Intelligence tests accessible online, as a quick examination can demonstrate, have little reliability, and yet some people actually respect the results assigned at the end of them! Such tests might revolve to a great extent around timed multiple choice questions about vague patterns. While identifying unfamiliar patterns can definitely involve intelligence, a correct answer could also be the result of a fortunate guess. Missing a question might be a result of testing anxiety, so even if the test is a legitimate one the score still does not necessarily represent the taker’s actual intelligence.
An inability to decipher a foreign pattern does not indicate that one is unintelligent. The only definite indicator of intelligence is how well someone grasps logic, for intelligence is nothing but the grasping and utilization of reason. Effective communication, an excellent memory, and a thorough education are not intelligence. Though they very well might be accompanied by intelligence, none of them are in themselves signs that it is present. Indeed, a person could have each of the former things without having actual intelligence.
At least in the vast majority of cases, someone's worldview is the supreme measure of his or her intelligence, since a correct worldview held for correct reasons is the ultimate manifestation of one’s grasp of logic. An intelligent person will almost inevitably have an intelligent worldview, and an unintelligent person will almost inevitably have an unintelligent worldview. Inconsistencies, assumptions, and cognitive dissonances are very often indicators that someone either is not intelligent or is not thoroughly applying their intelligence in particular areas.
It is not as if no one with low intelligence has the capacity for the development of it, even if he or she does have a highly unintelligent worldview. A person’s grasp of logic could be honed and expanded. Thus almost any person could hypothetically reach the point of maximum intelligence--there is a fixed boundary for it. There is a point past which a person cannot be any more rational, even if that person could be more educated, more articulate, or better at the recollection of information. But expressing oneself poorly does not mean that one is not intelligent, and knowing miscellaneous information does not mean one has a rational grasp of it. A person could recite information without knowing what actually follows or doesn’t follow from it or have no idea how to verify or falsify it.
If you want to swiftly determine if a person either is or seems to be intelligent, then coax them into explaining or divulging their worldview. If he or she is intelligent you will almost certainly discover a sound worldview. But do not mistake ineffective communication or a lack of education for unintelligence. They are entirely separate things.
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