Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Are gamers smarter?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="fusangite" data-source="post: 1219344" data-attributes="member: 7240"><p>Right. Spot on! I'm with you. </p><p></p><p>But I'm not saying every gamer is smarter than every non-gamer. I'm stating that in aggregate the thousands of people who play RPGs are smarter than the millions who don't. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I'm still with you.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Obviously, this is some term from analytical philosophy that I am not privy to. My terminology comes from analyzing public opinion polling for politics. Given the numerical scale of what we're talking about (ie. thousands and thousands of gamers), you have to admit that it is vastly more likely that gamers are more intelligent than the average population. We're doing social science here so nobody is going to argue for the 100% certainty of their position. But even by your own logic, surely you must admit that even if what I am saying is not certain to be true, it is more likely to be true than your position. </p><p></p><p>The way you are structuring your argument makes it impossible to compare groups of people. The way I understand your thinking, you must dispute every poll, every piece of market research you ever read.</p><p></p><p>OK, now, problems with your language:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Nice modal language here.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Where did the modal language go?</p><p></p><p>If we understand that intelligence, given the arbitrariness of the term, is what the D&D manual says it is, rather than some vast culturally trascendent super-category of human worth and survival potential, clearly literacy and numeracy vary directly with intelligence because that's practically all that intelligence is.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>If we accept that intelligence is culturally-based and perceptible only through learned skills, of course access to training in those skills will positively correlate to intelligence. I'm not looking for some kind of transcendental value for the human mind -- such a thing is impossible to create. What I am looking at is people's ability at certain skills: logic, mathematics, language. To me, intelligence is what you <em>can</em> do not what you <em>could</em> do.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I'm guessing that this is another term from a discipline I'm not in; so I will resist the temptation to deal with it literally.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Here's the problem right here. We are operating from different definitions of intelligence. What is your definition? To me, literacy and numeracy skills don't merely correlate to intelligence, they are components of it. All intelligence is to me is proficiency with literacy+numeracy+logic. I don't think we can proceed any further in this argument until you come up with what definition you are using for intelligence.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Why are we isolating one thing? In my understanding of statistics, we are selecting for all those things. I don't understand how you are arguing that because we are also selecting for education and income, we cannot therefore be selecting for intelligence. </p><p></p><p>It's as though you are arguing that because we are selecting for membership in the Republican Party, we cannot be selecting for whiteness; obviously, if we develop selection criteria that choose Republicans, we can expect that our selection criteria will also be more likely to choose white people.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="fusangite, post: 1219344, member: 7240"] Right. Spot on! I'm with you. But I'm not saying every gamer is smarter than every non-gamer. I'm stating that in aggregate the thousands of people who play RPGs are smarter than the millions who don't. I'm still with you. Obviously, this is some term from analytical philosophy that I am not privy to. My terminology comes from analyzing public opinion polling for politics. Given the numerical scale of what we're talking about (ie. thousands and thousands of gamers), you have to admit that it is vastly more likely that gamers are more intelligent than the average population. We're doing social science here so nobody is going to argue for the 100% certainty of their position. But even by your own logic, surely you must admit that even if what I am saying is not certain to be true, it is more likely to be true than your position. The way you are structuring your argument makes it impossible to compare groups of people. The way I understand your thinking, you must dispute every poll, every piece of market research you ever read. OK, now, problems with your language: Nice modal language here. Where did the modal language go? If we understand that intelligence, given the arbitrariness of the term, is what the D&D manual says it is, rather than some vast culturally trascendent super-category of human worth and survival potential, clearly literacy and numeracy vary directly with intelligence because that's practically all that intelligence is. If we accept that intelligence is culturally-based and perceptible only through learned skills, of course access to training in those skills will positively correlate to intelligence. I'm not looking for some kind of transcendental value for the human mind -- such a thing is impossible to create. What I am looking at is people's ability at certain skills: logic, mathematics, language. To me, intelligence is what you [i]can[/i] do not what you [i]could[/i] do. I'm guessing that this is another term from a discipline I'm not in; so I will resist the temptation to deal with it literally. Here's the problem right here. We are operating from different definitions of intelligence. What is your definition? To me, literacy and numeracy skills don't merely correlate to intelligence, they are components of it. All intelligence is to me is proficiency with literacy+numeracy+logic. I don't think we can proceed any further in this argument until you come up with what definition you are using for intelligence. Why are we isolating one thing? In my understanding of statistics, we are selecting for all those things. I don't understand how you are arguing that because we are also selecting for education and income, we cannot therefore be selecting for intelligence. It's as though you are arguing that because we are selecting for membership in the Republican Party, we cannot be selecting for whiteness; obviously, if we develop selection criteria that choose Republicans, we can expect that our selection criteria will also be more likely to choose white people. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Are gamers smarter?
Top