Why does intelligence always get questioned?

I have been on CC for quite some time and I have repeatedly seen a pattern of verbal insults in which the persons intelligence is called into question, because they don't know something/don't understand or quite simply have a different point of view on it...

None of these would indicate to me that a person is not intelligent all it means is they are not up on that particular topic or just see it differently from others.

I would say a persons intelligence is more in question if they can't understand this, it is really quite simple.

I love when someone brings a different out of the box prospective on something, it means they are using their brain and questioning what everyone else is taking for granted.....but what if.....why does it have to be.....that make no sense....

There is little in this life which can be seen truly in black and white the majority of things can be seen from a different view and just because you were not the one to see it differently doesn't make the person who did thick quite the opposite in fact.

And just because someone asks what you deem to be a stupid question doesn't make them stupid it only means that the person is unsure on that subject.

Just saying :)

It's the internet phenomenon of 'snark'.... Read enough message boards and blog comments and there's a kind of awful predictability on how many posts you will get before the conversation gets around to personal insults that have very little to do with the original debate.  The more emotive the debate.... 'creationism', abortion, homophobia... the quicker the snark emerges!

It's a function of anonymity and immaturity.  In the real world it's only in the playground where rational argument is halted with 'yeah, but you know nothing because you smell....'   The rest of us can only get away with that kind of hit and run stuff when operating under an internet pseudonym.

Mind you, some people are just a bit thick.....

I see the human race as loosely falling into two levels of intelligence,

Intellect/theorist and practical/instinct.

It's just a shame that the two don't seem to mix too well together  yet you would think that the two could seize the opportunity to learn from each other.

Yea...it could be they just are missing some information (lack of education, not intelligence)

Then again....

Lots of people are just stupid.

I don't think education comes into it it's the difference between say someone being a hairdresser/mechanic (more practical minded but still needs some level theory) and say a mathematician/ scientist (not so much practical and a lot of theory).

To say someone is stupid you would actually have to define stupid....

Are they stupid because they don't know how to change a plug, cook, put a shelf up etc...?

or

Are they stupid because they are not a scientist, head of a large corporation, top accountant, professor and so on..?

We don't define stupidity that way, do we really?   It's how someone acts & thinks, not what their skills, qualifications or job is that determines stupidity.  Someone who slavishly follows their sat-nav down a footpath into a river..... ignoring road-signs and failing to engage their commonsense, for example.   Wouldn't matter if they were a hair-dresser or a mathematician, they'd still be an idiot.

When it comes to questions on message-boards it's a little depressing when you see topics come up that should have been covered off at primary school....  And then it would be more accurate to criticise the person for being 'ignorant' rather than 'stupid'. 

Intellience and clever-ness (if that's a word!) are totally different things as far as I'm concerned.

Being clever means you know an awful lot about something. That you've been taught something. Big deal!

Intelligence is the willingness to learn. Asking questions and trying to improve your knowledge show intelligence. Showing interest in a subject and trying to improve yourself are good things and people doing this should not be shot down by people who are too clever for their own good.

I know of far too many people who simply show no interest and do not want to improve themselves. I consider that stupid.People who know a lot about something but refuse to even look at something from another point of view,even if they don't agree. I consider that stupid.

But gi-jane said, we can say things on here that we wouldn't face to face because we don't see the faces of the people we put down as they read our comments. We don't know these people so some don't care if they hurt anyone's feelings.We should all just be nice to everyone of course, butunfortunately some people aren't like that.

As much as I would like to agree with you on that point gi, yes there are those of us who would see stupidity as someone who drives off the edge of a cliff because their sat-nav told them too, but people do label stupidity down to the job a person does I have heard it first hand the words stupid or thick because someone is perhaps cleaning for a living, and a refusal to entertain the fact that perhaps there are other reasons they are doing the job, health or something.

Or calling people stupid/thick because they don't have a string of qualifications in their hand.

I don't see any problem with disagreeing with someones point of view, it's good because it opens the topic up to debate, what I do find rather pathetic is that because of that insults on the person are too readily hurled, and I don't buy that because it's the Internet it is OK to insult people with personal attacks, if you don't have the balls to say it to someones face then quite frankly you should never say it at all.

So I ask what do people view as being Smart/clever/intelligent whatever word you want to use to describe it, and what do you view as being thick/stupid or whatever other name people wish to use to call into question a persons intelligence.

edit to add: I was watching The Weakest Link one night and one of the Q.s was "what markings will you find on a tiger" (not quote perfect) and the guy answered "spots"......... 

Now to me the answer is obvious and doesn't even need any kind of thought but clearly it wasn't as clear to him....is he thick or just someone who has never paid any attention to wildlife because he has no interest in it?

If someone labels a cleaner 'stupid' merely because of the job they do then that is simple snobbery and arrogance/ignorance on their part.... nothing more elaborate.

It's not OK to insult people on the internet but that's what happens because of the cloak of anonymity and the luxury of distance.   It's easy to yell at a call-centre worker down the phone for the same reason...   Face to face we're all a lot less reckless and rather more cowardly.

I would say that an intelligent person is articulate, thoughtful, resourceful and willing to learn.  A stupid person is usually inarticulate, thoughtless and either incapable or unwilling to learn.

