Who Has the Best Communication Skills on Physics Forums?

  • Thread starter heman
  • Start date
In summary: Lesser?In summary, the best communication skills on PF seem to be those of Moonbear, Clausius, Astronuc, and Danger. These individuals are approachable, have a unique style, and are funny. Evo and brewnog are also good communicators, but Moonbear and Clausius stand out the most.
  • #176
heman said:
"another"!
And who is the first one!
Answer my questions, please, the other intelligent individual is really having fun with this discussion. This member told me that, just recently :wink: (no wink to heman)

marlon
 
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  • #177
marlon said:
That is No answer to my question. READ MY PREVIOUS POST

Besides, as far as the time management stuff is concerned, did you by any chance asked her that through PM.

I will answer the question for you, because you seem on the slow side when it comes to responding : YES YOU DID

You did the same with me, ok, so now based upon my reply and Moonbear's reply concerning time management and self-confidence stuff, what was the most useful reply to you and why ? Who of us is better in communication when you look at Moonbear's reply and mine ? Tell me that for instance. Do not come with answers like Moonbear is easier to approach because, clearly, these types of answers do not fit within the question's context. Any mediocre communicator can see that ...


Well, you must be real easy than...
You DO know that thinking like this creates dictators, do you ?

Can i ask you how old you really are ? Just curious.

Yours Truthfully
marlon

Marlon i am not escaping the situation,Believe me!
I will tell you exactly what is the difference between you and Moonbear on Sunday,When i will be free and i will tell in a great massive detail!
 
  • #178
You know, hypnagogue really isn't getting his due here. Being that he is the philosophy mentor, and philosophy is basically the science of putting together cogent, coherent, clearly articulated arguments and explanations, I'm surprised no one has thought of him. He gets my vote.
 
  • #179
heman said:
Marlon i am not escaping the situation,Believe me!
I will tell you exactly what is the difference between you and Moonbear on Sunday,When i will be free and i will tell in a great massive detail!

Ohh c'mon, a great communicator is able to make his/here point crystal clear, in just a few lines. Do not write long answers because i do not read them anyway, unless they are about science or a homework problem. Just give me a short list of differences or reasons with the main justifications as to why you list these reasons.

marlon
ps / YES and i DO think you are trying to get out because, let's face it, you are waaaaaaaaayyy over your head here. You are fighting with your supreme idol (i am referring to myself here :rolleyes: ). Yeah, this is like "a student taking it back at the teacher"-thing...Well, you guessed right buddy, run away, but do realize :

i will make you an offer you cannot refuse :

"whenever i feel your heat or whenever i spot you around the corner, i will not hesitate, ; cause nomatter what, you will not get into my way ; ... ;i assure you brotha : When you least expect it : YOU ARE GOING DOWN"
 
  • #180
I think all people around here communicate well except those of them who're Mr knowlegable in every thing or Mr wet-blancket and of course high-strung people.
 
  • #181
marlon said:
Ohh c'mon, a great communicator is able to make his/here point crystal clear, in just a few lines. Do not write long answers because i do not read them anyway, unless they are about science or a homework problem. Just give me a short list of differences or reasons with the main justifications as to why you list these reasons.

marlon
ps / YES and i DO think you are trying to get out because, let's face it, you are waaaaaaaaayyy over your head here. You are fighting with your supreme idol (i am referring to myself here :rolleyes: ). Yeah, this is like "a student taking it back at the teacher"-thing...Well, you guessed right buddy, run away, but do realize :

i will make you an offer you cannot refuse :

"whenever i feel your heat or whenever i spot you around the corner, i will not hesitate, ; cause nomatter what, you will not get into my way ; ... ;i assure you brotha : When you least expect it : YOU ARE GOING DOWN"




Marlon,
Please don't take my ability to make you feel special as other way.You aren't even that much intelligent,you assume yourself to be.I don't know what you think about me,but i hope one day i will be able to surprise you.

1.seeks first to understand,then to be understood(Moonbear)
2.Coordination(Moonbear)
3.egoistic,sometimes guided by prejudice(Marlon)
4.fairly thick skin (Moonbear)
5.Objectivity(Moonbear)
6.ability to complicate the situation(Marlon)
7.Patience(Moonbear)
8.Maturity and Enlightenment(Moonbear)
9.Penetrating(Marlon)
10.Warm Language(Moonbear)
11.Stimulating(Moonbear)
12.Effective(Moonbear)
13.challenging and bold(Marlon)
14.Argumentative(Marlon)
15.Entratainer(Marlon)

These are some points i thought ,believe me while comparsion i have quoted winner even if the difference is very small.


