StarDestroyer.Net BBS

After all the informal IQ tests I've taken online and offline over the years, I can say, with complete confidence, that my IQ is somewhere between 100 and 150 on the Stanford Binet scale, possibly leaning towards the higher end, but not necessarily all the way.

Yep, that's how exact most of these tests are. It also shows how consistent I am, with memory and concentration problems that ... where was I? Oh yes. Hello.

The problem with IQ tests is that they use wildly differing principles of measurement. Some are culture-fair, some are culture-unfair. Some, such as www.iqtest.com, seem too generous by 10 points. Others, such as the test given by www.thespark.com, depend too heavily upon recalling culture-specific ideas off the top of your head (an extremely conditional criterion for someone like me, who once forgot Jack Nicholson's name during a conversation, despite recalling all of his movies. Or was it Dustin Hoffman? No ... I mean, how did movies ever come into this subject? What was I writing about again? Petunias? Yes, I'll have one of those, and so will my dinosaur Bumblebob.)

So, does anyone believe that IQ tests are measuring anything real, in the same way your bathroom scales measure your weight, or a spectrometer measures the brightness of a star? And would you like strawberry ja in your coffee? My pixies helped me fry it this morning. Dan Dan the Potato Man stole all the other saucepans, though, the naughty bugger. Pfffffffffffft!!!!!

Big range there

Normaly I test from 142-163 Depending on the Cultural Bais of the test because no I never watched any of the old sicking 50s TV that they sometimes ask you about

You should not expect to get the same score on two different IQ test. Their scales and methods are not the same.

To determine the validity of an IQ test, you need to check for two things:

Precision: No matter how many times one takes the test, their score must always be the same, or very close to the same. The more precise a test is, the better it is.

Accuracy: An obviously smart person should score higher than an obviously dumb person. The test should also resemble the "bell curve" of intelligence. (ie high numbers of average scores, and lower numbers of low and high scores) The more accurate a test is, the better it is.

But really, in the end the score isn't what you should be concerned about. It's what percentile you score falls into that really matters.

IQ tests are less accurate for adults. Years of test-taking gives us "test-taking skills"; a purely useless skill optimized for the world of academia. That's why they're most accurate when performed on small children, who answer honestly and guilelessly.

IQ tests have been shown to be inaccurate because an IQ test only tests knowledge. They are also considered to be racially biased after several court rulings. For example, the question is asked to a seven year old, " You have run out of milk and you go to the store. Once you go to the store, you discover you have no money, what do you do?" In the USA, it is thought that most minorities are poor and whites, the majority, are rich ( and it really doesn't matter that whites will soon not be the minority.) Since most children that were raised in a poor family answered, " I would go home without the milk." which is the wrong answer, it was considered to be a racially biased question. The correct answer would have been to go and get more money, which most children answered that were raised in middle or upper class families.

It depends on the quality of the test. When I was in Grade 3, I took an IQ test in school, along with many other kids in my class, and it was heavy on geometric puzzle solving, spatial perception, etc. There were few social questions because your knowledge is limited at that young age. Tests designed for adults tend to contain more of those questionable items you mention.

Yet another useful topic covered in introductory psychology. . .

When discussing the value of any form of test, two factors are important:

Reliability: Does the test give the same or similar result for the same inputs? (USAF Ace called this precision)

Validity: Do the test results actually have a strong positive correlation with the things we really care about? (USAF Ace seemed to call this accuracy - but the definition was somewhat dubious)

Any valid testing instrument will be reliable. A reliable testing instrument may not be valid. For example, suppose I am measuring your weight using a set of scales. This is almost certain to be a reliable measure - if you step off the scales, and back on, it will report the same weight. In order to be valid (or accurate) the scales must be calibrated correctly - if they are not calibrated, the reported weight may be completely invalid. If what I am actually interested in is your height, rather than your weight, then the measure is arguably invalid - the correlation between height and weight (in adults) probably isn't strong enough to produce a valid measure.

Coming back from the tangent, similar criteria for reliability and validity apply to psychological tests, but the correlations are almost always weaker. Generally, this is due to greater uncertainty in the conditions being measured.

For example (as Mike pointed out), the more IQ test you take, the less meaningful the results are. Instead of measuring the intended raw ability, the result is influenced by your increased skill at taking IQ tests.

