Who is the smartest Scientific character? Sam, McKay, or Jonas?

[Zelazny]

I don't know if this has been asked before, and I'm currently on an ancient PC*shudder*computer, so I haven't searched the forum as it would take a millennium on this comp.

SO! Putting aside which character is your favorite and deciding by what we have been shown of their characters thus far, who do you think is the bigger scientific genius? Sam, McKay, or Jonas?

I originally was only going to compare just Sam and McKay, but then Jonas popped into my head and he had to be included.

For myself, I'd have to say:

1. Jonas- Because of his further evolved mind and such. His ability to learn and absorb new information, especially all that he learned while a part of SG-1, has pushed him above Sam in my opinion. He also has a different approach to thinking things through that is almost a shortcut to the answer.

2. Sam- Because she has the ability to think outside of the box, to go beyond the perameters(sp?) of relative scientific knowledge.

3. McKay- Because he seems unable to think outside of the box most times. He has almost restricted his mind to the limitations of science as he knows it, but is learning to go beyond them as the first season of Atlantis has progressed.

Who seems smarter to everyone else?

EDIT: To clarify that I mean the smartest SCIENTIFIC character.

[WarriorOfRovac]

if we were talking in terms on knowledge of the stargate, i'd be tempted to say Sam as she has had the most experience

[The Dude]

I add Daniel Jackson to the list and vote for him.

Why is he more intelligent than the others? His knowledge of culture and linguistics is on-par with a knowledge of physics and other more "Aristotlean/Euclidian" sciences. I mean, languages can be as complex as mathematics.

But, also, Daniel was ascended. That's got to raise him above the rest. Even when the Evil Sam wanted to know something, she beamed up Daniel, and not Sam or anyone else.

And no one would be using the stargate if it weren't for him.

[aAnubiSs]

define smart.

[dtemplar]

I add Daniel Jackson to the list and vote for him.

Why is he more intelligent than the others? His knowledge of culture and linguistics is on-par with a knowledge of phyics and other more "Aristotlean/Euclidian" sciences. I mean, languages can be as complex as mathematics.

But, also, Daniel was ascended. That's got to raise him above the rest. Even when the Evil Sam wanted to know something, she beamed up Daniel, and not Sam or anyone else.

And no one would be using the stargare if it weren't for him.

Complexity does not equate to being a genius. With the same logic you can argue to add Jack to the list because he is well versed in weaponry. That's why how in any unversity, engineers are always calling artists stupid. Also Daniel himself cannot freely access (at least not easily) his ancient knowledge. Even Evil Sam has trouble digging it all up.

I vote Sam, because she has the knowledge and her ability to think outside the box, unlike the other 2.

Jonas....yes he can learn fast but still very "low-tech".
McKay...most of his solutions doesn't work.

[GEWbert]

My views.

Jonas is probally just as smart as Daniel in terms of remembering things. Jonas memorized all the mission reports and Daniel's notes, so that's one view of "smart"

Sam is probally better than McKay at thinking outside the box. McKay has his moments, but overall IMO, he just doesn't have the same thinking. He prefers to stick to things he KNOWS, whereas Carter is willing to do things that are a bit dangerous.

[Zelazny]

I add Daniel Jackson to the list and vote for him.

Why is he more intelligent than the others? His knowledge of culture and linguistics is on-par with a knowledge of physics and other more "Aristotlean/Euclidian" sciences. I mean, languages can be as complex as mathematics.

But, also, Daniel was ascended. That's got to raise him above the rest. Even when the Evil Sam wanted to know something, she beamed up Daniel, and not Sam or anyone else.

And no one would be using the stargate if it weren't for him.

I see what you are saying, but I guess the reason why I didn't include Daniel is because I was thinking of general scientific knowledge, and that still isn't exactly Daniel's area of expertise.

I included Jonas, and I expect to get flack for that, because he has the naquandria knowledge and he has learned a vast amount of scientific knowledge from his time on SG-1. Some fans just dub him as a diplomat at leave it at that, but he is so much more than that.

Jonas just barely surpasses Sam in my mind, even with her knowledge of the Stargate, because I think Jonas probably learned all he could about that also. So, I think Jonas is a bit smarter than Sam, but barely.

