Is Engineering Only for A Select Few?

College Majors Engineering Majors
21

<p>In order to be a great scientist researching cutting edge ideas/technology, you must be brilliant. In order to be a pro athlete, you must be gifted.</p>

<p>In order to be a doctor or an engineer you just have to be willing to work hard. Sorry if that’s not what you wanted to hear.</p>

22

<p>@AMT:</p>

<p>I’ve taken 3 I.Q. tests, all 3 before I finished high school, at the ages of 10, 13, and 17. An aptitude test was also a choice during these sessions. My first measurement was an I.Q. of 110 and the aptitude test suggested I could be a doctor; the 2nd measurement placed me at 128 and the aptitude test recommended careers in political science or law; the final test placed me at 151 and the aptitude test spat out a career in history. Of course, I know all that was garbage because I knew what responses to pick to get the results I wanted for self-reassurance purposes (at 10 I wanted to be a doctor like my father, at 13 I wanted to be a politician, at 17 I was fascinated with Alexander the Great).</p>

<p>Prior to joining the military, I took their aptitude test and my highest scores were in the electrical area and administration areas while my lowest score was in the mechanical area; I promptly decided to pick a mechanical-oriented military job and performed quite well. Of course, while I spent time in a technical job my friends became doctors, engineers, lawyers, pilots, and my favorite one professional video game player (I want that job BADLY).</p>

<p>My personal conclusion? I.Q. testing is stupid, aptitude tests are idiotic, and genes are overrated. Follow your heart, let your head steer it, problem solved.</p>

23

<p>schaden:</p>

<p>That’s easy to say, and it agrees with the IQ table in the link I provided to an extent, but I would argue that some innate ability is required even to be an engineer. Perhaps less than to be a scientist (the table is also constructed in light of this view) but still enough to exclude many people from its practice.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/IQtable.aspx[/url]”>http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/IQtable.aspx&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>This chart seems to indicate that roughly 10% of people should have an IQ of at least 120. The chart I previously linked to listed this as the cutoff for engineers.</p>

<p>And if hadsed is right, this is still within a range where tests are accurate.</p>

<p>Enginox:</p>

<p>"My personal conclusion? I.Q. testing is stupid, aptitude tests are idiotic, and genes are overrated. Follow your heart, let your head steer it, problem solved. "

  • Personal conclusions are fine things to have, but that doesn’t make you right. The trouble with anecdotes is that you can’t prove them, and even if you could, you can’t argue that they apply to anybody else but you.</p>
24

<p>

</p>

<p>I wouldn’t.</p>

<p>Even if what you said about needing to have a certain IQ to be a good engineer is true, there are many engineering colleges that accept students with SAT scores around the 500 range. (Assuming SAT scores predict IQ, and then assuming IQ scores predict some vague form of intelligence)</p>

25

<p>@AMT:</p>

<p>Irrelevant. You are searching for evidence that fits your preconceived notions. What an I.Q. tells you is the level of education of an individual. I.Q. would be more relevant if an illiterate person and an educated one scored similarly or if an educated person scored poorly. In other words, I.Q. tests are self-fulfilling; test an educated, bright person and you should obviously get back an appropriate I.Q. score.</p>

<p>I imagine you are a Math grad student, no?</p>

26

<p>Schaden, first off I will concede that the idea of “good engineer” is more than a little poorly-defined and that, you’re right, you can receive training as an engineering, be called an engineer, and get a job as an engineer with practically any level of ability. There are exceptions to every rule. When I say things like some innate ability is required, what I really mean is that some statistically significant majority of people will require some statistical level of ability to have some probability of success. I’m assuming similar thought processes were employed by the designer of the table I linked to and by the people who thought up the IQ measure in the first place. This is all very tricky and I am definitely making some generalizations. Still, I think that as a whole “engineers” have some degree of “innate ability” in excess of what the “general population” has. I hope that this clarifies my position. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to extrapolate from that the idea that to belong to this group the odds of you being gifted are higher than if you don’t. I am not trying to say to anyone “if you have an IQ of 115 you cannot ever be an engineer.” I am simply trying to communicate that there are differences in intelligence and some people think that to be an engineer (or a doctor, or a scientist, or a professor) you need a certain degree of intelligence, in particular as measured by the IQ measure.</p>

<p>Enginox, it’s really easy make all the absolute claims you’re making, but it’s impossible to back any of that up.</p>

