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INTRODUCTION TO INTELLIGENCE
The history of our development of our knowledge about intelligence
is fascinating. Although leading thinkers have been searching for
a long time for any clues as to 'what makes us tick?' and ' what
makes us smart?', amazingly, the concept of the Intelligence Quotient
has been around for less than 100 years - the first experiments
of intelligence testing by ' scientific means' started only at the
beginning of the 20th century.
Some of the early experiments where a little excentric: measuring
knee-jerk response time to see whether the faster your reactions
were meant the smarter you were; relating height to intelligence;
and measuring bumps on the scalp to see if any of them were 'smart'
bumps. However, a French psychologist, Alfred Binet, did eventually
come up with the first, genuinely scientific method for objectively
measuring intelligence. It involved setting standard verbal and
numerical tests, with the scores measured against an average of
100.
Binet's IQ tests were accepted without question for over 60 years,
but by the 1970's, ideas about intelligence were beginning to change.
Professor Howard Gardner, Professor Robert Ornstein, Tony Buzan
and others became aware that there are a number of different kinds
of intelligence, and that each different intelligence acted in harmony
with each of the other when they were properly developed.
A truly intelligent person is not one who can simply spout words
and numbers; it is someone who can react 'intelligently' to all
the opportunities, stimulations and problems provided by the environment.
Real intelligence means engaging your brain with every aspect of
life - you play sport with your brain; you relate to others brain-to-brain;
you make love with your brain. All of life is, in fact, lived Head
First!
Book Extract - Head First by Tony Buzan
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