<p>anewtypedude - Not only do you have poor reading comprehension skills, but you can’t keep your story straight. Allow me to quote you:</p>
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<p>So, to summarize, you first tell us that if a person is good-looking, s/he will party like crazy and/or be stupid.</p>
<p>Let’s move on to the next group of quotes:
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<p>Hm. That seems to be in direct contradiction with what you said earlier! Odd, that. Now let’s take a look at your “studies.” Firstly, don’t expect anyone to take you seriously when you say there is a vast amount of literature on a topic and then cite the Princeton Review and Playboy. Honestly. This is probably a lesson you should learn before grad school. Secondly, did you actually read the article you cited? Because it does not say, in any way, that there is an actual correlation between appearance and intelligence. In fact, it finds that by adolescence there is no correlation. One would think this would be easy to understand, since it is stated in the first paragraph summary. Allow me to quote:</p>
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<p>Perhaps you could read articles past their titles next time you try and prove an assertion. Feel free to find some real data to prove your ridiculous assumptions. Hey, I ain’t gonna do your search for you.</p>
<p>my roommate in college dated grad students exclusively. all of her boyfriends and ****-buddies over that four-year period were her TAs at some point.</p>
<p>There is a correlation between attractiveness and IQ for almost all the ages from what I read. </p>
<p>But this study still doesn’t support prior arguments. </p>
<p>A correlation between attraction and IQ of .22 of young adults is, in practical terms, meaningless. </p>
<p>Yes it’s statistically significant, and it’s hard to explain much variance in social science, but still, the effect size is silly. </p>
<p>“as a rule of thumb, we can say that correlations of less than .30 indicate little if any relationship between the variables.”
[See: Hinkle, Wiersma, & Jurs (1988), Applied Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences, 2nd ed., Houghton Mifflin Co.]</p>
<p>Where do these guys come from? This is not a valid argument: the conclusion does not follow necessarily from the suppositions. Suppose attractive women prefer high status, unintelligent males. There could be all sorts of relationships going on here. I mean, it’s an interesting notion, but it seems amateurish to spend so much space <em>saying</em> that it’s airtight.</p>
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You mean Japanese? What’s up with that?
(;</p>
<p>This thread makes me glad to be in a wonderful marriage. I get to be a man in every sense except desperation.</p>
<p>lol… this quote makes me think that the education system is fair. I hope you understand that regardless of whether a “TA” has romantic intentions for a “student,” the grading system is pretty skewed. I know kids who got higher grades simply because they talked to the profs more. Obviously, we’re professionals here and would try to uphold some justice in our grading system. But it does happen that instructors are sometimes swayed to give higher grades (i.e. athletes-reports, failing seniors, great-kid but not very good at testtaking etc etc). But, please, don’t make the assumption that all is fair at universities, because it certainly is not. Most of the system is very personable. In fact, the process of getting in the graduate school in the first place is about your references.</p>
<p>Well, no, but when someone says “they got a better grade because they just liked them better,” it sounds whiny and they’ll be ignored, but when they say “they got a better grade because they’re canoodling in the corner with teacher,” then you’re up a creek without a paddle.</p>
<p>I think that post was more about CYA than an unbiased grading system. ;)</p>
<p>DespSeekPhd:
Please stop selectively quoting sections of my post and conveniently ignore the rest of it. I explained why attractive females are less likely to get into grad schools despite the fact that they are supposed to be genetically smarter. Please go back and READ. Meanwhile, please take a class on stats and scientific methods before you go around confusing correlation with causation; I was talking in correlational terms>_>
One other thing: NO FLAMING</p>
<p>The article does state that attractiveness does marginally predict intelligence in middle adulthood, you know, as in the typically age period of grad students. The correlation is not big, but it’s there.</p>
<p>Like I said, I am not going to do the homework for you, but do look into the literature of evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology for the relationship between attractiveness and intelligence. (A good textbook would do)</p>
