There is much confusion in the world about education and intelligence. Education is knowledge acquired in formal learning environments, such as school. Intelligence is that actual ability to learn, to acquire, assimilate, and use new knowledge.
We are taught from the time we first enter school to judge someone’s intelligence by their education and their performance in such formal environments, also known as “book smarts”. This is taught by words, actions, and attitudes, from both teachers and, later on, other students. This concept that education equals intelligence is pushed on us so hard that few people ever get totally past it, even as they grow older.
You Can Be Highly Intelligent Without Being Highly Educated
Two of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met did very poorly in school. One graduated, but just barely, and the other never finished high school. When it comes to learning anything that they don’t associate with school, they learn fast… much, much faster than normal.
People of well above average intelligence sometimes do poorly in school due to boredom. They sit there in classes designed for the lowest common denominator which don’t provide enough stimulation for them, so they become bored and stop paying attention. They are distracted by the smallest things. People of less intelligence, on the other hand may have more of their mind occupied by the class, and thus be less prone to boredom. They are also more likely to be aware that they need to work hard and study in order to do well, where smart people may feel that it’s easy and not study even when they DO need it.
You Can Be Highly Educated Without Being Highly Intelligent
On the other hand, I have met people with advanced degrees, including doctorates, who are of no more than average intelligence. This is not a bad thing… they have shown that they are willing to put in the time and effort to master something that does not come easy to them. It does also show, however, that higher education is not proof of higher intelligence.
There are also certainly professions which require extensive training (education), but not extremely high intelligence. Your average family practictioner, for example, can operate just fine without needing to have a genius IQ. He is following established procedures, prescribing standard medications for conditions diagnosed by standardized methods. He needs the education to teach him those standards, but he is not creating the standards, just following them… so having average intelligence is not a big deal at all.
Conclusion
Education is not equal to intelligence, though it is often used as an external measure of it. Certain types of education can give you a pretty good idea that someone is at least of certain minimum intelligence (you can’t actually be dumb and have an advanced degree in mathematics), but they don’t provide a measure of how far beyond that minimum they are, and a lack of education says absolutely nothing about their intelligence.
And, by the way, neither education nor intelligence prevent you from doing stupid things. As far as I know, nothing in the world stops that.
Your defense conflicts with your thesis statement. Either you have the ability/intelligence to learn or your don’t. You can’t use boredom as a defense for not learning. Your intelligence would have to kick in at some point and tell you that improving the mind is essential.
The evidence might be false, but the statement won’t be fake.
First, the above article is not a defense at all, it is a statement. Within the article too, the author makes
no conflicting argument. The idea that a student can become bored with the class content and loose
attention is a perfectly accurate explanation for poor performance in school. Boredom in the classroom
has long plagued many school curriculum and is the responsibility of the schools to keep the attention of
the entire student body. People have the ability to learn. People do not have intelligence to learn. Young people do not have intelligence enough to fully comprehend the absolute necessity for them to maintain quality attention to education, however they do have the ability. Understand then that having the ability to learn is a statement on its own. To say someone has the intelligence to learn is a false statement and an error in reasoning. One cannot become intelligent without first learning. The above article mainly applies to
high school grade students and under. While your response would seem to be aimed and students above the high school level. Your comments are not assertions they are opinions and speculative. They are not
necessarily of a practical nature. “your intelligence would have to kick in at some point and tell you improving the mind is essential”. This is a poor attempt at a blanket statement to refer to everybody and
in no way reflects the attitude of education today. Moreover, everything in your response Rev. is inaccurate
and irresponsible. You need not express your opinions as factual as both your knowledge and authority are fallacious in perception and actuality.
you can feed education into a computer to a level much higher than a human being but a computor has no intelligence.
This is absolutely true.
It is so fake for people to actually think that education can really teach you something. I mean it does provide you with a better opportunity, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that you are more capable.
The easiest way to think about this would be, what if we invite the most intelligent people on the earth to do any entrance exam of the universities in the world, and what is the possibility of them to get into the best Universities?
I believe the answer is firm and clear, they just won’t get into university at all, they will be simply beaten by those students who are much less capable of them.
If this isn’t just enough for you to believe education is picking randomly people not the most intelligent ones. Lemme give you other instances. Most high schools now have politics courses, and thus they will have politics exams. Now, you are going to pick the best politician in your mind, and imagine, they are sitting the exactly the same politics exams with the politics students. And what’s going to happen would be like this, those best politicians barely passed any exams while the so-called top students nailed.
Now, would I give a conclusion that politicians aren’t as capable as those students who take politics, and, therefore, we shall give the students the presidency of their own country?
That’s it, I believe I have given enough hints, knowing those hypocritical people would deny it and trying to protect the modern education just like the noble people were protecting monarchy.