We all make informal assessments of the intelligence, beauty, competence and reliability of the many people in our lives. These assessments are necessary in judging who we can trust, who we want to spend time with and particularly, who we would choose as a spouse. Sometimes these judgments are visceral, and we appeal to our …
There are several potential downsides to high intelligence. Gifted children are often perceived as socially different from their peers and are ostracized, ignored, bullied, or ridiculed. This was the case for people like Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk (who had his nose broken when thrown down a flight of stairs). While average children …
What are the Downsides of high intelligence and how should one deal with these problems? Read More »
Many people assume that their IQ is determined at birth and is therefore constant throughout their lives. However, our brains, especially during our formative years, are in a continuous process of neural production and pruning. The physical and intellectual stimulation provided by the environment plays a strong role in determining which neural connections are reinforced …
As you might expect, there are several factors that contribute to exceptional intellectual talent. Three of the most prominent are an inherited neural efficiency, early intellectual stimulation and a capacity for intense focus. In a few paragraphs, I will provide a brief overview of these factors, but will not prolong this answer by providing all …
This post is a response to a question asked on my Quora site: Intelligence & IQ. The following explanation of Schrödinger’s cat is taken from my recent book, Intelligence: Where we Were, Where we Are and Where we’re Going. In the famous double-slit experiment, an elementary particle like an electron or photon is sent through a …
What is the Meaning of the “Schrödinger cat” Conundrum? Read More »
The IQs of the populations of America and China are distributed on a bell curve with median close to 100 and standard deviation 15. Hence, the percentage of Americans who are gifted could be expected to be about the same as the percentage of gifted people in the Chinese population. However, the Chinese population is …
Who have higher intelligence; the Chinese or the American scientists? Read More »
Yes, in most classes there will be one or more students whose IQ is greater than their teacher’s. Of course, depending on the grade level, they will not be as knowledgeable as the teacher, but their ability to learn could be greater than the teacher’s learning ability. How do we know this? The IQ’s of …
Can a student actually be smarter than the teacher in IQ? Read More »
No one knows exactly what we mean by intelligence, but as Justice Potter Stewart of the US Supreme Court said in 1964, “Intelligence is like porn, difficult to define, but you know it when you see it.” When we observe members of our species we see some who learn quickly, can solve problems easily, and …
You have good reason to be optimistic about your future. While research on identical twins raised apart has proved that genetics play a role in determining your intellectual potential, we also know that a person can improve their IQ during their formative years, and beyond. What we do not know is how much an IQ can be increased by …
The following problem was found in Benjamin Banneker’s only remaining journal: Divide 60 into four such parts that the first being increased by 4, the second decreased by 4, the third multiplied by 4, the fourth part divided by 4, that the sum, the difference, the product and the quotient shall be one and the same number. Can you find the …
