What defines ´Smart´

[Deleted]

What defines smart? You hear a lot of people complain about generations becoming dumber and dumber. But in relation to the information we can all get on the internet nowadays, aren´t people generally smarter now than they were, say 60 years ago?

So what defines smart?

Is it intelligence, the ability to learn fast? Is it knowledge, how much knowledge has someone accumulated? You dont have to be able to learn for that. Is it IQ, EQ or a combination of those things? Or is it knowing when and how to addapt to your surroundings, for instance one could consider a scammer ´smart´, yet he might only know a couple of things regarding his own trait. Or does it have something to do with mindset? The will to learn, the drive to become more knowledgable.

What defines smart for you?

[glo]

There really isn't room for debate. "Smart" is an adjective for intelligence. Intelligence and knowledge are two separate entities.

[Deleted]

Able to tie your shoe laces?

Smart.

End of thread.

[Cthulhu 2020]

Look up smart in the dictionary and you'll find the definition.

Also, my picture will be there.

[AeneasBK]

Clean, ironed, tidy.

[yeast]

Able to tie your shoe laces?

Smart.

End of thread.

What if the threads of your shoelaces are infinitely long?
Checkmate, Corgi-ists.

[Dezerte]

Smarts or intelligence is hard to define. But if anything, I'd say maturity is a good indicator.

[LilSaihah]

I'd probably say that a "smarter" person is someone who can more quickly learn and understand concepts.

What if the threads of your shoelaces are infinitely long?
Checkmate, Corgi-ists.

That would make them easier to tie. I swear my shoelaces are never long enough.

[Deleted]

It's the ability to come up with solutions to problems.. so something similar to IQ basically.

[Deleted]

It's relative.

Just the same as any other description of anything.

There is no definite constant of the word.

[Raphtheone]

Smart = knowledge + intelligence
One can compensate for the other but I think both are required. Being smart is being knowledgeable in your field and able to take in and respond to new information/perspectives.

[Extrakt]

I think smart = intelligence.
Knowledge doesn't have a lot to do with it. It does have to do with how fast you gather knowledge though, not how much you have of it.

Oh and don't forget. Is it..

Specific
Measurable
Acceptable
Realistic
Time Bound

[Spectral]

General cognitive factor, or g in psychometrics, is what most people are referring to (even if they don't know it) when they think of being "smart". This is measurable and highly predictive of future success:

There is a high correlation of .90 to .95 between the prestige rankings of occupations, as rated by the general population, and the average general intelligence scores of people employed in each occupation. At the level of individual employees, the association between job prestige and g is lower – one large U.S. study reported a correlation of .65 (.72 corrected for attenuation). Mean level of g thus increases with perceived job prestige. It has also been found that the dispersion of general intelligence scores is smaller in more prestigious occupations than in lower level occupations, suggesting that higher level occupations have minimum g requirements.[64][65]

It's quite literally impossible to become a scientist, surgeon, lawyer, or engineer if you don't have high measurable intelligence.

[Independent voter]

A sense of humor.

[belfpala]

Able to tie your shoe laces?

Smart.

End of thread.

Can you do it while chewing gum? I can!

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It's quite literally impossible to become a scientist, surgeon, lawyer, or engineer if you don't have high measurable intelligence.

Just adding that metric doesn't predict your income or any such thing. I know many successful business owners are I would say aren't... quite all there intellectually.

[jordonus]

Smarts or intelligence is hard to define. But if anything, I'd say maturity is a good indicator.

It's really not, it has a definition. And it doesn't include "maturity".

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I know many successful business owners are I would say aren't... quite all there intellectually.

Nice anecdote.

[Spectral]

Just adding that metric doesn't predict your income or any such thing. I know many successful business owners are I would say aren't... quite all there intellectually.

From the link:

The correlation between income and g, as measured by IQ scores, averages about .40 across studies. The correlation is higher at higher levels of education and it increases with age, stabilizing when people reach their highest career potential in middle age. Even when education, occupation and socioeconomic background are held constant, the correlation does not vanish.[67]

Imperfect, to be sure, but still way above zero. You can safely bet that at the high and low tails, the disparity is huge.

[Eliot123]

General cognitive factor, or g in psychometrics, is what most people are referring to (even if they don't know it) when they think of being "smart". This is measurable and highly predictive of future success:

It's quite literally impossible to become a scientist, surgeon, lawyer, or engineer if you don't have high measurable intelligence.

Define ''high'' though.
I can assure you that there are many surgeons out there whose intelligence is hardly ''impressive''. Medicine itself is mostly about soaking in large amounts of data (very few things actually require a lot of thinking) and most types of surgeries are things that are manually practiced over and over again. To quote my psychiatry professor:''If you are bright and highly-intelligent, you really shouldn't study medicine. Go study engineering.''

[Spectral]

Define ''high'' though.
I can assure you that there are many surgeons out there whose intelligence is hardly ''impressive''. Medicine itself is mostly about soaking in large amounts of data (very few things actually require a lot of thinking) and most types of surgeries are things that are manually practiced over and over again. To quote my psychiatry professor:''If you are bright and highly-intelligent, you really shouldn't study medicine. Go study engineering.''

This graph, which is from this paper, summarizes nicely:

I suppose the lower bounds for a lot of those are actually low enough that my previous statement was too strong - you can have an IQ under 100 and still wind up in a decent profession. Nonetheless, the distribution is pretty noticeable.

[belfpala]

From the link:

Imperfect, to be sure, but still way above zero. You can safely bet that at the high and low tails, the disparity is huge.

Ahh, I was fixated on the "prestige rankings of occupations" part. The prestigious ones do tend to pay more than other jobs, and that might be why they're prestigious.

On the other hand, just one example, I know a guy who dropped out of high school. He started going around to various businesses asking if they had any broken wooden pallets they were going to toss out, and if so could he take them. Some even paid him to haul them away. Then he refurbished them and sold them back into the market at a profit. He turned that into a multi-million dollar business, and makes more than most MD's I know.