Anway, getting back to IQ tests - the question is not 'are they accurate/valid?', but 'what are they valid for?'. Most of the problems attributed to IQ tests are due to their being used beyond the scope of their validity.

The scoring system of any IQ test is meant to be standardised (usually by assessing an appropriately large bunch of people with it and performing a statistical analysis on the results). The mean IQ is, by definition, 100 and the standard deviation (if I remember correctly) 15. The standardisation process is often also an opportunity to check for cultural bias. This standardisation process is the difference between a properly accredited IQ test and the ad hoc ones you are likely to find on the 'Net. Any test using explicit social questions is NOT a standard IQ test.

The original IQ tests were created in France - their sole purpose was to provide an indicator of expected academic performance. The test-takers were schoolchildren in the early years. The thing the test administrators were really interested in was ultimate academic performance in the higher grades. The tests (created by Piaget, if I recall correctly) turned out to be both reliable and accurate - children who scored higher on the IQ tests generally did better academically (the correlation wasn't perfect - but it was high enough to be useful to the administrators).

Unfortunately, the old adage that runs "when the only tool you have is a hammer, everything begins to look like a nail" didn't take long to rear it's ugly head. People thought these tests were wonderful - finally, a way to find out how smart people really were! Unfortunately, that's not what IQ test measure - they measure performance on a particular subset of cognitive tasks (which subset depends on how well written and administered the IQ test is). And sometimes, that's what you want to know. But, as happens all too often with this sort of thing, people start reading too much into the results, extracting meanings far beyond anything the tool is capable of measuring.

A couple of examples:
The occupational psychology department at my university once managed to get some results from a company that used IQ tests as part of their recruitment procedure. They compared the IQ test results and the subsequent job performance ratings - and found no correlation of statistical significance.

Richard Feynman apparently had an IQ around the 125-130 mark. I apparently have an IQ around the 135-140 mark. Richard Feynman is a genius. I'm just intelligent. Go figure. (As far as I can tell, Feynman had a determination and a thirst for knowledge that I don't have in anywhere near the same measure - I think this drive is a major factor in turning intelligence into genius)

Nick wrote:The original IQ tests were created in France - their sole purpose was to provide an indicator of expected academic performance. The test-takers were schoolchildren in the early years. The thing the test administrators were really interested in was ultimate academic performance in the higher grades. The tests (created by Piaget, if I recall correctly) turned out to be both reliable and accurate - children who scored higher on the IQ tests generally did better academically (the correlation wasn't perfect - but it was high enough to be useful to the administrators).

Really? According to Newsweek, the original IQ tests were created in America, funded by the Heritage Foundation in an attempt to produce pseudoscientific "proof" that blacks were inferior. They were later adapted for use by the US military in an attempt to determine which candidates would respond best to indoctrination (this metric was referred to as "intelligence" by the US Army), and then they were eventually refined over time. Were IQ tests developed independently in Europe and America?

A couple of examples:
The occupational psychology department at my university once managed to get some results from a company that used IQ tests as part of their recruitment procedure. They compared the IQ test results and the subsequent job performance ratings - and found no correlation of statistical significance.

Not surprising. Smarter people don't necessarily work harder, and there are very few occupations in which intelligence is more important than organization and drive.

Richard Feynman apparently had an IQ around the 125-130 mark. I apparently have an IQ around the 135-140 mark. Richard Feynman is a genius. I'm just intelligent. Go figure. (As far as I can tell, Feynman had a determination and a thirst for knowledge that I don't have in anywhere near the same measure - I think this drive is a major factor in turning intelligence into genius)

Mine's somewhere over 140 (they wouldn't tell me my exact IQ score when I was a kid, but they moved me into an education stream with a 140-IQ cutoff), but I'm certainly no Feynman. I have little patience for pure theory; if it isn't applied, I find it hopelessly boring and annoying. I suspect that my impatience for such things limits my ability to apply myself to the kind of esoteric theoretical applications where "genius" is normally required.

Darth Wong wrote:IQ tests are less accurate for adults. Years of test-taking gives us "test-taking skills"; a purely useless skill optimized for the world of academia. That's why they're most accurate when performed on small children, who answer honestly and guilelessly.

One example is that lots of the math based tests use numerical sequences that some people will have already seen, like the Fibonacci sequence. I know I've seen it enough in such things.

