In a surprising revelation, a team of researchers has shown that rocket scientists and neurosurgeons, who are often held on a high pedestal for their superior intellect, are really no smarter than the general public. Doh!
Bruised egos aside, it was actually a team of neurosurgeons and those involved in studying the human brain who decided to investigate whether this held true.
The researchers recruited 329 aerospace engineers and 72 neurosurgeons in their study and used the Great British Intelligence Test to verify the claims. The engineers and neurosurgeons were tested in the areas of working memory, emotion processing, attention, and information recall, all independent of age, sex, and experience in each field.
More than 18,000 members of the public had already taken the Great British Intelligence Test, and when compared, neither group was really any better than the rest of the public.
The findings, which were published in the festive edition of the British Medical Journal, reveal that only neurosurgeons showed a significant difference, with quicker problem-solving speed but slower memory recall compared with the general population.
The researchers concluded that the two professions may have been unnecessarily placed on a pedestal, which means a career in either field is within anyone's reach if they apply themselves. To the wide world of STEM: here we come!
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