Above all in communication most important factors are Coordination and Luck,which support Moonbear more.

Please see one more thing,i can't type that much fast which doesn't mean that i am a slow thinker.i took around 15 minutes to write only this much.

Marlon next time i will love to enter into arguments with you if the topic will be concerning Physics ,Maths because that will be more constructive for me and i will not think that i am wasting my time.
 
  • #182
outsider said:
there's nothing wrong with grouchy if that is communicated with good intentions... it's part of being honest in my opinion
:smile: I used to get grouchy a lot too, but it just leads to stomach upset and high blood pressure. It's also a nasty side-effect of graduate school.

There are two primary qualities I see here in those who I consider good communicators (which may or may not be the same people heman considers good communicators). One is simply the use of good grammar, spelling and word-usage. I especially appreciate this from those who did not grow up speaking English, and for whom I know it takes more effort to select words properly (though whether I appreciate it or not is less relevant than that it is effectively used). It just makes a post more readable.

The second, and more important, is to clearly state a point and be able to back it up and support that point. Especially in the science topics (less so in GD where it's pretty laid back and chit-chatty), you should be able to clearly identify the primary point and supporting evidence, the secondary point and supporting evidence, the tertiary point and supporting evidence, etc., and all of those points should revolve around some sort of "thesis" or overall statement of purpose.

I really don't agree that approachability is that important, especially in the context of a forum like this (it might be an issue if you are seeking information in person and being intimidated prevents you from asking your questions, however that's more of a problem for the person asking the question than for the one who is expected to answer). Afterall, questions posted here should not be directed to anyone person, so it's really not relevant if you feel one is or is not approachable. If they do respond to your question, the important thing is whether or not they have effectively answered your question or otherwise provided information that helps to clarify the question. For example, marlon might be grouchy (sorry to keep picking on you marlon), but that doesn't make his answers any less correct or less informative or less understandable. Even in this thread, he's actually trying to be helpful to heman by asking him to explain his reasoning and back up his statements. In essence, he's challenging heman to improve his communication, both by leading him through the questions he should ask himself, as well as by asking him to identify what it is that makes someone a good communicator so he can learn how to do that too.

On the other hand, in this particular post, I may be demonstrating poor communication skills by making far too many points all at once. It gets overly long and people's attention drifts. (I'll just claim I'm doing it on purpose to make my point. :wink:)

I'll just make one last point regarding approachability/likeability vs. content. It worries me to see people confusing the two, because this is how we wind up with people in political office who have won elections only because people like them or find them overall appearing more approachable and mistake that for good communication over and above the content of their speeches. Though, this works both ways. For those who have good points to make, and have the ability to articulate them, the manner in which they are delivered does affect how well they are received by your audience. So, while content trumps style, style is not entirely unimportant, especially when your audience is not a technically oriented audience; but style doesn't have to be synonymous with being likeable or approachable.
 
  • #183
heman said:
Marlon,
Please don't take my ability to make you feel special as other way.You aren't even that much intelligent,you assume yourself to be.

You are not getting the point , are you ? Don't just say anything, use argumentation/examples. Based upon what criteria are you claiming this ?

1.seeks first to understand,then to be understood(Moonbear)
How does this manifest itself, according to you ? Give me examples, please. try to be more specific. You are just writing down a general property here that is not even well defined. You see my point ?

2.Coordination(Moonbear)
Coordination of what. Link me to some posts that illustrate this, after you have defined coordination properly.

3.egoistic,sometimes guided by prejudice(Marlon)
What is egoistuic to you ? What prejudice have i been guided with and in what post ? I am talking about posts to you, ok ? Let's keep it personal :wink:


5.Objectivity(Moonbear)
Same remarks as above

6.ability to complicate the situation(Marlon)
Where have i done that ? Be sure not to mix asking for verification with complicating things.

7.Patience(Moonbear)
How do you judge 'patience' upon reading text-extracts ?

8.Maturity and Enlightenment(Moonbear)
ok, i give you that

9.Penetrating(Marlon)

Doesn't this contradict with complicating things ?
Please, enlight me...

