Still it forces you to think at different levels of mental acumen and appreciate the differences people have in mental quickness. Though it’s also a challenge when people with constant “IQ” assume you don’t know a given topic if you’re in an off moment or day. Luckily the more experienced people seem to pick up on that. In the end communicating across different intellectual levels makes for a humbling challenge.
Lets not jerk each other off too hard, eh? Just like everybody in life, in any trade or profession, most programmers are just average people like everybody else. They just happened to luck out and be good at a talent that pays well.
Odds are incredibly high you aren't any smarter than somebody who paints houses for a living, fills your prescription, or plays football for the NFL. We are all just people trying to make a living -- don't ever forget that.
https://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/Occupations.aspx
Programmers may not be wiser, kinder, or better than anyone else, but on average they are a bit smarter.
To many engineers are way to convinced that the fact they know any kind of engineering makes them automatically smart at everything outside of their narrow domain of expertise (eg: programming).
Programming is correlated with higher IQ.
IQ is correlated with spatial reasoning and the kinds of multi-step puzzle solving that is often needed in programming.
I don't know why you find this so surprising or offensive. It's simply that the IQ tests the kinds of things that often make good programmers.
IQ isn't the only thing correlated with programming ability, and people with high IQ are often extremely dumb in many areas.
(I don't have a particularly high IQ)
A few days ago I went to a grocery store to buy sparkling water. I got 16 small bottles and arranged them as a 4 by 4 grid before cashier, so she wouldn't need to spend time counting them and delaying the line. It took her over 10 seconds to count the bottles: apparently, she didn't recognize the pattern and counted them by groups of 3-4 bottles covering the counted ones with her hands to simplify the process. Programmers don't even need to multiply 4x4, they just see the answer. This scene hints that the cashier's analytical skills are next to none and this alone explains why she is a cashier.
Another example. There is a curious simple test to check your working memory capacity. Imagine a 3x3 grid and draw there words oil/gas/dry. Now read all the words that you see on the grid. Not all people have visual imaginations: some operate with graph-like structures and represent the grid as a set of logical statements: row1 is gas, row2 is oil, row3 is dry. This is fine as long as they do it efficiently. Most people in this task will resort to the snail analytical approach and will be thinking like: cell 2-1 is A, so cell next to the right is 2-2 belongs to word 2 which is oil and thus the second letter is I, so our current sequence is AI. Obviously it will take them ages to enumerate all the words this way. High level programmers can keep the entire grid in memory, either as an image or in symbolic form, and thus can enumerate words quickly. Why does this example matter? Programmers have to keep many objects and connections between them in memory.
If everybody had these raw cognitive skills, programmers would get the standard minimum wage. Same for accountants, lawyers, bankers.
Her numerical analytics skills perhaps, but she might be great at something else. Maybe she is a poet, or a musician, or great at handling 5 kids, or something else that you are terrible at.
Just something that doesn't pay well, so she has to be a cashier.
This is kind of a form of Moravec's paradox: we assume what is easy for us must be easy for others, and what is hard for us must be also hard for others too.
I can't find the reference right now, but this was a famous problem in early testing of monkey's intelligence. They showed the monkey's pictures of humans and they couldn't distinguish them, so it was assumed they were fairly dumb. But then eventually someone figured out they were much better at distinguishing pictures of other monkeys.
Of course it's still possible that the cashier is not good at anything, but in my experience that's very rare. Most people have some skills.
Intelligence is a very narrow and specific skill of discerning the real. It allows us to predict things. Coincidentally, it allows to make money and thus is well paid. It's ok if others disagree with me.
My two examples above are meant to hint that intelligence consists of two distinct skills: ability to keep a still detailed image in your mind (the 3x3 grid example) and ability to analyze this still image (the counting bottles example). The latter builds on the former because if the image is blurry in your mind, there is nothing to analyze (you can't see words in the 3x3 grid if it keeps floating away). We can go further and divide the two skills into say 10 distinct levels of mastery, define their characteristics, but the point remains the same: it's a steep ladder that has to be climbed if one wants to get this skill.
