UltimateBioGeek

I fail to see why "top psychologists" would not be included as well, seeing as how IQ tests are part of their field. You can modify the content of an IQ test all you want so it encompasses multiple areas of intelligence but it still does not remove many of the problematic features of an IQ test. For example, if IQ tests are given to children with whatever cut-off threshold for "gifted", it creates a problem because children whose IQ is just slightly below that threshold won't receive differentiated education despite the fact they may benefit from it. This calls into question the effectiveness of relying solely on an IQ score versus a range. However, assuming you agree that a range would be better, there's yet another problem. Parents would want their children to have a high IQ score, so they may expose them to practice IQ tests, akin to the Chapters bookstore selling practice MCAT tests. I don't know how much their IQ score would improve but it seems very likely that it would improve nonetheless. True, a highly intelligent janitor could invent a robot to do the job for him as well as others janitors. The problem is these janitors are now replaced by machines, creating a surplus of highly intelligent janitors who have to find some other job but in the mean time, they have to be supported by other people, which is one of your complaints of "idiots". The idiots purchase these inventions, which means they are economically useful. They may rely on government support and still be viewed as parasites, however, they perform a crucial task. Highly intelligent people can do the same, however, if an idiot has 10 children that all become adults, then there are at least 12 economically useful individuals, versus 3-4 highly intelligent members of a family. The highly intelligent individuals may be very wealthy, however, if the idiots outnumber them, then the economy collapses upon their removal. You just referred to a set of highly intelligent people as moronic. In the first quote in this response, you advocated for broadening the range of intelligences tested and one such intelligence is interpersonal or social. Such individuals do not rely on logic, rather they rely on improved emotional and social functioning. I fail to see how communication can be enhanced if emotions are taken out of the picture. You're contradicting yourself because a savant whose abilities lie within math and logic may do amazing on an IQ test, which has been fundamental for your arguments. Their abilities can without a doubt contribute. For example, Jacob Barnett is 12 years old, IQ of 170 and studying astrophysics, attempting to alter Einstein's theory of relativity and propose his theory of how the universe formed. To me that seems pretty important as well as amazing, yet you're suggesting he's a burden and not worth it. I don't think you understand IQ testing because the average is 100 with standard deviations of 15... . Current IQ tests have no bearing on how someone will function in society. For example, Jacob Barnett has an IQ of 170 but also has Asperger's Syndrome so his social functioning may very well be disrupted. That aside, you're implying someone with an IQ of 95 has the same intellectual disability as someone with an IQ of 20. I fail to see how a mere 5 points is a sign of drastic impairment, can you explain?

Some dogs do respond to seeing their reflection in a mirror, although I'm curious whether they recognize themselves or if they think it is another, very similar looking dog because they cannot use their sense of smell to detect another dog. Here's a short video of a dog barking at its mirror reflection: As mentioned, dogs have an amazing sense of smell and I'm no canine expert but I would guess they rely more on their sense of smell than sight. Rocky may not recognize himself in the mirror not because he sees himself but doesn't smell any other dog, so it is reasonable to conclude it is him. Similarly, if dogs drink from water dishes where they would see their reflection, they must not panic and run away, otherwise they won't get a chance to drink, so they intentionally or unintentionally ignore it. An additional factor to consider though is humans value their physical appearance, that is, we want to know if our hair-do looks appropriate, whether there's lettuce between our front teeth, etc... . There's a social value we place on caring for our self-image. I'm not sure if dogs have the same caring but I don't see my dog mess with his fur before he sees a female dog, although that's neither here nor there. I'm sure that if we didn't care how we looked and didn't place a great emphasis of maintaining our physical appearance for others, then we would not be concerned with our reflections in a mirror. An ideal experiment would be to find a remote tribe of humans that don't place such emphasis and observe their reactions of seeing themselves in a mirror. Alternatively, they may be in the same boat as dogs because they probably remember that it's themselves they see so they pay no attention to the reflection. As anecdotal evidence, when we first got our dogs as puppies and brought them into the house for the first time, they were hyper like puppies are and one of them did respond to seeing his reflection in the large wall mirror in my mother's room but a few years later, he doesn't.

I did a short research paper on this topic for one of my undergrad courses, specifically on how alcohol affects the NMDA receptor. Long story short, GABAergic and NEergic neurons normally regulate glutamate using NMDA receptors. However, alcohol blocks NMDA receptors causing disinhibition of excitatory pathways, leading to excitotoxicity. When pregnant rats were administered alcohol, their infant rats displayed fetal alcohol syndrome and increased apoptosis. However, the cells damaged from excitotoxicity usually can repair themselves but if not, alternate neural connections are formed. One thing to keep in mind though is age because mature adult brains tend to exhibit greater sensitivity than immature non-adult brains, although this can be attributed to the massive redundancy in immature non-adult brains that have not yet undergone natural widespread apoptosis. I suppose a limitation to this is the concentration of NMDA receptors varies across brain regions and as we know, the brain does not have simply one type of neuron. Overall, there is an observable excitotoxic effect only in certain brain regions with a high concentration of NMDA receptors, such as the hippocampus, which helps to explain the cognitive impairments seen in Korsakoff's Syndrome. Concise pathway model

There's three major problems with this idea. First, you're implying desired intelligence is toward mathematics, spatial reasoning and logic, as they are the main areas tapped by IQ tests. This is ideal if you want to promote a society of mathematicians, physicists and logicians but it has no implication for other sciences. Second, suppose a society actually does what you suggest. In a society full of highly intelligent individuals, you'll still need people to perform non-intelligent menial tasks, such as drive trucks, collect household garbage, clean sewers, etc... . These intelligent future scientists will have to perform these non-intelligent duties to serve society but that's going against what you proposed because you envisioned a society full of scientists who can put their abilities to good work. In the end, would it not make sense to not sterilize non-intelligent individuals so they can perform these tasks allowing all the highly intelligent individuals to be free to put their abilities to work? However, that is inconsistent with the sterilization you're suggesting, which then begs the question, how do you decide which highly intelligent individual performs such menial tasks? Third, will "savants" be spared if their talent is useful for science but not tapped by IQ scores?

I routinely use Scopus, although I haven't used WOS all that much. My main issue with Scopus is limited access to certain journals that are not in a foreign language. In fact, I can access Brazilian journals, however, certain articles from the journal Nature or Science I cannot access directly and instead have to take a roundabout route of accessing the journals. Scopus often will display an article with the abstract but I may have to use alternate databases to access the entire article, which sometimes can be frustrating. A more minor issue is Scopus displays the chapter and book titles, yet I've found that it does not let me access it so again I have to find alternate routes. With that said, I prefer using Scopus over many other databases because it has a much simpler and easier to use interface, which is great seeing as how I'm not a computer wiz. It also allows some access to foreign journals written in English, which is great because there is a broader range of articles to access, so in the end, it's a very reliable easy to use database.

Greetings all, I'm Nick and currently have final exams (only 2, already did 1) but once I return for the second semester, I'm doing research in molecular and cellular physiology and pathology, as well as research in pharmacology and pharmokinetics, as well as psychology course on the side. As you can guess by the username, my focus is in biology.