Are We Dumb to Worship Intelligence?

In his enthusiastic review of Elaine Castles's Inventing Intelligence: How America Came to Worship IQ, Robert Sternberg argues that Castles's main message will likely be rejected by those who most need it: specialists in intelligence. According to Sternberg:

The main message of the book is that human intelligence, as we know it, is in large part a cultural invention. This message is not new (see, e.g., Sarason & Doris, 1979; Sternberg, 2004), but it is one that the general public and most in the field of intelligence have failed to grasp. What is viewed as "intelligent" differs from one culture to the next, and behavior that is intelligent in one culture may be unintelligent, or irrelevant to intelligence, in another.

Do you agree that intelligence is a cultural invention? That what is considered intelligent varies across societies? And that we expect too much from our current tests of IQ?

Read the Review

If You Read One Recent Book on Intelligence, Make It This One
By Robert J. Sternberg
      PsycCRITIQUES, 2013 Vol 58(6)

Comments

[James]

Organisms can be easily ranked according to intelligence: Virus, amoeba, ant, rat, dog, human. That is not a cultural invention any more than any other scientific construct such as gravity is a cultural invention. Children also plainly gain intelligence as they mature, that is also not up for debate.

Arguments about the meaning of the word intelligence are largely just debates about semantics and subtleties. Intelligence is what a 10 year old has in the way of cognitive faculties that a 5 year old does not.

The best arguments against the value of intelligence are put forth by people who themselves possess high intelligence, which does sort of undercut their position.

[David Wall]

Intelligence tests are accurate predictors of a person's ability to learn and function in a modern, technical society. Nearly 100 years of research are unequivocal on this point. Mental functioning and cognitive capacity are the critical functions for human survival. Assessments of these mental processes are valuable and meaningful. A separate agenda, perhaps egalitarianism, may be at work in denouncing IQ.

[Michael F. Halasz]

As James indicates intelligence is a biological not a cultural concept - referring to certain abilities of octopuses, crows, rats, cats, dogs, monkeys or humans. Said abilities all directly or indirectly promote survival, reproduction, etc. of species in their particular environments. Think Isaac Newton vs. Jane Austen. There are of course many kinds/forms to human intelligence which may or may not be useful in particular societies, cultures,places or times. If so,particular forms to intelligence may be treasured in certain cultures, derided in others. If we investigate why, we'll find out the practical reasons.