Exposing the Limits of IQ

In an incredible intersection of digital connection and modern neuroscience, over 100,000 people recently took part in the largest test of intelligence and cognitive ability ever undertaken. The results might disprove that there’s any one measure, like IQ, that truly captures the broad range of mental talent seen in the world’s population.

Instead of “IQ” or any one component, it took at least three components to rate someone’s mental performance: Short-term memory, reasoning and verbal acuity.

To make things even more interesting, these three components all seem to map out to separate brain “circuits”. You may excel in one and not in the other two, or be balanced among all three. To put it another way, intelligent people are still intelligent, but now we can appreciate our place on that spectrum with greater depth and color. They even peeled back another layer, using their huge sample size to link performance to certain behaviors. Smokers did poorly on memory and verbal components, while computer gamers did well on memory and reasoning.

Anyone who’s looking knows that there’s variation in people’s cognitive abilities and individual “intelligences”, and trying to score that with one number doesn’t seem to do anyone much good. What sort of talents have we accidentally suppressed by failing to stamp people officially “intelligent”? Who have we discouraged by failing to include their intelligence in the “score”?

On the surface, it comes as no surprise. That in a world full of incredible individuals and unique combinations of passions, knowledge and curiosity… all of them powered by a tangled neural web of unparalleled cognitive complexity, that our “intelligence” would not be well quantified by a single measure. It is difficult to distill a rainbow and still appreciate its colors.

Check out more here, including interviews with the researchers.

When do we stop seeing the animal, and start seeing ourselves? Photographer Tim Flach challenges you with that question, in his new book More Than Human. Every single one of his photos, from scary bats to naked chickens, is breathtaking.  We are becoming aware of more examples of animal intelligence, from the language of whales to the self-awareness and empathy of the great apes. Whereas one’s emotional response to what appears to be a ponderous panda used to be thought of as folly, we are now able to appreciate a wider spectrum of animal thought and processing. It does not mean that there is deep thought in those eyes, but it blurs the lines of where our stare stops and theirs begins.There is something. What? Who knows? We would do well to remind ourselves not where animals are like us, but perhaps where we are like them. These photos do that for me.  See more at Brain Pickings.
Zoom Info
When do we stop seeing the animal, and start seeing ourselves? Photographer Tim Flach challenges you with that question, in his new book More Than Human. Every single one of his photos, from scary bats to naked chickens, is breathtaking.  We are becoming aware of more examples of animal intelligence, from the language of whales to the self-awareness and empathy of the great apes. Whereas one’s emotional response to what appears to be a ponderous panda used to be thought of as folly, we are now able to appreciate a wider spectrum of animal thought and processing. It does not mean that there is deep thought in those eyes, but it blurs the lines of where our stare stops and theirs begins.There is something. What? Who knows? We would do well to remind ourselves not where animals are like us, but perhaps where we are like them. These photos do that for me.  See more at Brain Pickings.
Zoom Info

When do we stop seeing the animal, and start seeing ourselves?

Photographer Tim Flach challenges you with that question, in his new book More Than Human. Every single one of his photos, from scary bats to naked chickens, is breathtaking. 

We are becoming aware of more examples of animal intelligence, from the language of whales to the self-awareness and empathy of the great apes. Whereas one’s emotional response to what appears to be a ponderous panda used to be thought of as folly, we are now able to appreciate a wider spectrum of animal thought and processing.

It does not mean that there is deep thought in those eyes, but it blurs the lines of where our stare stops and theirs begins.There is something. What? Who knows?

We would do well to remind ourselves not where animals are like us, but perhaps where we are like them. These photos do that for me. 

See more at Brain Pickings.

Exploring Humanity's Evolving 'Global Brain'

Thomas W. Malone, director of MIT’s Center for Collective Intelligence, on his study of humanity’s ability to think beyond our own brains: the idea of “collective intelligence”.

What does collective intelligence mean? It’s important to realize that intelligence is not just something that happens inside individual brains. It also arises with groups of individuals. In fact, I’d define collective intelligence as groups of individuals acting collectively in ways that seem intelligent. By that definition, of course, collective intelligence has been around for a very long time. Families, companies, countries, and armies: those are all examples of groups of people working together in ways that at least sometimes seem intelligent.

It’s also possible for groups of people to work together in ways that seem pretty stupid, and I think collective stupidity is just as possible as collective intelligence…

What’s new, though, is a new kind of collective intelligence enabled by the Internet. Think of Google, for instance, where millions of people all over the world create web pages, and link those web pages to each other. Then all that knowledge is harvested by the Google technology so that when you type a question in the Google search bar the answers you get often seem amazingly intelligent, at least by some definition of the word “intelligence”….

Our future as a species may depend on our ability to use our global collective intelligence to make choices that are not just smart, but also wise.

Want to dig deeper? Andy Revkin has a collection of links on his NY Times DotEarth blog. The fact that we are even having this discussion, in the connected manner that we are having it, is a pretty good example of the power of this idea.