10.Warm Language(Moonbear)
What on Earth is that ?

11.Stimulating(Moonbear)
Aren't you mixing 'warm' language with 'erotic' language.
This is a property based upon personal interpretation and experience and therefore cannot be taken seriously whithin our discussion

12.Effective(Moonbear)
Doesn't that contradict with me being, err 'penetrative'
Define effective

13.challenging and bold(Marlon)
Yes, i know
14.Argumentative(Marlon)
How can this be, since i let myself be guided by prejuidice :confused:
15.Entratainer(Marlon)
:confused: what is that ?

These are some points i thought ,believe me while comparsion i have quoted winner even if the difference is very small.
Really ? Tell me, how do you quote ?


marlon
 
  • #184
loseyourname said:
You know, hypnagogue really isn't getting his due here. Being that he is the philosophy mentor, and philosophy is basically the science of putting together cogent, coherent, clearly articulated arguments and explanations, I'm surprised no one has thought of him. He gets my vote.
I'd like to see this thread turn away from trying to name names (as others have also attempted to steer the thread away from that) and more toward identifying what makes someone a good communicator so that those who wish to become good communicators can learn to do so. This is what marlon is trying to push for, and I agree it's more constructive than just naming people you like for one reason or another without good supporting reasons for why you think they are good communicators. Afterall, there are a number of people here who are excellent communicators, a lot who are good communicators, some who communicate well enough to get their message across even if it could be made clearer, and some who just confuse the heck out of all of us. It's not going to do any good to try to list our entire membership into those various categories.
 
  • #185
Moonbear said:
:smile: I used to get grouchy a lot too, but it just leads to stomach upset and high blood pressure. It's also a nasty side-effect of graduate school.

There are two primary qualities I see here in those who I consider good communicators (which may or may not be the same people heman considers good communicators). One is simply the use of good grammar, spelling and word-usage. I especially appreciate this from those who did not grow up speaking English, and for whom I know it takes more effort to select words properly (though whether I appreciate it or not is less relevant than that it is effectively used). It just makes a post more readable.

The second, and more important, is to clearly state a point and be able to back it up and support that point. Especially in the science topics (less so in GD where it's pretty laid back and chit-chatty), you should be able to clearly identify the primary point and supporting evidence, the secondary point and supporting evidence, the tertiary point and supporting evidence, etc., and all of those points should revolve around some sort of "thesis" or overall statement of purpose.

I really don't agree that approachability is that important, especially in the context of a forum like this (it might be an issue if you are seeking information in person and being intimidated prevents you from asking your questions, however that's more of a problem for the person asking the question than for the one who is expected to answer). Afterall, questions posted here should not be directed to anyone person, so it's really not relevant if you feel one is or is not approachable. If they do respond to your question, the important thing is whether or not they have effectively answered your question or otherwise provided information that helps to clarify the question. For example, marlon might be grouchy (sorry to keep picking on you marlon), but that doesn't make his answers any less correct or less informative or less understandable. Even in this thread, he's actually trying to be helpful to heman by asking him to explain his reasoning and back up his statements. In essence, he's challenging heman to improve his communication, both by leading him through the questions he should ask himself, as well as by asking him to identify what it is that makes someone a good communicator so he can learn how to do that too.

On the other hand, in this particular post, I may be demonstrating poor communication skills by making far too many points all at once. It gets overly long and people's attention drifts. (I'll just claim I'm doing it on purpose to make my point. :wink:)

I'll just make one last point regarding approachability/likeability vs. content. It worries me to see people confusing the two, because this is how we wind up with people in political office who have won elections only because people like them or find them overall appearing more approachable and mistake that for good communication over and above the content of their speeches. Though, this works both ways. For those who have good points to make, and have the ability to articulate them, the manner in which they are delivered does affect how well they are received by your audience. So, while content trumps style, style is not entirely unimportant, especially when your audience is not a technically oriented audience; but style doesn't have to be synonymous with being likeable or approachable.

Moonbear,
Your ideas are too valuable.No Fooling-the ideas you have are unique!
And i have seen whenever you come up,there is a good chance that they are important!

Cold,obscure verbiage,extra technical thing may easily impress ignorant few who are easily impressed anyway but it also replels too and i think its best to express briefly,simply and humanly.
 
