A troubling scene in the second chapter of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, features newly introduced character John Isidore watching a live television broadcast from Mars. On the broadcast a women is being interviewed and asked if she likes New New York, Mars and her response was that she felt a sense of dignity, from owning humanoid androids that she can depend on to serve her (Dick 16-17). In this same interview, she is asked if she was ever worried about being deemed as “special” meaning unintelligent and unable to leave the deteriorating earth. this in turn elicits a livid response from Isidore, because he was deemed special leaving him trapped on the earth, alone, and unable to get a well paying job. This part of who Isadore is impacts him so deeply that he continuously throughout the rest of the chapters calls himself a chickenhead.
Question
How should intelligence be measured- through the use of standardized testing, critical thinking in scenario based procedures, through determination to succeed, or through something else entirely?
I think that measuring intelligence is not as simple as how we try to measure it now. Standardized tests can be good at saying that you “know” something, but not that you “understand” something. People that I know with photographic memory can remember something word for word but if I ask them one it means they might not know unless they have thought about it. There are also people that are also really good at figuring things out but might not know the terminology used to describe what they are doing as well. I think that a good way to test people is using a bunch of different things probably related to different jobs people would have and then also check how well they can figure things out. I feel that intelligence is more than knowledge and critical thinking but rather a way to combine the two. Some people have bad memory and some people are bad at doing stuff they have never been showed how to do, but that doesn’t mean either of them can’t be smart.
I also think that this logic would lend itself to establishing intelligence in Left-Brained, versus Right-Brained people. There is surely as much genius to be found in the works of Vincent Van Gogh, as in the theories of Albert Einstein- just in a different capacity.
It all depends on the context in which the testing takes place. I have been told that I’m “booksmart, not streetsmart” because, yes I can tell you why the war of 1812 happened, but allegedly I have no common sense. So I think that scenario based procedures would be the best way to truly test intelligence, and apply the findings to a unique scoring matrix.
That also ties back to how intelligence is defined. While the accumulation of information such as the cause of the War of 1812 is commonly thought to be intelligence, intelligence is really the ability to learn. This usually means processing information, understanding that information, and applying it.
Therefore, any tests should not rely on background knowledge and instead rely completely on what you can learn within the test. This would be things like testing whether you can understand where a pattern is broken, what the pattern is, or the next value in a pattern. This could also include scenario based questions that test your ability to apply information learned within the explanation of the scenario.
The most important part of testing intelligence is to first give it an operational definition.
Touching a little on the way Isidore feels, him describing himself as a chickenhead, feeling alone, and being labeled as “special” can relate to many people in the real world. I can use myself for an example; not that I label myself as a chickenhead, but I do label myself as feeling alone and special in a different ways. These ways include my anxiety, being anti-social, and as @rrios said above, not being street smart.
That being said, I do believe that intelligence should be tested in personalized ways. Although I do not believe in labels or the sorting of human beings, at the same time, I do believe that if we were personally tested in classes (or groups), there would be more successful people working in various industries; not just those who barely pass the standardized requirements. As someone who does not do well on standardized assessments, or fall in with the popular opinion on things relative to our society, I benefit more from “things” that are personalized to people like me, for example, in the areas of IT, or anything related to technology.
I think about how intelligence should be measured all the time. In my time of thinking I have determined that intelligence is not quantifiable by standardized test scores, GPA, or degrees acquired. They are not measures, they are a measurement of how much time you spent learning about the stuff required for the former. Every healthy human is capable of learning the same stuff the doctors learn, so being a doctor does not entitle you to intelligence. I believe that intelligence can be measured by ones ability to think. I know that sounds vague, but I believe that those who are capable of thinking independently from textbooks or the internet, and who are capable of developing theories with evidence, or people who can rationally think through any scenario, or those who can just take a moment to reflect on whats happening around them.