[FIREWALL]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Memory and intelligence interact, but both are two different things. Most IQ tests I have seen based on knowledge of any kind, and learned/trained skills. the confusion comes from the fact that when you ask 100 psychologists for a definition of what intelligence is, you will get 30 different answers or so.

Obviously there are people who are not educated very well anbd have not stored a mlot of knowledge in their memory, nevertheless they act by healthy reason and act and talk by solid brightness, cleverness, however you wan t to label it. while others have a lot of diploma, trained a lot, learned a lot of stuff - and fail when needing to think cratively or independently. You can know a lot and still be dumb. You can lack education, but be very reasonable.

Anonymous pressure by your social environment also influences your individual thinking, anbd very massively so.

I did three clinical IQ tests at university, and the results varied widely from I think 118 (slightly above average) to 145 (top 5% of population), depending on how much number stuff there was included (not good for me), and how much abstract thinking and threedimensional imagination there was (very good for me). Should I just take the means core, then? Nonsens. My conclusion as an ex-psychologist is that I do not want anybody to bother with IQ tests, it is misleading and gives a distorted image of your real skills and mental talents. the result most often tells more about the test and how it was constructed, than about the quality of yolur intelligence. So just use your brain to the best potential you are capable of - that is good enough, since that is what it is there for. It must not be compared to anyone else anyway. It is not the olympics.

there have been - and still are - chess champions who played the game extremely way - and were described to be total idiots when it came to handling issues of ordinary life.

And never forget what Einstein said: "imagination is more important than knowledge". that's not just another bon mot - that simply is true. Without imagination, you do not think - you just repeat old habits.

So am I to understand your saying A person can be a Village Idiot with alot of experience. Or an Einstein with no Social Graces at all.