I scored 98%ile in math, and 99%ile in English on the SAT, many eons ago (before it was dumbed down, anyway). And I did go on to get a doctorate.
Still, I have to wonder what, really, IQ does mean. I think it is only a measure of a certain kind of intelligence.
My niece asked me last summer about the nature of intelligence. I told her that there are many kinds of intelligence—for instance, while I have a very good understanding of science, I have no sports ability whatsoever. I can’t sing, and my artistic ability is about the same as it was when I was ten. But I saw a TV show about a little girl who, at the age of about 6, was selling her paintings professionally, and seems to have an understanding of artistic arrangement that rivals that of people who have been studying art for years. Then there was Tiger Woods—a golf genius from the time he was old enough to pick up a golf club, although clearly not so bright in other areas.
Maybe there should be other intelligence measures, that take into account abilities not falling into the traditional academic categories.
Success, I believe, is largely a matter of finding out where one’s interests and abilities are, and practicing one’s strengths.
No argument here...SATs and IQ tests measure a certain kind of intelligence. And even here, it’s a combination of things: memory, calculating ability, the ability to put different facts together and make correlations, etc.
Well they did come out with emotional intelligence some time in the 90s. I’ll admit that while I’ve a head for numbers and processes I lack EQ. I’m an introvert in addition so I lack “social intelligence” when it comes to making use of connections. My friends are friends for life but I have very very few.
I object to calling things like athletic or artistic ability “intelligence”. Also, the ability to get along with people, to be a politician so to speak, that’s a real gift from God, but I think intelligence has a specific meaning and that is what is measured by IQ. The ability to think at a high level. IQ is supposed to measure one’s raw ability to do this, rather than being a test of knowledge.
I remember when I was a kid I asked my mother (who was very smart, IQ-wise anyway) who was the smartest person in the world and she said there was no way to know. I always remember her saying the smartest person in the world might be living in a hut in the hinterland somewhere, but they might still have the highest IQ.
But, I also agree with those who say “brains aren’t everything”. Look at the people who’ve been running the country, no doubt most of them are reasonably smart, I have no doubt that some are quite brilliant (of course some are definitely dopes). But that hasn’t been enough to keep them from inflicting many bad plans and schemes on the populace.
I could say this has been due to the ridiculous expansion of the Fed’l Govt. but I think examples like the crooks who ran Bell, California disproves that.
I suppose that it has come from we, the people, just not paying attention. The MSM is also to blame for passing out distorted, biased, and misleading information. Such as what another posted pointed out and he’s right, a person of “average” intelligence will not be getting a PhD in physics. A person of average knowledge or background can do this, because their high IQ will enable them to expand that knowledge and overcome any handicaps they have due to a bad or deprived upbringing.
Talent matters. I have been a artist since I was a small child and my illustrations have graced books, brocures, etc., over the years. Yet that is just a side job for me. My daughter, now 20, is natural born artist too, and I never taught her how to draw, I just showed her how the play of light and shadow is the key part of an illustration or painting. She is in college now and her work draws gasps of awe and wonder from her art teacher and fellow students. I should mention that as a little girl, she spent hours and hours, sitting at the kitchen table drawing while her friends were out playing.
I think mental energy is an under appreciated factor.
Howard Gardner has long flogged the idea of “multiple intelligences”. Unfortunately, it is really just a way to treat talents that are not significantly cognitive as if they were the equivalent of “g” so that those who aren’t intellectually gifted and their patrons can pretend that excellent dancers, for example, are the intellectual equals of those with high IQs.
There are many ways in which people can be talented, but not all of those talents are “intelligence” in the sense being discussed.
The absurdity of the situation is easily made manifest. Suppose we consider a culture in which kinesthetic activities such as sport and dancing were valued in the same way that we value high IQ. Now suppose that to avoid having those who lack superior kinesthic abilities(http://www.thefreedictionary.com/kinesthetic) “feel” inferior the cultural elites decide to proclaim that there are many “kinesthetic abilities” that are just as important as sports and dance - playing chess and doing mathematics, for example.
By the way, there is a literature on what IQ tests measure.
People with intellectual intelligence without “emotional intelligence, do not do so well in the real world.
Fortunately, emotional intelligence, unlike IQ, can be improved.