the Atlantic and it really struck me it
was called the war on stupid people when
I saw that title something inside me
immediately cringed but then I thought
about it
it’s true the way things are right now
culture is telling us you need to be
smart or you’re a failure a lone genius
is better than a roomful of average
people isn’t it strange that we say
average like it’s something to be
ashamed of and if average is a curse
anything less is an anathema but I
digress regardless it’s undeniable that
America is obsessed with intelligence
just take a look at our entertainment
Tony Stark dr. house
Sherlock Holmes Walter White the list
goes on and on all of these characters
are deeply flawed individuals with one
shared trait and one Redeemer
intelligence no matter how arrogant
grading or even immoral we love them
because they’re wickedly smart and we
don’t just want brains in our
entertainment we want them in our love
lives too according to research from the
University of Iowa people now rank
intelligence and academic success above
traits like domestic skills financial
success sociability looks and health
when listing desired qualities and a
mate
this goes for business as well according
to CEB the world’s top provider of
corporate assessments the number of
people who report being tested during
their application process has doubled
between 2008 and 2013 and if your
employer doesn’t give you a test of
their own they might ask you for your
SAT scores instead The Wall Street
Journal says that prominent companies
like Goldman Sachs de Shaw Group and
Bain & Co all asked for their applicants
SAT scores so at this point you might be
thinking everyone loves intelligence
much there must be something to all the
hype disregarding the fact that that’s
actually a logical fallacy it’s also
just wrong sorry to burst your
hypothetical bubble but in all
seriousness America’s ongoing love
affair with intellect it not only causes
issues for individuals but for society
as a whole now I know going from hero
worship to healthy skepticism in the
span of 10 minutes is a bit much to ask
but I’m willing to give it a try
I hope that you are as well so let’s
start by breaking down why intelligence
isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be
prevailing wisdom says that in order to
succeed you must be smart hand in hand
with that notion is the idea that to do
well in life you must first do well in
school but that’s not quite right
according to William Deresiewicz a
former Yale professor of 10 years and
the author of novel excellent sheep
academic success by itself doesn’t mean
much the way our education system is
structured we tend to produce students
who are quote content to color within
the lines that their education has
marked out for them or as a New York
Times article so kindly puts it a
generation of polite striving praised
addicted grade grubbing nonentities ouch
although we constantly stress over our
school stats it turns out that they
don’t actually have a concrete effect on
our work lives a human resource is exact
from google sums it up pretty well GPAs
are worthless as a criteria for hiring
test scores are worthless Google
famously used to ask everyone for
transcripts and GPAs and test scores but
we don’t anymore
unless you’re just a few as years out of
school we found that it doesn’t predict
anything all right so it looks like your
SAT scores are irrelevant once you’ve
been admitted to college and your GPA
doesn’t have a true connection to your
success
in later life but what about
intelligence in general surely being
clever is the unalloyed advantage that
we’ve portrayed it to be wrong again
apparently a high IQ and greater verbal
intelligence that is the kind of
intelligence that has to do with speech
and words correlate positively to more
stress throughout the day
Alexander penny of McEwen University has
research that shows people with greater
verbal intelligence are more prone to
anxiety and not just about brainy
existential questions either it’s not
that their worries were more profound
says penny they just worried more often
about more things not only that but
intelligence is also no guarantee of
wisdom or rationality Keith Stanovich a
researcher from the University of
Toronto has conducted numerous studies
that show a high IQ does not mean that
you’re any less biased in fact people of
greater than average intelligence are
often more prone to ignoring their own
flaws and singling out the flaws of
others now let’s pause for a moment all
of this is not to say that we simply go
where the winds of fate will like sad
little sail boats floating on an ocean
of failure although I’ve probably spent
the last five minutes convincing some of
you that you don’t need to do anything
in school that’s not really the point of
this talk unfortunately or perhaps
fortunately you really do need to try as
trite as it is it’s not really the
brains or the grades that matter as much
as your motivation now I know that
you’ve heard that before but unlike most
long-winded motivational speakers I have
real science to back me up a study done
by the National Institute of Health
reveals something quite interesting it
shows that the amount of motivation
demonstrated by students taking an IQ
test had a direct impact on their IQ
score and more importantly
when researchers checked in with those
students years later the ones who showed
greater motivation also had greater
financial and interpersonal success in
life now at this point you may be
wondering where is she going with all
this
I mean first it was everyone loves
smarts
then it was grades are worthless and
smarts are terrible then it was
motivation I guess now I’m sorry about
that I know that I’ve taken you down a
lot of rabbit trails
if rabbit trails consists entirely of
scientific studies but let me break it
down for you there’s nothing wrong with
valuing cognitive ability the problem
arises when we allow ourselves to
worship it our cultural obsession with
cleverness has led us to glorify a trait
that by itself doesn’t even isn’t even
close to achieving perfection we
misrepresent what it truly takes to
succeed and by doing so we harm people
all along the spectrum of intelligence
if you don’t fit the classical mold of
smart then you’re told you either need
to force yourself to fit or prepare for
failure for young people especially
there is the constant pervasive threat
that if you don’t do well in school if
you don’t get into a great university if
you don’t reg rate with a four-year
degree you’ll spend the rest of your
miserable existence scrubbing floors a
fast food chain on the other hand if you
do happen to be classically intelligent
you’re told you’re the best and the
brightest so act like it
now people expect a great deal of us but
at the same time they funnel you through
this hyper competitive academic system
that doesn’t even teach you how to
function in the real world we brutally
stigmatize the non-smart but at the same
time we’re often cruel to those we
consider too brainy and we hold everyone
to impossible expectations Society loves
to say to each according to its own
merit but we vitally misunderstand what
traits are truly meritorious
raw brain power is nothing but a blunt
weapon until you temper it with other
virtues a quote commonly attributed to
Socrates goes like this the wise man
knows that he knows nothing I think that
in order to repair the damage done by
our smarts obsessed culture we have to
take that to heart we have to understand
that smarts doesn’t mean a perfect
resume or a great GPA or even a high IQ
it means intellectual humility
motivation practical wisdom and unlike
the usual definition of intelligence
those things are not doled out randomly
by the whims of nature they have to be
taught no one should be able to rest on
their laurels saying I’m clever so I
don’t need to listen no one should be
pushed aside because some number GPA IQ
SAT score says that you’re not worthy of
success so next time you’re feeling
especially stupid or especially smart
ask yourself this do I know how to admit
that I’m wrong do I learn from my
mistakes can I talk to people or
persevere or adapt to a new situation if
you do and if you can then you’re well
on your way and if not you can always
learn thank you [Applause]