dumb britain

just had to share this comedy moment with you;

just be watching lotto show hosted by Dale Winton....and one of the contestants is a luvvable dimwit called naomi. With a fearful set of gnashers on her. Anyway this classic exchange ensues;

Dale: 'charles babbage was the pioneering innovator of which technology'
........A) The Television
B) The Computer
C) The Motor Car

Naomi: 'Well Daaaaale, i'm going to discount the computer because i fink Apple invented the computer.'

ROFLMAO :D

Later on, Naomi has a chance to redeem herself and get back in the game. No multiple choice this time, the question is a little tricky but not difficult with a little bit of deduction and the very basics of spanish.

Dale: "Can you name the south american capital city that, translated from the spanish, means 'good wind' "

Naomi: *Utterly Bemused Expression*

Dale: "Naomi, you know this one...trust me you know it"

Naomi: *suddenly a light appears to have gone on in naomis mind....surely she hasn't twigged what the answer is *

'It's just come to me Daaaale. Is it venezuela ?'




oh dear. For a split second i thought naomi had it, but i was giving her far too much credit.

and everyone know Venezuela means old fart.

I don't know a word of Spanish... so I don't know the answer to that question either :(...

I'd guess at an actual capital city of Beunos Aires?


It makes you wonder where they get people for these shows though... ok, some are very intelligent, and others are so far on the other side of the IQ ladder, it's unbelievable - just look at Big Bruvva (as it shall hence forth be known)

A few weeks ago, I was bored out of my skull, so I went shopping one evening and there was a competition on the radio... what does IQ stand for.

In almost an hour, not one person had the answer correct!?

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Originally Posted by Lithium

I'd guess at an actual capital city of Beunos Aires?

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Buenos Aires was founded on the shores of the Rio de la Plata in 1570 and was named after the patron saint of sailors for the good wind or buen aire.

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A few weeks ago, I was bored out of my skull, so I went shopping one evening and there was a competition on the radio... what does IQ stand for.

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IQ stands for Intelligence Quotient, and is one of the most misused measurements around. IQ tests are designed to produce a specific statistical distribution of results - the test is simply adjusted until a given percentage of the test subjects get the desired score. Any results are inherently biased - IQ doesn't give any kind of absolute measurement of "intelligence", it just gives you a score measured against a specific cohort.

Take the above knowledge about Buenos Aires - heck, I did, I cut-and-pasted it straight from Google. We already have near-ubiquitous always-on telecommunications, we have a pretty decent knowledge-finding system in the Internet, Google and Wikipedia - give it a few years and there'll be no particularly good reason why being able to keep a bunch of random facts in your head will be considered a good measure of your intelligence any more.

--
David Hicks

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Originally Posted by torledo

Naomi: 'Well Daaaaale, i'm going to discount the computer because i fink Apple invented the computer.'

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You mean they didn't?!? :(

Honestly, this just proves what I've been saying for god knows how long - 70% of the people on this planet are thick. I mean seriously stupid. And it's across the spectrum. It doesn't matter what high-powered job you have, how many degrees you have - it doesn't mean anything. From chavs on sink estates to bankers in Surrey - the majority of the populace are T-H-I-C-K. Stupid. Morons. Selfish idiots.

[Rant Over]

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Originally Posted by dhicks

Buenos Aires was founded on the shores of the Rio de la Plata in 1570 and was named after the patron saint of sailors for the good wind or buen aire.



IQ stands for Intelligence Quotient, and is one of the most misused measurements around. IQ tests are designed to produce a specific statistical distribution of results - the test is simply adjusted until a given percentage of the test subjects get the desired score. Any results are inherently biased - IQ doesn't give any kind of absolute measurement of "intelligence", it just gives you a score measured against a specific cohort.

Take the above knowledge about Buenos Aires - heck, I did, I cut-and-pasted it straight from Google. We already have near-ubiquitous always-on telecommunications, we have a pretty decent knowledge-finding system in the Internet, Google and Wikipedia - give it a few years and there'll be no particularly good reason why being able to keep a bunch of random facts in your head will be considered a good measure of your intelligence any more.

--
David Hicks

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I think you're wrong on that one. knowledge of trivia, and knowledge for knowledge sakes will always be a good measure of intelligence. Ofcourse it's impossible to retain the enormity of the information that we hear and see, and extracting that information from the various sources at our disposal is also a sign of intelligence. But relying on machines, and in particular the internet to do the brain work and retention of information on our behalf is incredibly dangerous.

The buenos aires answer is a case in point. I think it was laziness on you're part to look up the answer, and if you were the contestant you'd have no such luxury. i didn't know of the answer, but i worked it out in a few seconds through a process of elimination and reasoning. And how you're mind reaches that conclusion is one of the fascinating things. My thought processes went something like this;

---> how many capital cities in south america do i know
---> had the knowledge that the language of brazil was portugese, eliminate Rio de janiero
---> that leaves Buenos Aires. Doh, it's obvious it was Buenos Aires
i already knew buen was good in spanish. And Air is obviously Aire.

I could've skipped the first two steps, but i needed other information to trigger my repsonses.

So even though i didn't know the answer straight off, i set my mind to work to figure it out. The brain made that information retrieval a sinch, even though for simple tasks it's performing a lot of calculations.

