Intelligent vs. educated

komodosp

The question here - like many philisopihical debates is not one really of philosophy, but actually of language. It's a question for the dictionary writers rather than psychologists.

We have this word "Intelligence" which hasn't got a strict enough definition to cover the wide range of mental abilities that someone can have. Asking who is more intelligent your cousin or your brother is like asking who's better at sport - Tiger Woods or Steve Hendry.

The closest thing to comparing their intelligence is probably a measure of their brain power and ability which is probably a big mad formula based on the results of a load of brain tests, most of which - like the formula - probably haven't been invented yet.

The ability to figure out a complex logical puzzle is a lot different from the ability to retain and recall information, and both of those are different from the ability to create works of art - though all three are considered forms of intelligence.

I would venture, that by studying for his exams and working for his exams your cousin is demonstrating higher intelligence than that of your brother, who must be doing little or no work to be aiming at 200-250 points.

Well it is probably true that people who are better at studying find it easier and therefore are more willing to do it, it's also possible that the brother had more of a social life when younger, and also, being into sports, had less time for study and simply didn't put a high priority on it. The cousin, on the other hand, may have chosen to study more because he wasn't really bothered with sports, and either had less friends, or the friends were more respectful of his studies or didn't distract him as much. (Not to mention the parent factor)

foxyboxer

<rant>
I have come to realise that education/schooling whatever you want to call it serves one purpose and that is to mould you into an employee. Not an employer. From the age of 4 we are conditioned to become disciplined and accept the word of people in positions of authority. Free thinking is frowned upon. In school, we all remember spelling tests where 6 out of 10 would be considered a failure. School in itself is a microcosm of the workplace. You arrive and leave when given permission, you eat when told to eat, you crap/piss only with permission etc etc. The whole western philosophy of go to school, work hard, get good results, get a job, get married is a complete falsehood. People need to realise that we are responsible for our own personal education which is the pursuit of Wisdom. Maybe that is the reason why personal finance, economics, debt management etc is not taught in schools. This results in schooled ignorance. We are taught to accept convention and not question the status quo. I went through secondary school through the medium of Irish. 5 years spent reading the stuff in english, translating into irish and regurgitating this waffle in the Leaving Cert. Have I re-used this information since then? Of course not. In terms of the OP's debate of intelligence versus education, we are all intelligent in our own little ways and it it society that determines who is a success and who is a failure in terms of how many letters you have after your name or how much cash/cars/gold bath tubs you have and because of our schooled ignorance we accept this conventional thinking as mainstream</rant>

Bloody Nipples

I always considered myself highly intelligent. Top of the class in primary school, streamed by an entrance exam in secondary school and got into the top class, got 460 in my LC with fa effort.

But now I realise that my natural intelligence is no great shakes at all (I'm not a moron but I'm not da Vinci either) and I've just got a talent for rote learning.

I see it as a positive though because I can get decent college results without the sometimes socially crippling eccentricities I've seen in some people.

Manic Moran

I have learned to rely very little on a correlation between intelligence and education. I am currently in a country which has about a 28% literacy rate. Bugger-all education (though this is now rapidly changing). Yet the occupants have proven smart enough to hold NATO to a draw for the last 8 years.

NTM

annabellee77

I've met educated people who are incredibly stupid (they may be gifted in one field but beyond that just thick!)
Also know people not educated but higly intelligent - e.g. might read a lot, educate themselves but haven't the "piece of paper" to show it....

But (I can't remember where right now) I read a really interesting article about sign of true intelligence - was along the lines of the ability to look at and understand all sides of an argument/point e.g. say I was a fervent atheist, I believe completely that there's no God, in evolution etc, but I understand and can process opposing view(s)......
I'm probably not explaining it properly... Love to get my hands on it again. It was a great read.

bleg

i love how thick people call themselves "street wise"

thelordofcheese

Biggins wrote: »

I have a cousin that at the age of 23 was a professor at Trinity, Dublin. Honestly.
When he did his leaving he got the best results in the whole of Ireland.
Needless to say he was snapped up as soon as he walked through the exit gates.
He now (and for many years) still works for NASA in Florida. Some secret crap.
He has brains to burn, can work out the square root of any 10 digit number in seconds, etc...
That said, try holding a conversation with him and one minute your talking about football and the next minute he off talking about the quantum mechanics of the big bang theory and starts to write on the back of beer mats maths equations.

I'd rather talk to your cousin, tbh.

ScumLord

I don't think being able to remember and regurgitate things other people have told you makes you smart at all. Memory is a tool that anyone can take advantage of if they have a good system.

It's a shame children aren't thought how to use their minds to their full potential. With everything we know now we could overhaul the system and create much more intelligent people at a fraction of the cost IMO. Children have an inbuilt fascination with just about anything if the information is put to them in the right way. All we need to do is show them how to find information and differinceate between good and bad information. After that their own curiosity is much better at educating them than schools could ever be.

