A healthier body ought to do a better job of supporting brain activity, and might provide fewer distractions like pain and illness that would otherwise occupy more brain activity.
Even if health care is equally accessible to all, smarter people are probably more likely to actually use it properly. (The correlation is weakened by the fact that “smart” and “wise” are not synonyms, but it’s still likely to be enough to have some effect.)
(bolding mine)
I love the Emo wording of that. Like being alive is some potential tragic consequence that could have been averted if only they ate a few more paint chips.
I don’t buy any of it.
I know plenty of incredibly smart people who smoke and drink (one friend in particular has the IQ of Genius and drinks and smokes). I know plenty of incredibly smart people who are neither tall nor good looking (they would fall into the major geek category), though some are tall.
All tests I’ve ever taken for IQ place me *just * under Genius and I’m overweight, OK looking (in my opinion), and am average height for females. I am also Hypothyroid, and suffer from Chemical Sensitivities (which, depending on the irritant and length of exposure can turn me into a drooling moron).
When affected by my triggers, my ability to do things can be greatly decreased. Example: I had gone to two different employment agencies and was tested on the normal office skills. My keystrokes per hour for data entry, when unaffected by a trigger, was over 10K strokes per hour. When I went to a place where I was being affected, it dropped to 7K. This is a big drop! Oddly, my worst performance was still higher than what was considered to be acceptable, which was around 6K.
So, I think these research studies have to be taken with a grain of salt.
Ah yes, FalconFinder, your anecdotes of individual smart people doing stupid things and self-report of “just under genius” should completely offset multiple studies that looked at groups ranging from the thousands to over a million each.
I guess if I had a near genius IQ I’d have seen that. (Poor me, I have to get by with not even knowing what my IQ is and making do the best I can with whatever meager brainpower I got.)
Just to make sure that this is clear even to the geniuses among us, no one is saying that IQ is health decision or health status destiny. You can have a high IQ and commit suicide. You can have a high IQ and hang around with murderous thugs or start a fight club. You can have a high IQ and smoke or sit around all day eating pork rinds. You can have a high IQ and never wear your seatbelts. But statistically a lower IQ puts you at greater risk of those behaviors that put you at greater risk.
How many people in your circles are of low intelligence? Quite possibly none. And by “low intelligence,” I’m not talking about someone who graduated at the bottom of his class at State U. I’m talking about people who weren’t able to complete high school. People who can hardly read.
I don’t think it’s outrageous to be skeptical of a study which contradicts one’s personal experiences. However, I would question whether your personal experiences give you an adequate basis to assess the study.
Personally, I run a small business which puts me into contact with people from all walks of life and Dseid’s claims are essentially consistent with my experience, which is that stupid people are more likely to do stupid things vis-a-vis their health and safety. It’s not like night and day, but there is a noticable relationship.
It’s probably more accurate to say that better educated people are more likely to use health care properly, and that high IQ is associated with high educational achievement. But that gets into the relationship between IQ, education and class, which is thorny to say the least.
It’s not outrageous, but if your entire objection to a study is that the conclusions don’t match up with what you remember from your own life, you should be cautious of people who take you seriously.
I’m not sure I understand your point. Isn’t that just a function of being cautious about one’s own views?
Oh - and smarter people will be better able to do a cost / benefit analysis to get the motivation to quit, and will be in a better position to find support networks to help them quit.