  • #186
Moonbear said:
It's also a nasty side-effect of graduate school.
I hear you ! I hear you fine... :approve:
One is simply the use of good grammar, spelling and word-usage.

Aoouich :-p or is it Auuoich ??

Even in this thread, he's actually trying to be helpful to heman by asking him to explain his reasoning and back up his statements.
Yes, and i know his will thank me for that. He already wants to go into science discussions with me :smile:

Good Work marlon, you have converted yet another lost soul o:) My friend Jozef R. will be happy

marlon
 
  • #187
Moonbear said:
This is what marlon is trying to push for, and I agree it's more constructive than just naming people you like for one reason or another without good supporting reasons for why you think they are good communicators.

Saying that he makes cogent, coherent, clearly articulated arguments isn't a good supporting reason?

One thing that helps me a lot is my experience with organized debate. They teach you to outline your thoughts, often even numbering them. I'm sure people have noticed that I do number, or at least use bullet points, to organize my arguments. Another thing that helps is to make an argument in proper argument form. You don't need to draw out a truth table in code or write a formal proof, but lay out your premises and your conclusion. Often, in an informal setting such as this, it helps to lay out what you hope to demonstrate first, and then list the supporting premises. If you are making an inductive argument, say so, and explain the nature of the evidence you bring to bear. Include links wherever possible.
 
  • #188
Here is a great example of a very well communicated post (albeit, on a very trivial topic):

Fried Egg said:
If we have ultimate control of all our actions, and if the ways in which our actions will interact with our environment are deterministically predictable,
then we have ultimate control of the consequences of our actions.


There are tacit premises here that will need to be made explicit. I'll try my best to guide you along. First, I'll simplify the language a bit, to avoid the possibility of an amphiboly fallacy. So let's reformulate the argument thus:

IF humans have control of their actions AND
the consequences of these actions can be known a priori,
THEN humans have control of the consequences of their actions.

We can then formulate it symbolically:

IF (H AND A), THEN C.

H=humans have control of their actions
A=the consequences of their actions can be known a priori
C=humans have control of the consequencs of their actions

Stated as such, you don't actually have an argument yet, but rather a hypothetical conditional proposition. We'll need to first remove the hypothetical IF . . . THEN (which is implicit in the structure of any argument already) and make a syllogism out of it:

Humans have control of their actions.
The consequences of human actions can be known.
Therefore, humans have control of the consequences of their actions.

Before we can evaluate the validity of this argument, let's first translate it into quantificational language:

For all x, IF x is a human action, THEN x can be controlled.
For all y, IF y is a consequence of human action, THEN y can be known.
Therefore, for all y, IF y is a consequence of human action, THEN y can be controlled.

We'll use these statement variables for complete translation into symbolic language:

H=human action
C=can be controlled
Q=consequence of human action
K=can be known

1. (x)(IF Hx, THEN Cx)
2. (x)(IF Qx, THEN Kx)
Therefore, (x)(IF Qx, THEN Cx)

After instantiation we get:

3. IF Ha, THEN Ca
4. IF Qa, THEN Ka
Therefore, IF Qa, THEN Ca

As of now, the argument is clearly invalid. Adding the premise IF Ka, THEN Ha would make it valid, but consider what that says: "If a can be known, THEN a is a human action." Obviously, that isn't true, so we should go another route. The best way I can think of is to insert the premise that Ha=Qa, that a human action is logically equivalent to the consequence of a human action. That is to say, if a human action occurs, then the consequence of that action naturally follows; one cannot be true without the other being true. So, now that we have added in your tacit premise, we can fully formulate your argument thus:

1. (x)(IF Hx, THEN Cx)
2. (x)(IF Qx, THEN Kx)
3. Hx=Qx
Therefore, IF Qx, THEN Cx

You can see now that the second premise actually isn't necessary to establish validity, so we'll just take it out.

1. (x)(IF Hx, THEN Cx)
2. Hx=Qx
Therefore, IF Qx, THEN Cx

Translated back into english, this says:

1. All human actions can be controlled.
2. All human actions imply their consequences and the consequences imply their actions.
Therefore, all consequences of human actions can be controlled.

(Premise 2 is basically saying that consequences are mechanistic, but saying it in such a way that the relationship between that fact and the subsequent control that can be exercised over the consequence is better illustrated.)
 
