Knowledge vs. Intelligence

Welcome to my blog! This is a new experiment of mine to write blog posts containing information and advice from my and others’ experiences. My hope is that these posts will be useful for researchers, particularly junior scientists, as they navigate science and the scientific community.

Today’s topic is the important distinction between knowledge and intelligence. In theory, few people would confuse these two very different concepts. Yet we as scientists are human beings, and sometimes the two become intertwined in unhelpful ways. Knowledge is a set of facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education. Intelligence is the ability to acquire and apply knowledge.

Many people, particularly students, hold the belief that if they don’t know something, they must not be smart. This is untrue. It takes time to learn new things. Furthermore, it is impossible for anyone, no matter how intelligent, to know everything.

Confusing knowledge with intelligence can even be harmful for the following reasons:

1.) It undermines one’s confidence to learn more. Holding this false belief often leads to a vicious cycle of less motivation and confidence to learn the things one needs to know, a continued shortage of knowledge, and thus further “confirmation” of this false belief in one’s lack of intelligence.

2.) It leads to more of a fixed mindset instead of a growth mindset. Believing that you cannot possibly learn anything new will keep you stuck at that level. This is particularly pernicious for students whose educational and/or research backgrounds have not been as extensive or privileged; here, a bit of “catch-up” is always possible, but only with concerted effort under a growth mindset.

3.) It can lead to feelings of shame. In my view, shame is the single biggest impediment to learning and self-improvement. In addition to the obvious psychological discomfort, it causes avoidance - for example, not asking questions, which again, further amplifies the knowledge deficit.

4.) It leads to complacency. When someone holding this belief has gained a piece of knowledge that temporarily assuages their (missplaced) concerns about their own intelligence, sometimes they want to relish this sense of relief so much that they lower their standards and expectations.

Ultimately, my overall advice would be: focus on the learning and the doing, and if you're doing that right, generally you will find that things fall into place.