Intelligent or Smart ? 2.0
Years ago, I adopted the personal philosophy that anyone who concluded that I was stupid or unintelligent (not the same thing – see the post below), as indicated by their words or actions, demonstrated only one thing – their own stupidity. Stupidity is required to conclude that another person is stupid or unintelligent without due evidence prior to that conclusion.
I have long suspected that nearly everyone on the planet thinks that they are smarter than everyone else. otherwise, there would be many fewer people lying and manipulating others than there are. (Notice I didn't use the term, intelligent.) The only exceptions may be those who have been told since childhood that they are stupid. Ironically, many of those people are more intelligent than they think but were indoctrinated by others, e.g. parents, siblings, et al, who were insecure about their own level of intelligence. Notice that I wrote "thinks that they are smarter." I'm convinced that, deep down, people know, not quantifiably but subjectively, if they are intelligent or not.
However, many people fear proving to themselves, much less to anyone else, their level of intelligence. For example, Mensa® accepts people for membership whose intelligence is at the 98th percentile, correlating to an IQ of 130 and above. Yet, their membership is roughly 53,000 in the United States while, given the 98th percentile qualification, six million people would qualify for membership. Less than one percent (<1%) of those who qualify for membership take the required tests. Of course, there are other factors, among them, lack of awareness of the organization, awareness but choosing not to join for a variety of reasons, and others.
My point remains – most people fear proving their intelligence by quantifiable means. Some choose to "prove" their intelligence by their own means, e.g. how well they play pool (yes, I have heard that sideways argument); comparing a game of pool to a chess game (yes, I've also heard that), a game often equated, many times erroneously, with high intelligence. Others would cite their financial success (see my previous post) or memory games and regurgitating trivia, skills that can be easily learned by those with average intelligence.
Intelligence is innate; stupidity is a choice. Conversely, low intelligence is also innate while smartness is a choice. Granted, some studies indicate a combination of nature/nurture impact on intelligence and one would be hard-pressed to argue that a factor such as childhood diet would not impact intelligence later in life. However, the basis of intelligence appears to be genetics, other factors such as disease, genetic mutation, or the mother's diet, drug use, alcohol consumption, and other choices during pregnancy notwithstanding.