<p>The debate is not about the fairness of grades. The good lawyer was trying to explain with very simple, concrete examples (since you seem to need them) <em>why</em> hitting on your students would expose your employer to liability. </p>
<p>Would you mind sharing where you have been educated? I take it a GRE was not required where you are now? I was initially stunned by your viewpoints; but that has been way overshadowed by your analytic skills.</p>
<p>anewtypedude - A textbook, in fact, will not do. The actual peer-reviewed research on this topic is sketchy at best. I pointed your arguments out to a few bio profs I know (some are specifically in evolutionary), and they laughed. Laughed hysterically, enough to thank me for forwarding it to them.</p>
<p>And FYI, disagreeing and pointing out your mistakes, inaccuracies, and inconsistencies is not flaming. If you can’t handle a challenge to your sexist and superficial views, grow up.</p>
<p>please note that for the record, I do not support the idea of graduate students dating undergraduate students in their classes or for which the graduate student would have a supervisory role. </p>
<p>this is my last post on this thread. which has turned out to be more amusing than most. </p>
<p>oh ya, starbright, so to explain my weak analytical skills… i goto a low ranking phd engineering school, never took the gre’s, and people along with myself are surprised why they accept idiots like myself too, don’t worry. those are accurate assumptions thanks.</p>
<p>Wow, I never thought that my replying to the original posting would bring about such amusing results! As a side note, I got asked out by another TA yesterday and I really had to try hard not to laugh due to this whole discussion. I’m really wondering why the TAs ask me out though…I must have “Available” stamped on my forehead.</p>
<p>DespSeekPhd:
I seriously doubt that you actually went and did that, because you don’t seem to have any science background in the first place, or else you wouldn’t have confused the concept of correlation with causation–something that’s usually taught in the first week of a stats or scientific methods class. </p>
<p>An evolution textbook has many references (from peer-reviewed journal) regarding this topic. I recommend the Evolutionary Psychology textbook written by David Buss, one of the biggest names in the field.</p>
<p>You claimed that you are not flaming, yet two sentences later you told me to grow up. If that’s not flaming then I don’t know what is. I didn’t even see anything remotely resembling a challenge–“I claim that I talked to so-and-so and they lol-ed” isn’t really an argument.</p>
<p>Your attempt to argue science is almost as pathetic as creationists’ attempt to pass Intelligence Design as a science.</p>
<p>With that said, let’s reconcile, honey. I am sure your presence in the graduate school will alone shift the average attractiveness rating by a couple standard deviations.</p>
<p>Here, allow me to give you a shovel. It will be easier than scooping out all that dirt by hand. No, really, I won’t need it anytime soon. I’m a professional, after all, and smart enough to avoid digging myself into holes. But I recognize the need for others to engage in this behavior, so please continue. It’s a good shovel, too - barely used. It should hold up for the next few hundred feet at least.</p>
<p>This is pretty hilarious but thank GOD I don’t have anything to do with this because</p>
<p>A) I go to a LAC so there’s a zero risk of being hit on by a TA. Or even my professors. Partly because this LAC can be cozy at times being in a small community.</p>
<p>B) As a female, I wouldn’t even dream of hitting on an undergrad, no matter how cute he is (even if he’s a football player for a Big 10). So I can be secure with my TA of course unless these guys complain. Then I’m in hell hole.</p>
<p>C) When I was in HS summer program at Brown, my male TAs felt awkward to be around us (women were the majority in my classes). I doubt that they’d even dream to ask. And those guys do confirm to some what’s been said about male grad students- socially awkward. Including my post-doc fellow that I had as a junior and he was in history. Maybe that’s just me or he was under too much pressure from my advisors/professors not to screw with me because he acted fine around others (and I got a freakin’ B-!) Then he proceeded to screw with me over my LOR for grad school after he left the university for another until I had one of his former supervisors to step in and draw the line again to give me respect. I’m sure that if he and I ever run into each other at a conference or something, it’ll be an interesting encounter. :)</p>
<p>At least I can be confident that I’ll find somebody in grad school… who’s not overly desperate. :)</p>