Sherlock, IQ and the Concept of Intelligence

[wellingtongoose]

I got asked a very interesting question (I am paraphrasing) -

“What do you think Sherlock’s IQ is? And is Sherlock antisocial because of his intelligence?”

Comments

[eglantine_br]

Interesting that he is contrasted with John, who is certainly very intelligent, but also well socialized and very nice.

[kizzia]

Firstly, I apologise/beg permisson in advance for "he has the emotional sensitivity of a tabloid newpaper" suddenly appears in one of my fan fics - it is a truly brilliant line

[wellingtongoose]

I would be honoured if you incorporated that line into a fanfic. It would make my day. I also agree that Sherlock puts far too much stock in his intelligence, using it almost as an excuse for behaving badly and given how Mycroft is just as clever if not more clever than he is, that would erk him.

[kizzia]

Thank you! I have the line on a post it note on my desk and I'm just waiting for the right moment to slip it in. I think it will be Mycroft saying it :)

[crystalwren_fic]

While I read and enjoyed your essay, unlike others of yours I've read, I disagree very strongly about a certain point: that is your belief that a genius- however you'd care to classify and identify such an animal- has the same likelihood of being emotionally well-adjusted as an individual of normal intelligence. I do not have the weight of psychology or statistics behind me but as I work in the sciences, I've had constant contact with Mensa candidates. And in my experience, the smarter an individual is, the less connected to planet earth they are

[pengke]

I've dealt with athletes like this and known friends in the music business who deal with musicians who behaved similarly so I wouldn't necessarily say it was their overwhelming intellect that was to blame.

I do think that there's something detrimental about specialization, when all of one's talent or intellect becomes focused in a single direction you lose perspective.

[alaria]

Having spent almost a decade in academia I would agree that there is a high percentage of people with less than stellar social skills, but I actually think that it is the other way around. I think that having bad social skills, a single-mindedness, or lacking a number of other social/real world skills makes you more likely to be able to go through a PhD and higher up the academic hierarchy. In other words, I think geniuses that has normal social skills are less likely to end up being successful in or choosing that type of career.

[wellingtongoose]

I also spent my research project surrounded by some very brilliant scientists. I agree that there are some who do have less than stellar social skills but the vast majority are perfectly normal

[kirri1]

I think there is a big difference between someone with a high IQ and a genius- a genius seems to move up onto another level, often in one area alone and become obsessive in that area, in the way that Sherlock in this incarnation, does. John might even score almost, probably as high an IQ, but he is not an obsessive, so is able to function better, in society. Scoring is the problem, isn't it, as you pointed out. I have used the SB system and it stinks, for a start it makes no concession to language- I was asked (no, told) to score an immigrant child as ESN because she did not answer any questions- could have been because she did not speak English, perhaps? Yes, she was a bit vague, but she had just been uprooted from a place that had no running water, no sewerage and no electricity and put in a brick house in Southall ( West ...VERY West, London Ghetto town of the Bangladeshi/Pakistani) if that had happened to me I would be vague if I were six- actually I should have been terrified

[anonymous]

Haah, reading previous commentors' IQ levels, it seems I'm apparently the odd bird since I'm at the other end of the spectrum: the one time I tried to do an online IQ test (the existence of one is not common knowledge in Finland and I only found about it from our high school's elective cognitive psychology course), I decided to quit in the middle because I already began to slow down and have difficulties in the early questions and it was highly likely that I couldn't even finish the test and would only end up discouraged. Everyone wants to feel worthy and be loved, don't they? And a test of this kind, that indirectly claims to determine one's worth (that you supposedly cannot do anything about) in society's eyes, to be held over young and insecure children...It can function as a (it could be used like placebo, actually) positive reinforcement but in most cases, I think it does the opposite. Its learning value (seeing which things one should improve himself in, and getting constructive critique), I find, is very small too