In regard to one's Intelligence Quotient (IQ), the common assumption is that the higher the IQ, the further ahead one will get in the world. Chris Terman tried to prove so by testing 250,000 elementary and high school students in the California area with three rounds of rigorous IQ tests, and identified 1,470 children whose IQs ranged from 140 to 200, genius level by most standards (Gladwell 74). Over the years he tracked every aspect of his subjects' lives, and everyone expected that the "Termites", as they were called, would someday constitute the elite of American society. Terman's process was reasonable in various ways. By hypothesizing that one's IQ was the largest contributing factor to success, he gathered a large, varied sample of individuals who matched that requirement. He also meticulously noted every aspect of their future lives, and provided help and guidance on the way. Every sign indicated that these "Termites" would grow up to become the backbone of America. What Terman did not realize was that he cannot use pure reason to predict an outcome that was not governed by reason alone. The idea that success is directly linked to IQ is true, but the relationship between success and IQ is only proportional up to a certain point. At somewhere around 120, the linear line flattens into a plateau, and all further increase in IQ is insignificant in measuring success in the real world (Gladwell 79). The "Termites" grew up to be as successful or as much of a failure as any random sample of children. For some, their genius was countered by lack of volatile thinking skills. They might have had high IQs, but when it came down to being social-savvy, these geniuses were a breadth below par with children that did not have as high an IQ but excelled in dealing with real-life situations. Therefore it was with great disappointment when Terman had to conclude at the end of his experiment that "Intellect and achievement are far from perfectly correlated" (Gladwell 90).
Terman's reasoning was not flawed in the sense that he took what he thought was the single discerning factor and maximized it in each of his subjects. His reasoning was limited because he failed to recognize that relying solely on reason and not taking into account other factors such as opportunities the "Termites" encountered and their family backgrounds would not yield the success he hoped for. He believed whole-heartedly that his subjects would thrive, but in reality they were merely average, failures even, when taken into account that these were child prodigies. In his studies he made full use of a method he thought was both reasonable and logical, but there are instances in our lives where all reason, perception, and emotion is defied, and we use only our intuition to make great leaps in logic.
Like any other student wishing to go to a post-secondary institute in the fall of 2010, I was faced with a difficult decision this fall in terms of college selection: whether or not to apply to American ones. I was discouraged by the fact that international students only comprised roughly 10% of the average American freshmen class, but I also evaluated the amount of time and energy I had already put into preparing for the SATs, and I realized I was not willing to forfeit that by giving up. In the end I made what I assumed to be a logical decision: making a list of the pros and cons of applying to an American college. As I was making the list of "pros", I realized they were dominantly weak and abstract, containing items such as "proving myself", "chances at a better future career", and "experiencing a new environment". The "cons" list, on the other hand, was forcefully concrete, with items ranging from "low acceptance rate" to "expensive tuition" and "waste of time and energy in taking SATs and filling out forms". However, as I was listing each item, an unexplainable force seemed to be gravitating me towards the "pros" despite my exhaustive list of "cons". I ended up deciding to go through with applying to the US, because my intuition had led me to this conclusion in the decision-making process. I had perceived the obstacles I may have to overtake in choosing to do so, factored in elements of emotion, and used a seemingly foolproof process of making informed judgments, but I still went by the less logical option. In most circumstances the "cons" would have ruled out the "pros", but when considering intuition as an alternate way of knowing, one that is neither superior nor inferior to reason, perception, or emotion, one simply knows which option to pick, even though by doing so they are bypassing the entire process of reasoning.
When it comes to applying reason, it is not always a clear cut between use and disuse. Reason should work in conjunction with perception and emotion to optimize results. My mother's friend from Seattle did not stop at calling my mother to guarantee her initiation into the diet and pills club. In late August 2009, the optical evidence of an evidently effective diet regime arrived at our doorstep, and my mother watched in awe as the friend she had not seen in three years got out of the car, 70lbs and eight pant sizes slimmer. My mother had always searched for a diet that would accommodate her hectic schedule, but however tempted she was by her friend's ruthless showcasing, she was not swayed. She noted the significant change in her friend's figure, but she also saw the loose skin on her arms that had not kept up with the dramatic change in weight loss, and also the dark circles under her eyes that resulted from a lack in essential nutrients. The friend, out of desperation to lose weight, had deluded herself into believing that these were merely slight disadvantages to the Weight Control Plan, but my mother saw the truth, and told her friend once again that she refused to go on the Plan.
Reason, when isolated from other ways of knowing, is limited in its perspective if it fails to identify relevant variables that may alter the outcome of a certain event. When collaborating with emotion and perception, reason is able to reach its full potential in discerning what is true and what is believed to be true. There is also the case where all three of these ways of knowing are ignored, and intuition alone leads us to make split-second decisions that very often represent our true intentions.
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Bibliography
Gladwell, Malcolm. Outliers. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 2008.
Stunkard, Albert. "Why Diets Fail" The Diet Blog. 13 May 2006. 2 October 2009.
<http://www.diet-blog.com/archives/2005/11/01/why_diets_fail.php>.