Evaluating Intelligence: Challenging The Usefulness of Traditional Intelligence Predictors

What is intelligence? Philosophers, educators and psychologists alike have debated this topic for hundreds of years to no indisputable end. According to the American Heritage College Dictionary, intelligence is the ability to acquire and apply knowledge, as well as the faculty of thought and reason. While accurate, this broad definition fails to identify the origin, influences, characteristics and components of intelligence. In attempting to understand the full scope of what intelligence is, many scientists have conducted extensive studies and research on intelligence and have developed many theories, each with different perspectives. Two such researchers are Jonathan Baron and Howard Gardner. In his book Rationality and Intelligence, Jonathan Baron defines intelligence as “a set of characteristics, which can be subdivided into capacities and dispositions” (14). In addition, he makes the distinction that rationality is not intelligence, but is a factor of it. Similarly, Ho...