Do Dolphins Speak Whale in Their Sleep? Captive dolphins have picked up some new vocabulary. Not from each other, but rather from a “sounds of the sea” tape played during their performances. When their handlers noted strange sounds coming from the tanks at night, they compared them to known calls and discovered they were mimicking and practicing whale calls they had heard on tape. When the researchers used a computer program to compare auditory recordings of the whale calls with the mysterious nighttime noises, it showed that the two sounds were very similar. And because the dolphins had been captive their entire lives, they couldn’t have picked them up from real whales. To get a second opinion, the team asked 20 human volunteers to listen to humpback whale sounds and wild dolphin sounds. Then the researchers played the nighttime vocalizations and asked the volunteers whether the sounds came from a whale or a dolphin. About 76% of the time, the volunteers classified the imitations as sounds from real whales The dolphins were last reported to be working on whale disguises, surely as part of their world domination plan. (via ScienceNOW)
View Separately

Do Dolphins Speak Whale in Their Sleep?

Captive dolphins have picked up some new vocabulary. Not from each other, but rather from a “sounds of the sea” tape played during their performances.

When their handlers noted strange sounds coming from the tanks at night, they compared them to known calls and discovered they were mimicking and practicing whale calls they had heard on tape.

When the researchers used a computer program to compare auditory recordings of the whale calls with the mysterious nighttime noises, it showed that the two sounds were very similar. And because the dolphins had been captive their entire lives, they couldn’t have picked them up from real whales.

To get a second opinion, the team asked 20 human volunteers to listen to humpback whale sounds and wild dolphin sounds. Then the researchers played the nighttime vocalizations and asked the volunteers whether the sounds came from a whale or a dolphin. About 76% of the time, the volunteers classified the imitations as sounds from real whales

The dolphins were last reported to be working on whale disguises, surely as part of their world domination plan.

(via ScienceNOW)

Source: news.sciencemag.org

Researchers find poop-throwing by chimps is a sign of intelligence In proof that even politicians share a common ancestor with chimpanzees, Emory University reports that throwing feces is a sign of smarts in captive chimps. Surprisingly, they found that chimps that both threw more and were more likely to hit their targets showed heightened development in the motor cortex, and more connections between it and the Broca’s area, which they say is an important part of speech in humans. The better chimp throwers, in other words, had more highly developed left brain hemispheres, which is also, non-coincidently, where speech processing occurs in people. Such findings led the term to suggest that the ability to throw is, or was, a precursor to speech development in human beings. So being able to throw things well is a sign of higher-order brain development? Then why did Dan Marino score a 16 on the Wonderlich Test? (via PhysOrg)
Pop-upView Separately

Researchers find poop-throwing by chimps is a sign of intelligence

In proof that even politicians share a common ancestor with chimpanzees, Emory University reports that throwing feces is a sign of smarts in captive chimps.

Surprisingly, they found that chimps that both threw more and were more likely to hit their targets showed heightened development in the motor cortex, and more connections between it and the Broca’s area, which they say is an important part of speech in humans. The better chimp throwers, in other words, had more highly developed left brain hemispheres, which is also, non-coincidently, where speech processing occurs in people.

Such findings led the term to suggest that the ability to throw is, or was, a precursor to speech development in human beings.

So being able to throw things well is a sign of higher-order brain development? Then why did Dan Marino score a 16 on the Wonderlich Test?

(via PhysOrg)

Source: physorg.com

Zoologists Capture Elephant’s ‘Eureka!’ Moment - It’s been said that elephants never forget. Well it looks like they’re pretty good at learning, too.

Three elephants at the Smithsonian National Zoological Park were presented with a problem-solving opportunity: There’s a piece of fruit out of reach of your trunk, and there’s a box placed in your enclosure that will support the weight of an elephant. 

Let’s see what they figure out …

(via Wired Science)

Source: Wired

Rights to Ben Stein’s Controversial (Read "Completely Ridiculous") Intelligent Design Documentary for Sale

You can’t make this stuff up. The rights to the movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, a documentary by Ben Stein that attacks evolution in favor of intelligent design, are for sale to the highest bidder.

The studio that made the movie declared bankruptcy and is selling the rights off as part of their liquidation. No commentary is necessary here, this is just natural selection at its best :)

So if we all pool our money, we can buy it and make sure that no one has to suffer through its inanity ever again!

Add whales to the list of “animals with culture”. In humpback populations, males sing an identical song to try and woo females. This song can differ between groups and regions, but it’s always the same among a pod. Scientists recently witnessed these songs being passed between groups of whales, reaching across the Pacific in a matter of years. This means that humpbacks are able to not only communicate, but learn and transfer information among themselves. That is culture, and yet another reason to protect these beloved giants. (via Listen: Humpback Whale Songs That Swept the Pacific)
Pop-upView Separately

Add whales to the list of “animals with culture”.

In humpback populations, males sing an identical song to try and woo females. This song can differ between groups and regions, but it’s always the same among a pod. Scientists recently witnessed these songs being passed between groups of whales, reaching across the Pacific in a matter of years.

This means that humpbacks are able to not only communicate, but learn and transfer information among themselves. That is culture, and yet another reason to protect these beloved giants.

(via Listen: Humpback Whale Songs That Swept the Pacific)

Source: Wired