On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 4:22 PM, William "Chops" Westfield
<westfw@mac.com> wrote:
> Right. =A0Actually, no one said anything about "dumb." =A0We're talking
> about "smart" and "smarter", which is what you won't be used to.
> Eventually, the amount of time you need to study to get top grades in
> a particular class or subject will exceed the amount of time that
> exists, and there you are... =A0High school is designed (in my
> experience) to allow anyone who does the work and understands the
> material to get A's on the exams. =A0At university that same level of
> effort and understanding will get you C's on the exams, if only
> because there are twice as many questions on the exam as there ought
> to be. =A0Some people will get A's anyway. =A0Not everyone.
>
> BillW

I'm sharing my experience coming from a not-your-average high school.
In this school, if you simply put in the effort, you have to be
content with a 60%. So my words hold some value. I'm not from one of
those high schools where you can do your math homework and breeze past
it. Trust me. Seriously, trust me. No, really.

I can see around me the "smart" and "smarter" people. I can see that
they go through pretty much the same thing that the rest of us go
through.

And I'm not talking about the difference between an autistic person or
some with a learning disability and someone who aces physics tests.
I'm talking about someone who gets an 80% on a physics test and
someone who gets a 90%. Things can get switched up around pretty
quickly. How do you evaluate who is smarter? The 90 dude or the 80
dude?

And by the chemicals in fish - again I'm not comparing the people from
countries with poor nutrition. I'm talking about people in places like
Canada.

There was a study done recently. Elderly people were able to
significantly increase their "IQ" (very significantly) by regularly
eating fish. They were tested in various ways including playing chess.
The results showed drastic improvements.

Please, do not compare an autistic person with a 90% or an 80% or a
70% person. It's like comparing oranges and... bananas. Autism and
learning disabilities are on a whole new class. I'm talking Ferrari vs
Lamborghini. Not Lamborghini vs a crappy japanese car. No matter what
you do to the jap crap, it's still fundamentally flawed and slower
than the Lamborghini. Now, if you want to improve a Lambo or a
Ferrari, you could tune the engine, streamline the hubcaps, etc, which
is analogous to eating fish, studying, etc.

In my class, I would say that around 80% of the people are in the
Lambo/Ferrari range and the rest of the 20% are in the
Camaro/Mustang/Corvette range. With a little extra boost, you can bump
that Corvette to a Lambo. Ok, maybe a big boost and some nitrous
oxide. But it's for sure possible. It just does not make sense to tag
people as smart and dumb. Or smart and smarter, in your words.

Note: I'm not trying to be mean or insulting to autistic people or
people with learning disabilities (I work with them every week in my
volunteering job). I'm just stating the facts. It is unfortunate that
they were born with defects and with current technology, there is
nothing we can do about it.

-- =

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