They're just arbitary boundaries, what does it matter what they're called.

(PsychoChomp, Tue 18 Sep 2012, 11:05, 1 reply, 13 years ago)

Because I was brought up on 'the alphabet' and when I learnt it, the first letter was not *
It's fucking stupid.
( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Tue 18 Sep 2012, 11:06, Reply)

Pass/distinction/merit 1st/2:1/2:2/3rd/pass
And you find that A* the problem?
(PsychoChomp, Tue 18 Sep 2012, 11:08, Reply)

Yes.
All those systems remain as they were set up. If they were to introduce a new 'First * super-first' degree qualification I would have the same objection.
( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Tue 18 Sep 2012, 11:13, Reply)

If they'd introduced a new lower grade of G, or whatever, and marked more harshly
they could've kept to the same system. But there's this weird drive to show that everyone's a winner and awesome and thick people can be clever academics too.

That's my problem with the A* grade.
( Kroney, Tue 18 Sep 2012, 11:22, Reply)

Precisely.
The top 5% are the best, renaming that grade with some spastic new name, so that the second best people's grade now has the name of the old best ones, is fucking pointless and shit.
( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Tue 18 Sep 2012, 11:26, Reply)

What if in say 1985 you needed 70% to be in the top 5% and 5 years later you need 75%?
That means someone who qualified with an A in 1985 could have have been a B standard in 1990.
(PsychoChomp, Tue 18 Sep 2012, 11:32, Reply)

Then boo hoo. You got a B.

( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Tue 18 Sep 2012, 11:36, Reply)

Grades are only partially for the individual,
they're mainly set for the universities and industry as a cheap way to judge people. For that to be useful, they need to be comparable over different years.
(PsychoChomp, Tue 18 Sep 2012, 11:38, Reply)

But how does inventing an extra letter to the alphabet help anyone?

( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Tue 18 Sep 2012, 11:41, Reply)

Universities and industry said
"we need another layer of judging, to show not everyone who got over 75% but everyone who got over 85%" so pragmatically the government went "ok then, but rather than fuck up all the past stuff we'll just do an A+, actually that sounds to American what other symbol can we use"
(PsychoChomp, Tue 18 Sep 2012, 11:43, Reply)

Does it not follow that at some point they'll need an A** etc though?

( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Tue 18 Sep 2012, 11:47, Reply)

Exactly. Lowering the standard doesn't suddenly make more people cleverer!

(localboy purveyor of pisspoor puns, Tue 18 Sep 2012, 11:26, Reply)

But what if, try to get your head around this, people are actually getting cleverer?
what do we do then man, what do we do then?
( CQ Knows the truth, all of it., Tue 18 Sep 2012, 11:42, Reply)

People aren't getting any cleverer.
That's a daft statement. Are you suggesting that the average IQ of the human race is increasing generation by generation?
( Kroney, Tue 18 Sep 2012, 11:46, Reply)

Ummm every single measure says that statement is true.

(PsychoChomp, Tue 18 Sep 2012, 11:47, Reply)

Every single measure except the universities and employers taking on these kids,
for whom these qualifiactions were devised?
( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Tue 18 Sep 2012, 11:48, Reply)

They're not saying and never have said there's a decrease in overall intelligence.
They're saying it's hard to find the top few percent themselves.
(PsychoChomp, Tue 18 Sep 2012, 11:53, Reply)

Fair enough.
I find it hard to believe, but if that's what the stats say, there's no point arguing.
( Kroney, Tue 18 Sep 2012, 11:52, Reply)

Your IQ point is valid but for the wrong reason.
It's designed so that the average is always 100. So every time it's redone the boundaries change so the average score will always be 100.
If you do an IQ test from 1950ish, the current average is about 120
(PsychoChomp, Tue 18 Sep 2012, 11:55, Reply)

Well, IQ is an artificial and somewhat subjective measure, but if we take it as synomymouse with inteligence...
I donj't see why not, although I was more raising the question than making that claim.

If we accept that intelligence is at least partly a matter of training, rather than being entirely innate it makes sense, people are getting more and better education younger and thus are learning to think better. Obviously there will be limits to capacity but I don't find the idea incredible and if chompy says it's true then it probably is.
( CQ Knows the truth, all of it., Tue 18 Sep 2012, 11:59, Reply)

also nutrition healthcare etc

(PsychoChomp, Tue 18 Sep 2012, 12:03, Reply)

Good point.
general levels of relative prosperity/leasure time may have helped too. the more I think about it the more sense it makes.
( CQ Knows the truth, all of it., Tue 18 Sep 2012, 12:05, Reply)

Personally I think the education system is getting better at targetted education
ie training students to pass specific exams, rather than providing them with a general level of education which they're then tested on. If the IQ testing uses the same method of testing, ie testing people on what they've been trained to be able to answer, then it would make perfect sense that IQ scores would be increasing.

I strongly doubt that the human race is actually getting any more intelligent in the past few decades then it has been since we evolved.
( Kroney, Tue 18 Sep 2012, 12:05, Reply)

Depends on what you consider intelligence, which is a hard thing to define.
But from your description that it's not changed since evolution, it makes me think that you think it's physically the number of neurons and connections. That's increased markedly since the agricultural revolution, still increasing now as we understand more about prenatal and postnatal nutrition. Vaccinations against viruses that can affect new borns and pregnant women. Antibiotics for bacteria.
Also you should look into something called neuroplasticity which is the effect of the enviroment on the physical connection of the brain. Basically, the more you're educated and stimulated, the more you work your mind the more connections exist and the faster they fire.
(PsychoChomp, Tue 18 Sep 2012, 12:16, Reply)

I think what I'm getting at is the difference between trained, educational intelligence
and maximum potential intelligence. I can accept that we're better educated, with a better background understanding of the way the world works and are therefore better equipped to reason through and figure out advanced problems than cavemen, but I don't believe that as a species we have evolved to have a higher potential intelligence. If, for example, you took a Bronze Age baby and brought it up to go through our education system I think it would have the same natural ability to learn and end up as educated as any modern human child.
( Kroney, Tue 18 Sep 2012, 12:26, Reply)

So what you're saying is that the modern world is better at getting closer to our potential pinical intelligence
than we were in the past.
How is that different than "the population is getting cleverer"
(PsychoChomp, Tue 18 Sep 2012, 12:31, Reply)

I agree with Chompo

(dozers, do fuck off ur a nob m8, Tue 18 Sep 2012, 12:33, Reply)

I agree too
*world ends*
( CQ Knows the truth, all of it., Tue 18 Sep 2012, 12:37, Reply)

Given the number of people watching "reality" TV
I think the opposite is far more likely to be the case.
(localboy purveyor of pisspoor puns, Tue 18 Sep 2012, 11:47, Reply)

Yeah, I mean they're idiots compared to medieval serfs who would burn women who lived alone for turning people into toads.

(PsychoChomp, Tue 18 Sep 2012, 11:48, Reply)

They're exactly the fucking same.

( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Tue 18 Sep 2012, 11:50, Reply)

And now we have people who burn houses
because they can't tell the difference between "paediatric " and "paedophile".
(localboy purveyor of pisspoor puns, Tue 18 Sep 2012, 11:52, Reply)

Don't be 'petty' now.

( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Tue 18 Sep 2012, 11:58, Reply)

And many people who would deny rights to or even kill people
because their skin is a different colour.
(localboy purveyor of pisspoor puns, Tue 18 Sep 2012, 12:00, Reply)