Intelligence Theories

At number three on my list is a device in whose story I or rather my rabbit Wilhelmina played here by an actor had a starring role. Well a role anyway. I met some physics friends in the bar having a beer one evening and they said "We've just built this machine with lots of wire "and string and ceiling wax and an old television screen "and it's called a Magnetic Resonance Image machine "and would you like to put your rabbit in it?" So we went down to the sub-basement of Hammersmith Hospital and we put Wilhelmina gently into the machine. I was a bit worried about it and then after minutes of cooking we got a photograph and it looked a bit like this. Just a blur. And I didn't have the sense to realise that this was going to be quite revolutionary in its time. I think my pet rabbit was one of the first living organisms to be photographed like this. And the technology which was then in its infancy went on to become the MRI scanner. For much of my career in medicine X-rays were the most effective way of looking inside the human body. But they didn't give a particularly clear image of all the organs beyond our bones. MRI scanning changed all that. Engineers first used MRI to look inside metals. Now we're able see directly into living tissues and that's given amazing

IntelligenceTheories

Now the pill is a hormone which inhibits the brain by telling it the egg is already being made when it's not being made so the brain thinks the woman is ovulating so it stops sending the message and that's exactly what happens with the male contraception too so if you're given the male hormone that tells the brain "I'm making lots of sperm " so it just shuts down. So it's quite an elegant idea and that feedback is one of the most interesting examples in biology of how the body works. The idea is that the injections will deal with Bill's biological feedback for months at a time. This was his idea. So the first entry on my list is the Pill - revolutionary in the ' s and still reinventing itself almost years later. Fantastic. My next advance has also had a dramatic impact on our lives - in fact it's so significant that it's played a part in almost all of the other inventions on my list. When I was a schoolboy I worked in a radio factory. I was being paid five pounds a week by Mr Benzimra a princely sum to solder little components onto a printed circuit board like this. Little did I realise that across the Atlantic a man was going to revolutionise the whole process. An engineer called Jack Kilby found a way to shrink all these components into one extraordinary and tiny thing. It's this the humble microchip. And since its invention years ago there's been more medical and scientific progress than in any other period in human history. The microchip has to be in our top ten. From the moment we wake up to the moment we go to bed it affects every part of our lives. Without the microchip there would be no laptop no cash card no mobile phone. In short without the microchip we'd still be living in the s. It amazes me that today all those elements of the old electronic circuit board I soldered together as a schoolboy can only be seen down a microscope. And now the technology is set to make it even smaller. I'm in the London Centre for Nanotechnology where they make the smallest particles that are possible to be made. And the reason why I'm wearing the garb is because any skin cell in the atmosphere would contaminate what they do. And here on my fingertip is a little electronic chip. On this chip they can fit million transistors. This the next generation of mini-miracles is as small as it gets...for now. Each electronic component in these circuits is smaller than a virus. And that miniaturisation means that chips like viruses are getting closer to us than we could have possibly imagined. Now here's a thing. This microchip is made of a substance which is entirely edible. So when you swallow it it gets dissolved by the acid in your stomach and it sends a signal to a plaster on your arm. And the plaster on your arm - ow! - has got this little device like a radio and if you haven't taken your pill... I get a message on my phone saying "You haven't your pill today." But there's a darker side to all technology. The sheer proliferation of the microchip does bring some concerns. It's worth considering that within yards of where I'm standing in Piccadilly Circus there must be at least surveillance cameras recording every movement we make amassing a huge amount of data over which we have no control. How we deal with these issues is an increasing challenge. Storage of personal data is largely unregulated and fraud theft and loss of privacy in the virtual world worries many people. But in spite of all this the chip is on my list and we shouldn't forget that without it many of the other advances wouldn't have been possible. Including this next one.

Theories about intelligence

 From the moment we're conceived to the day we take our last breath science and the way we use it touches every one of us. Science has given immense power to save and nurture life. But the pace of change is so great that we don't often take time to stop and appreciate how far we've come. That's why I want to share with you ten of the most important scientific advances of our time and reveal some of the things that might just lie ahead. At the end of the programme I'll be asking you to vote for the advance you think has done the most to change your world. It's had a massive impact on our society. It's really changed your life hasn't it? So you're the perfect bionic woman? Yeah! And the winner? Well it's up to you. It's one small step for man one giant leap for mankind. The last years has seen science transform our world. In half a century it's tackled countless diseases put men on the moon and completely changed the way we communicate.

Intelligence Theories XIII

 It's a category error to lump all these together and to call them intelligence. Professor Gardner is convinced we have at least eight relatively separate intelligences. This is completely opposite to IQ which assumes that we all have just one general intelligence. So you might be wonderful at understanding other people but a disaster at doing crossword puzzles or flying an airplane. So we do know that an individual's high-performance in one area simply doesn't predict high performance in other areas. Horizon put its line-up of high-flyers through Professor Gardner's new intelligence tests to see if the outcome would be any different to the standard IQ tests. But there's no agreed system for measuring them.

Intelligence Theories XII

 At the University of Goettingen in Germany they're pioneering technology that could greatly extend our control over our own brains. They're developing a means to turbo-charge our grey matter. The aim is to improve the volunteer's ability to subconsciously learn. The test itself is simple. When Leila sees a dot appear on the screen she has to tap a corresponding key on the keyboard. There is a pattern to when the dots appear. But it's impossible to detect. At least before the artificial stimulation of her brain begins.
What we want to do is to facilitate the excitability of her motor cortex. And in order to be able to do that we have to fix an electrode. I presume this is perfectly safe. I mean I'd be a bit nervous about having electricity shot through my brain. Well they're very weak currents.

Intelligence Theories XI

 It's a category error to lump all these together and to call them intelligence. Professor Gardner is convinced we have at least eight relatively separate intelligences. This is completely opposite to IQ which assumes that we all have just one general intelligence. So you might be wonderful at understanding other people but a disaster at doing crossword puzzles or flying an airplane. So we do know that an individual's high-performance in one area simply doesn't predict high performance in other areas.
 Horizon put its line-up of high-flyers through Professor Gardner's new intelligence tests to see if the outcome would be any different to the standard IQ tests. But there's no agreed system for measuring them.

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.