Most of what I know now I've learned outside of school.

brundle

You can educate someone who is not the sharpest tool in the box but at the end of the day, they will only have learned specific info and will still not be any brighter. You can take people to degree level and they will be able to do a job perfectly based on this learning but they will still be no better than a 6st class kid if you put them doing something outside the area of learned knowledge.
Compare this to someone who is intelligent and they will work out what to do in any situation. I would go for intelligent everytime if I was looking to hire someone.
There should be more intelligence based testing both in school & the workplace imo.

annabellee77

thelordofcheese wrote: »

I'd rather talk to your cousin, tbh.

+1. Sounds like he would be aninteresting guy to be honest. Can talk football or whatever with anyone!

ScumLord wrote: »

I don't think being able to remember and regurgitate things other people have told you makes you smart at all. Memory is a tool that anyone can take advantage of if they have a good system.

Well it kinda does I think, though I get your point. It's not (or shouldn't be) the be all end all. E.g. I was crap at science in school, my brain struggled with physics type stuff and I had to really work hard to get it and it was a lot of "just" (not "just" to me!:)) memorising formulas.
On the other hand at english/history those type subjects I found very easy, even though e.g. writing an essay required more independent thought/creativity. I sailed through these type of subjects and got As. It just proved I was more intelligent in those fields and thick when it came to physics!

But I think we are focussing overly on school where it is a lot about learning stuff off by heart (memory). When you go to college then more independent thought comes into it and you have to come up with your own answers, noone will do it for you so it is a better reflection of intelligence. How you process the info you've learnt......

brundle wrote: »

I would go for intelligent everytime if I was looking to hire someone.

Well I think that would depend on the job! Lost of jobs require the highly educated but.....

brundle wrote: »

There should be more intelligence based testing both in school & the workplace imo.

I agree . Ideally "judgement" would probably be combining the 2.... education and intelligence

mandysmithers

komodosp wrote: »

Well it is probably true that people who are better at studying find it easier and therefore are more willing to do it, it's also possible that the brother had more of a social life when younger, and also, being into sports, had less time for study and simply didn't put a high priority on it. The cousin, on the other hand, may have chosen to study more because he wasn't really bothered with sports, and either had less friends, or the friends were more respectful of his studies or didn't distract him as much. (Not to mention the parent factor)

Maybe the guy who's aiming for 200-250 points in his leaving cert is just thick, and/or lazy. I'd bet a lot of money that most people who get points as low as that aren't very intelligent, most certainly not academically intelligent anyway.

Of course interpersonal skills are important in the workplace and life -especially if you're a doctor for example - but if I had a choice between a friendly doctor, who wasn't the best in his/her class, and a boring, unfriendly one who was the best in their field and could cure me, I'd choose the latter.

And someone can get very high points in the leaving, and still have a social life. I got over 500 points in my leaving, could have worked WAY harder, and had the best year, socially, in school ever. I was out every weekend.

K4t

The difference between ignorant and educated people is that the latter know more facts. But that has nothing to do with whether they are stupid or intelligent.

Ponster wrote: »

--Neal Stephenson The Diamond Age

But would you not agree that it requires a certain amount of intelligence to be motivated to learn those facts and to keep learning more and more information?

AdamusAdonis

Cianos wrote: »

It is. You're probably thinking of field-smart.

There it is, the Dublin-style city folk ego taking "street smarts" for it's self :P
Of course it's not, it refers to practical knowledge of/in your environment. Methinks without even urban vs rural predilection.

CuLT

Manic Moran wrote: »

I have learned to rely very little on a correlation between intelligence and education. I am currently in a country which has about a 28% literacy rate. Bugger-all education (though this is now rapidly changing). Yet the occupants have proven smart enough to hold NATO to a draw for the last 8 years.

NTM

You're back in America already?

Esmeralda34

Cianos wrote: »

Academia is overrated.

Scoring high in your leaving cert essentially means you have good concentration skills, you have a good enough memory to allow you to regurgitate what you have been told to remember, and you have the discipline to put all of this down on to paper on the day in question.

If you succeed at the above, you will be rewarded with being able to continue the same display of skills for another 4 or 5 years, and will land yourself a nice job at the end of it. You will then carry on through said job safe in the knowledge that you are an intelligent and a worthy human being.

At the other end of the scale, there are people who have dire attention spans yet are extremely intelligent. There are people who have bad articulation skills yet are extremely intelligent. There are people who get nervous on important days such as exam day and simply can't do their knowledge justice, yet are extremely intelligent. And there are people who prefer to hang around with their mates rather than stay at home and memorise, yet, are extremely intelligent.

The snobbery towards academic ability and the equation of that with "intelligence" is depressing. There are just too many things that people are good at to judge it within that one context.

Very well said...

Dudess

I know people who are highly educated (as in, have two, sometimes more, third level qualifications) - and dumb as ****. They don't even read books.
I also know people who don't have their leaving certs and are exceptionally intelligent... and also very educated - as in, self educated.

Third level education does not necessarily make a person intelligent.

tallaght01

Dudess wrote: »

Third level education does not make a person intelligent.

