Contrary to popular belief, we're all profoundly stupid. Even the smartest among us spend enormous effort in their struggle to comprehend our surroundings.
this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2024
1155 points (100.0% liked)
Science Memes
13710 readers
3119 users here now
Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!
A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.
Rules
- Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
- Keep it rooted (on topic).
- No spam.
- Infographics welcome, get schooled.
This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.
Research Committee
Other Mander Communities
Science and Research
Biology and Life Sciences
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- !reptiles and [email protected]
Physical Sciences
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
Humanities and Social Sciences
Practical and Applied Sciences
- !exercise-and [email protected]
- [email protected]
- !self [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
Memes
Miscellaneous
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
At least half of us are below average.
You mean the median? :3
But in a perfect bell curve, isn't the median always the same as the average?
And even if it's not a perfectly symetrical bell curve, aren't they generally close enough to ignore the differance
load more comments
(1 replies)
It can't be that many.
It's not. I assure you there are far more outliers on the low end.
I endeavour to be as stupid as possible so more people can be above average.
America thanks you for your service.
But I'm sure there are more people with 200+ IQ than with <0.
I understand that you're saying there are more incredible geniuses than full on retards.
However, IQ scores are a normal distribution with an arbitrarily defined mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15.
So, IQ scores of 0 or 200 are both 6.6 standard deviations from the mean. If IQ is truly a normal distribution, you'd expect the number of people with IQ scores <= 0 and the number with scores >= 200 to be exactly the same, simply because this is how the scores are defined.
If you try to look up what proportion of the population falls outside 6.6 standard deviations, the z-tables don't go out this far. It's essentially 0% (0/100) but how many is it out of 8 billion?
If IQ is truly a normal distribution
It's not. Here's a list containing a number of people above 200.
However, no-one has a negative IQ.
I have to disagree.
IQ as a measure of intelligence doesn't work that way. The number can't just get higher and higher because a person is really smart. A supreme, godlike intelligence doesn't have an IQ of say, a million.
IQ has a statistical definition and although intelligence may not follow a perfect normal distribution, IQ Score does.
If there are about 8 billion humans, then 1 of them is "the smartest" in some way. 1/8,000,000,000 is 1.2x10^-10, this has a z score of 6.33.
The current smartest person will have an IQ of (6.33x15)+100=195. No one has an IQ of 200. This isn't because a person can't be any smarter, it's because this is how IQ is defined. If a pure, perfect, godlike intelligence exists in our current human population, their IQ is 195.
load more comments
(9 replies)
any article that lists historical figures with even estimates their IQs can be discarded as bullshit. IQ has specific testing criteria and imo the most important part of it is its basis in general distribution - if we don't know the IQ of the average peasant, we can't know the IQ of Shakespeare
besides, IQ is a borderline pseudo science to begin with. i was made to take an official IQ tests and the second i stepped out of the test room i started wondering how is this going to accuratly portray my "innate" intelligence when the vast majority of the things on the test can be learnt or otherwise trained to be better at
any article that lists historical figures with even estimates their IQs can be discarded as bullshit.
There are people alive on that list.
IQ is a borderline pseudo science
The person above is trying to prove IQ legitimacy with normal distributions and confidence levels. I'm arguing against it.
load more comments
(7 replies)
If we're talking about IQ, than no. An IQ between 85 and 115 is considered average. This entails 68% of the population. So, only 32% of people are not average and only 16% are below average.
load more comments
(1 replies)
That's quite a reduction and profoundly stupid. First off, the simple fact that-- WOAH, there's a wall here??
Maybe the brain will one day invent something more tiresome than watching reddit users exchange tautologies.
I'm doing my part!
I often describe myself as "3lbs of mostly fat piloting a meat mech." To the point that my wife sometimes refers to injuries as malfunctions/damage to her meat mech.
I’m an ugly bag of mostly water.
If we are talking facts, neurons don't use electricity, it's a cascade of released ion potentials. Thats why nerves are so much slower than electrical signals.
He should have said "power" not electricity
Humans dissipate power in the range of old tungsten lamps - on the order of 100W at rest, brains use about 20% of that, so 20W - about the same as an energy efficient globe
Hi. I'm just curious what part of the world you're from that light bulbs are called a globe?
Cheers.
Yeah we call them light globes in Australia, as well as bulbs
Thanks. Never heard it before
It's really both, neurons communicate electrochemically. Neurons establish a voltage difference across their membrane, typically positive outside, negative inside, by concentrating ions on one side or the other. In a single neuron, the action potential (signal) results in the electric polarity of the cell membrane switching to negative outside, positive inside, with the change in gradient cascading down the length of the axon as ions are allowed to flow across the membrane by voltage-gated ion channels. After depolarization, ions are actively and selectively pumped to either side of the membrane, repolarizing it.
There's a lot more to it than that but it's 100% charge dependent. The change in charge is mediated by the flow of ions across a membrane instead of the flow of electrons through a conductor, hence why it's slower.
Mmm, forbidden bacon
Prions are just like seasoning right?
Brain uses more wattage than a lightbulb, unless we are counting incandescent bulbs because it makes the stat seem more impressive.
That phrase first came out when incandescent bulbs were the most common, so they consumed like 60W vs 7W for an equivalent LED bulb. The brain is somewhere around 20W.
I don't give a damn about Lemmy points, but you just said essentially the same thing as the above commenter and the Lemmy points are diametrically opposed. I love it!
load more comments
(1 replies)
Yeah and LED bulbs were the norm 15-20 years ago. my point is this is a repost of a Reddit repost of a Tumblr comment that was reposting a factoid that was already wrong when it was originally posted 5-6 years ago.
Your timeline is incorrect. 15 years ago was 2009, when CFLs were most common. A 60W equivalent CFL was 13W and 100W equivalent was 23W. My house was still mostly incandescent bulbs with some CFLs for bulbs that had died and weren't on a dimmer. Commercial LED bulbs intended for residential use only started being released in 2009-2010 with incentive from the US government.
Ok, not in the US so idk. the last CFL bulb I bought was long before 2009.
Either way, the brain still uses more power than a 13W CFL, and the tumblr post is from 2018, and the Reddit post is even more recent. "It would have been technically correct if it was posted 20 years ago" doesn't really change the fact that it's not true anymore
load more comments
(1 replies)
It was estimated back when incandescent was standard.
Keep in mind that’s not accounting for energy consumed from neurons burning oxygen, which accounts for 20% of a human body’s consumption.
20% of your bodies energy is about 20 Watts.
Normal-weight humans burn about 2200 kilocalories a day, which is about 9.2 megajoules. There are 8640 seconds in a day, so that works out to roughly 100 joules per second, or 100 Watt. 20% of that is 20 Watts for the brain.
Well done. So even added to the electrical consumption it’s less than an incandescent bulb. Incredible.
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(1 replies)
I Upvoted just for the tapioca mention
Tapioca does sound good.
OP has a baby in their head
You momma is FAT (with water and salt)
File Allocation Table?
Yeah your momma’s so big she’s not even FAT she’s exFAT and can store files up to 120 petabytes
But poltergeist cat is real!
view more: next ›