Just saying: INTELLIGENCE

Another insightful saying from the book Everyday Psychology, by Dr Steve Edwards.

“I like to think of intelligence as equivalent to the horsepower of a car. The skill of thinking is then the skill of the driver. … There may be a powerful car driven badly and a humble car driven well.” — Edward de Bono.

Dr Edwards comments: This is an excellent everyday metaphor  and distinction. Psychologists have defined the hypothetical construct “intelligence” in various ways. Typically intellengce has been assessed in terms of an IQ or arbitrary “intellegence quotient” score on a particular test.

IQ  scores can be useful but are notorious for their propensity to stick as labels. Thinking is a more practically useful everyday concept than intellengce. Thinking can always be improved as an operating skill with which intellegence acts upon experience.”

For example, there is a story  of  a woman changing the tyre of her car, only to lose  four nuts which rolled  into the culvert nearby. She is devastated until it strikes her to take one nut off each of the other three wheels and use these three nuts on the fourth wheel in order to get to the nearest garage. So  “Necessity is the mother of invention.”

1 thought on “Just saying: INTELLIGENCE”

  1. Totally apt dear Steve. Intellgence with no logic, is probably a waste of time. I am of the opinion too , that experience adds a lot towards how one thinks,with common sense developing at the same time

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