But third level education shows, by and large, that you can solve complex problems, or critically analyse information, and that you've been tested at this under pressure. You also have some specialist knowledge. On top of this it shows a degree of determination and a work ethic. A good degree is an objective measure of the above.

The other stuff involves taking people's word for it.

Dudess

Damn! You beat my edit - I stuck in "necessarily" and thought I'd got away with it...

bleg

tallaght01 wrote: »

The other stuff involves taking people's word for it.

aye, and it's alot easier to asses somebody's social skills in an interview rather than whether they have the required knowledge for the job, which a good degree will ensure.

tallaght01

Dudess wrote: »

Damn! You beat my edit - I stuck in "necessarily" and thought I'd got away with it...

I would edit your post within my post, but, ironically, I can never spell necce...necess....nesse....ah forget it. But I take your point :P

as125634do

eh we all have limited brain power and can only consentrate on one aspect of the wheel of life. every spoke has a different piece of knowledge attached to it. your bro is a thinker your cous is a feeler. but im not going into m/f traits. you get thinking women and men you get feely men and women. the mysteries of life.

Eire-Dearg

I know what you mean, there's some guys I know (one will certainly make Limerick senior team some day) who are unbelievably good sportsmen, but lack any bit of intelligence, because they simply don't care. Sport is their lives.

For me I'm somewhat in the middle, decent enough at sports and decent enough at school. Probably swaying towards the latter tbh.

PhysiologyRocks

If we assume that intelligence is not only present in a fixed quantity in a person, then it is possible that certain forms of education can increase certain types of intelligence.

Someone may write well. They may practice this skill in an educational setting and get better and better.

A person may have scientific aptitude, but without any education, self or formal, this person will never know any science.

Even the most gifted athletes must train. Depending on viewpoint, this is a form of education.

Intelligence and education are often (not always) closely linked.

Paddo81

I agree that 3rd level qualifications doesnt necessarily equate to intelligence. I obtained a 1:1 honours degree in college which was largely down to my ability to devote a massive amount of hours to study. Alot of my course work was theory so it was just a case of gettin all the information into my head and spilling it out on exam day. I always struggled with the more practical parts of my course (computer programming, projects) but luckily for me the course was always weighted towards the theory. Then as someone said earlier, theres a certain amount of luck involved (ie you cant study everything in a subject, so you must gamble to some extent with what you give time to) Again, for me, more often than not, I came up trumps. Im also cool under pressure and would never panic.

On the other hand they were people in my course who always had the tricky aspects of the course down fastest, and always got very high marks in projects (where originality and ingenuity of thought was required)
But because these guys had hectic social lives and or an inability / dislike for devoting as much time to study as me, they got lesser degree grades.

I know people who have great degrees and post grad qualifications but who never read a book, know little about world affairs (and care less) and just generally live for the weekend. And I someone who got an A in LC maths, never went to college and works in a low paid job.

b28

Michellenman wrote: »

FYP.

You could have at least made a contribution...

back to the issue, I think some people are just more intelligent in life rather than being intelligent in academics and vice versa..
Average people are a sort of mixture of the two I'd reckon!

Overflow

I always wondering why very intelligent people generally lack in social skills and the on the other end of the spectrum for your average normal person the opposite is true.

Then you have those people who are good at everything but never really excel in anything.

ShooterSF

I would agree with some here that the school system needs a complete overhaul. I had a very strange passing through our education system.
In primary school I was a maths freak and self taught myself the shortcut tricks to figure out sums. However I sucked at Irish and geography bored the crap out of me.
I got into secondary school and was invited to do some national S.A.T exam due to my maths entrance. I did crap on it because I was quickly discovering that success built expectations and I didn't want them.
I hated secondary school and didn't make many friends. I also sucked ass at languages because anything that took actual study didn't interest me. I picked up science, maths and history because I just absorbed the stuff first time round.
I did my LC and at this point hated the place so much that I did no study. I didn't want to do anything that reminded me of school. I did pretty crap and failed French and Irish. I went to Dundalk and did a software development course that was A.Q.A and aced the first year. Second year we restarted learning visual basic I got bored and dropped out.
Since then I have been a barman, set up a pc repair business and am now learning internet marketing. I had an interest in all these things and learned a lot online including the skill of cocktails
At the end of the day I have no piece of paper or 3rd level qualification. I never enjoyed school but I don't think I'm any less intelligent than someone with a piece of paper. All it means is they are more educated in their area, unless it's computers or booze.
Our education system needs to completely change.

Antar Bolaeisk

I would be what most people would deem intelligent not just in a sense of absorbing information and then regurgitating it on exam day, but able to apply that knowledge, whether self taught or learned in class, to complex problems and situations and most of the time come to a solution. In school and college I put in very few hours studying (I always berate myself for this as I know I can do much much better should I just put in the little bit of extra effort) yet do better than my peers who study day and night.

However, in social situations I'm terrible. I cannot interact properly with other people and I am completely and utterly socially inept. As many have said before me people are good at different things and there are many types of intelligences though I do wish that I could interact better with people.