The video Battle of the Brains: The Case for Multiple Intelligences is a wonderful opportunity for everyone to see how the world is changing and how scientists are finally finding other methods to measure people’s intelligence. First produced by BBC in 2007 it evoked many controversial opinions and made the audience cheer on their favorites among the show participants. The film is a real overturn in the world of IQ testing since people got to know how narrow the field of the test was though still composed of many aspects checking a person’s ability to think. The main task of this paper is to analyze the methods of testing provided by the Battle of the Brains: The Case for Multiple Intelligences and decide which participant can be considered as the smartest one.
The main aspect enlarged upon in the film is the necessity to check a person’s ability to adjust to life circumstances in general. A viewer finds out that an intelligence quotient is not only how fast and effective your ideas are. The movie is more about how adapted to the life you are. I think this is a marvelous outcome of the scientists’ work because contemporary reality forces us to face the fact that math is important though not as much as knowing how to use an object in many ways. A good example of science being a little less important is the characters of Seth and Stella.
It is important to define what intelligence is from the point of view of psychology. Intelligence is a general capability to solve cognitive problems. However, according to the video watched this definition is likely to be inaccurate and even inexact. Another definition that would sound more appropriate within the scope of this paper is intelligence – an individual’s capacity to draw conclusions and learn from a certain experience or activity to adjust to the environment. The video Battle of the Brains: The Case for Multiple Intelligences regards creativity as one of the most important intelligence, so creativity is an individual’s ability to generate alternative concepts that may be useful for fulfilling certain tasks. Creativity is considered to be an important part of a human’s intelligence because it influences the sphere of communication with the environment.
To my mind intelligence is not only an ability of your mind to solve math or physics problems. Also, you would have to know how to cope with abstract problems, how to provide reasoning and know-how to learn efficiently. Besides, Battle of the Brain really gave a very precise notion of what we omit when thinking of the intelligence’s definition. I think that being intelligent entails many features aside from mind abilities. According to the video, which I agree with, a person should possess creative intelligence and practical intelligence. Thus, an opinion about the construction worker being not very smart can be easily vanished because practical skills are sometimes even more important than intellect.
So, who is the most intelligent? Let me return to my thesis that every person is very good in one of the intelligences, whereas the importance of the latter is varied according to the time we live in. Meaning, a person having scholastic intelligence would not emerge among others at all during the early centuries, whereas a prominent athlete would probably be a very good hunter or a warrior. Hence, defining which participant of the project presented in Battle of the Brains: The Case for Multiple Intelligences was the most intelligent is hard and almost impossible.
However, I am sticking to the thought that Stella would probably be the most intelligent one. My opinion is that being creative is something you cannot really get at school or from your parents. From the video, we can see that it is truly hard to decide on which intelligence aspects are inherited due to the genes and which are acquired from upbringing and education. (BBCW) So, to my mind, Stella is the most creative person in a line of competitors. She gave up school at the age of thirteen and still she is able to come up closer to the solving of bottle problem. Somehow she was the only one to think about a handkerchief usage when they were to get a cork out of the bottle.
Another test, that Stella had to take at the very beginning of the video, strikes with its difficulty. However, disregarding the fact that Stella does not actually major in any branches of science, she does pretty well guessing the right answers. Moreover, Stella is the one who stresses out the most, so it is evident that she is very disappointed and her brain refuses to work because of utmost frustration. Nevertheless, the results are higher than she expected.
The trial ‘bodily/kinesthetic intelligence’ proves that Stella is likely to solve practical problems successfully. Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence presupposes control over one’s body movements and ability to manipulate the objects masterly. So, she performed wonderfully during the experiment with the basketball and glasses that turned the reality upside-down. I would say that the reason she sometimes does not get to the very end of the problem solving is the lack of education, though bodily-kinesthetic intelligence of her simply amaze.
Intelligence is regarded in a new way within the contemporary society. Sometimes it is very hard to denote what an intelligent person is. According to the Battle of the Brains: The Case for Multiple Intelligences intelligence comprises of several sub-intelligences. So, I guess the true intelligence is the whole set of intelligence features in one person.
Works Cited
BBCW. Battle of the Brains: The Case for Multiple Intelligence (2007). Princeton, NJ : Films for the Humanities & Sciences. 50 min.