The more you excercise you're brain the more it stays active, unfortunately people have lost that art of general knowledge, a persons intelligence does manifest in different ways. But today, success and intelligence is measured by how much money you can earn. Learning because you have a thirst for knowledge is seen by the masses as a lot of effort for no monetary or physical reward i.e it doesn't boost you're bank balance in most cases, and you can't use it to develop that six pack or make you're hair grow back.

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Originally Posted by tech_guy

Honestly, this just proves what I've been saying for god knows how long - 70% of the people on this planet are thick. I mean seriously stupid. And it's across the spectrum. It doesn't matter what high-powered job you have, how many degrees you have - it doesn't mean anything. From chavs on sink estates to bankers in Surrey - the majority of the populace are T-H-I-C-K. Stupid. Morons. Selfish idiots.

[Rant Over]

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Amen to that.

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Originally Posted by torledo

I think you're wrong on that one. knowledge of trivia, and knowledge for knowledge sakes will always be a good measure of intelligence.

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IQ tests (and TV quiz shows) are culturally biased. In the 1920s, all immigrants to the US were given an IQ test in English, with questions related to the US. Unsurprisingly, those immigrants not from northern Europe tended not to do so well.

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But relying on machines, and in particular the internet to do the brain work and retention of information on our behalf is incredibly dangerous.

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Maybe, but we already rely on machines for so much else. If we were magically transported back in time 10,000 years we wouldn't fare so well, but a native of the times (who, in evolutionary terms, would be identical to us) would be considered "intelligent" by the standards most applicable then.

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The buenos aires answer is a case in point. I think it was laziness on you're part to look up the answer, and if you were the contestant you'd have no such luxury. i didn't know of the answer, but i worked it out in a few seconds through a process of elimination and reasoning.

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Because you speak a language derived from some of the same common roots as the one the city is named in. I don't really speak French at all, but can just about figure out a page of well-grammared French given enough time. There's no way I can do the same with Chinese, though - the spoken language is tonal, the written language is pictogram-based.

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The more you excercise you're brain the more it stays active, unfortunately people have lost that art of general knowledge,

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You're probably right, and this is probably where quiz shows are a good thing - a quick half-hour brain workout for the masses. Recently, quiz and TV shows in general seem to have taken a bit of a "nasty" turn, with stuff like The Weakest Link concentrating as much on the insulting banter from the host as anything else. Maybe time for a return to a good old-fashioned quick-fire general knowledge quiz... maybe something interactive for people to play along with at home... <drifts off into daydreams of royalties from franchising rights to hit quiz-show format>...

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Learning because you have a thirst for knowledge is seen by the masses as a lot of effort for no monetary or physical reward i.e it doesn't boost you're bank balance in most cases, and you can't use it to develop that six pack or make you're hair grow back.

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At heart (and, indeed, other organs) it would seem that we're still those rough cave-dwellers of 10,000 years ago. Ah well, I can tell you one thing I've learnt from all this - that "Buenos Aires" means "good wind" in Spanish...

--
David Hicks

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Originally Posted by tech_guy

Honestly, this just proves what I've been saying for god knows how long - 70% of the people on this planet are thick.

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No, what it proves is that 93.7% of statistics are made up on the spot. An IQ of 100 is the IQ of the middle person in the test group (now very wide) and there is a bell curve distribution either side of this figure. Thus there are a lot of people with am IQ of 90 or 110, but relatively few with over 140 (the threshold of genius) I don't know if 60 marks the boundary of idiot...

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---> how many capital cities in south america do i know
---> had the knowledge that the language of brazil was portugese, eliminate Rio de janiero
---> that leaves Buenos Aires. Doh, it's obvious it was Buenos Aires
i already knew buen was good in spanish. And Air is obviously Aire.

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Good plan, and more or less my thought process, except that I went from knowing that malaria is rooted in bad air. Oh, and that Brazillia is the capital of Brazil. ;-)

There is a difference between able to remember things, and being able to analyse a sequence or pattern and spot the next item via logical thinking and analysis.

Someone can absorb factoids like a sponge but still have a low IQ.

The IQ testing process is usually, when designed by people who know what they're doing, designed in such a way as to be culturally unbiased.

What I am saying is that general knowledge is not a suitable measure of intelligence. (Nor is the quality of someone's writing :P)

yeah, I mean... if we go on IQ... I'm a genius!

We all know that's not true now though....

I'm just good at maths.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Andrew_C

No, what it proves is that 93.7% of statistics are made up on the spot. An IQ of 100 is the IQ of the middle person in the test group (now very wide) and there is a bell curve distribution either side of this figure. Thus there are a lot of people with am IQ of 90 or 110, but relatively few with over 140 (the threshold of genius) I don't know if 60 marks the boundary of idiot...

Good plan, and more or less my thought process, except that I went from knowing that malaria is rooted in bad air. Oh, and that Brazillia is the capital of Brazil. ;-)

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damn!!!! I'm sure i knew that brazillia was the capital of brazil :o, it's just one of those facts i was given at primary school and have never revisited. Plus, i don't think i''ve heard brazilia mentioned as a place name for years. I guess the same confusion effects some people when they're asked the capital of australia. You never hear canberra mentioned as a place name, but the question always comes up on quizzes to trick people into saying sydney.