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Are you smarter than The Obama?

Are you smarter than The Obama?


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Given from where Obama came from and to where he has gone to, I expect Obama is smarter then me

He certainly is more driven and achieved a higher level of academic achievement. The academic achievement while not always an indicator of intelligence, in this case I would say it is

Considering that Bush went to the same school.
Considering that Harvard has a history of letting people in that have no business going there
Considering that they have history of giving grades that aren't earned.

the education provided there loses credibility.

Considering that the rest of his life outside of getting an award at Harvard is unremarkable.
Considering his grades during school elsewhere where C's.
I wouldn't call his life remarkable or his drive worthy of note.
 
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This is another reason why I think intelligence is so difficult to measure - people can be very "intelligent" in completely different areas.

This seems like veiled reference to the debunked notion of Multiple Intelligences that was put forth by Howard Gardner.

The problem with this view is that these "multiple intelligences" are all, pretty much, interrelated to one another. It's like arguing that someone is good at tip-toeing and someone else is good at creeping, and someone else is good at walking briskly - these 3 distinct activities are not all that distinct and they all are a function of walking. The variation seen between the 3 activities is mostly noise in the system. So for Gardner's model, all of the multiple intelligences he specified were a function of g, a measure of centralized intelligence. They weren't really multiple intelligences, just different facets of g. But man, oh, man, do people still cling to that viewpoint.
 
How is this any different than when die hard Bush Bashers accused Bush of being a idiot?

Honestly, I think I could CRUSH Bush at Jeopardy. Unless the categories were all sports.

Obama, not so much.
 
Here's news for you:

Geology is also subject to a long standing debate and there are people who think that the Earth is only 6,000 years old. The fact that lay-people uneducated in the particulars of psychometrics and intelligence are debating the issue of how reliable and valid IQ tests are as a measure of intelligence tells us as much about the question as the fact that Young Earth Creationists debate the age of the Earth tells us about the geologic "debate" on the age of the Earth.
/cool story bro

There is no debate on IQ tests any longer within the professions that study intelligence. The professionals who deal with these issues day in and day out, in all of the nitty-gritty details, are all on board and even those who have a philosophical axe to grind can't overcome the mountains of evidence which go against their philosophy.
Actually, there is a debate and it's been getting bigger ever since standardized tests became the ass crack of the American education system.

The role of genetics in the black-white IQ gap has been particularly controversial. The question regarding this in the survey asked "Which of the following best characterizes your opinion of the heritability of black-white differences in IQ?" Amongst the 661 returned questionnaires, 14% declined to answer the question, 24% voted that there was insufficient evidence to give an answer, 1% voted that the gap was "due entirely to genetic variation", 15% voted that it "due entirely to environmental variation" and 45% voted that it was a "product of genetic and environmental variation". According to Snyderman and Rothman, this contrasts greatly with the coverage of these views as represented in the media, where the reader is led to draw the conclusion that "only a few maverick 'experts' support the view that genetic variation plays a significant role in individual or group difference, while the vast majority of experts believe that such differences are purely the result of environmental factors." [/INDENT]
So what is you're argument? Black people are genetically more stupid than white people?

I didn't write that the LSAT was a test which strictly measured intelligence, I wrote that it's a good enough proxy for such a test. It gets it right in the broad strokes but because it's a proxy it will get muddled in the fine strokes.
Unless blacks are overwhelming scoring 5s on the LSAT, the difference isn't that meaningful to me.
 
Honestly, I think I could CRUSH Bush at Jeopardy. Unless the categories were all sports.

Obama, not so much.

Obama: Alex, Numbers please for $500.

Alex: 57

Obama: What is the number of states?
 
You don't become president by being a dummy, period. Even George W. Bush was probably well above average in terms of intelligence.
 
There we go... you don't disappoint!
Do you disagree? Would you deny that a standardized test written in the US would have different cultural references than ones written in India or South Africa?

What culture do 2nd, 3rd generation African American's have other than American culture?
The link you pointed to was talking about Hispanics and I would apply the cultural bias theory to them and other populations with high amounts of immigrants. Like I said, my original comment wasn't about cultural bias at all, so read that and get back to me.

