NBC has a really silly article on what the world would be like if there was a way to make everyone twice as smart. So in the hypothetical case of NBC, they might get to Forrest Gump levels. Might.
So check this out. The geniuses at NBC try to anticipate what the world would be like with all those smart people. What would good guys and bad guys look like in this super-smart world?
While petty-crime rates would fall in a society of Newtons, Hunt speculated that white-collar crimes, such as banking scams and cover-ups by pharmaceutical companies, might increase and even grow more sophisticated. On the other hand, so would crime-fighting. “The evil corporate villains would be smarter than ever, but so would the government officials who were writing and enforcing the safety regulations! Who would win? Who knows?” he wrote.
Oh, so corporations would still be evil and government regulators would be the heroes? Boy, that brave new world sounds an awful lot like the inane ramblings of the not-so-super-smart liberals of today. How boring.
One thing is for sure, if everyone was suddenly twice as smart, there would be no NBC.
January 16, 2012 at 3:18 pm
To be fair to NBC, the statement came from Hunt, "professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Washington and president of the International Society for Intelligence Research". The alleged journalist chose the quote from an email.
So, if IQ were doubled, university professors and researchers may reach Forrest Gump levels.
January 16, 2012 at 4:13 pm
The article also stated that, with higher IQs,people would be better looking because we'd be better at exercising and grooming. How then do we explain math genius Grigori Perelman?
January 16, 2012 at 6:06 pm
Robert- or the way that geeks in general tend to NOT be that attractive, to the point that "smart= ugly" in most media?
January 16, 2012 at 7:17 pm
If people were twice as smart, they wouldn't criticize Obama and they have two subscriptions to Newsweek (one for each smart).
January 16, 2012 at 8:56 pm
Then why isn't Harvard a bastion of peace and harmony, a utopian oasis in a world of chaos, instead of a culture of uber competitiveness with narcissism permemeating everything?
January 16, 2012 at 9:51 pm
The reason the researchers come off as kinda stupid is…scientists (there's been a lot of research on this) aren't actually any smarter than anyone else. Certainly the greatest scientists are geniuses, but then so are the greatest bankers, doctors, lawyers, and card-sharks. High intelligence is always an advantage.
Science, however, is, by definition, the negation of unique intellect. The whole point of the "scientific method", to the extent there is such a thing, is that anyone not actually mentally disabled can get useful data, and interpret it meaningfully. That's the beauty of it, but it does come with the tradeoff that they aren't allowed to brag. Scientific research is actually much more of a paint-by-numbers endeavor than virtually any other field.
January 17, 2012 at 1:50 am
Regarding university professors and researchers, I would reference something Bob Dole once said about being Vice-President: It's indoor work and no heavy lifting. Beyond that not very useful.