jonaleth

Hi Everyone. I'm new here and wasn't sure whether to post this on the philosophy or the science and sceptism thread.

What do you all think of intelligence tests? Indeed, what exactly is meant by intelligence? Is intelligence something that can be measured, and reduced to a single entity - the 'g' factor that Mensa and the psychometric crowd look for? Personally I've always favoured the approach taken by Howard Gardner, who divides intelligence into 8 parts (linguistic, logical-mathematical, bodily-kinesthetic, spatial, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal and naturalistic). Furthermore Gardner argues that it's not how intelligent a person is that matters, but how you use your intelligence. But the question that immediatly rises in my mind is whether the way we choose to employ our intelligence is in itself part of our intelligence. Indeed, is intelligence really some purely theoretical skill, or is real intelligence of a more practical nature. For example, as a university student I have come across several lecturers who, whilst academically brilliant and no doubt able to score highly on conventional IQ tests, could not teach a monkey to peel a banana! Of course if practical skills are included within the scope of intelligence, this raises the question of where we draw the line - going back to my example, whilst I feel that being able to coherently form complex ideas and communicate them to others are certainly part of intelligence, this raises the question of whether charisma and eloquence (so vital to communication) should be considered part of intelligence. Furthermore is intelligence a purely rational thing, or do emotions form part of intelligence - I ask this due to the popularity of so-called emotional-intelligence tests in some parts of corporate America at the moment. Finally to go back to theoretics, is imagination something that intelligence tests should look for (and how would we measure it?), or is how we deal with the ideas and knowledge that we already possess what counts. Indeed there seem to be many people in the world who are conventionally intelligent but who possess the creativity of a stone, and conversly brilliant imaginative thinkers who spend their lives dreaming who, whilst always coming up with new ideas, seem to possess sieve-like memories with regards to retaining old ones, and who spend so much time pondering the mysteries of the universe that they rarely get anything practical done.

In my opinion one of the problems with intelligence tests is who actually comes up with them, since according to Bohr's law, the observer must always be bigger than the object observed (since even astronomers who look at the whole of the cosmos only focus on a small point at one time). Therefore, if this theory holds, whoever submits others to intelligence tests must be more intelligent than the subject being tested - yet I strongly doubt this is always the case. Indeed if this were true then we would have to assume that the creator of any intelligence test belongs to the top rank of genius', even if he or she gave no other proof than creating the test.

Furthermore many of these tests are multiple choice, yet some of the questions can be answered in more than one way, but the point is given for only one - so it becomes like a lottery. Also by only awarding the point for a standard answer these tests seem to view genius' as rigid thinkers, when m,any would argue (as previously mentioned) that creativity and flexibility are signs of intelligence. Indeed an intelligence test I was once forced to do required me to put certain cards in the 'proper' sequence to show a sunrise/sunset. Of course the test monitor wouldn't tell me if it was a sunrise or sunset which I was meant to show, despite the fact that the cards would naturally have to be put in reverse order to show a sunrise rather than a sunset. Thus to my mind intelligence tests seem to test for rigid thought and thus deny the very creativity which in children is often thought to be a sign of intelligence.

What does everyone else think?

Bill Snedden

I'm not sure, either, but it seems to me to fit better in S&S, so I'll move it there (and then, I'll have an actual comment to make!).

Bill Snedden