To wonder how smart do you actually have to be for some professions?

[Jigaliga]

Inspired by a comment on another thread...

Do you really have to be genuinely intelligent to be a doctor, lawyer, etc? Or is it just putting in the grind and a good education?

I guess to be an academic you would have to be intelligent. To be a barrister too, but maybe not to be a solicitor? What about accountants?

No excuse for ‘losing’ £20K of clients money though. Then sending a cheque later for money they owed, but didn’t know where from.

You have to be mega smart in my job.
You have to know how to use sticky tape.
And know how to pack.😂

There are different sorts of mental ability and it is hard to define smart.

Ive known people with fantastic memories, but lack the ability to deal with new problems or think in an original way or be creative. Similarly some highly creative mathematical types who are brilliant at mastering complex concepts have the memory of a goldfish.

Ultimately the world will be for people who can do stuff that other people (and machines can't). Machines can store and retrieve loads of facts. So that skill is for the high jump. Machines are getting better at summarising and linking facts as well. The sorts of skills analysts and lawyers/doctors need. So that skill will disappear. It is harder for them to think creatively but that will probably come eventually. It will be talents like innovation and creativity that will survive the longest and we are probably a few decades away from those talents being surpassed by machine activity.

I think the biggest mistake people make with AI is that they assume one day it will be humans and the next day it will be machines.

It doesn't really work that way. Humans use machines to assist them to perform better and faster and their job changes.

If you are aiming to be at the top of one of these professions, where the money is extremely good, then obviously there will be a huge amount of competition. If you aren’t clever, you will lose clients to more able people. There is also a lot of competition from abroad. Other countries are very happy to take the business from the UK.

I, for one, do want a genuinely intelligent person looking after me in a hospital when I am facing a life or death situation.

I want a person who makes the right decision when under pressure and with time constraints.

I work in consulting, and after nearly 20 years would say there is a certain raw intelligence / problem solving that if you haven’t got it - it can’t be taught - you can’t see what you’re missing

So people might get a few years in, but after a while it becomes too demanding to keep up, hard work and/or BS only gets so far

Well quite. We know all that now but, back in 1980, much was made of his lowly occupation, the fact that he left school at 16 with only one O level etc. Up until that point, Mastermind was very much regarded as a programme for, and taken part in by, the middle classes. Fred Housego built a whole broadcasting career on the back of it but carried on cab driving, presumably to keep his hippocampus in good shape. He was also a guide at the Tower of London, which requires being able to store vast amounts of knowledge.
My point, really, was surprise that I have never come across the phenomenum of a disproportionate number of quiz show contestants being cabbies (because of my awareness of FH), but I'm prepared to believe it.

I'm an academic and have, professionally, interacted with a range of medical professionals. I think you obviously need at least average level intelligence - you've got to be able to process information (often quite quickly), articulate ideas, process numerical information etc. But, you can get quite far with a very strong work ethic and dedication to your discipline. Equally though - there isn't just one type of intelligence - you can be an absolute whizz with numbers but find writing a persuasive argument incredibly difficult or vice versa.

I think the issue of privilege is complex - there are so many ways in which someone can have privilege - it could be access to different educational pathways, more opportunities to meet the right people and have the right connections, or more opportunities to build a varied personal statement/CV. Undeniably, your family having money can access many of these things - whether it be through tutors, private schools, parental knowledge/connections, alumni networks, not having to have paid employment to pay the bills which allows for more unpaid/volunteer work etc.

Myself, I come from a working class background and have seen these privileges play out for others. But, equally, I have to acknowledge that I was afforded some myself. I attended a state grammar school and this meant the focus was on academic rigor. I do not think I would have attended university if I had gone to a different school like my siblings - no-one in my family before me had - am I more intelligent than my older siblings? Maybe, maybe not - but the one thing that was different was that I was given an opportunity that they weren't due to circumstance.

I have witnessed how these privileges can 'smooth the path' for someone who is not quite as intelligent to go as far/further than someone who is more intelligent but less privileged. For example, if you've got money then you can self-fund a PhD and as long as you've got a 2:1 degree then you'll find someone who'll agree to supervise you, but if you haven't got money then you need to get a scholarship which is competitive and only the brightest and/or best ideas get funded. Another example - once you've got your PhD you are often reliant on short-term contracts for quite some time before you get a permanent post. These can involve moving a lot and periods without work - much easier to do if you know you've got money behind you and I've seen some very bright minds leave academia because they couldn't afford to follow this path or because they hadn't been able to do lots of 'extra' research assistant work during their PhD to get the publications needed for their CV (because they were working weekends to support themselves instead). A third example - some applied careers associated to my discipline require postgraduate training that require extensive work experience to get onto the training. Getting paid work experience is incredibly competitive, most have to get it through volunteering, which is so much easier if you've got money behind you. Also, you may well have the connections that means you're the lucky one who gets the paid work even though your family could afford to support you to do the volunteer role! Essentially, being clever/intelligent isn't always enough.

You certainly have to have privilege to be an academic now. I was lucky because when I wanted to do a PhD there were quite a few funding schemes in my discipline. I couldn't have afforded to do it otherwise and I had to work in retail at the same time.

