# What things in your experience are often, but poorly, correlated with intelligence? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 22, 2022, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-things-in-your-experience-are-often-but-poorly-correlated-with-intelligence/964892 "2022-05-22T19:48:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2022, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-things-in-your-experience-are-often-but-poorly-correlated-with-intelligence/964892/61 "2022-05-23T12:58:50Z")
> [@Pardel-Lux](#): > > Assuming a normal distribution… Who’s normal? As in the Yorkshire saying “They’re all queer\* save thee and me, and even tha’rt a bit peculiar” \*in the non-sexual sense (just for clarification). ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2022, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-things-in-your-experience-are-often-but-poorly-correlated-with-intelligence/964892/62 "2022-05-23T13:01:21Z")
> [@Dr\_Paprika](#): > > Taco Bell with their spiciest salsas. Taco Bell sauces are poorly correlated with spiciness. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2022, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-things-in-your-experience-are-often-but-poorly-correlated-with-intelligence/964892/63 "2022-05-23T13:10:56Z")
> [@PatrickLondon](#): > > Who’s normal? The [distribution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_distribution), it is assumed. Well, I do assume that for the purposes of my argument. ---
**Author:** ![Bonum\_Legatum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bonum_legatum/32/6183_2.png) [@Bonum\_Legatum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bonum_Legatum)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2022, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-things-in-your-experience-are-often-but-poorly-correlated-with-intelligence/964892/64 "2022-05-23T13:19:44Z")
Lab coats. Viz: My company’s “scientific research” building where the highly-educated intelligent people are likely to be in one of the labs wearing their lab coats. (Isaac Asimov(?) wrote of another stratification - lab management wears _CLEAN_ lab coats.) Also - pausing to think before answering a question. Examining the question and thinking of the possibilities. Reminds me of the old saying: “Lighting a pipe gives a wise man time to think, and a fool something to stick in his mouth.” ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2022, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-things-in-your-experience-are-often-but-poorly-correlated-with-intelligence/964892/65 "2022-05-23T13:25:23Z")
“Old Dog Water” ---
**Author:** ![GreysonCarlisle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a87d85/32.png) [@GreysonCarlisle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreysonCarlisle)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2022, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-things-in-your-experience-are-often-but-poorly-correlated-with-intelligence/964892/66 "2022-05-23T14:14:27Z")
Ah, thanks! Not sure how I’d feel about drinking that, either. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2022, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-things-in-your-experience-are-often-but-poorly-correlated-with-intelligence/964892/67 "2022-05-23T14:26:10Z")
> [@GreysonCarlisle](#): > > I don’t get it. It’s French for “Water of the Old Dog.” Sounds fancy, unless you understand French. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2022, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-things-in-your-experience-are-often-but-poorly-correlated-with-intelligence/964892/68 "2022-05-23T15:07:14Z")
Sorry. I considered the wine name “cereal box” French assuming Canucks would get it - but lots of people probably need a translation. It was not the most pleasant tipple. George Lopez has a comedy bit about how Latinos are immune to pepper spray (Delicious!) and about gringos and spicy food (That salsa! I think I got a piece of onion!). There is nothing spicy at Taco Bell. I estimate half the students in my school year took calculus at that time. Obviously this number does not apply very widely. But a very considerable number of students study it, in first year university/college, or earlier. If the number was 25%, it still does not qualify. TV shows like to show chalkboards covered with symbols and formulae, generally nonsense or at a low undergraduate level (although occasionally not) to show intelligence. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2022, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-things-in-your-experience-are-often-but-poorly-correlated-with-intelligence/964892/69 "2022-05-23T15:21:37Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > People seem to think medical practitioners are way, way more intelligent and/or scientifically knowledgeable than they usually are. So do doctors themselves. If I had a dollar for every time some doctor told me how to do my (IT) job, or how the IT department should be doing IT, I’d have enough money for a pretty expensive steak dinner at a high-end steakhouse. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2022, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-things-in-your-experience-are-often-but-poorly-correlated-with-intelligence/964892/70 "2022-05-23T15:21:40Z")
If I understand right, the OP is asking about things that **aren’t** a good indicator of intelligence - I would say that “challenging authority” can be one of them. Sure, some out-of-the-box thinkers who go against the grain are very smart. But there are also plenty of “dumb rebels” as well, who imagine they’re being innovative edgy anti-authority pioneers and all that, who really aren’t, and are quite dull. ---
**Author:** ![ekedolphin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ekedolphin/32/10003_2.png) [@ekedolphin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ekedolphin)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2022, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-things-in-your-experience-are-often-but-poorly-correlated-with-intelligence/964892/71 "2022-05-23T15:35:07Z")
Ugh, I _know_. One girl at the McDonald’s, trying to get me to help her with her computer, said as her opening statement to me, “Hey… _you_ look like a nerd.” And then there was the time when the car dealership was (ultimately successfully) pushing for us to get an advanced paint job that would better protect the car. The person talking to me said, “I bet you know all about nanotechnology.” I blinked. “Well, I _have_ seen The Avengers movies,” I replied. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2022, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-things-in-your-experience-are-often-but-poorly-correlated-with-intelligence/964892/72 "2022-05-23T16:05:20Z")
