When intelligent doesn't mean smart

One of my friends is married to consultant radiologist. When our children were all young we were invited over the theirs on November 5th for fireworks in their garden. The doctor, had a table of highly flammable fireworks set up right next to a barbecue where he was nonchalantly cooking sausages etc. and the young children were milling around both areas. My husband, rolling his eyes at me behind his back, suggested to doctor friend, perhaps the table of fireworks ideally should be well away from the flames and possibly any stray sparks flying off the barbecue!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Agree Petallus

I also have a relative who is very clever in his specialist subject, scholarship to an excellent public school, top degree from a top university - completely unemployable and absolutely no common sense. Imo common sense is actually quite uncommon.

I think we desperately need politicians with wisdom. More foresight, I get sick of hearing "with hindsight" and "lessons have been learned" from situations when the probable and often eventual outcome is patently obvious to the average person in the street, but seemingly not to our politicians.

Does anyone have any views on the Watson Glaser test of critical thinking which is increasingly being used as a sift in job applications in lots of professions?

There should be a GSCE in nouse (?sp) - it is under-rated.

Bluebell - I haven't used it professionally but I completed it just for my own satisfaction. I thought it was pretty easy to guess which answers were required! It is not objective, I thought - some answers would depend on your moral or political standpoint, rather than purely on logical deduction from the facts.
I am rather mistrustful of 'tick box' ways of assessing candidates for jobs.

It's not a personsality test, unlike many of the tests used in recruitmeng. it does what it says on the tin - assesses the ability to:

define a problem;
discriminate the information important to solving a problem;
recognise assumptions;
create and select hypotheses;
draw valid conclusions and check whether inferences are valid.

Any idea if its valid?

Good post when.

When I was a child we lived next door to the headmaster of a well known public school. Very clever man, but completely impractical. His wife drove (quite unusual then) because he couldn't. and certainly no DIY or light bulb changing or plug wiring. If you wanted some Latin translated he was your man.

My mum (left school at 14) used to say to my dad (barrister) 'I don't know how you got so far!' as he was not really a very practical man at all and not very good with money, in that when he eventually go paid for a job he would often by something frivolous (a dinghy!) rather than the new washing machine my mum was hoping for! He was excellent at cryptic crosswords, poetry and art..he could cook too but DIY was beyond him.

Its all down to perception. DH was questioned by 2 DSs a few months ago about what he really had done for his career as they simply didn't believe he could possibly have been paid that much for what he did so must have been working for the CIA and the job must have been a front

Too much HomeFront on TV !

The OP was very funny, thanks sunseeker. I know quite a lot of people who do things like your neighbour, me included at times. But they aren't all rocket scientists. I think I'd rather be a rocket scientist who does stupid things than just er....

Homeland not Dad's Army! Doh!

If it was a choice of one type of intelligence or another. I would rather have good social skills, good problem solving abilities and practical skills rather than just high academic attainment.

Some, not all of these very knowledgeable people are far too focused in their particular interests to manage life skills. As Moved has described in her relative.
The ability to remember and recall lots of facts is all very well, but has very limited uses other than to bore people with.

Just think about the multitasking most women do so well. When combining child care, house work, cooking, menu planning etc and their jobs, they are juggling an amazing number of cognitive functions at once.

I wonder though if those sorts of abilities will ever be valued as much as plain knowledge.

Just look at quizzes on TV. People in high flying, high earning, academic professions, obviously very intelligent to get where they are, but really, when it comes down to it, they are only really knowledgeable on their own particular subject, so when faced with other things, they quite often come unstuck.