  • #189
I'm going to take a different approach than marlon in addressing the points that follow (it doesn't mean you're off the hook for responding to his queries...support your arguments with the evidence he requests). Some things you've named are important communication skills, and some aren't, and some are too ambiguous.

heman said:
1.seeks first to understand,then to be understood
I wonder why you did not attribute this quality to marlon as well? This is precisely what he's doing in this thread is to continually ask you for clarification of your definitions in order to proceed with the discussion. So, yes, before one can answer a question, one must understand the question, so this is a reasonable skill and is demonstrated by many here.

2.Coordination
I don't understand this term at all in the context of communication. You're going to have to clarify what you mean by coordination.

3.egoistic,sometimes guided by prejudice
4.fairly thick skin
5.Objectivity
All three of these are unrelated to communication skills. These are simply personal traits and are also somewhat relative, and can be colored by your own prejudices about someone's personality. This traits may make someone a better or worse listener or advisor, but they have no influence on communication.

6.ability to complicate the situation
This can work both ways. While it would be poor communication if someone took something simple and made it so complicated as to be incomprehensible, if someone has oversimplified a concept, it would be good communication for someone to expand up on it and point out the complexities that have been overlooked.

7.Patience
8.Maturity and Enlightenment
9.Penetrating
Again, these are all personality traits, and are totally unrelated to communication. Indeed, sometimes patience can interfere with communication when a more direct point that cuts to the chase is appropriate.

10.Warm Language
I'm not entirely sure what you mean by this. Perhaps you mean a more conversational tone? That can be a good communication skill in terms of keeping the audience's attention, but that's usually more important in oral communication rather than written communication. In written communication, more formality can be expected.

11.Stimulating
This is another one you'll have to clarify, because it seems like a rather subjective statement. Perhaps you just have a greater interest in the topics I discuss than those marlon discusses, thus you find them more stimulating.

12.Effective
The entire post is about what's effective, so this really doesn't mean anything other than to demonstrate you've formed a conclusion in advance of evaluating the evidence.

13.challenging and bold
These may be part of the message, but they are not part of what defines how they are communicated to you.

14.Argumentative
Yes, something well communicated presents a clear argument, however, I'm not sure that's how you intended this descriptor to be used here. Argumentative alone isn't particularly meaningful, it's all about whether you make that argument well or poorly.

15.Entratainer
Ahh, sadly, with the MTV generation, this is more important than it should be. It seems in order to get through to people nowadays, one must do a song and dance routine and provide entertainment or else short attention spans drift elsewhere. Though, what is considered entertaining depends upon one's audience. I would prepare a very different presenation to a group of high school students than I would to a group of professional scientists. It's sometimes difficult to respond in a way that appeases everyone around here since we have such a range of ages and backgrounds among the membership. So, this too is probably very subjective.

These are some points i thought ,believe me while comparsion i have quoted winner even if the difference is very small.
There should be no winners and losers. Everyone will be a winner if they learn what it is that makes someone a good communicator and takes away that message to develop their own skills in communication.

Above all in communication most important factors are Coordination and Luck,which support Moonbear more.
While I may be flattered by your support, I'm afraid I still don't know what coordination has to do with anything, and surely luck is not a skill. Luck does not make one a good communicator, and I'm certainly not a lucky person anyway, so if it is important, I'm afraid I'd fail on that point.

Marlon next time i will love to enter into arguments with you if the topic will be concerning Physics ,Maths because that will be more constructive for me and i will not think that i am wasting my time.
I hope you don't feel it is not constructive to address marlon's arguments here. It would not be a waste of your time to heed his suggestions and give serious thought to what he is asking you.
 
  • #190
10.Warm Language(Moonbear)

What on Earth is that ?

