Two years ago, on this day, January 13, 2021, Robert J Sternberg, an American academic who has been studying intelligence for decades, argues in a New Scientist article that, well
“We’ve got intelligence all wrong – and that’s endangering our future”
IMAGINE a world in which admission to the top universities – to Oxford or Cambridge, or to Harvard or Yale – were limited to people who were very tall. Very soon, tall people would conclude that it is the natural order of things for the taller to succeed and the shorter to fail.
This is the world we live in. Not with taller and smaller people (although taller people often are at an advantage). But there is one measure by which, in many places, we tend to decide who has access to the best opportunities and a seat at the top decision-making tables: what we call intelligence. After all, someone blessed with intelligence has, by definition, what it takes – don’t they?
We have things exactly the wrong way round. The lesson of research by myself and many others over decades is that, through historical accident, we have developed a conception of intelligence that is narrow, questionably scientific, self-serving and ultimately self-defeating.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24933174-700-weve-got-intelligence-all-wrong-and-thats-endangering-our-future/
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 415.5ppm. As of 2023 it is 418. .
What I think we can learn from this
Robert Sternberg has produced so much useful work (on love, on creativity/intelligence).
The game is rigged, and those rigging it want to keep the game as it is. Basically, a bunch of extractivist violent arrogant planet-killers think they are God’s gift, because they made God in their image. And here we are.
What happened next
We keep relying on our “intelligence” to get us out of this.
Meanwhile, are our brains gonna fry? https://undark.org/2022/12/22/why-climate-science-shouldnt-forget-to-factor-in-brain-health/
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Do comment on this post.
References
Sternberg. R. (2018) “Why Real-World Problems Go Unresolved and What We Can Do about It: Inferences from a Limited-Resource Model of Successful Intelligence”
