Intelligence Theories I

 What is intelligence?What does an entomologist study? Wow! That was tough. Did a lot of people get this one in two minutes? And why do some people apparently have so much more of it than others? Where does intelligence come from? Is it a matter of luck biology or just a good education that makes this guy cleverer than me? Is there anything that I or my parents could have done to make me more intelligent? Well scientists have been battling thorny questions like these for decades making intelligence one of the most studied traits in science. But it's only really now that we are beginning to get some answers.
For nearly years Horizon has been following that search to understand our mysterious mental power looking at everything from our evolutionary history to whether a computer could outsmart us. And asking the questions how do you test for intelligence? Is it inherited or innate? Nature or nurture? In so doing science has begun to redefine our understanding of what makes every one of us unique.
The benchmark for measuring one person's intelligence against another is the iconic IQ or Intelligence Quotient test. Most of us will have sat through one of these at one time or another. It is the dreaded IQ test with sections on spatial awareness general knowledge and reasoning.
 And it tots up different areas of skill to create one score. A single mark that can brand you with either a low high or maybe an average IQ. Now we've been judged on the merits of this test for years now. What's remarkable about it is that it was introduced in . So essentially this has remained the same for almost years. In Horizon tested the IQs of seven experts in their field to see who would come out on top. Seven people from seven very different backgrounds. All highly successful. And all seven prepared to do battle over the elusive nature of intelligence. The test lasts minutes.
What it revealed would show how our understanding of intelligence has changed since the IQ test was first devised. We have spent years on IQ tests that are basically the same. Imagine if physics or chemistry or medicine or biology were the same today as they were years ago.
 That's essentially the state of the testing industry. It's unusual to find a methodology that has changed so little. And perhaps this reflects the century-long struggle to work out how intelligence develops. In their bid to understand human intelligence scientists have looked for evidence of it in other animals. During the s Dr James Gould searched for signs of intelligent behaviour in the complex lives of bees.