<p>(1) You don’t know my motives or my intentions, so your assertion that I’m trying to find evidence to fit my preconceived notions has no basis in actual fact.</p>

<p>(2) You say that IQ tells you the level of education of a person. This cannot be known. What if the education of a person tells you their IQ? How would you tell the difference?</p>

<p>(3) You say that IQ tests would be better if poor, uneducated people tested as well as or better than rich, educated people. And you accuse me of trying to find an external rationalization for my preconceived notions? Can you imagine what this looks like to me?</p>

<p>(4) “In other words, I.Q. tests are self-fulfilling; test an educated, bright person and you should obviously get back an appropriate I.Q. score.” And? If you give a team of olympic athletes physicals, maybe most of them will pass. Does that mean the physicals are worthless?</p>

<p>I am actually a CS graduate student (well, soon-to-be graduate student). Why?</p>

27

<p>

</p>

<p>I do- it’s akin to saying if you exercise 5 times every week your chances of being a professional athlete are higher.</p>

<p>Engineering colleges accepting a wide range of SAT scores definitely proves engineering is not for only a select few.</p>

28

<p>I think the annoying thing with AMT is talking like he’s an absolute truth on IQ and engineers, above the grammatically incorrect Hawking.</p>

<p>I’ve never taken an IQ test (I’m afraid to click on those advertisements because of ad-virusis really), I scored well on my SAT. I don’t think either are good views of intelligence because it mostly depends on how well prepared you are, not saying entirely, probably about 60% on how prepared you are to take the test. I think I probably gained a good 100 points just by taking that practice test and having a vocab review.</p>

<p>I’d say it is mostly hard work and passion. I mean, intelligence could make it easier but everyone needs to work hard. You can gain knowledge easier than a strong work ethic (in my opinion, no study proving it).</p>

29

<p>@AMT:</p>

<p>1) It seems you want to believe some people have “magical” talents in some areas that others don’t. If there’s is a “magical” talent, it can be expressed in physical, chemical, and biological terms (i.e. is there a “math gene”? If yes, isolate it, replicate it, splice it into every human. Problem solved).</p>

<p>2) If education tells I.Q. then I.Q. tells education. 4 = 2 + 2 is the same as 2 + 2 = 4. An I.Q. test tries to measure intelligence; intelligence is mostly a function of education and/or experiences acquired. Design a test to measure the level of French an individual knows and French people will outperform everyone.</p>

<p>3) If I.Q. tests were “democratic” then the I.Q. distribution would be fairly “flat”, in other words, no matter the socioeconomic background, you should see 130 I.Q. in rich and poor people alike. This is not the case; generally, people with better socioeconomic backgrounds score higher than people in disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds.</p>

<p>4) This is a weak comparison. A physical exam tries to determine how healthy an individual is. Obviously, an athlete has a higher chance of passing one than a non-athlete but that’s because the athlete has been doing one specific thing: training. Similar to how a person with a high I.Q. has probably been doing a very specific thing: educating him/herself. The problem comes when you take that physical exam and use the score of the athletes as some form of gold standard. At that point, it becomes self-fulfilling because “success” is only “granted” to those who trained while those that didn’t/couldn’t train cannot “achieve success.”</p>

<p>In any case, I just wanted to know your major, that’s all. I guess my 151 I.Q. just self-fulfilled with you, no? ;)</p>

<p>If only it was relevant…</p>

30

<p>Enginox, intelligence is much more abstract than the simple formulaic step by step sort of way you’re trying to push it into. I know this for a fact because my uncle was a phd fellow working on computer simulations and algorithms for brain modeling (he was a CS major). The brain is much more complex than we can even imagine right now. The things you’re talking about, seeing how 2+2 = 4 is the same as it is backwards, of course there hardly anyone who doesn’t know that to be true. However, for some people, you take it a couple levels higher and you get bewildered looks. Perhaps the way people live and their environments affect the way they ‘think’. The brain has amazing plasticity, and no one can pretend to know what that even MEANS.</p>

<p>Basically, the only thing we can talk about is what is based on experimental data. That is what science is, Enginox. If you want to theorize and postulate feel free, but in the end we have smart people and we have dumb people and unless you or someone else can prove otherwise, that’s the only logical thing we can assume. Now I grossly oversimplified that, because I’m pretty sure most people aren’t really dumb, but I do believe some people are limited in their potential. Some people are just naturally gifted, and who knows why? All we do know is that they are, and thus they have a higher success rate because it doesn’t take so much time and dedication for them to be amazing at what they do.</p>