(PS.... The man on the Weakest Link got the wrong answer because under studio lights, in front of cameras, with a time-limit and faced with Anne Robinson barking questions ....  he lost his nerve (and probably control of his sphincter).)

Original Post by gi-jane:

 The man on the Weakest Link got the wrong answer because under studio lights, in front of cameras, with a time-limit and faced with Anne Robinson barking questions ....  he lost his nerve (and probably control of his sphincter).)

But she is so sweet and polite......lol point taken but i think even under the duress of Ann Robinson I would know the answer to that and I will be the first to admit I am no Einstein...

Original Post by andie-1:

 I have heard it first hand the words stupid or thick because someone is perhaps cleaning for a living, and a refusal to entertain the fact that perhaps there are other reasons they are doing the job, health or something.

Or calling people stupid/thick because they don't have a string of qualifications in their hand.

 

 

 So very very true!  I worked at a Home Deport for a while.  Once I refused to take a woman's return because she did not have her reciept.  My decision was company policy.  She got really nasty with me but I could not budge.  Finally, in despiration she said "I am a lawyer.  What do you do?"  Haha!! 

"Snarks" frequent retail shops too.  Being "snarky" is just a component of the human psyche.  EVERYONE has the potential to be irrationally rude. 

There is a huge difference between intelligence and ignorance.  A lot of people have opinions/believe something that is simply false because of lack of information or they are getting their information from an unreliable source.

Does that make them less intelligent?  No, not really.  It means their expertise doesn't really lie in what they are talking about.

I feel that part of the problem with mis-information is that people like to close their eyes to everything but what they want to hear.  There can be 30 documented reports on a topic, and one topic that goes the other way, and people who like the other speculative opinion will quote it as fact every time.

Fad diets are a perfect example that everybody here can understand.  There are a lot of intelligent people in the world who get trapped in them because they read that it works somewhere, but obviously that source was crap.  That can be applied to almost everything you can think of.  There are proven facts and likely theories, and then there are "fad" ideas that tell people what they want to hear.  A lot of people uneducated on a topic like to grab at the "fad idea".  

Edit:  And I try to be nice, but I can get very snarky.  I'm a conservative, religious person and I have to bite my tongue non stop to avoid offending internet people.  If I can do it, I'm sure anybody can, but once in awhile I just go off.  ~_~

Darn! I thought this was going to be about the CIA!

because its spelled "intelligence"?

i'm just being a smart***, I have seen it as well and it ticks me off a little how haughty people get when people say something a little inaccurate but get their point across.

and I'll vouch for frokusblakah's snarkiness.

That would be 'pedantry' rather than 'snarkiness'.... if we're being pedantic.

I am pedantic...

Original Post by crazydiamondchrysalis:

because its spelled "intelligence"?

Ha thanks for pointing that out i never even noticed just pleased i spelt it right everywhere else.....didn't I 

In my opinion, insults and judgments are dealt out so regularly over the internet because of a type of laziness.  It's much, much easier to label someone stupid, incompetent, etc. based on a one-time encounter than it is to actually take the time to place yourself in that other person's shoes and think through the actions they've made or things they've said. 

A personal pet peave of mine is to hear someone ask a genuine question about something they don't understand, only to have the questioned spit in their face. I mean this metaphorically, of course.  It seems the natural response when someone asks/says something that we perceive as stupid is to let them know immediately that what they've said is below us. 

Say, for example, a complete stranger asks you (we'll assume over the internet) if plane tickets cost money.  Now, for most, this is an obviously simple question, and the instinctive urge to say something like, "Of course they do.  Why would they be free?"  Of course, this response is relatively tame compared to the much more common, "What kind of question is that?" or "Are you retarded?" 

The end result is the same, however.  A person has asked a genuine question, and rather than informing them politely and moving on with our lives, we have made them perfectly aware that we will answer their question, but shame on them for asking!

There's an interesting Wiki article that I stumbled upon recently about what's called the Fundamental Attribution Error. In short, this theory asserts that observers are more likely to attribute a poor quality they perceive in others as a personal flaw, rather than a product of the situation/environment that that person is in.

Take the person who's confused about plane tickets, for example.  We naturally perceive this person's ignorance as an indicator of stupidity.  The more plausible explanation for their ignorance is that they have never flown, and have never had an adequate explanation as to how public transportation works.  Keep in mind, this question was posted over the internet, so we have no idea what kind of education/experience this person has been exposed to over the course of their brief life.

Now, of course we are tempted to assert that the overwhelming odds are that this person has at least encountered some sort of information in their life about mass transit, and they really do have no excuse for not knowing the answer to this question.  And really, I have no rebuttal for that. 

Let me pose this, though.  When faced with a situation like this, where a person has done something that our imperfect judgement has deemed stupid, which is the more practical and logical response?  To harshly accuse this person of being stupid, ridicule them endlessly, and make them feel insignificant?  Or to calmly, rationally answer their question.

I am by no means claiming to be a perfectly patient person.  I do believe, though, that we should all strive for the latter. 

We are all ignorant.  We are all gifted.  We are all the same.

well thank you for posting that jlconran and yes it makes my point entirely.

Original Post by andie-1:

and say a mathematician/ scientist (not so much practical and a lot of theory).

Just had to butt in and say that mathematicians and scientists can be extremely practical.  You know, while we're busy doing research and developing ideas and technology that helps the human race.