Is it possible to be a genius and still be considered stupid?

Ever heard of an idiot savant?

Yes.

Yes. My dad has a saying he likes to use for people likethat. “All brains and no common-sense.”

Well for me two words sum it up, Stan Laurel.

Oh, yes. Sometimes mental preoccupation with complex thinking results in not taking the time to learn and comprehend skills needed to get by in daily life. Sometimes they just don’t think the mundane is important.

There are all kinds of examples of where stereotypes precede judgment of ones mental acuity prior to even one word being spoken. Comedians as @ucme points out, blonde’s, the mentally despondent, people of color or religious belief….even my kids have been told to be quiet when in reality they were the ones with the best ideas in the room.

I don’t really believe in stupidity so much as bias/prejudice and ignorance. But if we’re going to include those under the umbrella of stupidity – it’s often the most intelligent people who are often the most stupid. People who should no better have no excuse.

I asked this question because as a child I was tested, and of course tested at a genius level. A serious car accident embedded glass in my head from the impact which caused some brain damage. Then there was a beating where I was kicked in the head about thirty times. I am stupid these days, basically. I did some drugs too when I was younger, that didnt help. I dont test at that level anymore, on top of that I have to take these meds that fog up my memory. I’m on disability from hep c treatment which I failed at. Sorry, I just got some bad news, I am getting kicked out of my house. I tried to educate my JW father today about some well known facts and he flipped out on me. Mistake. ahh crap

@truecomedian – then you’re not stupid – you’ve been damaged. Stupidity is often the person’s own fault. None of that sounds like yours, really.

You will love this answer.

During my tenure as a police detective, i ran across this case with a man that had an IQ of 150 plus. i was assigned this case, since several crimes were being committed, by this person. His ficticious name is Bob. this man was so intelligent that he could program the keypad on ATM machines to withdraw money from peoples bank accounts. he also was making long distance phone calls, free, with a little black box he invented. he had a co-conspirator that worked for Radio Shack. his friend was shoplifting materials from Radio Shack, in order to supply the hardware needed to accomplish their criminal acts. on one occasion, Bob, being so intelligent, dismantled and x-ray machine at a hospital, piece by piece and re-assembled it in another hospital, without anyone ever missing it. i knew i had to devise a plan to catch Bob. on a chance, i went to his mothers house and asked permission to search for stolen property, belonging to Radio Shack. his mother gave written permission for the search. his mother told us that she had not been down in the basement of her home in two years. i searched here, first. a truckload of stolen Radio Shack property was recovered. i then signed a warrant on Bob and his arrest. at first Bob denied everything. his mother had told us that he had a very high IQ and was very religious. it was time to break Bob down. good cop, bad cop. i played the roll of a minister and my partner played the bad guy. during my religious talk with Bob, after signing a violation of rights form, Bob confessed to everything presented to him. the Supreme Court has ruled that the police can lie to person to get to the truth. we used this ruling to our advantage.

Bob may have had a very high IQ, but he crossed over to the other side, when he met Det. John.

I don’t think Einstein knew the first thing about auto-mechanics.

@filmfann
That’s a very good point, basically you are saying that a genius doesn’t have to be well rounded, know about everything in order to be considered a genius. I think it’s one of the ugliest words because of the way that people use it to bolster their image, er, I mean intelligence can be quantified but it’s still arbitrary you know. True brilliance is only relevant in action and deed, to create or destroy, only when one is able to get the results they actually wanted. Just speaking to a genius IQ person is fairly normal, though they do tend to be a bit quirky or cut throat, either or.

Someone I used to know had a saying: Intelligence is no barrier to stupidity.

At least where I live, when someone talks with a very thick accent, or in a non-native-English word order, they’re considered less smart. Which they’re not. They’re actually smarter than most of the native-English speakers here (myself included) because they’re fluent and can communicate in at least two spoken languages. I personally know someone who can speak I don’t even know how many languages, is extremely educated, escaped from a dictatorship to live where I happened to be born, and because they have a slight accent—but speak better English than most anyone—they’ve been told to stop being a teacher.

