Whether Intelligence Can be Defined and Measured Accurately or Not

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Whether Intelligence Can be Defined and Measured Accurately or Not

In this essay I will look at whether intelligence can be defined and

measured accurately through looking at various definitions of

intelligence; including definitions from Binet, Wechsler, Terman,

Hebbs, Cattel and Vernon. I will discuss a selection of more well

known and popular intelligence tests ranging from Galton to Wechsler,

what they measure and what they don’t measure. I will look at an

example of a famous person renowned for being intelligent and what

there IQ test result would likely of been, if tested.

Starting with a definition from the oxford dictionary we can then go

on to see how varied the definitions of intelligence can be.

Intelligence, meaning “the mental ability the power of learning and

understanding” (Hawkins, 1988).

In 1905 Binet suggested that intelligence is the ability to

comprehend, judge and reason well (1905, cited in P, Smith et al,

2003) and Wechsler describes intelligence along a similar line

agreeing that the ability to adapt to circumstances and rational

thinking are part of intelligence (cited in Gross, 1992).

Three definitions that follow a similar line, the first being from

Piaget who sees intelligence as an ongoing process of learning,

organising, developing and adapting to situations (Pyle, 1979). The

definition from Hebb is that it has two meanings, one being “an

innate potential, the capacity for development, a fully innate

property that amounts to the possession of a good brain & a good

neural metabolism”(cited in Heim, 1970, p24) the second meaning is,

the functioning of the brain which has developed with the infl...

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