What Makes You So Smart?

On the surface, it seems like intelligence is a pretty simple concept to understand. After we get to know people, we usually can tell who’s a braniac and who isn’t. But there are different kinds of intelligence, and many different ways to measure it, and scientists are still a long way away from figuring out what makes some of us smarter than others. Some of it’s nature, some of it is nurture, and it’s all very complicated.

Carl Zimmer wrote about some of the frustrated scientists looking into this subject for the latest issue of Scientific American. He joins us on Word of Mouth Monday to talk about his report.

Click here to read Carl's article, "The Search for Intelligence".

(Image by A.K. Photography)