You do realize that may be offensive to hammers. But I will give you credit; you nailed this one.
That is truly frightening, especially that even the audience got it wrong. And that’s not mere ignorance; it’s something so basic that it can only be explained by stupidity.
I’ve traveled the world quite a bit and have met amazingly stupid people everywhere.
FWIW, which is not much since it’s a Wikipedia reference, here’s a map of “IQ by Country”.
Myself, I’m so smart my brain hurts.
I think of stupid as doing things like trying to iron your shirt while you’re wearing it.
Then there’s oblivious. When a typhoon is approaching your island and some yahoo takes his elementary school age kids to to the beach to watch the storm surge come in, that’s oblivious. (Which happens in Taiwan every year.)
And then there’s just addled. Climbing into a bear cage because you think the bear is cute and you want to pet it, and nearly getting half your face ripped off as a result, is addled. (Happened in China last year, I think.)
It’s probably not possible. We might be able to find areas of consensus about what people should know in order to participate in society, but in the end, people are going to prioritize their own knowledge and their own culture.
I saw at least one other poster mention it but this needs to be stressed in regard to the OP’s examples: knowledge of trivia is not the same thing as intelligence. (I’m sure intelligence is an advantage with trivia because retention of facts counts, but still, trivia is about remembering things and not necessarily reasoning them out or understanding them.) It’s a great way to convince people that you’re intelligent in conversation and it can make for good TV, but that’s a separate issue.
Please excuse any lapse of etiquette. I don’t want to either comment on grammar or to hijack a thread. However, looking at a 2-dimensional representation of orbits on windows2universe (link), I’d say that Mars (choice C in the clip) also revolves around the earth. The line from Mars to the sun, and passing through the earth, keeps advancing around the sun.
That said, it may not have been the smartest move to put my query right after the Monty Python quip.
[quote=Telephone Poll]
[ul][li]91% of Americans believe that the U.S. Constitution is important to them; and[/li][li]84% believe that to work as intended, our system of government depends on active and informed citizens, BUT;[/li][li]More than half of Americans don’t know the number of Senators;[/li][li]About 1 out of 3 don’t know the number of branches of the Federal Government;[/li][li]1 out of 6 believe that the Constitution establishes America as a Christian nation;[/li][li]20% believe that only lawyers can understand the Constitution;[/li][li]Almost one-quarter cannot name a single right guaranteed to us by the First Amendment;[/li][li]84% believe that the U.S. Constitution is the document that states that “all men are created equal”, thus confusing it with the Declaration of Independence.[/ul][/li][/quote]
Every single one of these scare me. But they don’t surprise me.
It is a lot harder to come up with the answer when there are lights and a crowd. I did college bowl when I was in college without cameras and the smartest people I knew were on my team, including my roommate who got 99.9 percentile on the LSAT and edited the Harvard Law Review. We sucked at stuff we knew. It was amazing to watch what I thought were intelligent and quick people turn into babbling fools. Our friends were absolutely delighted.
Hmm, is the average American stupid?
Well, is the average European stupid?
As someone pointed out earlier, tv producers put the extremities of people (stupidity) on there in order to create hype and interest. To judge Americans based on a show like A.Y.S.T.A.F.G., shows that you are in fact stupid.
Furthermore, the 5th graders have a distinct advantage and that is the fact that all their information is fresh in their minds. Whereas the adults in that show, haven’t heard most of what A.Y.S.T.A.F.G asks for nigh on 20 years. Hell, I’m at the genius level and I’ve been out of Highschool for 4 years and I can’t even do algebra anymore. Does that make me a dumbass? No, it just shows that I don’t/didn’t use that knowledge and so I didn’t retain it.
“Use it or lose it” is how the human brain works, if you don’t use a skill or piece of knowledge, you’re gonna lose it, undoubtedly. There are some exceptions to this, like riding a bike or driving a car, but it still stands, that if you don’t ride a bike for 20 years, you’re not going to be able to jump on a bike and ride with no hands instantly.
Furthermore, our government has been conditioning us Americans to be be “stupid” and to not think outside of the box. Our educational system is a perfect example of this conditioning.
I PERSONALLY find this entire thread quite offensive. Lets run some polls on how many Europeans know how their governments work and see what happens. But hey, remember, we’re not the ones that have to create a coalition of 15+ nations in order to survive economically. Nor are we the ones who got stomped twice by Germany in the world wars. Hey Frenchies, lemme give you a hint they’re coming from Belgium!
This is the first time I’ve heard the argument that the elementary school children on the game show have some kind of unfair advantage…
You’re “at the genius level” and you can’t do algebra? :dubious:
If you have lived four years since high school and haven’t come across any real-life situations that (you realized) called for the use of algebra… yes, I think that does make you a dumbass.
Well any dumbass can do simple mathematical equations and if converted, can be made into algebra expresions ( a + x = y -5 or, 10 a cookies plus 10 x cookies is 25 y cookies minus 5) that is easy and I do not even consider that as algebra simply because I do not convert those kind of problems into algebra form. Even though they are “technically” algebra equations, they are so mundane and easy to solve that it isn’t what algebra is.
What I’m talking about, is this shit:
Please by all means, show me real life experiences, that a 21 year old would run into and have to use that kind of Algebra. Please.
I also find it immensely amusing that you side tracked all of my arguments and went straight for me personally.
Which is a better indicator of which countries perform IQ testing than IQ around the world. I know for example that South Africa doesn’t test, so it appears to be at the bottom range on that picture.
You were crying out for it. Come on, now. Complaining about the “advantage” for the children in the game show? Calling yourself a “genius”? Talking about how “PERSONALLY” offended you were by the whole conversation? 
Get over yourself.
Granted, the stuff you quote is outside the realm of daily application for most people, but it’s also nothing like the subjects of the game show or any of the other discussion in the thread.
:dubious: Were you whooshed by the premise of this thread?
Oh, so this is just your backhanded way of showing off. "Ah, yes, my dear chap, I am quite the mathematical dunderhead! I haven’t totally mastered integral calculus! What’s that? Oh, please, any dunce already knows differential calculus . . . "
Why does the number of senators matter so much? I’m sure the average Brit couldn’t tell you how many MPs we have.
Anyway, here’s some British gameshow stupidity for you.
My old DM used to use formulas that were not QUITE that complicated to figure out various game results. Whether you consider playing D&D real life or not is another subject.
I don’t buy this. If there was no editing, you’d occasionally see people that answer all of the questions correctly or reasonably and there’s no good TV in that. I could buy that he doesn’t have to interview that many people to get 5 or 10 dumb ones, but there’s no way that’s a representative random sample.
I remember years ago reading a comparison test of international knowledge about very simple things. IIRC, the first question (or at least the one that sticks out most of my mind) is that they asked people from various countries to point to the pacific ocean on a map, and most of the european countries were sitting at 65-70%, which was worse than the US. I think most people are dumb everywhere but the “haha dumb american!” thing lets you feel better about your small penises relative to our economic and military power and international influence.
Does anyone know what survey I’m referring to, or anything like it?
I know Ken Jennings from Jeopardy!, but it took me a few minutes to figure out what “A.Y.S.T.A.F.G.” stands for. Does that make me stupid?