IQtest is generous. According to it, my IQ is 165! However, an IQ test by MENSA put it at around 115. I would trust the MENSA test, since it gives a lower number, and it's by a well-known association. However, under that logic, I should trust those people who sarcastically say "Do you have an IQ above 4?", and I should trust a test by the U.S. government most.

Anyway, an IQ test should have, in my opinion no multiple-choice questions, and cover science, english, math, and some puzzles.

Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi wrote:IQtest is generous. According to it, my IQ is 165! However, an IQ test by MENSA put it at around 115.

Both scores sound too extreme if you ask me, given your broad range. How were you feeling when you took the Mensa test? Do you often experience mental blocks like I sometimes do?

Some good points have been raised here. "Test taking skills" cause many IQs to become virtually impossible to measure. Long before I'd even heard of the internet, I took quite a few book-based tests (mostly by Eysenck) for recreation, and after the first few I was frequently scoring within the Mensa range. I remained inconsistent, however, but this is actually reflected in my real life activities (rapid creative output followed by weeks of writer's block, multi-layered waffling about books and films at parties followed by forgetting Robert De Niro's name for three whole minutes, that sort of thing).

I suspect that Richard Feynman may have scored higher after his 5th test, depending upon the extraordinary nature of his learning patterns.

Also, if you take the Flynn Effect into account, Feynman's IQ could be below 120 by today's standards. According to the Flynn Effect, the "real" IQ of the average western population has been increasing by 3 points every decade.

I'm not sure what to make of this.

Darth Wong wrote:Mine's somewhere over 140 (they wouldn't tell me my exact IQ score when I was a kid, but they moved me into an education stream with a 140-IQ cutoff), but I'm certainly no Feynman.

The one official test I ever did (back at school - about 9 years ago) said 135+. That was as far as that particular test was valid - it couldn't produce reliable discrimination beyond that point.

I have little patience for pure theory; if it isn't applied, I find it hopelessly boring and annoying. I suspect that my impatience for such things limits my ability to apply myself to the kind of esoteric theoretical applications where "genius" is normally required.

For myself, I've sometimes called it the engineering mindset, as opposed to the scientific mindset (the following is based on a slide one of my university lecturers put up in his first lecture):

The theoretical scientist is off in la-la land, exploring the boundaries of human knowledge, trying to push things a little further, or else exploring existing knowledge, looking for new patterns in old ideas.

The applied scientist takes the ideas from the theoretical scientists, throws in a decent dash of reality, and looks for ways that knowledge could be used - and occasionally tells the theoretical scientists that they're full of it. (Alternatively, applied scientists go exploring the realm of knowledge looking for the information that fits in with a specific problem - and then distill it into a more convenient form for an engineer to turn into a practical solution)

The engineer takes the ideas of the applied scientists, throws in a generous dash of pragmatism, and looks for ways to turn those ideas into useful solutions to real problems - and occasionally tells the scientists that they're full of it.

The technician actually does the grunt work, and bitches and moans that none of the engineers have a clue :>

Of course, the 4 categories are nice and blurry (I'd have concerns about any attempt to categorise a group of humans which wasn't]/i] blurry at the edges!), as individuals can span categories, or move between categoires, but the scientists do seem to have a pretty firm grip on the 'genius' label.

OK, you people throwing around your IQ numbers is making me feel like an idiot. Please stop.

Darth Wong wrote:Really? According to Newsweek, the original IQ tests were created in America, funded by the Heritage Foundation in an attempt to produce pseudoscientific "proof" that blacks were inferior. They were later adapted for use by the US military in an attempt to determine which candidates would respond best to indoctrination (this metric was referred to as "intelligence" by the US Army), and then they were eventually refined over time. Were IQ tests developed independently in Europe and America?

Rather than running from memory (which is what I did last night), I actually walked the whole 5 metres to the bookshelf and looked up my old psychology textbook.

The French test I was talking about was developed by a guy called Alfred Binet (nothing to do with Piaget - my mistake) in 1911. He had been to appointed to identify slow learners so they could be given special instruction. These tests were apparently pretty reasonable at achieving Binet's purpose.

Binet's test was transported to America (no date given, but implied to be before the US entered World War I in 1917) by a Lewis Terman of Stanford University. Finding that the French norms didn't suit Californian kids, Terman revised the test creating the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale (which is still around, although it has been revised a few times over the years).