11.Stimulating(Moonbear)

Aren't you mixing 'warm' language with 'erotic' language.
This is a property based upon personal interpretation and experience and therefore cannot be taken seriously whithin our discussion.
Stimulating language that gets me warm? That clinches it. I vote for Moonbear, too. :smile:

(Fortunately, I don't take this discussion too seriously or I couldn't have said that)
 
  • #191
loseyourname said:
Saying that he makes cogent, coherent, clearly articulated arguments isn't a good supporting reason?
Well, there you go, I gave another prime example of poor communication (my own). :biggrin:
 
  • #192
BobG said:
Stimulating language that gets me warm? That clinches it. I vote for Moonbear, too. :smile:

(Fortunately, I don't take this discussion too seriously or I couldn't have said that)
This reminds me of the comparison that was done by some news show. They had two models/actresses teach elementary students for a day as substitute teachers and then asked the students which one was the better teacher (they both taught similar lesson plans and acted very warm and friendly). The catch was that they dressed one up very attractively, put nice make-up on her, attractive clothing, she wore her hair down and long, and she just generally looked very pretty, young and fresh; the other one they dressed very unattractively, used make-up to make her appear to have bags under her eyes, put her hair up into an unattractive bun, dressed her in ugly, ill-fitting clothing, and generally made her look unattractive, old and tired. Over and again, the "attractive" teacher was rated as the better teacher. I've seen this happen in college courses too when it comes time for teaching evaluations. All the students loved the two most attractive (and youngest) professors in the general biology course I TA'd (I sat through all their lectures and know the old professor who wore sweatpants and looked a lot like Papa Smurf actually gave the most informative and well-organized lectures), one was a fairly voluptuous female professor, and the other a physically fit male professor (and of course their "approval ratings" differed among the male and female students). I keep in touch with the male professor, and he's noted that ever since he started going gray, his teaching evaluations have gotten worse.

So, the only conclusion I can draw from this is that I'm more attractive than marlon! :biggrin: :smile: :-p
 
  • #193
heman said:
Who do you think has got the best communication skills on PF!


These are the names which come to my mind,

Tom Mattson
Clausius
Astronuc
Moonbear
ZapperZ

I sincerely like Moonbear for her approachibility and the genre in which she gets her point right through and Astronuc for being unique and ready for everything!

And when it comes to being funny,nobody beats Danger! :-p

What do you think??

Heman,

Although I have been mentioned here only ONE time along these thirteen pages (have you realized the great amount of traitors over here?? :smile: ), I am very satisfied of you heman thinking I deserve to be in your list. And I feel so because I was not aware I am understable when I talk/write in english. I thought many of yours didn't understand the 70% of sentences I write here, but this have lived me up.

Writting here for a foreigner joins two main challenges: 1) writting with the correct gramatic (mine's one is dramatic more than gramatic :-p ) to be understable by others, and 2) saying right things from the technical point of view to be seen by others as someone who seems to know something about what he is talking about. For me it is too much easier to talk about engineering, physics or dating in spanish, but doing so in english is much difficult.

By the way, I am not going to give off any list, we know there are many people over here, each one in his specialized field of knowledge (and others without any field) who are very good communicators, some times to have a fun time with them, some times to learn from them.
 
  • #194
Moonbear said:
This reminds me of the comparison that was done by some news show. They had two models/actresses teach elementary students for a day as substitute teachers and then asked the students which one was the better teacher (they both taught similar lesson plans and acted very warm and friendly). The catch was that they dressed one up very attractively, put nice make-up on her, attractive clothing, she wore her hair down and long, and she just generally looked very pretty, young and fresh; the other one they dressed very unattractively, used make-up to make her appear to have bags under her eyes, put her hair up into an unattractive bun, dressed her in ugly, ill-fitting clothing, and generally made her look unattractive, old and tired. Over and again, the "attractive" teacher was rated as the better teacher. I've seen this happen in college courses too when it comes time for teaching evaluations. All the students loved the two most attractive (and youngest) professors in the general biology course I TA'd (I sat through all their lectures and know the old professor who wore sweatpants and looked a lot like Papa Smurf actually gave the most informative and well-organized lectures), one was a fairly voluptuous female professor, and the other a physically fit male professor (and of course their "approval ratings" differed among the male and female students). I keep in touch with the male professor, and he's noted that ever since he started going gray, his teaching evaluations have gotten worse.

So, the only conclusion I can draw from this is that I'm more attractive than marlon! :biggrin: :smile: :-p
Is that just due to physical appearance or non-verbal communication.

Michael Shermer talks about the ability to form a quick impression in his "The Captain Kirk Principle".

"Nalini Ambady and Robert Rosenthal of Harvard University, for example, discovered that evaluations of teachers by students who saw a mere 30-second video of the teacher were remarkably akin to those of students who had taken the course. Even three two-second video clips of the instructor yielded a striking 0.72 correlation with the course students' evaluations."

