Dogs, Monkeys and Programmers

January 12, 2011 4:58 AM

The world of abstract math and data manipulation is a very simple learnable world compared to figuring out why she laughed while her face flushed a teeny bit.
posted by unSane (15 comments total)

It would have been cool if he'd fleshed that post out a bit. I want my monkey-dog.
posted by cjorgensen at 5:11 AM on January 12, 2011

Sounds like sour grapes to me. Not every great programmer is on the autistic spectrum. I'd even go so far as to say that programmers who can't communicate are by definition not great (exceptional solo projects aside). It might be better to say that math isn't the only kind of intelligence worth having.
posted by BrotherCaine at 5:14 AM on January 12, 2011

I like her research method. (Although I'd probably go for a white myself)
posted by MtDewd at 5:34 AM on January 12, 2011

Much more computationally complex, but our brains are special purpose machines designed for just this kind of thing. What's harder, algebra or natural language processing? A person will answer this differently than a computer.
posted by atrazine at 5:39 AM on January 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

It's true! Math and data manipulation require no creativity, flair or insight whatsoever! Anyone can be taught to develop new fields of mathematics, or solve centuries-old problems! I started my pet chook on tic-tac-toe and now she's honing in on a strong solution to the Goldbach conjecture!
posted by Ritchie at 5:49 AM on January 12, 2011 [3 favorites]

Let's accept the assumption that given two types of tasks A and B, we can always order them such that I(A)>I(B) for some function I which represents the (scalar) intellect required for the task. The author claims that for A=communication and B=programming, I(A)>>I(B). This would mean that any person with the sufficient intellect for communication would naturally have more than enough intellect for programming, and any good communicator would be a great programmer.

This is obviously not true, at least to anyone who lives in the real world and doesn't have an axe to grind. We can thus reject the assumption that intelligence for all types of tasks can be summarized by a single scalar. QED.
posted by Philosopher Dirtbike at 5:51 AM on January 12, 2011 [4 favorites]

A little light for a FPP methinks. Also, while the argument is interesting, it is ultimately incorrect.
posted by Edgewise at 5:54 AM on January 12, 2011

I take issue with the idea that programming is nothing more than manipulating abstract mathematical symbols. Sure, the mechanics of learning a programming language might be easy, but that doesn't make a good programmer. You don't have to read too much Spolsky to learn that there are a ton of shit programmers out there, and that the difference between a good programmer and a bad one is at least an order of magnitude. Being a good programmer is as much art as code, for there are an infinite number of ways to implement a given solution in code but it takes a sense of aesthetic to know which one to use -- which one is going to be clear to the next guy, which one is idiomatic of the language and framework in use, which one is going to cope with odd input gracefully, which one will be able to be easily reused by other parts of the code, which one will be easiest to add new features to, and on and on and on. This transcends the simple understanding of what the statement means, as it includes things like how well read you are -- both in code (i.e. exposure to a wide range of styles/paradigms) and in technology (i.e. understanding how a compiler and linker works under the hood, understanding how protocols work at the wire level.) I could go on and on, but I think you get the idea.
posted by Rhomboid at 6:03 AM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

if($post -> title == "Dogs, Monkeys, and Programmers")
{
  $post -> comments -> append("The linked article doesn't make any sense.");
}

posted by kmz at 6:12 AM on January 12, 2011

A sub 300 word blog post notable only for it's ridiculous reasoning is Best Of The Web?
posted by ClanvidHorse at 6:12 AM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Well, on the one hand, I guess this person (he? she? I can't seem to find any hints) is slightly right--immersing yourself in programming or other mathematical work, to the exclusion of "normal" social activity, is probably a lot less difficult. But on the other hand, the same goes for immersing yourself in any kind of work. Good at math != thinks about nothing else but math. Maybe the author's experience is different, but in the programming world I'm familiar with, everyone is pretty normal socially. I don't think I've met even one cloistered-genius type.

And what's with this last bit?

Why then do we define intelligence based on things like the ability to manipulate abstract symbols? The same reason we think one plain rock is precious when amongst a sea of rubys – it is unusual.

Putting aside the question-begging about how we define intelligence, what's with this bizarre ruby analogy? The author implies that we are wrong to equate unusual (math skills) with difficult, because what is common (social skills) may nonetheless be more inherently difficult, but as his/her analogous example of something that's inherently valuable, chooses rubies, which are considered valuable precisely because they're unusual?

I think that final disclaimer pretty much has it. This is drunken rambling.
posted by equalpants at 6:13 AM on January 12, 2011

It is unfortunate that while IQ test scores have been rising by several points every decade, that is almost entirely accounted for by the increase in our abstract reasoning capacities. We are cleverer than our parents, but no smarter.

This is the famous "Flynn effect", named for James Flynn (see here for a discussion of his work)
posted by Philosopher's Beard at 6:14 AM on January 12, 2011

e.e. cummings said it better (but about grammar and formalism vs. emotion. Same idea, though.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:19 AM on January 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Why are dogs easier to train than monkeys? Surely it isn’t because they are smarter, they aren’t. It is because it takes less to keep a dog amused. Yeah I’ll roll over one more time, God this is fun.

Are monkeys harder to train then wolves? I kind of doubt it. The reason dogs are easy to train is millennia of selective breeding to make them more and more endearing to humans. That means both doing what we tell them as well as being predisposed to showing us affection.

This was researched with a single bottle of Cabernet, which is why it is so conspicuously light on citations. Opinions do not necessarily reflect those of the author.

I hate it when people just make stuff up, and then declare it the truth. Seemingly this happens all the time on programming blogs. A large percentage of the time I see a link to some "programming blog" it's some random programmer declaring THIS IS HOW IT is based entirely on -- I don't even know what. Pure arrogance? Is it some kind of pathological result of people reading pieces like that and figuring that that's the way to do it, or is it just an easy way to say something without actually knowing anything? Or is there some other cause?
posted by delmoi at 6:38 AM on January 12, 2011

Putting aside the question-begging about how we define intelligence, what's with this bizarre ruby analogy? The author implies that we are wrong to equate unusual (math skills) with difficult, because what is common (social skills) may nonetheless be more inherently difficult, but as his/her analogous example of something that's inherently valuable, chooses rubies, which are considered valuable precisely because they're unusual?

I think he/she chose rubies because Ruby is a popular new programming language. 10 years ago they might have chosen Pearls. The basic core of the analogy is that if rubies were super common then a plain rock would seem valuable. Although I'm not sure that's really true, since humans (as well as some other animals!) seem to be drawn to "Shiny" things and have an intrinsic sense of beauty that's not always correlated with scarcity.
posted by delmoi at 6:46 AM on January 12, 2011