collisrost wrote:
Let's be reasonable here. Saying Rose is dumb because he can't get a high score on a standardized test is blatantly unfair. Theree's two reasons: 1. These tests don't test true intelligence, they test your test-taking ability. They test things that are measurable objectively like the extent of your vocabulary, which do not come from pure intelligence, but have to be learned through voraciously reading books or whatever. If he didn't have a habit of reading all through his childhood or if he's more artistically bent than mathematically, it'll show up as a "bad" test score.
Second, tests test your time commitment to your education. I very much doubt Rose had a whole lot of time to sit with his books every day what with all the basketball he had to play and practice. In any case, He just didn't need to have a heavy commitment to education since he knew his career would not be determined by his academics.
I would strike the "let's be reasonable here" from your opening gambit. I think it's reasonable for people to view intelligence as an extension of education. Most people you meet will largely view intelligence as a function of education level and problem solving.
Standardized testing doesn't test your "test-taking ability", it tests the extent to which you've learned/retained the things you should have learned by going through the public school system.
By saying Rose didn't spend a lot of time on education, so therefore, he's not dumb is like looking at a 300lb man and saying "Oh he's not fat, he just didn't spend a lot of time eating healthy and exercising.". Yes, there might be mitigating factors. Maybe he had bad genetics, maybe he had some medical condition which forced him to gain weight, maybe everyone else around him ate a ton of food and environmental factors had a heavy influence on him. Maybe it really isn't his fault at all.
However, in the end, he still weighs 300lbs, and that's not really open to interpretation. In the end, Derrick Rose's education level is really low whether that's due to genetics, environment, or lifelong effort or whatever is up for debate. However, he clearly cared about the result and wasn't able to achieve it, or else he wouldn't have taken the test twice then had someone else take it for him to get him the score he needed.
In a word, these test scores are meaningless in regards to anything basketball-related. It's too bad he seems to have cheated, but it doesn't make him dumb.
I agree that these test scores are irrelevant to his basketball skills. Maybe he isn't dumb, but come up with a word instead that means "doesn't possess the basic intellectual skills you would expect any person who's graduated high school to have".
