Intelligence Theories X About IQ

 The IQ test consists of many sections that seem unconnected. What does an entomologist study? There are sections on vocabulary and general knowledge. What's the capital of Jordan? Amman. What's the distance between London and Hong Kong in miles? I would suspect it's around a third of the way around the globe so about miles. A section on memory. Eight one seven five backwards. Five seven one eight.
And a section to test spatial ability. You're doing just fine. Wow that was tough. Do a lot of people get this one in two minutes? I can't see how that works. Common sense might tell us that we're good at some of these sections and bad at others. But that's not the case. On average if we're good at one of these sections we tend to be good at all of them. And from this comes the idea that intelligence is some kind of general all-round ability.

 Based on a range of difficult IQ problems the results were predictable. Well almost. In third place fighter pilot Gary. In second place IQ specialist Nathan. But he was beaten to the top spot by quantum physicist Seth Lloyd. But when the winner was announced there was an immediate objection. So I'd actually like to say this is unfair because actually these tests were things that fit extremely closely with what I do on a day-to-day basis. Seth's modesty at coming top in the IQ-type problems shows why some people think the IQ test is flawed. That means the electron in some funky quantum sense reads zero and one at the same time.
 Was Seth good at the tests merely because of what he does every day? My job consists of trying to solve hard mathematical problems related to the physical world like you know how does a black hole evaporate for instance. I'm constantly pushed to the very edge of what I can actually do. So it's actually fun for me to do something like these puzzles which are relatively easy. Or did the tests capture something essential about Seth? We could say he has a high general intelligence as revealed by the tests and that this means he's the most intelligent. But that's not the whole story. Not even test manufacturers would say the result of this test will tell you how intelligent somebody is. They would say it's a small component of making those judgments and that you should be looking at a much broader spectrum of skills abilities and aptitudes.
The IQ test looks at a lot of old knowledge like you know what the capital of Italy is or can you add two-plus-four can you compare slavery and freedom those are IQ-kinds of tests.
 But they don't tell you anything about whether the person will actually ever do anything that's productive in the world. Professor Howard Gardner has come up with a newer broader way of testing intelligence. The major move I've made in the study of intelligence is to pluralise it. I've come up with an alternative view which is called multiple intelligence theory. To perform some kind of an action in the area of music or in the area of navigation is very different than to perform in a scholastic kind of assignment. And my whole analysis over many years suggests it's a mistake.