by Perry McCarney

Created on: October 21, 2007   Last Updated: May 07, 2009

The stereotype of the absent-minded professor has frequently been used by Hollywood in a multitude of movies. Although nowhere near as commonplace as Hollywood's efforts might imply, for those of you who haven't met one, let me assure you that this stereotype, at least, has some basis in reality. Some people with very high intelligence quotients (IQs) have an astonishingly shaky attachment to the common reality of human society. While this might be considered more a lack of social skills rather than lack of common sense, the archetypal "geek", is there a real difference?

Common sense surely defines an ability to consider, manipulate and resolve the circumstances frequently common to us all. Doing so requires an innate rather than learned understanding of social order, as well as the practicalities of real life. The ultra-intelligent, or at least most of them, quite simply do not have the capability to do this. Obviously not due to a lack of intelligence, perhaps from a lack of social experience.

Stupidity is defined on www.freedictionary.com as "the quality or condition of being stupid" and stupid includes "lack of intelligence" in its definition. There is no mention of a lack of common sense. Should we not therefore consider the two, common sense and stupidity, to be separate qualities of the human state? This does not presuppose that those of us technically defined as stupid, generally determined by a low IQ, have common sense any more than those with a high IQ. The general perception is that common sense is the providence of at least some of us in the middle ground of the IQ range.

However, some of those deemed stupid have a simplicity, perhaps even a purity, of thought that enables them to see the common sense answer to a situation more easily than those of a greater intellect. And some of the highly intelligent amongst us have such clarity of vision that they can too. Experience shows us a variety of people from every background and all levels of intelligence capable of providing us with common sense answers to many questions.

Perhaps a better term for common sense would be practical intelligence, the ability to perceive practical solutions to the common problems that occur in the complex web of human interactions. People able to do so can be found at all levels of intelligence as measured by IQs. And need to be. It seems like common courtesy is all but extinct. Considering the state of the world, particularly our global human society, the politics, corruption, crime, ludicrous judicial rulings, wars, genocides, poverty, insane economic policies, famine, and environmental degradation, common sense must be following it into extinction. Perhaps we need to call it practical intelligence because it quite simply is no longer common enough to justify any other term.

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