Definición de inteligencia por Isaac Asimov

Este es un ensayo acerca de la definición de inteligencia escrito por Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) y en verdad que me ha gustado tanto que se los comparto. Pero antes les cuento que Asimov nació en Russia pero fue un científico y escritor norte americano. Escribió sobre muchos temas desde científicos hasta no científicos. Era tanta su pasión por escribir que lo hacia de 7:30 de la mañana a 10 de la noche, además tenía una frase que decía "Escribir es mi único interés. Aun hablar es una interrupción."

What Is Intelligence, Anyway?
by Isaac Asimov

When I was in the army, I received a kind of aptitude test that all soldiers took and, against a normal of 100, scored 160. No one at the base had ever seen a figure like that, and for two hours they made a big fuss over me. (It didn’t mean anything. The next day I was still a buck private with KP as my highest duty.)

All my life I’ve been registering scores like that, so that I have the complacent feeling that I’m highly intelligent, and I expect other people to think so, too. Actually, though, don’t such scores simply mean that I am very good at answering the type of academic questions that are considered worthy of answers by people who make up the intelligence tests–people with intellectual bents similar to mine?

For instance, I had an auto-repair man once, who, on these intelligence tests, could not possibly have scored more than 80, by my estimate. I always took it for granted that I was far more intelligent than he was. Yet, when anything went wrong with my car I hastened to him with it, watched him anxiously as he explored its vitals, and listened to his pronouncements as though they were divine oracles–and he always fixed my car.

Well, then, suppose my auto-repair man devised questions for an intelligence test. Or suppose a carpenter did, or a farmer, or, indeed, almost anyone but an academician. By every one of those tests, I’d prove myself a moron. And, I’d be a moron, too. In a world where I could not use my academic training and my verbal talents but had to do something intricate or hard, working with my hands, I would do poorly. My intelligence, then, is not absolute but is a function of the society I live in and of the fact that a small subsection of that society has managed to foist itself on the rest as an arbiter of such matters.

Consider my auto-repair man, again. He had a habit of telling me jokes whenever he saw me. One time he raised his head from under the automobile hood to say: “Doc, a deaf-and-dumb guy went into a hardware store to ask for some nails. He put two fingers together on the counter and made hammering motions with the other hand. The clerk brought him a hammer. He shook his head and pointed to the two fingers he was hammering. The clerk brought him nails. He picked out the sizes he wanted, and left. Well, doc, the next guy who came in was a blind man. He wanted scissors. How do you suppose he asked for them?”

Indulgently, I lifted my right hand and made scissoring motions with my first two fingers. Whereupon my auto-repair man laughed raucously and said, “Why, you dumb jerk, he used his voice and asked for them.” Then he said smugly, “I’ve been trying that on all my customers today.” “Did you catch many?” I asked. “Quite a few,” he said, “but I knew for sure I’d catch you.” “Why is that?” I asked. “Because you’re so educated, doc, I knew you couldn’t be very smart.” And I have an uneasy feeling he had something there.

Y Para los que están aprendiendo inglés como yo, algunas definiciones en inglés y/o español de palabras que no me sabía la primera vez que lo leí este ensayo.

fuss over me: mimar (pay attention to)
buck: dólar, zool. macho, ciervo
KP: Duty is kitchen police or kitchen patrol staff assigned to US enlisted military personnel. KP can be either the work or the personnel assigned to perform such work
bents: habilidades (skills)
devise: concebir, idear
moron: imbécil (stupid person)
foist: to give (something unwanted or inferior) to (someone)
deaf-and-dumb: sordo mudo
nails: clavos
counter: mostrador
hammer: martillo
whereupon: después de lo cual
raucous: estridente
smugly: ingreídamente
quite a few: un buen número (a large number)
had something: estaba en lo correcto (was right)


El mensaje contenido en este ensayo es excelente y totalmente concuerdo con él. No hay personas más inteligentes que otras, todas las personas tienen su propio potencial. Es sólo que esta sociedad nos ha hecho creer que los que van a la escuela y tienen buenas notas son los mas inteligentes, lo cual no es totalmente cierto o falso. ¿Pero qué sería de esas personas a las que llamamos "inteligentes" si tomaran un examen sobre algo diferente a su área de estudio? La moraleja que me deja este ensayo es que no hay alguna carrera u oficio mejor que otro, porque cada uno tiene su propia importancia. La primera vez que leí este ensayo también levante la mano derecha e hice la mímica de unas tijeras abriendo y cerrando o.O