Asimov on Intelligence

[andrewducker]

What is intelligence, anyway? When I was in the army, I received the kind
of aptitude test that all soldiers took and, against a normal of 100,
scored 160. No one at the base had ever seen a figure like that, and for
two hours they made a big fuss over me. (It didn't mean anything. The next
day I was still a buck private with KP - kitchen police - as my highest
duty.)

All my life I've been registering scores like that, so that I have the
complacent feeling that I'm highly intelligent, and I expect other people
to think so too. Actually, though, don't such scores simply mean that I am
very good at answering the type of academic questions that are considered
worthy of answers by people who make up the intelligence tests - people
with intellectual bents similar to mine?

For instance, I had an auto-repair man once, who, on these intelligence
tests, could not possibly have scored more than 80, by my estimate. I
always took it for granted that I was far more intelligent than he was.
Yet, when anything went wrong with my car I hastened to him with it,
watched him anxiously as he explored its vitals, and listened to his
pronouncements as though they were divine oracles - and he always fixed my
car.

Well, then, suppose my auto-repair man devised questions for an
intelligence test. Or suppose a carpenter did, or a farmer, or, indeed,
almost anyone but an academician. By every one of those tests, I'd prove
myself a moron, and I'd be a moron, too. In a world where I could not use
my academic training and my verbal talents but had to do something
intricate or hard, working with my hands, I would do poorly. My
intelligence, then, is not absolute but is a function of the society I live
in and of the fact that a small subsection of that society has managed to
foist itself on the rest as an arbiter of such matters.

Consider my auto-repair man, again. He had a habit of telling me jokes
whenever he saw me. One time he raised his head from under the automobile
hood to say: "Doc, a deaf-and-mute guy went into a hardware store to ask
for some nails. He put two fingers together on the counter and made
hammering motions with the other hand. The clerk brought him a hammer. He
shook his head and pointed to the two fingers he was hammering. The clerk
brought him nails. He picked out the sizes he wanted, and left. Well, doc,
the next guy who came in was a blind man. He wanted scissors. How do you
suppose he asked for them?"

Indulgently, I lifted by right hand and made scissoring motions with my
first two fingers. Whereupon my auto-repair man laughed raucously and said,
"Why, you dumb jerk, He used his voice and asked for them." Then he said
smugly, "I've been trying that on all my customers today." "Did you catch
many?" I asked. "Quite a few," he said, "but I knew for sure I'd catch
you." "Why is that?" I asked. "Because you're so goddamned educated, doc, I
knew you couldn't be very smart."

And I have an uneasy feeling he had something there.

Comments

[ignis.livejournal.com]

the mod. of ivory towers would not like the fact that you reposted this, she feels it is quite evil and closed minded....

[andrewducker]

I posted on that journal that I was going to copy it and was informed that it was taken from a mailing list in the first place.

I therefore don't see how they could possibly have any claim to either originating it or in any way owning it.

[ignis.livejournal.com]

it's not a question of ownership, she just wants to delete it

[broin.livejournal.com]

Curious, what's all this abaht?

Good story. Like the comedienne on 'QI' telling Stephen Fry that gullible is not in the latest Oxford dictionary.

[yonmei.livejournal.com]

You know, I actually didn't get that this was an anecdote from Asimov until I read the comments section? I was vaguely wondering when you were in the army. ;-) (It says something, I guess, that I didn't doubt you'd managed to score high on the army IQ test.)

Have you ever read Stephen Jay Gould's The Mismeasure of Man? An excellent read in itself, but also very informational about debunking IQ tests.

[cx650.livejournal.com]

Whilst at school I was one of about 100 boys being used as 'guinea pigs' by a group of researchers including the head of the Maths dept. The object of this research was to redefine 'intrinsic intelligence' into various categories. The aim of this was to allow for the differences in mental make-up of individuals. I can't remember all the different categories now, but they included practical, academic, scientific and military. I believe they finally decided on seven classifications. The so called 'standard I.Q. test' is either the specific academic one or very likely the 'aptitude' test to decide which of the specifics should be applied. It would seem that the U.S. has ignored this British research and continues to use only the 'original' 1950s written academia based test.

[kpollock.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. I always had the opinion that IQ tests are damn good at telling you how good you are at doing IQ tests and not a great deal more.

There is a certain level of 'something' in thinking ability that most people don't have, some people have a bit, and a very few have lots of. I don't know how to define it. It's partly quickness of thought, partly reasoning ability, learining speed, partly a very solid empathy with living things plus some even more nebulous stuff.

I have all my life disliked that lazy thinkers (or maybe just the incapable) take comfort in their opinion that intellectually clever people can't be practical, or can't get on with folks, or don't have common sense, or whatever. Maybe it helps keep down the resentment.

[tisme.livejournal.com]

The one and only time I took the Mensa IQ test, it told me I had the IQ of a person with Downs Syndrome.