People have been trying to study the level of intelligence and improve it in different species for centuries. Many types of research and studies in various subjects, such as biology, neurobiology, psychology, psychiatry, philosophy, etc., have been written over the years. It can be suggested that people are close to understanding the nature of intelligence and its effect on humans as species. Moreover, at some point, intelligence was studied from the perspective of different cultures around the world.
The researchers yet do not agree on the definition of intelligence. Dairy suggests that intelligence is the ability of one to think and understand one’s actions, instead of following the instincts blindly (2020). In addition, I would also suggest that intelligence can be seen as the combination of a human’s brain ability to analyze the current situation and experience. I think, intelligence should be considered separately from culture and they do not influence education, since one’s level of intelligence. I also believe that it does not matter what culture a person belongs to, or what kind of schooling he or she received; one’s ability to think and analyze is connatural.
On the other hand, I think that intelligence increases the understanding of one’s cultural specialties, as well as different cultures. Moreover, while education is only responsible for one is receiving knowledge, it does not take credit for its reasonable use.
There is a significant difference between education and intelligence. While both of these notions measure one’s level of knowledge, they also consider different aspects of it. For example, education evaluates the level of academic knowledge received during a certain period of studying (Deary, 2020). However, it does not guarantee the correct and appropriate use of it. On the other hand, intelligence is measured regardless of the education level, and it means that a person is bright by nature, and it does not indicate how much academic knowledge he or she possesses (Deary, 2020). Therefore, from my perspective, an educated person is not necessarily intelligent, but an intelligent person may as well not be educated. I also believe that the real cleverness can only be achieved by combining education and natural intelligence.
Human intelligence is usually assessed by the Intelligence Quotient (IQ) test. It includes several subjects, such as mathematics, geometry, logic, etc. Some people suggest that such an IQ test should be given to those who seek immigration to certain countries. However, a high IQ level does not guarantee that a person will be useful for that society, since he or she simply may not have specific knowledge, only general (Sternberg, 2020).
Therefore, an immigrant with a high IQ, but without academic knowledge may not easily find a proper job and, thus, become a burden to society. Moreover, nowadays, many people debate about the accuracy of such tests, since they are general and do not consider cultural and individual specialties (Sternberg, 2020). The researchers have recently concluded that there is more than one kind of intelligence (Sternberg, 2020). Therefore, to achieve higher accuracy the IQ test should consider them all and not only focus on general one.
In conclusion, from my perspective, one is born with intelligence, thus, does not require any more skills to be called one. It cannot be measured from the cultural or educational aspect. On the other hand belonging to certain group of society or obtaining a proper knowledge can allow initiating the demonstration and acknowledgment of one’s intelligence skills. However, I believe that one’s genetics has more influence on one’s intelligence level, rather than one is belonging to a particular culture.
References
Deary, I. J. (2020). Intelligence: a very short introduction. Oxford University Press.
Sternberg, R. J. (2020). Human intelligence: an introduction. Cambridge University Press.