Elon Musk and Bill Gates are two people who exemplify what happens when a very high IQ is combined with a passionate commitment to a pursuit. Both men are independent thinkers who stand outside the tribes to which most people belong and form their own judgements and opinions. These opinions are in continuous revision as …
Are Musk and Gates as smart as most people think? Read More »
The ability to think abstractly is certainly an important component of intelligence, and particularly in mathematics and theoretical physics where symbolism requires a strong connection between and understanding of a “concrete” reality and its representation. However there are several cognitive skills such as pattern recognition and a strong short-term memory that are also essential in …
is intelligence the ability to think Abstractly or is it more than that? Read More »
The first time I heard the charge, “You’re too smart for your own good,” came when I was a teenager. I had just defeated a local chess champion and he seemed to be angry at both his loss and at me, personally. I didn’t understand why he was angry, because the loss didn’t mean he …
In 1997, the world witnessed the defeat of world chess master Gary Kasparov by IBM’s Deep Blue. On July 25, 2007, Jonathan Schaeffer announced that he had succeeded in solving the game of checkers. Using clever computer algorithms that reduced the number of moves to be searched from the 1020 possible board configurations to 1014, …
The short answer to that question is “Yes, most of the world’s richest people are highly intelligent. Those who have accumulated wealth, rather than inherited it, share certain character traits that are manifest in a variety of different forms. One of these is a high IQ. Though some have accumulated substantial wealth through employment and …
The combination of intrapersonal and interpersonal skills, is said to constitute emotional intelligence (EQ). Someone of IQ around 85 is less likely to have the intrapersonal skills (self-knowledge) of someone of average intelligence, because people at this IQ level tend to be less reflective. Being less reflective, they are less likely to self-reference to understand …
A direct assessment of the trajectory of human intelligence throughout a lifetime came in 1936, when John Raven developed his Raven’s Progressive Matrices tests of intelligence. To norm these tests, i.e., establish baseline data on what scores adults could be expected to achieve as they age, he conducted widespread testing in the United Kingdom, Ireland, …
Do Brilliant people suffer cognitive decline as they age? Read More »
This question presents a challenge similar to the question, “Which wheels on a car are more important: the front or the back?” Both wheels are necessary if the car is to move. Similarly, a certain level of intelligence combined with a certain level of hard work is necessary for success in business, academe or the …
What is more important for success: intelligence or hard work? Read More »
Can you be depressed if you’re intelligent but not very successful in life? You can be depressed whether or not you’re successful in life. On July 20, 1969, Buzz Aldrin reached the pinnacle of success. He became the second human to set foot on the moon. Soon after this stellar Apollo 11 mission, his 21-year-old …
Can you Be depressed if you’re intelligent but not very successful in life? Read More »
In 2011, a large group of researchers published the results of a genome-wide analysis of 549,692 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) involving 3511 unrelated adults. (An SNP represents a difference in a single DNA building block, called a nucleotide.) They reported: Our results unequivocally confirm that a substantial proportion of individual differences in human intelligence is …
Can Practising an intellectual skill make you smarter? Read More »
