An Intelligent Decision by Professor Bert Lorenzo

We live in an ever increasingly sophisticated society. I’ve written before about this and about the consequences that those who do not prepare for complexity will suffer.

You can find a lot of writing about the current economic climate and its causes. Joe Cardona recently summed it well in The Miami Herald. “What is the new American reality? The answer lies in the overwhelming financial burdens most Americans face. Technology, outsourcing and an alarming rate of poorly educated, unemployable workers have led to a stagnant, no longer upwardly mobile middle class.”

I haven’t read anyone write about the economy with Cardona’s honesty. Many can’t find work because they have nothing to offer employers. This includes unemployable PhD’s. I’ve met many people with extensive schooling who I wouldn’t trust to do even the most basic work.
What does Cardona mean by “poorly educated”? What does well educated mean? What should a college education supply a graduate?

I remind my student they must answer these types of questions and take responsibility for their education. They must make sure they get what they need. To sit in a classroom doesn’t guarantee anything. Only what students do to educate themselves not what teachers do will guarantee the type of knowledge and ability to function happily in the 21^st century. We spend very little time in a classroom and with professors so we have much to do outside of class to develop the skills, brain power and attitude to succeed in a complex world. We’ve created a world similar to the one Herbert Spencer described 150 years ago. In our case we can call it survival of the intellectually fittest. The least fit will survive but only in the lowest rung of the economic food chain.

Consider this. In a recent commentary in the scientific journal Nature a group of psychologists found the average teenager gets smarter with each generation based on IQ tests. The tests when constantly adjusted to keep the average at 100 helped them conclude that the same teenager would have scored 118 in 1950 and 130 in 1910. The teenager with an average score today would’ve scored at near genius level a century ago. More importantly this means a near genius 100 years ago would have only average intelligence in our complex world. What the average could do 100 years ago now takes 30 more IQ points.

Sadly our current president has sent young people the wrong message. He should explain to the young about the type of education and intellectual development needed to make it to the White House or to develop great wealth. Instead of instruction on the type of education he received and his own intellectual preparation we get speeches about how the most intelligent among us cause our problems. We don’t need to increase our intelligence to solve the problems we face. We need to confiscate more from the most productive. Ayn Rand had it right in Atlas Shrugged. We don’t deserve what the creative class does for us.

With all this said I rank increasing their intelligence as the most intelligent decision students should make. Neuroscientists have put to rest the old debate about whether humans have fixed intelligence and brains. We now know we can change our brains throughout our lives. Neuroscientists call this natural ability brain plasticity. This means that through the appropriate exercises, activities and habits individuals can increase their intelligence.

I define intelligence as the ability to think abstractly. Those with the most of this ability move humanity forward. The more intelligent the easier individuals can learn, the better they can reason and the more self-awareness they develop. More intelligence leads to more emotional knowledge or empathy, better ability to plan and solve problems and most importantly to superior memory.

Through superior memory we develop and make ours that all important ingredient to superior intelligence-general knowledge or what psychologists call crystallized intelligence. General knowledge differs from specialized knowledge, skill or the things a technician may have the ability to do.

In part two of my essay I’ll discuss things we can all do to take advantage of brain plasticity and increase our intelligence for as essayist Charley Reese once wrote, “If there’s anything this world needs it’s more brainpower”.

Copyright Bert Lorenzo, 2012