# Jeopardy! and general intelligence. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 16, 2018, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeopardy-and-general-intelligence/810657 "2018-03-16T12:35:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2018, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeopardy-and-general-intelligence/810657/21 "2018-03-16T23:55:37Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > Lateral thinking is another important factor. By this I mean the ability to reason from a variety of what may seem unconnected information to arrive at the correct response. > > My favorite example is The Name Game: “Who is John Joseph Patrick Ryan?” > > (a) He must be famous. > > (b) He’s obviously Irish. > > (c) Maybe he’s an actor? > > (d) Maybe he’s known for playing an Irishman? > > (e) Who’s a famous Irish character? > > (f) Steve McGarrett was Irish. > > (g) John … John … maybe he goes by Jack? > > (h) He must be Jack Lord. > > This was a question on a radio quiz show I once co-hosted. All of the above went through my mind in less than two seconds and I was able to guess the right answer. Jenning notes in his book about his Jeopardy experience that he needed to decide to buzz in before he knew the answer - so he had to be very good at knowing which questions he could expect to know the answers to \*by the time he was called on. \* ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2018, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeopardy-and-general-intelligence/810657/22 "2018-03-17T03:53:09Z")
There’s a lot more strategy to the wagers in Daily Doubles/Final Jeopardy than most people think, too. Another factor that gave Watson an edge over us puny hoo-mans was that it was able to follow all of the wagering reasoning all the way to convergence, not just one or two layers deep, which resulted in it making wagers which looked very strange to us. > [@](#): > > Quoth **Bijou Drains** : > > when the computer Watson played 2 very good jeopardy champions Watson won partly based on speed. But the odd thing is when Watson was wrong it was often way off. Well, from our point of view, its wrong answers seemed way off, while our mistakes seem only natural. But from its point of view, our wrong answers are probably just as ludicrous. It’s important to remember that regardless of how well it thinks, it doesn’t think like us. ---
**Author:** ![actualliberalnotoneofthose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e79b87/32.png) [@actualliberalnotoneofthose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/actualliberalnotoneofthose)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2018, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeopardy-and-general-intelligence/810657/23 "2018-03-17T04:39:07Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > There is also luck. My Double Dare question was who did the “I’m Too Sexy” song. I went with my daughter to buy the dance mix single of that song for a play she was in, so I knew the answer was Right Said Fred, but I could tell that the audience was amazed that an old guy knew that answer. There are a lot of (intelligent) people here who take great pride in not knowing anything at all about popular culture within the past 50-60 years. So I imagine, despite being otherwise intelligent and able to reason well, many would run into problems. I haven’t watched the show much in the past decade or so but I’ve seen some clips of contestants struggling on very well known facts about things like sports, too. BTW, how old is an “old guy”? That song is over 25 years old, so I’d be more surprised if any youngsters knew it. ---
**Author:** ![psychobunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/54ee81/32.png) [@psychobunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychobunny)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2018, 9:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeopardy-and-general-intelligence/810657/24 "2018-03-17T09:29:21Z")
> [@](#): > > Have any Dopers ever been a Jeopardy contestant? [The list](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=287408&highlight=dopers+jeopardy) ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2018, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeopardy-and-general-intelligence/810657/25 "2018-03-17T17:46:18Z")
> [@actualliberalnotoneofthose](#): > > There are a lot of (intelligent) people here who take great pride in not knowing anything at all about popular culture within the past 50-60 years. So I imagine, despite being otherwise intelligent and able to reason well, many would run into problems. I haven’t watched the show much in the past decade or so but I’ve seen some clips of contestants struggling on very well known facts about things like sports, too. > > BTW, how old is an “old guy”? That song is over 25 years old, so I’d be more surprised if any youngsters knew it. This was 21 years ago, so it was new then. I was 45 at the time, and way older than the target audience. I did know the song, just not the artist - until I had to buy it, that is. They were just beginning to do heavier popular culture questions that year. The FJ question was around Miami Vice and the new show that the star of Miami Vice was in. Neither of us got it. It was only the second week of the season, and they hadn’t got the new style questions down yet. ---
**Author:** ![Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de053/32.png) [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackknifed_Juggernaut)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2018, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeopardy-and-general-intelligence/810657/26 "2018-03-17T18:31:38Z")
I’ve noticed that many are very bad at betting Final Jeopardy. They only seem to think one level, with very little consideration for ‘what if?’ scenarios. I usually freeze the frame that shows the final scores prior to Final Jeopardy, to figure out everyone’s optimal final bet. I’m not saying that my opinion is perfect, but many games have been lost by poor betting strategy. ---
**Author:** ![picker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/picker/32/13969_2.png) [@picker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picker)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2018, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeopardy-and-general-intelligence/810657/27 "2018-03-18T20:52:09Z")
How many of us here that are Jeopardy participants (or aspire to be) are also involved in Learned League? There’s a lot a crossover between Jeopardy folk and LL in general, so I imagine there are at least a few of us here as well. ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2018, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeopardy-and-general-intelligence/810657/28 "2018-03-19T05:54:05Z")
> [@psychobunny](#): > > [The list](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=287408&highlight=dopers+jeopardy) FYI, that link is to the start of the thread I created more than 13 years ago to list all of the Dopes on Jeopardy! [Here is a link](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19986833&postcount=331) to the most recent version of the list. I’ll add **Mr AtoZ** after his show airs. ---
**Author:** ![MrAtoz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MrAtoz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrAtoz)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2018, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeopardy-and-general-intelligence/810657/29 "2018-03-19T15:27:31Z")
> [@bibliophage](#): > > He had surgery in early January for a subdural hematoma and returned to work sometime after that. They film so many months in advance that there will be no disruption of the regular shows. However, there was a delay in taping the College Championship. It will now air in April instead of the originally scheduled February. Just to circle back to this, having just seen Alex Trebek in person in late February, he looks and sounds fine. If I hadn’t known about it, I never would have guessed he had recently had surgery. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeopardy-and-general-intelligence/810657.md?page=1)