I thought that was the whole point of the standardized test - to identify the retention and educational level of the student. Isn't that the whole point?
The standardized test is meant to measure certain skills and abilities - many of these skills are acquired through education. But you still haven't addressed the fact that students who get lower quality education will tend to do worse than those who get higher quality education. In other words, a student A in a poor school and environment may be just as able to retain information as a student B in a great school and environment. However, the poor situation for student A makes him perform lower than student B - this does not mean that student A is less intelligent than student B.
 
Actually, there is a debate and it's been getting bigger ever since standardized tests became the ass crack of the American education system.

Pray tell, what exactly is the nature of the debate. All I see being debated is that some people don't like the results that are produced because the results contradict what people expect to arise from a creationist worldview.
 
So 53% of you think you're as smart or smarter than a law professor from a top 5 law school... So at least half the people on this board are like supreme court justices, major inventors, rhodes scholars, NASA scientists, etc? Who knew!?

Actually, from my experience, most of the posters here are what I call "faster *****cats". Individuals with above average tool sets. Confluences of nature and nurture that resulted in individuals equipped to compete.

Intellect and education are not the same thing, but they do interact synergetically.

Obama's intelligent, and educated. But I honestly wouldn't put his raw intellect much above that of the average poster here. Pretty bright bunch, our regulars.

Stubborn as hell, but it goes with the territory.;)
 
Pray tell, what exactly is the nature of the debate. All I see being debated is that some people don't like the results that are produced because the results contradict what people expect to arise from a creationist worldview.
I asked you first: do you think that blacks are genetically predisposed to being less intelligent than whites?
 
You don't become president by being a dummy, period. Even George W. Bush was probably well above average in terms of intelligence.

Sure you can. All you need to do is show the illusion of being smart. Have a good speech writer and have a good amount of practice public speaking and there you go. All they are really doing is leading idiots.
 
Unless blacks are overwhelming scoring 5s on the LSAT, the difference isn't that meaningful to me.

2183 Black test takers
31,539 white test takers,
ratio of 14.4475:1

At the 50th white percentile, the ratio was
16,770 white test takers
300 black test takers
ratio of 55.9:1

At the 84th percentile, the ratio was
4,367 white test takers
51 black test takers
ratio of 85.62:1

At the 95th percentile, the ratio was
1,577 white test takers
11 black test takers
ratio of 143.36:1

A ratio of 14.5 to 1 for those sitting for the LSAT ends up growing to 143:1 for those who score in the top 5%.

That's not meaningful to you? A 143 to 1 ratio is just discarded as an Inconvenient Truth.
 
Sure you can. All you need to do is show the illusion of being smart. Have a good speech writer and have a good amount of practice public speaking and there you go. All they are really doing is leading idiots.

You should be able to show a history of accomplishments also. Your point is taken though and hopefully we don't make the same mistake again.
 
I asked you first: do you think that blacks are genetically predisposed to being less intelligent than whites?

For everyone who is not a creationist, all the evidence points to this outcome. I'm not a creationist.

So tell me, what invisible force has stopped evolutionary processes from taking place above the neck considering that the human species has occupied many thousands of micro-environments over tens of thousands of years which have produced untold variation on a number of human metrics. What stopped mutation, drift and selection from working?
 
Obama is a helluva smart than most of the people in the world. How many people can graduate from Harvard Law, become a senator, then a president?
Seriously, even the far-rightists have to admit Obama's very smart, smarter than most of the people on Earth. He made many tough decisions, etc...
Also, why's the title "Are you smarter than The Obama?"
The Obama? That's a very disrespectful term for your POTUS
 
2183 Black test takers
31,539 white test takers,
ratio of 14.4475:1

At the 50th white percentile, the ratio was
16,770 white test takers
300 black test takers
ratio of 55.9:1

At the 84th percentile, the ratio was
4,367 white test takers
51 black test takers
ratio of 85.62:1

At the 95th percentile, the ratio was
1,577 white test takers
11 black test takers
ratio of 143.36:1

A ratio of 14.5 to 1 for those sitting for the LSAT ends up growing to 143:1 for those who score in the top 5%.

That's not meaningful to you? A 143 to 1 ratio is just discarded as an Inconvenient Truth.

Sure is. Question is, why's it there?

Well, here's one pretty strong contender.
Stereotype threat - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The affect of ones own thinking about their potential performance is absolutely huge when it comes to their actual performance.

Testing environments that attempt to erase the stereotype threat see a near-complete closure of testing score gaps.