Intelligence tests were adapted to the task of classifying US recruits in World War I. The textbook only has a single brief mention of this, and doesn't really say what classifications the army was attempting to make (although 'dumb grunt', 'NCO material', 'HQ clerk' seem like a few reasonable guesses).

Around 1960 an article in Harvard Educational Review referenced the idea that systematic differences in test scores between blacks and whites might have a genetic basis. The media, being it's usual self, exaggerated and oversimplified the point, and, lo-and-behold, "Black's are less intelligent! We have proof!". The text actual goes into some explanation on this point - interestingly enough, the skewed results seem more of an indication of existing disparities in educational access and other societal inequities than it is a reflection of cultural bias in the test instruments themselves (cultural bias is used to specifically refer to ethnicity).

So I don't know what the Newsweek article was talking about, unless it was a really distorted description of the Army's WWI recruitment and the 1960 Arthur Jensen article. That's not to say IQ tests haven't been abused horribly (particularly by American racists), but the textbook is more interested in talking about the way things are, rather than the way they have been abused in the past.

Darth Wong wrote:IQ tests are less accurate for adults. Years of test-taking gives us "test-taking skills"; a purely useless skill optimized for the world of academia. That's why they're most accurate when performed on small children, who answer honestly and guilelessly.

Also remember with IQ tests the older you are the harder it is to get a high score, why? Because IQ test devide the correct answers by your age, so the older you get, the dumber you are sort of thing.

For an example, not saying this is true but just an example, we just had the national IQ test in Australia and they claimed that Albert Einstein had an IQ of 160, and Malarin Manroe had 163. Now if Malarin took the same test as Albert aged 25 and Albert aged 60, the results are skewed. Please note that I am only citing this as an example, not that she was smarter.

Crown wrote:

Darth Wong wrote:IQ tests are less accurate for adults. Years of test-taking gives us "test-taking skills"; a purely useless skill optimized for the world of academia. That's why they're most accurate when performed on small children, who answer honestly and guilelessly.

Also remember with IQ tests the older you are the harder it is to get a high score, why? Because IQ test devide the correct answers by your age, so the older you get, the dumber you are sort of thing.

For an example, not saying this is true but just an example, we just had the national IQ test in Australia and they claimed that Albert Einstein had an IQ of 160, and Malarin Manroe had 163. Now if Malarin took the same test as Albert aged 25 and Albert aged 60, the results are skewed. Please note that I am only citing this as an example, not that she was smarter.

Not the case at all. The ceiling age for IQ tests has always been 16. So a 60-year-old taking the test will have his "Mental Age" score divided by 16. Example: a 55-year-old scoring a mental age of 24 will have an IQ of (24/16)*100 = 150.

However, that Flynn Effect I mentioned earlier will cause some ambiguities if taken seriously. For example, if Einstein sat the test in, say, 1932, then his IQ on one of today's tests would be 21 (or 70 * 0.3) points lower, which would be 139.

Also, it might interest you to know that Sylvester Stallone also has an extremely high IQ (I think it was 165), which proves that it's what you do with it that counts.

Furthermore, Marylin Munroe was apparently a drug addict (coicaine or heroin, I can't remember which), and there was one anecdote about her getting lost on the way from one studio set to another, turning up hours late. If true, this DEFINITELY proves that it's what you do with it (or to it) that counts.

Crown wrote:Also remember with IQ tests the older you are the harder it is to get a high score, why? Because IQ test devide the correct answers by your age, so the older you get, the dumber you are sort of thing.

This is old information from the days when the intelligence quotient really was a quotient. When Binet and the Stanford guy first started using them, they were measuring what they called 'mental age'. Your IQ was then given by:

IQ = 100 * ((mental age) / (chronological age))

So an IQ of 100 meant that your mental age matched your chronological age. Eventually, researchers realised the stupid consequences of this - after reaching adulthood, your 'mental age' score tended to stabilise. Which meant that, as you got physically older, according to the IQ number, you got dumber.

Consquently, they ended up changing to the standardised system, with a standardised average of 100, and a standard deviation of 15.

To understand the consequences of that standardisation, the following will be true for a standardised IQ test (the percentages result from the definition of a 'standard deviation'):
IQ Range.....% of Population
<55........................0.1%
55-70.....................2.2%
70-85....................13.6%
85-100..................34.1%
100-115................34.1%
115-130................13.6%
130-145..................2.2%
>145......................0.1%

An important feature to note is that this standardisation process is done separately for different age groups - any self-respecting IQ test should either ask you your age, or else indicate which age group that particular test is suitable for.

