IQ is a stupid metric –hold for laughs– It’s arrogant for psychiatrists and others to believe that we’ve learned enough about the workings of the mind to be able to assign a numerical value to something as abstruse as a person’s intelligence. How softly humorous that I should utilize thesaurus.com to augment my vocabulary when writing a post on this topic. The offending word was abstruse, if you hadn’t already guessed.

And yet, the IQ concept is pervasive in much of the world’s population. So, having shared my negative opinion of IQ, I’ll proceed to play games and assume that it is a legitimate concept despite the fact neuroscience has asked far more questions than it has answered. One widely held belief is that the faster and more thoroughly a person has absorbed and understood new information, the smarter they are. I don’t have a major problem with this. However, I can’t help but mention that words like thoroughly, absorbed, and understood, which admittedly have obvious meanings, are only obvious at the language level; the biological processes behind them are hardly known. These words are convenient for philosophical discussions, if that’s what you’re into, but their ease of use disappears when you’re looking at a slice of brain under a microscope.

Here’s something that gets overlooked: rather than a person’s ability to absorb information being the main determinant of their IQ, I think their ability to ignore the noise is equally important. We’re bombarded with so much bullshit that it’s difficult not to be affected. Since the concept of IQ is going to endure effortlessly, I think it should be revised to take this overlooked ability into account. There’s an evolutionary justification as well: lions would be extinct if as a species they were mesmerized by swaying blades of grass every time the wind blew. If you want to know how you fare at ignoring noise, see if you’re at a loss to the 1-800 number that’s been repeated 4 times in a row on an AM radio advertisement or if the incessant jackhammer voice has busted through the doors of your castle forcing you to remember the digits to dial.