Re:Issac Asimov: What Is Intelligence, Anyway?
by onemoreact on Monday August 15, 2011 @10:58AM
(#2887146)
People talk about High IQ like it's a large bank account. I can afford not to study and still get good grades etc. What they forget is the compound interest that sustained effort provides. You can coast though school gain as little from it as the average person or you can dig in and actually gain something, but there are reasonably smart people who dig in so eventually coasting along is not enough. It’s like investing 1million @1%APR vs 100k @ 20%. For the first few years it might seem like you are ahead of the game, but after 16 years of schooling you can end up behind the curve.
PS: IQ tests are only really meaningful for the young. At 40 I can look at what you have accomplished at 10 that's far less meaningful.
The thing with IQ tests is that it measures a very specific type of skill, and to use that to define intelligence is insulting to an awful lot of people.
The two people who own my company, who I work for, don't have degrees, they're not particularly mathematically skilled, and I don't think they'd do particularly well on an IQ test - not saying they'd get a terrible score, but they wouldn't come of as mensa candidates. And yet they're too of the brightest people I know, they've done amazing things in their careers and I have a huge amount of respect for them.
My dad is another person with a not-great IQ, and yet in my (admitedly biased) view he's the cleverest person I know Whether it's when he's buying/selling stocks, or betting on horses, or working out taxes, he can do it all in his head at a crazy speed - not with any education, just because maths is easy for him. But that's not why I think he's clever. He's clever because of the way he's lived his life and the decisions he's made, many of which have made me insanely proud.
I on the other hand have a high IQ, I did well in school with no work (well, I dropped out at 16 because I was bored, by "did well" I mean stuff like the fact that I got an A* GCSE in French at 15 even though I can't, and couldn't then either, speak French). Sure, it can be useful to be able to float through in areas where that kind of intelligence is useful, but it sure ain't everything.
My point is that there's more to life than one very specific set of skills, and to think otherwise is narrowminded and big-headed. Not big-headed about having an IQ, but about thinking that your high IQ makes you better than someone with a lower IQ.