This standardisation process is sometimes the target for claims of cultural bias - I believe this is what researchers are generally referring to when they indicate that the research evidence simply doesn't support that conclusion. The discovered biases tend to be in areas surrounding the administration of the test and other flow on effects from related actual and perceived biases.

Just noticed the comment about the so-called "national IQ test" we just had on TV. I didn't watch it, but my flatmate did, and he told me all about it. Naturally, he focused on the negative, since he figured I'd be able to appreciate a good rant. I heard a comment (attributed to a psychologist): "As an IQ test, it makes great television. I wouldn't read too much into your results though." I mean, really, if they were going to give decent results, half the viewing audience would get a score below 100. What TV producer in their right mind is going to green light a show which is virtually guaranteed to insult 50% of their viewers? (Actually, my flat mate made the cynical suggestion that this was why they made it easier for older people to get high scores - to prevent the phones ringing off the hook with calls of: "Your TV show said I was dumb! I'm ringing up to complain!").

As an example of the reliability of the people putting together that show:

Which of the following is a synonym of "perturb"?
A. alarm
B. agitated
C. some other option
D. yet another option

'Alarm', you say? Quite right, I agree with you. If option B was 'agitate', it'd be a close call, but I would still pick A as the better synonym (it is easy to conjecture a person being perturbed by something without being agitated about it. However, saying someone is perturbed by something is basically the same as saying they are somewhat alarmed by it). Anyway, that's beside the point. As presented on the show (and if you haven't guessed already), the correct answer is supposedly 'agitated'. It isn't even the right part of speech, fercyrinoutloud.

USAF Ace wrote:OK, you people throwing around your IQ numbers is making me feel like an idiot. Please stop.

Heh. From what I've seen, you can follow a rational argument, and construct one when you need it. You can also spot a logical fallacy when you see one. The rest is window dressing. (Fun, from my POV, but window dressing nonetheless)

It's funny though - we often seem to be much better at noticing the natural abilities we don't have, than we are at recognising our own talents. Either that, or we consider the things other people can do impressive or important ("Gee, I could never do that!"), and denigrate what we can do ourselves ("Oh, it's nothing. Anybody could do it if they tried."). (I'm not too bad these days - but that's only because I know I have a tendency to focus on the negative, and can usually consciously shift track when I notice I'm doing it. And even that doesn't always work.)

IQ numbers measure a few specific aspects of reasoning ability - you can have a staggeringly high IQ and still be a complete moron when it comes to dealing with real life. It's a bit like money - once you reach the amount which equates to 'enough', further increases are nowhere near as important.

Nick wrote:

USAF Ace wrote:OK, you people throwing around your IQ numbers is making me feel like an idiot. Please stop.

Heh. From what I've seen, you can follow a rational argument, and construct one when you need it. You can also spot a logical fallacy when you see one. The rest is window dressing. (Fun, from my POV, but window dressing nonetheless)

Yeah, USAF Ace can hold up his end of a debate, which is more than you can say for someone like Darkstar or Priesto, for example.

IQ numbers measure a few specific aspects of reasoning ability - you can have a staggeringly high IQ and still be a complete moron when it comes to dealing with real life. It's a bit like money - once you reach the amount which equates to 'enough', further increases are nowhere near as important.

My father has a PhD in nuclear physics. Thirty years after leaving school, he can still recite the periodic table of the elements from memory. His knowledge of quantum physics and radiology in particular is quite extensive, and he was consistently near the top of his class. He once stuck his hand into the lawnmower's output duct in order to clear some grass out of it, without shutting it off. His finger was nearly severed, but the doctors stitched it back together. Duh.

AAAh, a subject near and dear to my heart.

First of all, the very idea that something as complex as intelligence can be measured with a single number is laughable. What kind of brainpower, for what kind of problem?

The best method of checking crainial candlepower I have come across, is the multiple intelligence theory. It states that problem solving is many different skills, some of which can be improved with effort, some you are just born with.