> [@dorvann](#): > > > [@Riemann](#): > > > > I hope it’s not off-topic to bring up this pet peeve. It’s a very common trope in TV & movies to signal that someone is extremely smart by having them state a numerical result or estimate to a ridiculously inapproprate level of precision. > > Another common TV/movie trope is to have someone smart do complex mathematical calculations in their head in seconds. I don’t know anyone in real life who can do this, No, most smart people I know have to do their complex mathematical calculations on vast floor to ceiling chalk boards in conference halls. ---
**Author:** ![SunUp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea5d25/32.png) [@SunUp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SunUp)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2022, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-things-in-your-experience-are-often-but-poorly-correlated-with-intelligence/964892/73 "2022-05-23T16:09:58Z")
> [@bump](#): > > If I had a dollar for every time some doctor told me how to do my (IT) job, or how the IT department should be doing IT, I’d have enough money for a pretty expensive steak dinner at a high-end steakhouse. In defense of other areas of knowledge, I would note that many doctors - or other knowledge workers - have seen IT come into their area of expertise and take expedient measures to automate some aspect of their jobs that poorly reflect the nuance that they apply to their daily work. IT workers of all stripes need to do a better job at understanding their problem domain before automating it. But it is true that a lot of people not in IT don’t understand the nuances of how computers work (and how they don’t) and will often intrude on our solution domain. Perhaps it’s part of the old adage that “your job is easy, my job is difficult”? ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2022, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-things-in-your-experience-are-often-but-poorly-correlated-with-intelligence/964892/74 "2022-05-23T16:44:35Z")
I’d tweak this observation to my experience: a well-intentioned and enterprising IT would get with an HQ admin to create an algorithm that everyone down in the trenches have to conform to. ---
**Author:** ![Chingon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chingon/32/17645_2.png) [@Chingon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chingon)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2022, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-things-in-your-experience-are-often-but-poorly-correlated-with-intelligence/964892/75 "2022-05-23T16:57:30Z")
- liking sci-fi or fantasy - rejecting popular culture - suppressing emotion - being edgy/provocative ---
**Author:** ![dorvann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df705f/32.png) [@dorvann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dorvann)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2022, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-things-in-your-experience-are-often-but-poorly-correlated-with-intelligence/964892/76 "2022-05-23T17:13:13Z")
> [@bump](#): > > I’d have enough money for a pretty expensive steak dinner at a high-end steakhouse. Hopefully you don’t put ketchup on your steak!! Which actually DOES relate back to this thread somewhat because ketchup is perceived as a condiment that only the lower class uses and the “smart elite” has more refined palate. ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2022, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-things-in-your-experience-are-often-but-poorly-correlated-with-intelligence/964892/77 "2022-05-23T17:20:17Z")
Wearing a monocle, bowtie, cane, and top hat. Having Aspergers Syndrome. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2022, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-things-in-your-experience-are-often-but-poorly-correlated-with-intelligence/964892/78 "2022-05-23T17:23:51Z")
The rich can afford handmade organic mushroom ketchup, the poor can’t. Similarly, bottles of rare wine to satisfy a “refined palate” cost; no-name Shiraz at the mega liquor mart not so much, even though they are both ketchup, and both wine. If “intelligence” is correlated with wealth, then maybe there could be a correlation. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2022, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-things-in-your-experience-are-often-but-poorly-correlated-with-intelligence/964892/79 "2022-05-23T17:58:58Z")
At my last employer, the problem was largely that doctors were put up on a pedestal and treated like they were special. So much so, that they had their own clinical hierarchy for supervision that was totally separate and reported in to the President through their own CEO-level executive Dr. So they generally didn’t feel like the rules applied to them, and a lot of them felt like since they were smart people and doctors, that they knew about IT. But God forbid you tell them that they ought to do something; they tend to get awfully cranky about “I’m a doctor and you’re not.” I always wondered how much of the attitude was because they were basically the bottom-feeders of the physician world… working shifts at some occ health clinic for a big corporate overlord. ---
**Author:** ![bodangus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c37758/32.png) [@bodangus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bodangus)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2022, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-things-in-your-experience-are-often-but-poorly-correlated-with-intelligence/964892/80 "2022-05-23T18:46:24Z")
Not all doctors are good at what they do. I’ve had a few and I can write that with confidence. On associating wealth or success with intelligence: Besides the obvious that they might have been born into it all, I think there’s the common conflation of cleverness and smart. Take the case of a salesman in any category where it might be used. Being self-learned or taught in the arts of taking advantage of people and being willing to employ those tactics to enrich oneself. To me this is being clever but it shows no real intelligence. At least none that I respect. Maybe all that is because I hate salesman so much. No, I don’t believe greed is good. Hey, but don’t we all manipulate others with lies to serve ourselves in one way or another? That seems a fundamental human descriptor to me. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-things-in-your-experience-are-often-but-poorly-correlated-with-intelligence/964892.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-things-in-your-experience-are-often-but-poorly-correlated-with-intelligence/964892.md?page=5)