Think of This !

[Robbo]

Over the years, this site has borne witness to the entire array of possible intellects; from the sublime astuteness of a white grape, all the way over to a brain the size of South Dakota.

I have always thought you could tell when somebody is extremely intelligent because they seem to 'sizzle' when you engage them in some way, now that's probably a wholly inappropriate word but it's the best approximation I can think of.

But, I was thinking about some of the individuals we have had on here and I was intrigued by the problem of trying to distinguish between those who were bright and those who could write.

Come to think of it, I have had trouble in trying to distinguish some of the people on here from mudskippers but thankfully, they are few and far between.


But, how do we tell the difference between somebody who is very adept at the English language and somebody who is very intelligent; can we get confused by the former into believing he is the latter?

Of course there are possible overlaps here but can somebody be really good at English, and not be bright; and can someone's who bright be bad at English?

I will also state the following which is up for debate; I believe the brightest people we have in this world are the scientists which I will refine even further by stating, the physicists are the pick of that bunch with mathematicians in hot pursuit of that coveted position.

 

[The Evans 11]

Well I like to think of myself as being fairly intelligent as I've been achieving top grades throughout my college life, however I don't really have a great knowledge of the english language...

I don't even know what half of the words you used in your post meant

 

[Bambulus]

To me, intelligence and literacy have always been completely independant of one another. Literacy is a skill, and like any other skill in the world there will be people who are practiced and those who aren't. This doesn't have any affect on any other skill unless they're learnt through the written word.

Some people may never completely understand written english - let alone master writing, but that doesn't mean they'll be any less of, say, a skilled artist. Hell, Hendrix couldn't read a lick of written music, but that had no effect on his ability to play. I think people need to move away from this idea of intelligence being a defined and singular characteristic, to me it's an outdated concept, and the idea of multiple intelligences seems to fit the reality much more closely.

And I disagree with your comment about physicists being the brightest bunch on the planet. I think it's a bit presumptuous to say that they're the smartest simply because of the work they persue, when so many others have excelled themselves in many other forms.

 

[ses_paintball]

I think of myself as being fairly intelligent and through out school always achieved good grades, but English lit has always been my down fall, I am creative when it comes to writing fiction pieces ect but my grammar isn't what it could be. So I do believe people can have poor grammar ect but still be very bright.

 

[john251282]

An interesting question.

To be able to make a comparison you would normally try to clearly define the traits you are trying to measure. In this case that is very difficult:

Use of English(or first language): I think most people would agree that this would have to be subjective. For example person A does an essay and makes 0 grammar mistakes and 10 spelling mistakes, person B does a similar essay with 10 grammar mistakes and 0 spelling mistakes, who has better English? Then there is the width the vocabulary, style and flow of the language to be considered and I have no idea how you could measure that in a fair and consistent way.

Intelligence/Brightness: IQ test is of course the classic but trying to define this is also very hard. As I am not sure I would be happy saying someone is more intelligent because they have a 150 IQ than a person who has a 100 IQ but who can also speak 8 languages. Also, I do not know how good at "science" Beethoven was but he could create amazing music even though he was deaf, is that intelligence or something else?

So I am not sure a "fair" comparison could be made any time soon. In my view the people that I have met and been most impressed with have always had a good grasp of language and analytical skills.

There is a huge discussion from this on how you could judge "skills" and their impact on "intelligence". How do the following impact your "intelligence"? Or should they be classed separately?

Hand and eye coordination
Memory
Emotions
Dealing with stress(mental and physical)
Brain size/density/activity


And I am sure many more could be added to this


I think this question could easily go without a firm answer until the human race has a much better understanding of the brain.

 

[Potter Loki]

What about chemists

 

[Robbo]

And I disagree with your comment about physicists being the brightest bunch on the planet. I think it's a bit presumptuous to say that they're the smartest simply because of the work they persue, when so many others have excelled themselves in many other forms.

It would be presumptuous of me if the only reason I had selected them was their particular area of study, but fortunately for me, it goes a little deeper than that.

My contention is this, the most intelligent people seem to gravitate toward being a physicist, this is obviously not an absolute.

My opinion is based upon looking at what it takes in pure intellectual gravitas to discover relativity (Einstein) or quantum theory (Plank and Bohr) or gravity (Newton).

The intellectual leaps that enable these discoveries to take place is immense, truly immense.
When I look across other areas of study, I can generally follow lines of thought and understand how that particular discovery was made but when I look toward those guys just mentioned, they might as well be martians.
That is why I contend physicists are the brightest bunch.

 

[Robbo]

What about chemists

Pharmacists, No - Chemists, possibly !

 

[Potter Loki]

Well I will let you know when ive finished my masters in chemistry!!

 

[Matski]

One of the cornerstones of human psychology is the distinction between knowledge and intelligence. Simply put, you cannot use knowledge to measure intelligence - knowledge is subjective, ethnocentric etc. By this reasoning, if you class language as purely a form of knowledge, then you could reason that you do not need to have above average intelligence in order to master any one language - only the capacity to store knowledge.

My reasoning is that language is more than simply a form of knowledge because mastery of it requires an aptitude for understanding how things should be constructed. In other words, it requires skill and understanding of how to apply knowledge (in this case a set of characters, words and rules). That said, although you need to be reasonably intelligent to master a language, HOW intelligent that makes you in the grand scheme of things is another matter.

Overall I would argue that there must be some correlation between intelligence and the ability to string a sentence together properly. However, just because somebody has the aptitude for something, does not mean they will actually take the interest to fully realise the potential of that aptitude in some areas. Conversely they may shine in others e.g. mathematics etc.

If a truly great physicist suddenly forgot English, he would still be a truly great physicist.