What Is Intelligence, Anyway free essay sample

What Is Intelligence, Anyway? † Isaac Asimov Isaac Asimov writes about how he has always scored high academic tests. How he scored 160 when an average score was 100 and that there were people that made a big fuss over that. And that the auto repair man didnt seem as intelligent as he was but the auto repair man would always fix his car. Then he says that if the auto repair guy would make questions for an intelligent test that he would fail it and he would look like a moron. The auto repair guy tells Isaac a joke and falls for it. Isaac tells him if any others have gotten tricked the guy tells him that he has gotten quite a few and knew that Isaac would fall for it because he was so damned educated. â€Å"What Is Intelligence, Anyway? † is an article that was written by Isaac Asimov. Isaac Asimov is a Russian who grew up in America. We will write a custom essay sample on What Is Intelligence, Anyway? or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page With being well educated, he received his Ph. D. in chemistry from Columbia University. He is known as the writer for all types of readers from specialized to non specialized. Base on his article, Dr. Asimov is considered to be the most intelligent an in the base for his score is 160 while other people is around 100 in the intelligence test. According to the article, he is a prideful man; he always thinks he is highly intelligent, and he expects other people to think so, too. Not only that, he also puts himself on the same level with the people who make up the intelligence tests. As we are reading through his introduction about how intelligent he is, we think that this man is too proud. But as we continue reading the article, we find that he slowly recognizes his intelligence does not apply on every aspect of his life. Dr. Asimov told the readers about his auto repairman, who he always brings his car to when it has any problem, that his auto repairman would never pass the score of 80 on this intelligence test if he takes it. However, the car is always fixed every time Dr. Asimov brings to the auto repairman. In the middle of the article, Dr. Asimov said that he is an intelligent man wherever he could use his academic training and his verbal talents, but when it comes to do something intricate or hard, working with his hands then he would be a â€Å"moron. † One thing that we like the most about Dr. Asimov is that he is not embarrassing to tell people how he got tricked by an auto repairman who cannot even pass the score of 80 in the intelligence test. â€Å"What is intelligence anyway† is an argumentative essay. In this essay writer Isaac Asimov makes an argument that intelligence is not absolute but is a function of the society. Intelligence is the subjective matter. A person intelligent in one field may be a loggerhead in another field. It may be possible that a person is intelligent in two or more field but he/she will still be lagging behind the another field. Hence, we can’t term the persons as intelligent in general. For example a good teacher might be a bad student and vice versa. A good administrator may be a bad father. Hence a person is intelligent in administration but bad with family. Asimov also focuses on the fact that intelligent is the outcome to experience and knowledge. Asimov is intelligent in study and literature but he is not intelligent to maintain his car. His automobile repairman is far intelligent in this field than him. But on the other hand Asimov is far more intelligent in study and literature than his automobile repair man. Hence, we understood that the intelligent is the subjective matter. Any person cannot be intelligent in general. It depends on the particular field of concerned. Extensive Reading †¢ There is no standard definition of â€Å"intelligence†. Popular thinking and the best efforts of legislatures, agencies and academics to the contrary, no generally agreed upon definition of intelligence exists. This problem is exacerbated when the newly formed intelligence communities in law enforcement and the private sector are included. Developing such a definition is important in order to create realistic expectations in the minds of the decision makers, intelligence is designed to support. This is particularly true in a democracy where the electorate views the notions of secrecy and unaccountable power often linked with intelligence activities with hesitation. †¢ Two activities, secrecy and covert operations, typically associated with intelligence are not, in fact, necessary to defi ne intelligence. Secrecy, or more accurately, confidentiality, is only necessary to preserve options for the decision maker that the intelligence activity supports. Covert operations, on the other hand, are better viewed as an act of policy than as an intelligence activity. †¢ Common threads run through many of the earlier attempts to define intelligence, however. These threads, pulled together, result in a good working definition of intelligence: Intelligence is a process, using primarily unstructured information from all sources and focused externally, that is designed to reduce the level of uncertainty for a decision maker. Often we define intelligence with respect to human qualities. Thus, as we tend to consider ourselves as the most intelligent species, we compare other species to ourselves. Yet, is this really possible? One scientist suggests that humans tend to ignore any intelligence that is somewhat different than our own: We willingly accept the idea of intelligence in a life form only if the intelligence displayed is on the same evolutionary wavelength as our own. Technology automatically indicates intelligence. An absence of technology translates into an absence of intelligence. There is no certain basis for the assumption that all intelligence is human-like intelligence. Indeed, there are undeniable trends, such as large brains in mammals and larger neocortical in primates, but to generalize these correlations cannot always be done. Truly, intelligence seems to be relative, in that it evolves to fulfill the needs of the particular species. How, then, can we truly compare the intelligence of a crocodile with that of a whale or that of a human? Evolutionarily speaking, scientists agree that organisms seem to have become more complex behaviorally. Some argue that this is correlated with increased brain size. Changes to the brain have occurred at specific structures.