Shermer chalks it up to intuition (it's the only reference I could find to Ambady and Roenthal's experiment), but he barely touches on the things that go into intuition (people less attentive to speech are better at detecting lies than the people who actually listen to what a person is saying).

It could be that it only takes about 30 seconds for a teacher to non-verbally communicate exactly how successful they expect to be in teaching a subject to their students over the next few weeks. The teacher, having detailed knowledge of their own past experiences, winds up transmitting a pretty accurate prediction of their future performance.

Or then again, maybe it's impossible to overcome that initial first impression, no matter what you do.

Being good looking probably helps. I used to referee soccer and at first, it kind of puzzled me when the soccer moms on both sides of the field would scream at me, "Hey, ref, you have a kid on the other team?!" It finally dawned on me that one look at my neat, trim body running around on the soccer pitch must have convinced people that women were standing in line to bear my children. :smile:
 
  • #195
Moonbear said:
This reminds me of the comparison that was done by some news show. They had two models/actresses teach elementary students for a day as substitute teachers and then asked the students which one was the better teacher (they both taught similar lesson plans and acted very warm and friendly). The catch was that they dressed one up very attractively, put nice make-up on her, attractive clothing, she wore her hair down and long, and she just generally looked very pretty, young and fresh; the other one they dressed very unattractively, used make-up to make her appear to have bags under her eyes, put her hair up into an unattractive bun, dressed her in ugly, ill-fitting clothing, and generally made her look unattractive, old and tired. Over and again, the "attractive" teacher was rated as the better teacher. I've seen this happen in college courses too when it comes time for teaching evaluations. All the students loved the two most attractive (and youngest) professors in the general biology course I TA'd (I sat through all their lectures and know the old professor who wore sweatpants and looked a lot like Papa Smurf actually gave the most informative and well-organized lectures), one was a fairly voluptuous female professor, and the other a physically fit male professor (and of course their "approval ratings" differed among the male and female students). I keep in touch with the male professor, and he's noted that ever since he started going gray, his teaching evaluations have gotten worse.

So, the only conclusion I can draw from this is that I'm more attractive than marlon! :biggrin: :smile: :-p


Moonbear,
I agree with you,that can happen but you did not tell us about educational qualifications and way of teaching of teachers.
The first thing that any student tries to think of i believe is,how the teacher teaches,how much effort he puts in,how much knowledge does he have.If they were identical in these respect then obviously the smarter one would have won.

The way of dressing doesn't really matter if the person is extraordinarily Brilliant.I think i remember a movie "A BEAUTIFUL MIND" where the actress of the movie was attracted to John Nash simply because of his great mind,although he dressed in an adhoc manner and even expressed his will to have sex with her as soon as possible.I believe something much more penetrating than external beauty exists and that has got real attractive power.

I am not denying that you are attractive but honestly i find Marlon to be bit more attractive than you.(like 9:10 :biggrin: I am sorry if i am hurting you)I find his face to very expressive and a kind of confident look.I think when it comes to expressing emotions like anger,appreciation,attraction,aggression i find Marlon to be far ahead of most Pf members.He behaves very very naturally and intellectually.Its very obvious that you seem to be thinking like that because you are gorgeous,but believe me i formed a very nice image of you in my mind much before seeing your pic.The day i saw yours pic,i tried to know more details about you and obviously browsed through the site of yours university.When i told you this,you must have thought like i am an lusty(?) guy or rather formed bad impression about me but i was/am honest.


I was once attracted to an ugly lady just only because she had such an nice & wonderful nature.
Another familiar example can be of Evo,i hope she doesn't mind it.
I saw pic of Evo,i wasn't initially attracted to her but when i started reading her replies,i feel that more than having a beautiful body and stunning looks ,she too is an beautiful mind.


Its very natural that Beautiful ladies possesses some great attractive field but that works only when the person has got more substance.When i was in class 10th,my two beautiful classmates always approached me.Ofcourse for few initial days i liked them,but as i started to know them better i avoided them.
 
  • #196
Clausius2 said:
Heman,

Although I have been mentioned here only ONE time along these thirteen pages (have you realized the great amount of traitors over here?? :smile: ), I am very satisfied of you heman thinking I deserve to be in your list. And I feel so because I was not aware I am understable when I talk/write in english. I thought many of yours didn't understand the 70% of sentences I write here, but this have lived me up.