[The Dude]

AANUBISS said: define smart.

That's a good point. I wouldn't know how I was defining smart. I guess it's a subjective defining through intuition. Maybe something like, "ability to recognize structural relations in any given system"?

When I saw "smart" that's what came to mind. I wouldn't include Jack or Teal'c since (though I would probably call them smart) their knowledge isn't really a "scientific" knowledge. But linguistics is a science, but it's not Aristotlean, per se. So, I included Daniel because his knowledge is categorized as "science" since it's based on a ...

Hm, now that I think about it, what the heck IS "science" anyway? I mean, almost every type of knowledge is "science" isn't it?

Okay, so, to spare myself overanalyzing a fiction, going back to the original three- I'll go with Carter. She seems to have an intelligence as keen as Jonas, but she's just a normal girl and Jonas- didn't he have something "special" about him? Or was he just a normal guy?

Anyway, I haven't seen anything really outstanding from McKay. Nothing like Carter's ability to whisk correct theories out of the air, then put them into immediate action without one single empirical confirmation. Like the time she sent that black hole sucking up the star to destroy all those ships.

[aAnubiSs]

There are different sorts of "smarts". For example:

1. Amount of knowledge: Just spend enough time remembering it and you'll be considered smart.
2. Linear thinking: Able to extrapolate an answer from a number of facts.
3. Adaptibility: Able to quickly figure out ways to solve unexpected problems.
4. Intuition: A mix of 1&2&3.
5. Outside of the box: More radical ideas extrapolated from no. 1&3
6. Street smarts: a mix of 3&5.
Those are the ones I could think of right away.

[Elwe Singollo]

There are different sorts of "smarts". For example:

1. Amount of knowledge: Just spend enough time remembering it and you'll be considered smart.
2. Linear thinking: Able to extrapolate an answer from a number of facts.
3. Adaptibility: Able to quickly figure out ways to solve unexpected problems.
4. Intuition: A mix of 1&2&3.
5. Outside of the box: More radical ideas extrapolated from no. 1&3
6. Street smarts: a mix of 3&5.
Those are the ones I could think of right away.

I think that Jonas and Sam have most of those qualities out of the list, so i think its between Sam and Jonas.

[ancient_phoenix]

I add Daniel Jackson to the list and vote for him.

Why is he more intelligent than the others? His knowledge of culture and linguistics is on-par with a knowledge of physics and other more "Aristotlean/Euclidian" sciences. I mean, languages can be as complex as mathematics.

But, also, Daniel was ascended. That's got to raise him above the rest. Even when the Evil Sam wanted to know something, she beamed up Daniel, and not Sam or anyone else.

And no one would be using the stargate if it weren't for him.

I do have to agree with you on adding Daniel to the team because he posses dormant knowledge that can technically make him a god. However, he wasn't here when anubis sent out the stargate virus causing it to begin self-destruct. And he was not the one who save the earth. It was Jonas who gave sam the idea to lift the stargate and have it self-destruct millions of light-years away.

So in my perspective I would have to go with Jonas because he was able to come of with plans to save the SGC and SG-1 on many occasions.

Sam is okay at thinking outside the box, as many of you stated.
And Mckay is scared to go out of the box and explore the unknown, but in Atlantis we see a transition happening where he is willing to go out of the box and explore the unknown now that he is the "Big fish in a little ponf".

[MartoufMarty]

... Sam

McKay!

[LOL4JACK]

Being smart sometimes is not about how much you know but how you apply common sense to what you know to find solutions... so based on this I have to say:

1.- Sam and she does a lot of out of the box thinking.
2.- Daniel, he has a lot of common sense, helping Sam sometimes to come out with the answer, he is also the only one who can follow her line of thoughts and even sometimes come with the solution himself.

[trudy]

McKay is at the bottom of the list.

We don't know enough about Jonas to really know how smart he is, compared to Sam. Jonas has certainly had his moments.

Even Jack has his moments, he thought of "that Ben Franklin thing" when they were rescuing Ernst.

I miss Felger :-)

[Whistler]

Sam is inteligent alright, but McKay has the arrogance to make his intelligence work for him. but McKay is nothing without Zelenka.

Zelenka then, so what if he wasn't on the list? He always has McKay's ideas, but has more, much more.