<p>By separating time needed and dedication from innate intellect, you’re really arguing something senseless because you cannot prove it one way or the other. So we take both aspects and bring them together to predict something we call success. That is what we say to people who ask, can I be an engineer if I suck at science and math? Well sure… but expect to work VERY hard, harder than most other engineers. Perhaps this is the reason why we say it is difficult, because it is difficult to most people. Difficulty is clearly relative, but if it’s relative then it can be relative for you and for me.</p>

<p>We have to find common ground in order to base our arguments on. By separating those two aspects I’ve described, you’re not accomplishing anything.</p>

31

<p>“I do- it’s akin to saying if you exercise 5 times every week your chances of being a professional athlete are higher.”

  • Actually, it’s more like saying if you are professional athlete the odds that you exercise 5 times a week are higher. And that doesn’t seem unreasonable to me.</p>

<p>"Engineering colleges accepting a wide range of SAT scores definitely proves engineering is not for only a select few.

  • This gets into the discussion of the difference between “engineer”, “good engineer”, and “yeah, he’s an engineer, but”. I already conceded that this should be clarified before any conclusions can be drawn, but I don’t think this undermines the whole idea of IQ, it just puts it into statistical rather than absolute terms. I could be a professional athlete, but it doesn’t mean I’d be any good at it!</p>

<p>“I think the annoying thing with AMT is talking like he’s an absolute truth on IQ and engineers, above the grammatically incorrect Hawking.”

  • I don’t know where to begin with this one. I have over and over again said that I do not profess to know whether IQ is an accurate measure of intelligence or not, just that lots of people seem to think it is an accurate measure of something and there seem to be certain correlations between it and the kinds of careers people pursue. Also, if you had been paying attention, I was actually ribbing Enginox’s bad grammar in misquoting Hawking - Hawking’s grammar was, as I expected was the case all along, flawless (the Brit). I certainly don’t mean to give anybody the impression that I am an authority on IQ and what it means. Here’s what I have been trying to say all along, so I’ll just say it.</p>

<p>If you don’t want to believe that IQ is real, fine, but your opinions aren’t going to cut it as far as making a sound argument is concerned.</p>

<p>The current position of the APA, as far as I am aware, is that IQ has predictive validity in correlations involving educational performance and job performance and attainment. I’ll take the APA’s word for it.</p>

32

<p>Interesting…I just remembered reading-</p>

<p>Finding a way to achieve desire is approaching infinite intelligence.</p>

<p>Therefore, since engineers mainly study and do things they don’t want to do, one could argue engineers’ intelligence is actually lower than relatively easier majors.</p>

33

<p>I study physics and mathematics in my free time. I don’t know how many people do that but it can’t be that everyone who studies in engineering and actually does well doesn’t NOT want to learn the stuff they learn.</p>

34

<p>Hadsed:</p>

<p>You have explained my message in a different manner. You mentioned intelligence is abstract and it cannot be reliably quantified yet that is exactly what an I.Q. test tries to do: it attempts to assign a number to your intelligence.</p>

<p>The same applies to “success.” What is success? To some, it may mean a Fields medal while to others it could simply be an A in Calculus. Whatever success is, the people that achieve it generally share several common factors: they are well trained in their area of expertise, they devote ample time to their area of expertise, and they enjoy their area of expertise.</p>

<p>For many of them it took years of work to accomplish what we now admire them for; Newton worked for over 2 years developing his infinitesimal calculus, Einstein worked for a decade on general relativity (or SR), Kepler worked for over a decade to develop his laws of planetary motion, Galileo observed the skies for many years, etc. In most cases, their success was due to the work others before them provided to science; many scientists also began their formal education at a very early age.</p>

<p>How do we measure “innate talent”? How do we determine who has it and who doesn’t? Is the brain of engineers and scientists radically different from those of other people? Or are we now alluding to crackpottery and magic?</p>

<p>These are the types of claims that have been made by those that have power or ability to keep those that allegedly don’t have it out of the “special people” circle. Imagine if we still believed certain ethnic groups are actually less intelligent than others all because of a flawed notion of intelligence and success.</p>

