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IQ measures intellectual ability. Intelligence is a necessary, not a sufficient condition for success.

• jlawson 8y ago
  Absolutely. It's not that complicated. Usain Bolt obviously has incredible sprinting talent. But if he sat around at home playing video games and eating potato chips all day, nobody would expect him to be an amazing sprinter. Everyone knows this. Yet for some reason there's this weird idea that intelligence without effort can yield results, where the same obviously doesn't apply to any other kind of natural talent. It's strange.
  • slx26 8y ago
    I always like to point out that a problem here is that people don't always recognise it when intellectual effort happens. Most people talk about someone being intelligent because they can get good grades without studying or similar. But not studying doesn't mean there's not an intellectual effort. In fact, most intelligent people are intelligent or stay that way because they are constantly listening, analyzing, learning and thinking in their day to day. Then maybe they don't need to separately study a subject that much. They are used to learn and they already got it. (you get the point) So, I don't think it's strange, it's usually very different to the "physical training" example, because people don't see it directly.
  • mgkimsal 8y ago
    > weird idea that intelligence without effort can yield results In my experience, that 'weird idea' comes from early schooling. Highly intelligent (gifted?) kids generally don't have to exhibit any effort on school work, at least up to a certain time. I can tell you that, in my case, I coasted up until around 11th grade, then I hit a bit of a mental wall. I'm sure other physiological changes impacted, but at core, I didn't know how to study or exert effort in 'learning' - everything had just fallen in to place for so long that I didn't have the skill or experience to learn how to get better. This was a confounding factor in college as well. I've shared this with other folks, and had more than a few people share similar experiences. If Usain just ran really fast, and people said "wow, you're fast", but he wasn't trained at how to get better, he probably wouldn't have become a world champ. But with 'raw intelligence', that often doesn't receive the same sort of coaching and support as specific sports or other identifiable talents.
    • swift532 8y ago
      It's all because schools generally focus on the common denominator and more talented children are lost to boredom and lack of challenges. This doesn't apply everywhere, but it certainly applied to my pre-university education.
      • mgkimsal 8y ago
        I skipped a grade, but even that wasn't enough. Parents indicated later that there was thought of skipping 2 grades, but the social/age difference might have been too great, so it was nixed at the time, then never revisited.
  • toasterlovin 8y ago
    FWIW, Usain Bolt trains about as much as a motivated amateur athlete (roughly 90 minutes a day). The big difference between the two being that motivated amateurs have day jobs, whereas Usain Bolt does not. His success is almost entirely talent, in other words.
• sharemywin 8y ago
  Intelligence is not necessary in many endeavors including business.
• tyingq 8y ago
  I think it measures a subset of "intellectual ability". I have a fairly high IQ, but there are things I'm terrible at, like music and art. I put a lot of effort in, and get no results.