Now the funding has dried up and my department is full of PhDs who are very very rich overseas students. I haven't seen anyone from a UK background or in particular a state school background near the panels in years.

cant disagree with your comments on David Lammy but way off the mark on law degrees. It's not just learning case law and statue - it's understanding the underlying principles applying it to incredibly complex situations. And across a huge range of areas- family law, tort, competition, tax, criminal, land law etc. It's absolutely not a case of mainly memorising stuff

David Lammy also went to Harvard so I suspect he’s actually very intelligent. Why would you think he isn’t?

Is this the guy who reckoned men could grow a cervix?

Do you have a law degree? It’s absolutely not narrow in scope, nor is it mainly memorising. It’s about analysis and problem solving.

That also is fair comment.

I copy edit court judgments and books by legal academics and am blown away by the intelligence needed to form legal and philosophical arguments, as well as the vast knowledge and reading required. Sad to say I don't think I have the capability myself. Although I do think there are different types of intelligence.

I’m a doctor and I’d say that there is quite a range of intellect in my doctor friends/colleagues. Some are ridiculously clever, with fast analytic brains and incredible memories. Some are more “normal”. But what all of us had is a strong determination and ability to work and work and work. Medical training is relentless, lectures all day every day and exams every couple of months. Then demanding junior doctor posts with a need to stay focussed for long periods with no breaks.

Certainly in my junior days, we would regularly work for 50 hours non stop with no sleep, and still be required to resuscitate someone in cardiac arrest, perform a lumbar puncture, administer chemotherapy etc. I think the ability to manage a range of medical conditions in a limited time definitely requires a pretty high level of cognitive functioning.

I think people are vastly overestimating the academic benefit of going to a private school. I think studies have shown that once you control for parental education, household income, etc, the benefit is at most half a grade increase per subject.

I don't think you need to be fantastically intelligent to be a doctor, lawyer or accountant. An IQ of 110 (which would put you in the top 25th percentile) should be sufficient to get in to med school if you come from an academically supportive and stable household. Probably similar to get in to a top law firm or big4 accountancy firm. You obviously need to be driven and hardworking too.

No one works 50 hours with no sleep and I actually don’t buy that 50 years ago either. My dr friends didn’t “work” but they were on call. So not always making decisions when ultra tired. It’s not a sign of being a good dr either. Hence it’s not a requirement now.

So, just to be clear @TizerorFizz you’re saying that @SalfordQuays is not telling the truth? Why would she do that?

Will have to read through this thread a little later as I'm curious as to answers!

I did A levels and went to university however I am incredibly stupid, have never been tested but i definitely don't score high on the IQ side of things. I think I've passed all my exams as i am very good at cramming knowledge in prior to exam (then forgetting it all immediately) i was also very good at coursework/writing essays and achieved several A's in some, yet failed the exams which led to scraping a C to pass some of my courses.
My current (and only job I've ever had) requires some degree of intelligence (using computer systems, mild medical knowledge) however ive gotten here by starting at the bottom of the chain and working my way up, i would struggle to apply for my job and get it based on my intelligence alone.
My maths is horrendous, i count on my fingers and always use a calculator to do sums, i have no general knowledge. My brain basically died since my school days. I'd love to do something medical/psychological/science related as i find that stuff interesting but i think you have to be smart for some of these types of jobs even with the training etc because someone like me could never handle it.

@HotCrossBunplease Because people recount the worst circumstances and not the standard circumstances. I think drs got interrupted sleep but working fully for 96 hours with no sleep is almost impossible and not safe as a standard work pattern,

In a minority of jobs, yes. In the majority, I don't think so. Someone who has been hired because they know the right people will usually leverage those connections further to keep themselves in a job. What usually happens is there's a competent person earning less, lower down the chain, who ends up keeping the useless nepo arse afloat.

It's easier to hire a friend than it is to fire them, so bosses who hire this way often end up stuck with a dud. They can't face the social consequence of firing said dud, and it reflects poorly on them, to their own superiors, to have hired someone who can't do the job. So they'll keep on the nepo and carry them through, artificially inflating their capabilities, until they can offload this dead weight via promotion.

Totally agree with this. A law degree is about retaining information , but then applying it to a whole range of scenarios and working out what is relevant where. It’s absolutely not just about pure memory!

Also, this is slightly off the main thrust of this thread, but, I also take massive issue with the post near the start, about all council staff being mainly absolute thickos devoid of any brain cells. I am and have been a council officer for many years. Councils employ a huge range of people, from a huge range of disciplines, including many, many well qualified and experienced people. To say that we are all blithering idiots, based presumably on an interaction with one department, is a huge generalisation and very rude.

Quote didn't work! This was in response to the argument that nepo hires are alright, because once they're through the door they still have to prove themselves.

Sadly, they don't. The double standard that got them in functions to keep them there, and even promote them, in most circumstances. Very few professions are so skills-based the dead weight can't coast

Didn’t mean 96 hours! However 2 days and nights with no sleep at all wasn’t what was expected or done very often.