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Intelligence is so overrated, knowledge and persistence are so underrated.

3 points by skowmunk ↗ HN
If there are two people with the same inherent intelligence, wouldn't the person with more knowledge APPEAR to be more intelligent?

Wouldn't the one with more knowledge be better at solving problems, because he has more knowledge that he can use intelligently to solve a problem?

If one were to agree with that, applying the same rule, wouldn't it be possible that a person with lesser inherent intelligence but enough of more knowledge out do a person of greater intelligence but with lesser knowledge, if the positive delta of intelligence is enough to overcome the negative delta of intelligence?

And how much influence does persistence have on the breadth or/and depth of knowledge one gains in one or many domains, as compared to intelligence?

3 comments

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s14m
Should the intelligence and knowledge be treated differently? A person to be acknowledged as 'intelligent' in certain field must have a deep knowledge about that topic and vice-versa. Nobody comes into existence already knowing about Dijkstra's algorithm, s/he has to learn it actively.
skowmunk
From some hard learnt life lessons, this is what I realized

Its best to differentiate between:

1) inherent intelligence 2) knowledge 3) apparent intelligence (which I define as a product of inherent intelligence and one's accumulated knowledge)

It benefited me the most when I focused more or less solely on knowledge accumulation and its usage than the other two.

While evlauating others too, like prospective employees, I found it best to evaluate one's hunger to accumulate knowledge and readiness to apply it.

Those, who focus mostly on their 'intelligence' I found it a pain to deal with them.

lsc
Actually, the market forces I see right now value experience and knowledge over intelligence. I can hire people who are vastly more intelligent (but also vastly less experienced) than I am to work for me for a very small fraction of what I can charge for my own time.

However, people who are as experienced as I am, even if they are clearly less intelligent, can usually command wages similar to mine.