There may also be other contributing factors, such as the types of districts minorities are likely to have access to, higher lead levels and other contaminates in their environment, etc.

But it's fairly clear that black people are not genetically less intelligent. Psychological expectation is much stronger than we give it credit for.
 
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Obama is clearly a very well-read individual who knows a lot about the law, history, etc etc.

Anyone who doubts Obama's intelligence is just being silly, jealous, or pathetically partisan.

And btw, Bush got into Yale as a legacy.....unlike Obama who had to earn & work his way in to Harvard.
 
Obama is a helluva smart than most of the people in the world. How many people can graduate from Harvard Law, become a senator, then a president?
Seriously, even the far-rightists have to admit Obama's very smart, smarter than most of the people on Earth. He made many tough decisions, etc...
Given the entire worlds population I would say you'd be right. He is smarter than most of the people in the world... then again, you also have to consider that most of the people on Earth do not have the resources, choices, options and advantages he had either. When put into perspective, your accolades really aren't that great. Don't compare "The Obama" to the rest of the world, compare him to people who are comparable.

Also, why's the title "Are you smarter than The Obama?"
The Obama? That's a very disrespectful term for your POTUS
I enjoyed the title.
 
Actual smart. The ability to analyze information. You may disagree with somebody politically or whatever, but how smart they are is definitely still measurable, and somebody who is a law professor at the U of Chicago is ridiculously smart. Just to attend the U of Chicago Law School you need to be approaching genius IQ. To be a professor there you need to be one step ahead of all your students all the time. And out of all the law schools out there, Chicago is generally seen as the most rigorous, no-bs, kind of a school. Very analytical, a lot of economics, etc.

Actually its my understanding that the higher the intellect, the greater tendency for it to "focus" in a certain area (math, music, language, etc). Further, that focus actually kind of "takes over" and actually causes one to be deficient in some other areas(s).

Einstein couldn't spell or tie his shoes, for instance. A "lack of common sense" in the super intelligent is so common its cliche.

Intelligence expresses itself in so many ways, simply a different environment can make the difference between success and failure for two people with identical IQ scores.
 
Obama is clearly a very well-read individual who knows a lot about the law, history, etc etc.

Anyone who doubts Obama's intelligence is just being silly, jealous, or pathetically partisan.

And btw, Bush got into Yale as a legacy.....unlike Obama who had to earn & work his way in to Harvard.

Bush got into Yale because of legacy, but Obama got into Harvard because of his race. To show otherwise would involve showing an improvement since high school that would be enough to gain access to Harvard. That increase would be impossible as the grades were far too low and no amount of improvement at Columbia would gain anyone access.
 
..Don't compare "The Obama" to the rest of the world, compare him to people who are comparable.

President Obama is much more intelligent than the average America. You don't graduate from Harvard Law summa cum laude and be an idiot.
 
So 53% of you think you're as smart or smarter than a law professor from a top 5 law school... So at least half the people on this board are like supreme court justices, major inventors, rhodes scholars, NASA scientists, etc? Who knew!?

"It takes smarts to admit that you're stupid, and stupidity to lie that you're smart."

"Smart" also means not repeating the same mistakes.

You mean like your last president?

Smart people would recognize that Obama was not a law professor, he was a part-time lecturer who was hired because he was black.

Racist comment.
 
Sure you can. All you need to do is show the illusion of being smart. Have a good speech writer and have a good amount of practice public speaking and there you go. All they are really doing is leading idiots.

But even those things are indicative of intelligence. Becoming a good speaker and surrounding oneself with intelligent people indicate a degree of intelligence...not to mention the ability to determine WHICH intelligent people to listen to, when they disagree. Additionally, presidents usually have had a solid resume prior to taking office (usually as a goveror/senator/VP, and with an advanced degree from a prestigious school) where they would have had plenty of opportunity to falter if they were lacking in intellect.
 
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Bush got into Yale because of legacy, but Obama got into Harvard because of his race...

right, because there is just NO WAY a black man could earn his way into Harvard.

;)


...now, was his law degree and graduation with highest honors also a product of affirmative action?
 
You don't become president by being a dummy, period. Even George W. Bush was probably well above average in terms of intelligence.
You can easily guess at the percentage of liberals here that believe they are smarter than GWB...
 
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