<p>If that’s the case, I declare myself the smartest person on this thread because I know the name of the country between Spain and France.</p>

<p>@AMT:</p>

<p>Prior to 1902, many physicists believed atoms did not exist physically, only mathematically. Of course, that changed once Einstein proved otherwise. Simply because many people believe it does not make it true and correlation does not imply causation. By your logic, God, elves, Santa Claus, and extraterrestrials exist; lots of people believe in them and there’s shaky evidence to support the claims.</p>

35

<p>So if I don’t care for the IQ system I have no sound argument on intelligence debates?
(according to APA of course, I’m terrible with acronyms, is the P for psychologists or philosophers or pool-players?)</p>

<p>I kinda don’t care for debates on psychology or philosophy though, only because I feel like people usually debate these things just to sound smart. I do like a game of pool though.</p>

<p>Anyway, I guess I just figure it makes sense that if you enjoy and understand engineering projects and concepts, then as long as you stay focused and work hard, a bit of trouble in physics and calculus can be overcome. I don’t think you need to be a really strong physics and math person, but a good amount of passion and interest will help out more.</p>

36

<p>“It seems you want to believe some people have “magical” talents in some areas that others don’t. If there’s is a “magical” talent, it can be expressed in physical, chemical, and biological terms (i.e. is there a “math gene”? If yes, isolate it, replicate it, splice it into every human. Problem solved)”

  • Well sure, if people have differences in IQ ability, it has some physical real existence. I think that quantity and position of grey matter in the brain have been correlated, and I think that the current thinking admits some degree of heritability as well (that would be DNA, yes). I’m sure that with time we will come to a point where we can engineer people to be as smart as we want, a la Gattaca, but why would you want to do that?</p>

<p>“If education tells I.Q. then I.Q. tells education. 4 = 2 + 2 is the same as 2 + 2 = 4. An I.Q. test tries to measure intelligence; intelligence is mostly a function of education and/or experiences acquired. Design a test to measure the level of French an individual knows and French people will outperform everyone.”

  • This is true for the one example you provided, but not for others. For instance, if you shoot a dog the dog dies, but if a dog dies you didn’t necessarily shoot it. I hope you’ll agree that this serves as a counterexample to your argument that all things are invertible.</p>

<p>“If I.Q. tests were “democratic” then the I.Q. distribution would be fairly “flat”, in other words, no matter the socioeconomic background, you should see 130 I.Q. in rich and poor people alike. This is not the case; generally, people with better socioeconomic backgrounds score higher than people in disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds.”

  • The correlations can get biased. If IQ is heritable to some extent, and if IQ does correlate with job performance and attainment to an extent, then it is not unreasonable to assume that after many generations of smart successful people intermarrying that you would have smart kids coming from well-to-do families. And perhaps not even this much; I’m not saying that intelligence is completely inherited. Have a rich, smart family adopt a poor kid and the IQ might be higher than it would have been otherwise. So what? It doesn’t mean IQ doesn’t exist, just that it’s not heritable. Your entire position hinges on the belief that life is fair. Life isn’t fair. [cliche’]</p>

<p>“This is a weak comparison. A physical exam tries to determine how healthy an individual is. Obviously, an athlete has a higher chance of passing one than a non-athlete but that’s because the athlete has been doing one specific thing: training. Similar to how a person with a high I.Q. has probably been doing a very specific thing: educating him/herself. The problem comes when you take that physical exam and use the score of the athletes as some form of gold standard. At that point, it becomes self-fulfilling because “success” is only “granted” to those who trained while those that didn’t/couldn’t train cannot “achieve success.””

  • Not all of it is training, that’s the point. Alright, get a bunch of organisms - people included - and see how much weight you can strap to them before they fall over. Buffalos will probably beat people and redwoods will probably beat buffalos. If success is defined as being able to hold the most weight then redwoods have a distinct advantage over people. This is an exagerated example, but I see no reason why individual differences cannot exist inside the human race.</p>

<p>“In any case, I just wanted to know your major, that’s all. I guess my 151 I.Q. just self-fulfilled with you, no?”

