Is it possible that I am stupider than I think I am? Forum

[alwayssunnyinfl]

4 words:

Florida Gulf Coast University

[scifiguy]

Don't forget too that there are "multiple intelligences," which was a term and part of the name of his book that Harvard Prof. Howard Gardner coined for describing his view of intelligence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_ ... elligences (check it out here)

Seems everyone and their grandmother know of the theory nowadays, but I guess I still find a decent amt. of people whod on't.

IQ tests may not measure all types of intelligence or even the most important type needed for law. That's up for debate probably. But, yeah, effort can account for a lot.

I like the b-ball analogy above, because I'm a huge basketball fan and player myself. Some players have what some might describe as "raw talent." They are physically gifted and athletic. They may have the natural coordination to do certain moves more easily than others. And they may even have some natural instincts that others have had to be taught in order to incorporate into their game. If that person with raw talent doesn't work on his game and continuing refining his skills and adding more to them, then he could be overtaken by others with less "natural talent."

Or that person might underachieve, while others may overachieve. I remember reading how David Robinson was a guy who never worked on his post game and could have been even more dominant. The Spurs owners/coaches would get upset with him, becsause he was the franchise star and had a perfect body (Have you seen him? He was like Dwight Howard before Dwight.) and the raw potential to be great. I kind of think D-Rob underachieved.

A guy like David Lee or Kevin Love who are both big men in the league are examples of guys who didn't come in the league as physical specimens or necessarily have a great post game. But if you've followed their progression, both have developed pretty good post games through hard work and are 20 and 10 guys in the league now....KLove is more 25/15. KLove, in partiuclar, was kind of clumsy with is post game the first two years. But now he's got better footwork and form and a legit and good post game.

Work ethic is huge. It's not the only factor, but it's a big part of success in many areas of life.

I don't disagree with the claim that practice and hard work can elevate one's performance in something.

But just to play devil's advocate a little bit, doesn't it also take time to develop said skills? These athletes who make big jumps in abilities. Do they do it within a the same season? Or does it take several seasons? Or is it more like slow gradual improvement (like a turtle's pace that may not be perceptible until you take a step back and look at the person a year later)?

I ask because I wonder if tehre's enough time for this improvement theory to actualize itself for the 1L law student to benefit their from hard work. Suppose it takes one year to really improve your "game" at something. ...Well, for law students, you don't have that time. Your 1L grades will determine whether you get biglaw/fed clerkship or not. So, it might not be a matter if that person can improve or not, but whether or not they can do so within the first semester (or second maybe).

I guess it also depends on how wide the gap is between students in terms of their skills. If it's huge, then the lower skilled hard worker may not be able to catch.

But rigor also is of importance. If law school work is not very rigorous, then the skill gap can probably be closed faster. But if it's very complex and rigorous work AND the gap is wide....then I wonder.

[Dr. Dre]

I don't disagree with the claim that practice and hard work can elevate one's performance in something.

But just to play devil's advocate a little bit,

stopped reading

[Barack O'Drama]

No. Get a job as a bartender or in tech support or in any job where members of the general public come to talk to you about their problems for a while. Trust me.... most people are just too stupid to handle something as complicated as grad school. Hell, only the dumbing down of higher education allows the bottom third of any state undergrad to graduate. That said, maybe 80% was a bit high. Call it 50%. 50% of the population is simply unable to handle the ambiguity required in the highest levels of thought. Try to explain to your local fast food manager how electrons are both particles and waves and see what happens.[/quote]

I cannot express how much I agree with this ^

[Scotusnerd]

"No. Get a job as a bartender or in tech support or in any job where members of the general public come to talk to you about their problems for a while. Trust me.... most people are just too stupid to handle something as complicated as grad school. Hell, only the dumbing down of higher education allows the bottom third of any state undergrad to graduate. That said, maybe 80% was a bit high. Call it 50%. 50% of the population is simply unable to handle the ambiguity required in the highest levels of thought. Try to explain to your local fast food manager how electrons are both particles and waves and see what happens."

I cannot express how much I agree with this ^

Comprehending the law does not require a sophisticated ability to understand complex concepts. It requires an understanding of rule sets that you apply to factual scenarios. The sophisticated aspect is in how you apply the rules to the scenario to leverage your client's position. People do that on a regular basis in their own lives. I don't agree that law is some great, arcane concept that only intelligent people can comprehend. Please. Prisoners write handwritten petitions that can make more sense than some of the boilerplate shit that comes out of a lawyer's office. Why? Because the prisoners actually give a crap about being in jail, and can spend the time to figure out how to write about the law.

[sinfiery]

The trick to receiving the greatest benefit from attending a TTT is to rarely attend class if no participation, sleep half the time if they take attendance grades, daydream if you are actually awake and present, and then pull an all nighter before the test all with making zero excuses for what grade you get.*



* - you may drop out



Hard work is much harder when you have less time to do it.

[spleenworship]

Because the prisoners actually give a crap about being in jail, and can spend the time to figure out how to write about the law.

Those are the exception, not the rule, and you know it.

There are some very smart people in jail, dude. Just because they are intelligent doesn't mean they aren't prone to occasional mistakes or a sociopath.

ETA: Likely you are suffering from the inverse of this effect - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect

[ksllaw]

There was mention of "practice" by several posters in the thread.

I find that one potentially useful distinction that can be made here is that of practice as a (mindless) repetitive type of training/activity versus what some people (I know this term has some purchase in the chess and physics community, but am not sure how widely used it is in other circles) have called, "deliberate practice."

http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/11/25/ ... ufficient/

The notion of deliberate practice involves more than just doing something over and over again, but requires a kind of self-reflexive, problem-solving mindset. It's used by some of the best chess players in the world and by such intellectual giants as the late Richard Feynman. This is how it's described by Sanjoy Mahajan from the article above:

Motivation does matter: We must want to learn. But the wanting is only part of a productive learning environment. We must also know how to learn — which I did not. That’s the key conclusion of the research on expert performance (an area of research discussed in this blog in the Q&A with David Shenk).

The how of learning is deliberate practice. For example, in school and college, to develop mathematics and science expertise, we must somehow think deeply about the problems and reflect on what did and did not work. One method comes from the physicist John Wheeler (the PhD advisor of Richard Feynman). Wheeler recommended that, after we solve any problem, we think of one sentence that we could tell our earlier self that would have “cracked” the problem. This kind of thinking turns each problem and its solution into an opportunity for reflection and for developing transferable reasoning tools.

Deliberate practice requires sustained concentration, and the rewards are subtle and apparent only in the long term. Thus, one needs motivation in order to enter into and sustain the hard work of deliberate practice. But the learning happens not simply through putting in the hours, but through doing so intelligently.

There's actually a chess example given in the article for those who may be familiar with the game. But, also, the commentary about how Nobel Laureate physicsts Wheeler and Feynman used to approach learning things is quite instructive. One doesn't have to be a mathematician or physicst actually to see the value of what Wheeler did in the example given. That techhique can also be applied to other endeavors as well - be it LSAT practice or the process or learning how to reason well or some other cognitive skill.

I think while some skills might benefit from practice of the mindless repetition sort (such as learning to tie one's shoe or something relatively simple), the successful learning of more complex skills probably requires something more like deliberate practice; although, that's not to say that rote learning is not needed in this case either - both may be needed).

From the article, there was mention of how utilizing deliberate practice was more effective, by a factor of 6, than traditional types of practice on chess players' performance.