Types of intelligence:

Mathematical, musical patern recognition.(Albert E., and Bach, genius)

Linguistic, verbal ability. (The easiest to see, and the most overrated, unless you are a writer)

Kinesthesia, or body coordination, athletic aptitude.(M. Jordan is a genius in this skill)

Leadership, personal relationship skills. (Carisma =genius in this catgory)
Can lead, or follow, good in any team activity.

Common sence, or situational awareness, with consequence prediction.(Seamingly very lacking, in the verbal and mathematical genius!)


Geometric, spacial perseption.

Drive and focus are, to me much more important. Mr. Wong's PHD holder's fingernail cleaning experiment is well within the norm for that group! OUCH!
I have seen brilliant people have their lives saved from stupid actions, by other "dumber" people.

Darth Wong wrote:Yeah, USAF Ace can hold up his end of a debate, which is more than you can say for someone like Darkstar or Priesto, for example.

I've been complimented by the man himself. I now feel vendicated. What more to life is there?

In all seriousness, while I usually score highly in math and science, I traditionally don't do very well in the englishes. When I took the CAT test in eight grade I scored in the 99th percentile in math, 90s in science, and 31st in english. I got rejected from the parish's science and engineering magnet high school because of that lousy english grade. That really sucked ass.

USAF Ace wrote:

Darth Wong wrote:Yeah, USAF Ace can hold up his end of a debate, which is more than you can say for someone like Darkstar or Priesto, for example.

I've been complimented by the man himself. I now feel vendicated. What more to life is there?

In all seriousness, while I usually score highly in math and science, I traditionally don't do very well in the englishes. When I took the CAT test in eight grade I scored in the 99th percentile in math, 90s in science, and 31st in english. I got rejected from the parish's science and engineering magnet high school because of that lousy english grade. That really sucked ass.

It seems that one's aptitude for language is the one factor that is easiest to improve upon. In year 9 (or "9th grade" as you would say in the US) I recieved an average mark for English, mainly due to lack of enthusiasm and a certain constraint on essay choices. The same year I sat a "compatibilities test" for creative writing, and I didn't even finish the bloody story (which was turning into the first chapter of some convoluted novel anyway after, what, 20 minutes). Since then I've had a handful of articles and book reviews published in my university newspaper, won a small Babylon 5 fan fiction contest, had a very short story professionally published for 10 Australian dollars (about 40 American cents these days), and completed an unpublushed novel which (in manuscript form) is thick enough to stop a magnum, and a 2-&-a-half hour screenplay based on that novel (needless to say, it leaves out half the novel's plot).

An aptitude for language is not something you are born with, it has to be nurtured through practice, and it is never too late to try.

Rathark wrote:

USAF Ace wrote:An aptitude for language is not something you are born with, it has to be nurtured through practice, and it is never too late to try.

As an anecdotal correlation (i.e. I don't know of any systematic research that supports this - it's just a personal observation that seems to make sense), one of the best ways I've seen to improve English skills is simply a hell of a lot of exposure to good examples of the stuff.

Reading good quality fiction, well-written newspapers and magazines, some discussion forums (quality of language is obviously highly variable in that last category). Obviously, it works really well when you start as a kid and all that language acquisition machinery in your brain is still running - but that system never quite shuts down.

The trick is to pay attention not only to what people say, but also the way they say it. The idea is to learn what works and what doesn't - you can adopt the first and avoid the second. I think this happens unconciously to some degree - but I also think being aware of it can help things along.

Ultimately, good style is useless unless you have the facts to back it up - but in a world where many (most? - far too many, certainly) people fall victim to the 'style-over-substance' fallacy, being able to articulate your point is very valuable.

But again, it's something where once you are capable of conveying a point clearly, then the rest is comparatively unnecessary.

So many things seem to be like that - a certain amount is 'necessary' or 'useful' in order to operate effectively in society, but beyond that point it's a matter of personal inclination and talents as to how far you care to go with it. Anyone else see the world working that way? Like, it's useful to know a bit about your car so you are less likely to get ripped off by a dodgy mechanic, but there's no need to go become a mechanic yourself? Or how it's useful to know enough science to tell when a real scientist is reporting results and when a psuedoscientific quack is exploiting the mantle of science to get people to take him seriously, but it isn't necessary to try to be Richard Feynman? It seems self-evident to me, but I'm curious what other people think.

The solution, is obvious, and fun. Read more science fiction! You will get smarter every day. Watch Star Trek, and you will get dumber!