  • Personally, it doesn’t much matter to me whether you have an IQ of 151 or 51. More important than someone’s ability is what one does with that ability, or chooses not to do, and how that person demonstrates their ability. And I have no idea what you mean by that last sentence. In the interest of curiosity, I get the distinct impression your original language is not English. Where are you from, if you don’t mind my asking?</p>

<p>If only it was relevant…</p>

37

<p>Maybe the problem here lies with the apparent interchangeability of the word success and intellect.</p>

<p>I would argue that the IQ test measures success better than intelligence, and I would argue that it would predict that regardless of what people think. They both give the same result, it’s just a different way of looking at it and understanding it. We don’t fully understand intellect, but we understand what success is to us. We can easily define it, no need to go to abstract realms of philosophy to try and define what really is ‘success’. Sure it’s relative, but when you’re talking about how successful will the people in this IQ range be in engineering, well that’s a pretty solid prediction because it takes many things into consideration like you mentioned before.</p>

<p>It’s not my personal belief that anyone can be as intelligent in the same ways that others are, but it’s just speculation on my part and I can’t conclusively say that’s the case. Neither can it be said for the other side, so there’s hardly a point to this argument. Personal beliefs can’t come into it because that’s just not dependable.</p>

38

<p>Are you joking Hadsed? Success is way more vague than intelligence, and intelligence is pretty darn vague.</p>

39

<p>“that is exactly what an I.Q. test tries to do: it attempts to assign a number to your intelligence.”

  • Your problem is that you have completely misunderstood the point of IQ in a scientific sense. IQ is not a label for someone’s intelligence, and shouldn’t be used as such. It is a measure of a person which correlates across samples with certain performance characteristics. In particular it correlates with performance in school and on the job, and the levels of attainment in these areas.</p>

<p>Anyway.</p>

<p>“So if I don’t care for the IQ system I have no sound argument on intelligence debates?
(according to APA of course, I’m terrible with acronyms, is the P for psychologists or philosophers or pool-players?)”

  • No, not at all. Only that the reasoning you provided wasn’t valid:
    “I’ve never taken an IQ test (I’m afraid to click on those advertisements because of ad-virusis really), I scored well on my SAT. I don’t think either are good views of intelligence because it mostly depends on how well prepared you are, not saying entirely, probably about 60% on how prepared you are to take the test. I think I probably gained a good 100 points just by taking that practice test and having a vocab review.
    I’d say it is mostly hard work and passion. I mean, intelligence could make it easier but everyone needs to work hard. You can gain knowledge easier than a strong work ethic (in my opinion, no study proving it).”
    That doesn’t prove anything. That’s all I’m saying. It’s frustrating to try to provide sources and say that I am not trying to preach absolute truth and hear essentially the same argument over and over again: there is no evidence to suggest that IQ is a valid measure of something that vaguely correlates with success and potential. That’s just not <em>true</em>. I have been trying to show this.
    (and for what it’s worth I think the P in APA is “psychological”)</p>

<p>“The same applies to “success.” What is success? To some, it may mean a Fields medal while to others it could simply be an A in Calculus. Whatever success is, the people that achieve it generally share several common factors: they are well trained in their area of expertise, they devote ample time to their area of expertise, and they enjoy their area of expertise.”

  • The studies which show correlations very clearly and narrowly define success in specific scenarios and with specific measures. I don’t think there are any studies correlating “life success” because as you indicate there really is no such thing as “life success”.</p>

<p>“How do we measure “innate talent”? How do we determine who has it and who doesn’t? Is the brain of engineers and scientists radically different from those of other people? Or are we now alluding to crackpottery and magic?”

  • IQ has been experimentally demonstrated to correlate well with certain narrowly defined measures of talent/success/potential/etc. You measure IQ with IQ tests. You can test IQ tests to make sure they are valid and reliable. There are statistical tests you do on the results of those tests to make sure that the validity and reliability are within acceptable levels of uncertainty.</p>

<p>“These are the types of claims that have been made by those that have power or ability to keep those that allegedly don’t have it out of the “special people” circle. Imagine if we still believed certain ethnic groups are actually less intelligent than others all because of a flawed notion of intelligence and success.”

<p>“If that’s the case, I declare myself the smartest person on this thread because I know the name of the country between Spain and France.”

  • I tell you what. Take a couple of years to study the correlation between knowing that and success in individuals, publish a paper in an APA journal, send me a copy, and then I’ll be willing to take you seriously.</p>
40

<p>

</p>

<p>So which is it? smarter people tend to be engineers? Or engineers tend to be smarter?</p>

<p>Your metaphor resembles the first argument.</p>