Poetry, music and handling kids are different skills and are of no help in climbing the ladder of intelligence. No, I agree that compassion and other skills can be as useful as intelligence, but they are different skills and have to be mastered separately.
Just my 2c.
I can't do this for shit and I'm a genius.
I guess I'm living proof that not all programmers are smart.
On the other hand even when I think of a three letter word I don't see the letters, I just kind of know what they are.
Your second paragraph is wholly unrelated since the OC isnt saying that every programmer is smarter than everyone else. And your first is trite humanist garbage.
“Just happened to luck out and be good at a talent that pays well”
And, coincidentally, that “talent” (abstract thinking, clarity and extended focus of thought) “””happen””” to be highly correlated with higher IQ.
Still rats in the race, just rats with a slightly higher score on a particular dimension.
John von Neumann. Dude is a genius. Einstein. Also. you? me? sorry. Doesn't matter if you can code. People can paint cars way better than you. They can make a perfect french fry. They can inspect a clogged sewer line way better than you. They know just the best ways to start an IV. Who is more intelligent?
Just because you can do $PROFESSION doesn't make you above average in intelligence. Period. Full stop. To think any other way (and for somebody to post a link to some BS article supporting their assertion) is completely absolutely 100% arrogant BS. Get off your high horse people.
> Evidence has been mounting for decades that for most non-sport domains and for most people,“natural talent” is not an absolute requirement for reaching high levels of expertise.
> Other than the sports that depend on specific physical prerequisites, few domains have hard genetic limits for expertise.There is a way in which natural ability might contribute to high expertise in non-athletic domains, but it’s not domain-specific “natural” gifts... it’s a natural ability for focused practice.
…
> Even at the very top levels in most non-sport domains, there’s little evidence that “natural talent” is a hard requirement. But where it might exist, it’s most likely to show up at the beginning of the curve and the very very very top.
(Ask yourself how well the writer could explain monty hall, or regression to the mean, or what's wrong with p-values, to get an idea whether they can possibly have a handle on the material.)
This is probably true for programming too.
But just because something isn't necessary it doesn't imply there is a correlation.
It's the causation that's interesting, though: do gymnasts become coordinated through practice, or do the most coordinated people go into gymnastics? I think the OP is arguing the former, and I think I agree. In that case, programming is not unique re: intelligence.
That was never claimed but a different claim:
FACT: The groups of people that work in certain professions definitely have _average_ differences in IQ if we can accept that IQ exists.
That is NOT to say that any individual mathematician can say that he or she is more intelligent that the rest of the population.
Understand the difference.
Well, this is true: intelligence does _not_ determine someone's worth.
Ultimately how intelligent you are is irrelevant providing that you _can_ provide value.
>Still rats in the race, just rats with a slightly higher score on a particular dimension.
Yes, but surrounded by other rats with a slightly higher score on a particular dimension.
But anyone can still learn how to do it: abstract reasoning us not reserved for the "intelligent", it's open to anyone who is of average intelligence at least.
Interestingly this implies that the average programmer does have higher than average intelligence (as measured by IQ scores).
The reasoning goes like this:
- At least average intelligence is required for abstract reasoning (and programming) - This means the the distribution of intelligence for programmers has a minimum around that of the average value - This means that the mean and median must both be above average.
Could you explain it in simpler terms?
And I'm not even "old" yet...I guess it will pay off in the long run.
It feels terrible. When I first experienced it, I was terrified that it would be permanent because that would keep me from doing my job and keeping up with my interests and hobbies. Now I only get this brain-fog every so often. I think it helps me communicate with people better and has helped me learn patience. I finally understand how some people might be genuinely, earnestly trying to understand what I'm trying to say or teach, but can't understand it because I'm communicating it at the right level of analysis.
If you're intellectually gifted (many programmers are), you shouldn't take that for granted. You got lucky, and if you weren't lucky enough to be intelligent, it might have been impossible to do the same kind of work you do today. Please appreciate that.