Times Letter on Intelligence.

Begin forwarded message:

From: Frode Hegland <[email protected]>
Date: December 20, 2006 6:38:00 AM EST
To: Douglas Engelbart <[email protected]>, Ted Nelson  
<[email protected]>, Vint Cerf <[email protected]>, Bruce Horn  
<[email protected]>, Dave Farber <[email protected]>
Subject: Times Letter on Intelligence.

FYI, just sent this to the London Times:


My apologies for taking so long to write.

Your article earlier this week on IQ and how we have apparently  
leveled off in increasing our intelligence was profoundly disturbing.

"We are about as smart as we're going to get, says IQ pioneer"
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2509459.html

The way the article discussed intelligence is as if intelligence is  
like an athletic ability where someone can just practice and get more  
intelligent like they can get faster at running for example and that  
this in isolation is important.

The definition of intelligence can be argued for ever, I won't waste  
your time with my personal definition of intelligence. However, I can  
say that when I seek advice from, say, a hospital, I care not a whit  
about the doctors intelligence. I care about getting the right  
answers. A high IQ doc who can't tell me what I need to know is not  
very impressive or useful even though she might be impressive on  
Stephen Fry's QI.

Intelligence is required, sure, but modern knowledge work also  
requires a high level of  teamwork and increasingly useful tools.

Augmenting the collective IQ of an organization to use Doug  
Engelbart's term, is a useful metric: How does an organization as a  
whole deal with its environment, it's challenges and opportunities?  
How does it contribute to the world around it? These are worthwhile  
questions. Not how high the IQ of it's individuals are.


Frode Hegland
ceo
The Hyperwords Company
www.hyperwords.net