How can a car help us understand the relationship between IQ and thinking skills?
Subject: The Intelligence Trap - de Bono’s car
Event: The Torchlight List: Around the World in 200 Books is released, 2013
An intelligent person is never afraid or ashamed to find errors in his understanding of things. -Bryant H. McGill
The human species is getting smarter. This is the conclusion drawn by philosopher James Flynn, who documented that Intelligence Quotient (IQ) scores have risen at a rate of about three IQ points per decade. This is not just a claim made by a lone philosopher. Stephen Pinker reports in his book Enlightenment Now that this increase in IQ -- known as the Flynn Effect -- has been confirmed by “a meta-analysis of 271 samples from thirty-one countries with four million people” (1). While improved nutrition and education no doubt contribute to the Flynn Effect, IQ is still just a number, and it could be a number that spells trouble, even for those who have high IQs.
The writer and lateral thinking advocate Edward de Bono warns of what he calls the intelligence trap. Smart people get so used to “being right” and making instant judgments that they become inflexible in their thinking. They also can become arrogant, unwilling to look at alternative points of view. For these people thinking becomes a passive verb: “I AM smart.” A more healthy approach is to make thinking an active verb: “I think critically.”
For de Bono, the relationship between IQ and thinking skills is best illustrated by a car analogy. The horsepower of a car is to IQ as the car’s driver is to thinking skills: “The car may have a powerful engine, a smooth gearbox and a wonderful suspension. But the skill of the driver is something different . . . In no way does the power of the car ensure the skill of the driver” (2).
Although he is encouraged by the phenomenon of rising IQ scores, James Flynn, a university professor, was discouraged by a trend he saw in his students: fewer and fewer of them were reading books for pleasure. On November 6, 2013, he published a book of 200 book recommendations that he called The Torchlight List. The title was inspired by his Uncle Ed, who read at night in his bunk using a torch, or flashlight, while serving on a naval ship during World War I.
Certainly reading makes you smarter, but Flynn's main desire for his students is liberation: “I want them to be free. I want them to be able to understand the world, rather than just be swept along by the river of time with no real comprehension of what is happening to them.” No matter how high your IQ is, you will be humbled by the intelligent insight you gain from books: “. . . you can enter a magic realm in which people are more interesting, informed, amusing, and intelligent than anyone you encounter in everyday life” (3).
Recall, Retrieve, Recite, Ruminate, Reflect, Reason: What is the intelligence trap, and how can it be illustrated by a car?
Challenge - I.Q. Intelligence Quotations: What is the best thing that anyone ever said about intelligence? Do some research on quotations related to the topic of intelligence. Find a quotation you like, write it down, and explain why it stands out for you.
Sources:
1-Pinker, Steven. Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress. New York: Viking, 2018.
2 - de Bono, Edward. De Bono’s Thinking Course. New York: Facts on File Publications, 1982.
3 - Flynn, Jim. The Torchlight List: Around the World in 200 Books. New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2013.
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