Writting here for a foreigner joins two main challenges: 1) writting with the correct gramatic (mine's one is dramatic more than gramatic :-p ) to be understable by others, and 2) saying right things from the technical point of view to be seen by others as someone who seems to know something about what he is talking about. For me it is too much easier to talk about engineering, physics or dating in spanish, but doing so in english is much difficult.

By the way, I am not going to give off any list, we know there are many people over here, each one in his specialized field of knowledge (and others without any field) who are very good communicators, some times to have a fun time with them, some times to learn from them.


Clausius i am also not American,may be that can be the case i understand you well.The way you express yourself,your convincing power,your articulateness ,your peculiarity,your genre is all nine days' wonder! :approve:
I guess you must be having lots of girl friends because you too deserve to be on a top of tower from where an beautiful girl must take you away.( :smile: )
I am very much worried seeing the response of people because they give importance to spellings,prounciation,grammar etc.etc.;i believe that's important but it's trivial in front of power of thinking and confidence the person possess.
I guess i have a lot to soak up from you.!
 
  • #197
heman said:
I guess you must be having lots of girl friends because you too deserve to be on a top of tower from where an beautiful girl must take you away.( :smile: )

Very blushed ( :blushing: )

Actually I have an acceptable number of female friends, and some of them are very very pretty, but the main thing I do when I am with them is talking about her/my problems. I think I am a good listener. No more. But I have decided to wait on my tower, although sometimes I go for a walk over there... :biggrin:
 
  • #198
Clausius2 said:
Very blushed ( :blushing: )

Actually I have an acceptable number of female friends, and some of them are very very pretty, but the main thing I do when I am with them is talking about her/my problems. I think I am a good listener. No more. But I have decided to wait on my tower, although sometimes I go for a walk over there... :biggrin:
If you weren't on a tower, I'd mention about you in my list. :wink:
 
  • #199
Lisa! said:
If you weren't on a tower, I'd mention about you in my list. :wink:

I could sleep without being in your list, madamoiselle. :biggrin: :wink:
 
  • #200
Clausius2 said:
I could sleep without being in your list, madamoiselle. :biggrin: :wink:
I hope so. But well I'm not sure about the future. :rolleyes:
 
  • #201
What do you mean? You mean I would deserve to be on your list on some time, or you mean I couldn't sleep after some time? You are so strange Lisa... I think you have not got a tower, you have a complete fortress with cannons. :biggrin:
 
  • #202
Sorry I have to sleep now. :zzz: :zzz:(only for 2 hours :cry: ) Can I explain to you later?
 
  • #203
No, we demand answers now. If you do not explain exactly what kind of tower you have I'll be forced to order your beheading while you sleep. You'll wake up dead unfortunately.
 
  • #204
Lisa! said:
Sorry I have to sleep now. :zzz: :zzz:(only for 2 hours :cry: ) Can I explain to you later?

From this we can derivate that Lisa has some kind of job in which she sleeps very little, or in which while she is doing it, it is time to sleep. Two or three jobs come to my mind which fit with this situation... :!)
 
  • #205
Clausius2 said:
From this we can derivate that Lisa has some kind of job in which she sleeps very little, or in which while she is doing it, it is time to sleep. Two or three jobs come to my mind which fit with this situation... :!)
... Those heart eyes scare me... What 'jobs' are you thinking of?
 
  • #206
Smurf said:
... Those heart eyes scare me... What 'jobs' are you thinking of?

Yeah...I was wondering the same thing...
 
  • #207
Smurf said:
... Those heart eyes scare me... What 'jobs' are you thinking of?

Hmmmm...a night pub waitress? hahaha :smile:

What the hell were you thinking of?? :biggrin: Tell us, please... :-p
 
  • #208
Come on! I wasn't around here for a short time and what I hear now. Clausius2, is it your new plan to get more information?

PS I couldn't sleep well. So I'm damn exhausted now even worse than before.
 
  • #209
Lisa! said:
Come on! I wasn't around here for a short time and what I hear now. Clausius2, is it your new plan to get more information?

PS I couldn't sleep well. So I'm damn exhausted now even worse than before.

Come down here girl, come down of your tower.
 
  • #210
Clausius2 said:
Come down here girl, come down of your tower.
Why do you think I'm on a tower? :confused:
 

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