[tame_deuces]

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I think his point is that you guys are BADLY abusing the definition of intelligence so that every little kid gets to be called intelligence "in his own little way." Honestly you guys, intelligence isnt just a synonym for "vaguely good." It has meaninging. When you start to lump into intelligence basically EVERY SINGLE HUMAN CHARACTERISTIC that most people would consider positive, it starts to become foolish.

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look, i agree with you. there's not much worse than the self-esteem boosting attitude prevalent in schools today. but i'm being serious - i don't know what intelligence means. to me, it means "brainpower." i think i'm one of many that go by that definition. if you want it to mean "reasoning ability" or "mathematical ability" or whatever, that's fine. just define it as such when you use it.

is there a high correlation between "reasoning ability" and other intelligences? i'm sure there probably is, but that doesn't mean they are exactly the same thing.

i scored 1480 on the SAT, but i couldn't pass calc 2...in two tries. your average 12 year old can draw a better picture than me. i can't rotate an object in my mind. when i'm in the car and i'm having trouble hearing what my passenger is saying, i mindlessly turn the RADIO volume knob up even though it's not even on.

am i smarter than your average 1200 scorer? well, in some ways yes, and some ways no. my only point is that IQ tests measure what they measure. they do not measure mental superiority. is reasoning ability the single most important mental skill? i don't know, maybe it is. it's not something you can say for sure, because importance is relative.

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Well, people were using it to mean hand-eye coordination or athletic ability or essentially any possible skill that someone might be good at. While I certainly think charisma and charm are traits that lead to success in life, I dont know why they have to be lumped into intelligence. Intelligence is such a tricky beast because everyone wants to always be expanding the definition and making it all inclusive, rather than trying EXCLUDE as many things as possible and find a more limited but more specific definition. It seems to me that this is because no one wants to be left out of the intelligence circle. So, if I suck at pretty much every skill that anyone would call intelligence, I'll simply add in my skills to the definition.

But of course, there is the "I know it when I see it" problem with intelligence. Were Mozart or Bach intelligent because they wrote masterpiece music? I say yes. Is the guy who plays first chair viola in the London Philharmonic intelligent because he plays that Bach piece better than anyone else in the world? I say no. But this ought to be easy enough for you to poke holes in. I guess its just about motivation. I have no inclination to try to include any more skills or abilities than are absolutely necessary into "intelligence."

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The only meaningful definition of intelligence is the ability to perform a necessary mental task well. It is meaningless to limit the intelligence measure to a specific subset of mental tasks, especially if they might not even be needed.