How big is your brain?

 Hi All

Intelligence is cognitive ability, a mixture of what you learn and your natural abilities. It has nothing to do with common sense. Some of our brightest minds have no common sense. That is my belief, but you may believe different. Yes, today we are looking at intelligence. The mind and its workings have long baffled humans. So let’s jump in and have a poke around the frontal lobes.

 First let’s look at what smarter people than you or I think. Here’s Stephen Fry on ignorance, the lack of which plays into intelligence.

But what does the world’s best brain say on the subject? Stephen Hawking is a rare thing in this world; He is famous for being intelligent. We readily reward people with no talents immense fame, but so rarely do we celebrate true brilliance. 

I think that’s an issue which needs to be rectified.

Marilyn vos Savant, who has recorded a record-breaking IQ of 228, said “to acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe.”

So after listening to some of our brightest minds, let us turn to the first of two articles on the matter. This article is all about theories regarding intelligence. 

Charles Spearman had some good ideas, but his theories have aged poorly. They are archaic and dates in these days of more advanced testing. People who do well on one cognitive test do not necessarily perform strongly on another.

Louis Thurstone lacks evidence and it just sounds off. Colloquially speaking, it sounds like the kind of theory he might come up with in the pub with his colleagues.

As we get more recent the theories become stronger. Howard Gardner’s theories are easier to determine though they do sound a little new-age. I think some of these are just skills people have and not necessarily key to intelligence. Logical-mathematical intelligence is something you either have or you don’t. Having a good brain for math is something that cannot be taught.

Robert Sternberg reflects my mind best. I think the fact he so strongly recognized creative intelligence is excellent. His thoughts on Gardner’s work are also correct.

The questions at the bottom are interesting. I think intelligence involves an assortment of multiple skills and abilities. This is a no-brainer. Furthermore, intelligence is a mix of factors. No one factor is everything, though some do affect a person more heavily than other.

Intelligence test should not be biased, but this means that they certainly are. Frankly, intelligence scores are as accurate in predictions as crystal balls and star-gazing.

And as for the second article, well it is an interesting article on I.Q. My I.Q is usually somewhere in-between 125-135. The average, however, sits in-between 95-105. As the article points out I.Q’s are rising. In some ways this makes sense. Information is at our fingertips and schooling quality has gone up in certain regards.

I agree that race definitely plays a role. No school in a rough neighbourhood will have the resources to compete with one in the Hamptons. I find it no surprise that Asian’s do more with their lower I.Q as they are very efficient.

Charles Murray said “Starting in the nineteen-seventies, to put it very crudely, you had a higher proportion of black kids being born to really dumb mothers.” This quote shocked me. It is a mass-generalization and is offensive too. It made me flinch.

The moderator of the argument had it right when she said that the IQ’s were rising in the black community. I think that as the generation gets wiser and realizes the value of school they will increase their IQ.

I think it is your environment that most impacts your IQ and we’ve improved, especially in the developed western world, living conditions and lifestyles for a lot of underprivileged people. The massive wealth gap still remains, but people do have more opportunities. And of course the role scholarships play is immense.  

Well that's what I think about intelligence. What do you think? 

Galileo