We all know confidently incorrect people. People displaying dunning-kruger. The majority of those people have low education and without someone giving them objectively true feedback on their opinions through their developmental years, they start to believe everything they think is true even without evidence.
Memorizing facts, dates, and formulas aren’t what necessarily makes someone intelligent. It’s the ability to second guess yourself and have an appropriate amount of confidence relative to your knowledge that is a sign of intelligence.
I could be wrong though.
Knowledge is remembering facts, intelligence is pattern recognition and problem solving. Where did I mix the two?
Education gives you tools and information. Intelligent people are able to put those to good use. Stupid people are unable to, no matter how hard they try.
Tools and info yes, but the feedback is what I’m saying teaches people to adjust their confidence levels closer to their actual understanding of a subject.
Like if you wrote tests but never got graded or told what you got wrong, your confidence in your ability likely wouldn’t match your understanding of what you were tested on. Someone who wrote tests and were shown what they got wrong has a better understanding of how well they know something. I think that constant feedback is important and not something many people consider as a takeaway from being educated.
And yes, “stupid” people don’t have the ability to connect all the dots
Totally agree with you about the importance of feedback. With no feedback, you won’t know how wrong or right you are. You’ve also connected feedback with confidence, and that was a pretty good point. Formal education provides the feedback, which then adjusts your confidence to a more realistic level. Great observations, good post. 👍
However, many people get sidetracked by the way you mix up terminology. Maybe you should stop and think what exactly goes into the list you label “intelligence” or “being smart”. Are they the same thing, or are those lists different? Maybe they are separate lists, but there’s overlap? Either way, I suggest you sit down and reflect on the meaning of those terms. Maybe even write that list. Once you’ve done that, see how wikipedia describes intelligence.
As you can see from the number of comments, most people don’t agree with the way you use these terms. That’s the feedback you’re getting from this post, and it’s a great learning experience. Think of it like an exam, where the 100 teachers in this post are taking out their red markers and crossing out half your post.
I may have missed it but I’ve only seen you and 1 other comment say I mix up the terms, if you can point out where I’m mixing them up then maybe I can correct or clarify myself. I am fully aware of the difference between knowledge and intelligence.
That’s interesting, because the original post certainly didn’t sound like that. Thanks for the clarification anyway. I’m glad we’re on the same page here.
Which part is ambiguous to you though?
Here’s the first one.
This passage implies that you can increase your intelligence by getting educated, learning facts, gaining more knowledge, receiving feedback and getting a more realistic understanding on what you know and don’t know. Based on some of your clarifications, that doesn’t seem to be what you intended to say.
It literally says memorizing data isn’t what makes someone intelligent. Second guessing yourself because of factual feedback you’ve received and not being falsely confident in everything you think is what makes someone intelligent.
Haven’t read the stat in a while but it’s something like an average increase of 5 IQ points for every year of school you attend. That increase isn’t necessarily because of the data you’ve retained, it’s from being tested on it and adjusting how you approach new concepts based on that feedback.