Intelligence for Dummies

Although the very notion of IQ is widely disputed, IQ tests are still very popular. Research continues on Emotional Intelligence (EI), and many specialists believe people have "multiple intelligences." Artificial Intelligence (AI) is now one lab accident waiting-to-happen. So, could there be such a thing as Spiritual Intelligence (SI)? What are the signs of spiritual wisdom?

You don't have to be a Mensa maven to figure out that in a techno-geek culture, it's smart never to overestimate the intelligence of the general population.

That's why fortunes have been made by assuming that the "great mass of men," people like us, are not only "living lives of quiet desperation" (Thoreau), they are also living lives of incredible stupidity, lives as dummies and idiots. Books aimed at this very market--titles such as Woodworking for Dummies, or Plumbing for Idiots--have been a publishing gold mine.

But we need to be careful not to get sucked into a conversation about "intelligence" these days. It takes more than a good IQ to grasp the significance of smarts on the eve of C21. You've also got to figure out just what KIND of smarts we're talking about.

The default understanding of smarts begins with IQ (Intelligence Quotient) -- the ratio between mental age and chronological age that is measured by an IQ test. For most of the 20th century, this test has been used ...