It does appear this study is just rote memorization, which alas is what modern education is measured as a basis for funding / performance, but is the least interesting form of "intelligence".
I guess education has traditionally been about exposure to topics, a "learned" person was someone who knew "lots of things". But in the age of wikipedia on your mobile, creative and insightful intelligence is even more valuable than rote memorization.
The implication is that this study is novel in its ability to measure rote memorization performance, and if that's true that the overall field of study struggles in core metrics of even that "rote" ability, hoo boy they'll never make progress in actual novel/powerful intelligence.
With that said, we all know high-IQ people (which presumably aren't measured necessarily on rote knowledge) that are imbeciles in real life, and even if most hacker news people are "smart", we each know how we are imbeciles in some aspect or manner.
In the end this will probably feed the "memorize and test" educational lobby, which is not a good thing.
I guess education has traditionally been about exposure to topics, a "learned" person was someone who knew "lots of things". But in the age of wikipedia on your mobile, creative and insightful intelligence is even more valuable than rote memorization.
The implication is that this study is novel in its ability to measure rote memorization performance, and if that's true that the overall field of study struggles in core metrics of even that "rote" ability, hoo boy they'll never make progress in actual novel/powerful intelligence.
With that said, we all know high-IQ people (which presumably aren't measured necessarily on rote knowledge) that are imbeciles in real life, and even if most hacker news people are "smart", we each know how we are imbeciles in some aspect or manner.
In the end this will probably feed the "memorize and test" educational lobby, which is not a good thing.