Quite uncanny how you have written what I got to thinking about shortly after my last post.

I would suspect that it would be easier to teach calculus to an artist with no mathematical training or aptitude than it would be to teach a mathematician (or an engineer) how to paint a portrait.

People who can "do it all" are truly special.

 

[TheTick]

Should not an artist that is innovative be able to do both?

I work for one.

 

[FeX32]

I also admire thinking outside the box. It is this that pushes us forward technologically.

This researcher is very interesting

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/12321

He quit academia as to change his life focus from a "paper producer" to new innovative products involving AI.

Quite uncanny how you have written what I got to thinking about shortly after my last post.

Great minds think alike

And I didn't know TheTick works for Da Vinci


Fe (IronX32)

 

[FeX32]

"I would suspect that it would be easier to teach calculus to an artist with no mathematical training or aptitude than it would be to teach a mathematician (or an engineer) how to paint a portrait."

That is an interesting thought. Personally, I can paint (not amazing well, decently). I never thought of it as difficult, only something that gets better the more you do it, and is hard to set fundamental principles for. It kinda just "is". There are however, those individuals that have natural aptitude that someone who is decent would never really be able to become equal to.
And yea portraits are difficult.


Fe (IronX32)

 

[btrueblood]

"I don't think of myself as an animal"

Vegetable or mineral, then?

"They [chimpanzees] are simply offering a behaviour in response to recognizing a pattern. (For which a food reward followed.)"

At some slightly higher and more abstracted level, that's what I do every day (replace "food" with "beer").

 

[FeX32]

LOL. btrueblood has a point.

What about those of us humans that don't work just for money (or beer) but for the intelectual enjoyment of it? Doesn't quite fit the bill.

"Vegetable or mineral, then?"

Closer to Alien than to any of those , intellectually. At the atomic level everything is the same..


Fe (IronX32)

 

[SNORGY]

I thought of this thread as I went for appetizers and a drink next door to the building wherein I work. I experienced an uncanny demonstration of the effects of pattern recognition on the human brain (at least mine).

The escalator to the second floor was broken, so we had to walk up them manually. Have you ever noticed how you do this without thinking on a static staircase, but the minute you first step onto an escalator that isn't moving, you tend to lose your sense of balance and feel like you are falling forward?

Try it some time. It's your brain arming itself to compensate for the motion that it subconsciously anticipates, even though another part of it has already in advance been made fully cognizant of the fact that there indeed is no motion.

I guess the logical extension of this would be that the truly intelligent people - who are less influenced by pattern training - will feel less of an effect. Sadly then, by that measure, I must be pretty simple.

 

[JohnRBaker]

Don't feel too bad as I suspect that even Pavlov's dogs could on occasion come-up with a 'new trick' ;-)

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

UG/NX Museum:

http://www.plmworld.org/p/cm/ld/fid=209

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[KENAT]

Talking of Pavlov's mutt, I seem to have trained myself such that when I get in the car leaving work (typically on Thursday) to drive home from out of town (3.5 hr drive) I become ridiculously hungry.

Typically I used to leave 2-3pm, after lunch at 11:30 so used to be genuinely hungry hence the snack I always have with me.

However, now even if I leave early - say straight after lunch - when I should no way be peckish I start to get hungry as soon as I pull out of our parking lot.

Stupid dog.

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[cranky108]

So is an art critic someone who picks out patterns they don't like?

Strange how we all seem to see faces in otherwise random patterns. And we can hear words easer than other sound bites (other than baby cries).

Probally just survival tactics, but yet still part of us all.

I still think there is a difference between memory, and intellegence. So how can a test differ the two?

 

[FeX32]

It also occurred to me about the comment about teaching art vs/ teaching Calculus. Ironically I taught Calc. for 2 years (uni. calc) as a grad student. Out of a class of 600 only very few could actually understand it properly. The rest memorized it, or plain failed. It is not easy to teach. People just don't "get it", no matter how you explain it sometimes.


Fe (IronX32)

 

[cranky108]

Some times explaining it differently, more people can understand. Maybe thats why I don't teach.

 

[FeX32]

Yes I agree cranky. But not that many more . Math can only be interpreted in a limited number of ways.
Whereas painting for example requires less pattern recognition and more "hand-eye" coordination. Closer to a sport


Fe (IronX32)

 

[SNORGY]

FeX32,

I think my observation was probably tainted by my own personal bias as well.

No matter how hard I try, without a straight edge, circle guide, various templates and several erasers, I can't draw worth a tweet. You really don't want to see anything that I try to free-hand sketch; it will look like a toddler's Play-Skool project. That said, I have tremendous admiration for people who can take a drawing tool like a pencil and actually make the strokes look like something at the end of the day.

 

[FeX32]

Well put SNORGY. I know we all have our own personal bias


Fe (IronX32)

 

[loki3000]

<<Just How Smarter Engineers Are Than Everyone Else
they are not

 

[cranky108]

loki3000, what is your basis for that comment?

The IQ tests don't bear that out.

I still stand by that the IQ tests are not 100% accuriate, but they do have some basis. They do measure something.

 

[patprimmer]

They are perfect for measuring your ability to do IQ tests at the time the test was taken.

Regards
Pat
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[drawoh]

cranky108,

Read The Mismeasure of Man, by Stephen Jay Gould. It is all about the practise and abuse of intelligence testing.

The basic assumption of intelligence testing is that human intelligence can somehow be reduced to one number. Gould questioned this, and took a close look at the mathematical models used by the researchers.

You would be surprised at how many claims about intelligence date from World War[&nbsp;]I IQ testing. Most if not all of this work was repudiated by the researchers in the 1930s.

JHG