Knowledge or Intelligence?

Everyone is an expert, of everything and anything.  Seems I’m the only doofus who doesn’t know it all and frankly the authoritative way in which some speak about topics they clearly have gleaned information about is nauseating.  Not bored of being less than the next person, I’m tired of listening to people with half-baked internet opinions.  How can everyone know so much and how can they be so darned certain they are right all the time.  Is anyone hearing me or am I the sole dumbass out here.

Once upon a time the world was filled with people who understood how little they knew. Days of encyclopaedias and big old libraries in which to hang out and where knowledge oozed from bound tomes that weighed heavy on sturdy wooden shelves.  Shelves that sacredly bore so much intrigue and learning and wonderment.  Days when people realised there was a gap in their knowledge and they went about educating themselves in that specific topic.  They searched and pored over books and encyclopaedias and asked their parents and grandparents (now there’s a thing) and they didn’t give in until they fully grasped the concept.

There was a time we had insight and understood we couldn’t possibly know everything all the time. The internet has made us experts of just about everything.   Who needs a doctor when you can hook up with Google Doctor.  Once upon a time we asked the chemist about medication’s side effects now we assume Google knows best.  Unlike the learned pharmacist who had enough sense to stop at side effects.  Google Doctor lists every symptom and probable cause so we can scare ourselves into next week because now we have all the symptoms of cancer, diabetes, thyroid problems and any other thing that’s out there on the great big old world wide web (of deceit and deception).

We confuse knowledge with intellect.  Because the internet fills the learning gaps with every fact we could possibly want to know.  It doesn’t however make us more intelligent – it makes us more knowledgeable, maybe.

The difference between knowledge and intelligence is key. Knowledge is the collection of skills and information we acquire through experience and learning. Intelligence is the ability to apply knowledge.  There it is, no amount of knowledge can save us unless we have the ability to apply those skills and learning.

I don’t understand why we feel we have to know so much about so many things.  I think times are perfect for a social study on our obsession with knowledge and information.  With a Dunning-Kruger President ensconced in the White House perhaps this is an opportunity for us to watch and learn from someone who doesn’t realise how little he knows about so much.

Or maybe it will be the likes of us who realise we bear the brunt of the Dunning-Kruger effect … and Mr Trump truly does have it all together …

This month I am participating in the A-Z Challenge as well as following and commenting on the blogs of others who have taken up the challenge to write posts loosely related to each letter of the alphabet.  QP & Eye’s theme during this challenge is that of values – both lived and elements that add value to life.  You can find out more about the challenge here.