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There’s some really good news for those of us with imposter syndrome or doubts about our abilities.

It turns out the general public is not actually any less capable or smart compared to brain surgeons or rocket scientists.

In fact, neither profession holds much intellectual superiority over the other.

We’ve all heard the sayings “it’s not brain surgery” or “it’s not rocket science” when referring to something that isn’t all that difficult, but a new study has revealed that this is off the mark.

The professionally conducted and peer-reviewed British Medical Journal study was mainly to “settle this debate once and for all and to provide rocket scientists and brain surgeons with evidence to support their self-assuredness in the company of the other party,” wrote one of the researchers.

Online intelligence tests from 329 aerospace engineers and 72 neurosurgeons from the UK, Europe, the US, and Canada were compared and analysed, reported CNN:

Researchers tested study participants, who had to have completed a degree in the relevant speciality, across several cognitive domains, including emotional discrimination and motor control.

They then assessed the cognitive characteristics of each speciality using the Great British Intelligence Test from the Cognitron platform, which is used to measure distinct aspects of human cognition, spanning planning and reasoning, working memory, attention, and emotion processing abilities.

If you’re interested, you can do that test here.

Besides being “equally matched across most domains” aerospace engineers showed better mental manipulation skills while neurosurgeons were better at semantic problem-solving.

Then, compared to the general public:

“Aerospace engineers did not show significant differences in any domains,” the study authors wrote.

“Neurosurgeons were able to solve problems faster than the general population but showed a slower memory recall speed.”

The takeaway? To not put brain surgeons and rocket scientists on a pedestal and rather use the phrase “it’s a walk in the park” from now on.

Oh, and we are all smart and capable, of course.

[source:cnn]