What I’m getting at is being ‘genius’ and being considered ‘genius’ are completely separate concepts. One has to do with what’s going on in your head, and one has to do with what other people think is going on in your head, and whether they find what they think is going on worthwhile. So of course you can be one and not the other. (It can go either way, I think.)

@DancingMind
huh, well, maybe you got a point, it would be more important to be considered one, but this wouldn’t lower or raise how we tested, what our test number was, at least 140–160+ is in the genius range. I just learned something really cool, I’ve been tested twice, a year apart, first one I hadn’t yet worked on some emotional issues I had concerning my past, I tested at 143. Then during that year I meditated and would revisualize painful moments, and I did this throughout my day, and quickly what happened, I became oeverwhelmed with emotion, and was unable to speak in sentences for at least a good month. People thought I was dumb, on drugs, etc, but it was just this soul searching I was doing. After that month, I got better. To be honest, I was disappointed in the results I got. I had clearer insight about things, life, but I felt that doing that to myself cost me dearly, especially since I did it while I was homeless and without the aid of a shrink or therepist. But when I got tested again about eleven months later, I tested at 155. I thought that was proof that my suffering wasnt for nothing. Now, right now, I wouldnt test that high. I’m slower, and impaired from medication. I remember the person who gave me the test giving me praise for my score and I couldnt understand why, or what the big deal was. I do now, it means that maybe the odds could maybe be stacked in my favor and maybe I wont have to be homeless again. I could go back to school and probably be a decent student. That would be smart, might not do it though, too hard to support myself and go to school. I know people have done it but there better people than I.

Sure. I think of genius as an exteme facet of talent, definitely nothing to do with being a well rounded human being.

I’ve dealt with it all of my life.

@john65pennington I knew bob_ was no good!!!

* pulls @Dutchess_III‘s hair and runs away *

That wasn’t me, dummy! It was @john65pennington‘s hair you pulled and you’re in fer it now!!

Dutchess, actually, Bob was a nice guy. if only he had focused his intelligence into another avenue, he would be out of prison today. do you think this is where Sponge Bob came from?

@john65pennington To think of the good that Bob could have done….

Seems clear someone could be a genus and still be considered stupid. I was wondering about the other way around. Could you be stupid and still be considered a genus? And if you were, which genus would it be?

I have little idea of what people mean when they say “genius.” These stories about people who know something very well but have no common sense seem a bit contrived to me. Maybe a form of autism? Aspergers?

I don’t think it’s terribly useful to look at people as being how they test. The tests are… usually for one fairly specific purpose—usually to assess a person’s capabilities in various skills useful in learning stuff—and then people take them as a measure of a person; even worse, as a part of their identity. And thus was Mensa born.

I am constantly amazed that anyone pays much attention to me here. Maybe it’s just patting me on the head and saying, “Nice boy.” There seem to be geniuses falling out of every tree around here. The collective IQ of fluther is probably greater than the gross domestic product of several small nations. Or it would be, if I weren’t here. According to the tests, I’m not very smart—and I’m a good tester. Well, all I can say is that I hope I’m not just being self-serving when I say that the tests don’t really tell us much. They are ways for psychologists and ETS to keep themselves in business. I firmly believe that we are not how we test.

Einstein also didn’t talk for many years, and almost failed out of school.

There are different types of intelligence. More and more of the research into intelligences these days is losing the focus on IQ and more on understanding different types of intelligences, like emotion, interpersonal, intrapersonal, kinesthetic, etc.

@wundayatta
Being tested feels like being taken out of your comfort zone, and placed in the center of chaos, how well create something from that chaos means a lot. I still think it’s a four letter word though.

@truecomedian I run my tests in very different ways. I’m generally a pretty good judge of character and capabilities. And even when people aren’t as good as I thought they would be, I am a very good trainer, one on one. My trainees usually do pretty well out there in the wide world.

I think the only good way to assess someone is to work with them. Most people think that’s not feasible on a large scale. I don’t know.

Meet Rain Man.