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Politics : Evolution -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Solon who wrote (9136)	9/29/2010 12:39:18 AM
From: one_less	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 69300

Grandpa referred to me once when in my forties, saying "That boy's got a head on his shoulders, he's intelligent." It was a comparative comment suggesting my intelligence is superior to that of his other relatives and associates. This was a surprise which I found ironic. As a little boy I was naughty, as a teenager I was the family black sheep, and as a twenty something, I was a complete dumbass embarrassment, who the family members pretended not to know. Now decades later people sometimes refer to me as wise and decent, and I'm even sought out for advice. I know I'm the same naughty puddle splasher I always have been. Puddle splashing is intelligent? One of my more useless degrees is a Masters degree which centered around understanding human intelligence and intelligence testing. It did little more than teach me to be skeptical of human intelligence measures, like IQ scores, except as a general indicator of a person's adaptability or ability to achieve in certain domains. Even these basic psychometrics are far more complex than the IQ theorists attempt to present. OK, so you're an adult who can't learn to tie your shoe or be educated in abstract concepts but you can communicate basic needs, you are probably around IQ 30 to 50. It's useful for establishing that type of categorization but hey, do we really need a psychometric test to identify such people in the first place? This period of my life was about the time Gardner and others were developing Multiple Intelligence theories, which seems more reasonable but still not very practical in application except to give a broader range of bragging rights and calling cards to people wanting to be labeled intelligent. If we can talk about human intelligence at all, however, we talk about it in the context of our limitations to know, achieve, understand, and adapt. Human intelligence measurement involves the understanding of ability to deal with cognitive complexities. A controversial topic and rightfully so. The idea of intelligence being comprised of natural properties and functions in the ideal sense is something far more interesting and easily has application at the cellular level. We are even able to ascribe intelligence to materials we produce these days. We have computers, and we have no hesitation in talking about 'Smart Houses' or intelligent appliances. The context and complexity of a living cell goes infinitely beyond such simple machinations which merely mimic some of the general properties and functions of natural intelligence. Are some cells less intelligent than others? I suppose you could frame a discussion that way, cells ultimately fail to thrive, to improve, or to grow, and eventually die. In the ideal sense intelligence is not comparative since eventual dieing is the rightful outcome of living things so refering to it as a dumb process is nonsensical but in the practical sense of surviving and fitness it does make sense.