Seems as if lately the best compliment that can be given to a public figure is to say how very smart he or she is! Talking heads open news stories with declarations of individual intelligence as if they had read their IQ scores recently. This happens even more so on commentary programs. As an educational diagnostician myself, I am inclined to seek footnotes citing the source of such data. Who tested this individual? When? What intelligence test was used and who scored it? But, no such documentation is ever presented. In fact, school records are almost always ignored. (As an aside, former teachers or professors never seem to come forward to wax philosophic about the academic performance of these "brilliant" former students either.)
So, we, the public are left with verbal presentations to be taken as fact. The folks making the comments about intelligence are supposed to "know" this somehow. In their constant repetition, we are sure to just accept this as fact. Unsubstantiated, but none the less fact.
OK, so maybe these public figures are smart. My question, once I get past the undiagnosed declarations of their brilliance, is what kind of character do they have? Does anyone even care?
Apparently not.
But then we knew that.
"Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar?
Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?" I Corinthians 1: 20
