When intelligent doesn't mean smart

I have noticed that some highly intelligent individuals have no common sense. I have worked with some of them!

My ex used to be called the absent-minded professor. One memorable sunny afternoon, he decided to paint a bedroom window ledge. He went up the ladder with the paint, did most of it, then rather than come down and move the ladder another foot or so, leaned over to reach the last bit. We watched in horror as he, ladder and tin of paint landed in the dogwood bushes below. No common sense at all - luckily he didn't break anything, nor did he learn from the experience. He did it again weeks later, but got down the ladder when it wobbled!

I've always thought there is a difference between cleverness and intelligence.

I think it can be the difference between being intelligent and using common sense.

Not everyone who is super clever also has the practical gene!

Of course not! And not everyone who has the practical gene is unintelligent!

My father was like that - and I can see it in my son. I look at him and hope he meets a lovely practical forgiving girl.

It's been accepted for over 25 years now that there are multiple tyes of intelligences, a theory originally put forward by Dr. Howard Gardner of Harvard University. It's not a case how 'how intelligent are you?' but more 'how are you intelligent?'
types of intelligence

If you google 'Is intelligence fixed' you will find many studies which show that it is not.

Thank you aka.
I've come to the conclusion that I'm really not intelligent at all

Aka - shows how long I have been retired - I had forgotten all about Howard Gardner and multiple intelligences. Yet it was one of the theories that began to transform our thinking about teaching, wasn't it?

It was indeed Ariadne and it began to explain so much.

What kind of 'intelligence' are you talking about Greatnan? The kind that purports to be measured by IQ tests?

fluid intelligence

Thinking 'outside the box', lateral thinking, the ability to change our views, very interesting. IMO this is lost by some as they age though others never develop the ability in the first place.

All kinds can improve over time and with a bit of maturity, but some people just cannot "do" anything needing a delicate touch, or fine judgment of facial expressions and the meaning behind what is said, or diferential calculus. Just as well that there are occupations and pastimes that need different quaities. It wouldn't do if we were all identical. Vive la difference, and live and let live.

Some people never master the keyboard, either. Differential calculus has two Fs.

Interesting points Elegran ... does this mean memory plays an important part in 'intelligences' then? Inasmuch as we use the chemical memory of past experiences to 'improve over time'.

It is not easy to measure and define intelligence of any kind, because the measurement is inevitably affected by the measurer, or the compiler(s) of the tests being employed, however rigorous and sophisticated they are. It is difficult to measure the inner workings of the brain, so it is actions, dexterity, attitudes, and answers to questions that are measured.

Exactly what is being measured, and how the level of it is assessed, depend upon the norms prevalent at the time in the society where it is being measured. The assessee is surrounded by that society and being moulded by it, and learning about it and practising skills from the moment of birth.

I can't remember the details, but there was something on television where they re-tested people who had done the 11+, sixty? years before. Some of them scored much better than they had done at 11 and I think there was a relationship to the type of jobs they had done. This is why the 11+ is such an appalling idea.

I suppose the 'intelligence' which is measured by IQ tests is probably the one that springs to mind as being capable of modification, but I don't see why the other types should not be the same.
The old-fashioned Stanford Binet tests were so culturally biased they were meaningless.

I do like this quote, which contrasts intelligence and wisdom:

“Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power. If you realize that you have enough, you are truly rich.”
― Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

I like that too when.

And being clever is often just knowing a theorum or equation or whatever, not even yourself.

So for me, there is a difference between cleverness, intelligence and wisdom.

I think there is for all of us.