The true tests of the intelligent

Getting on for 100,000 people seem to have submitted themselves for the BBC1's Test The Nation, the bright idea for getting us to take part in the procedure for selecting IQ (Intelligence Quotient).

This being a national test, and the BBC being a national institution, those examined in the studio represented the rich cultural and ethnic tapestry of our country - they were divided into celebrities, identical twins, publicans, blondes, builders, students and teachers. The end result of the test gave pleasure to all - the highest IQs were possessed by teachers and students, and the lowest by blondes and celebrities.

Men were found to have higher average IQs than women (111 to 104). Aquarians also did well. People with blue eyes were cleverest of all. More dangerous ground was not trodden on. Skin colour (thank goodness) was not mentioned. I did notice, though, that the studio participants were nearly all white.

I had never done an IQ test before, and my performance was feeble. Although I got all the language and memory questions right, and most of the shapes that are alleged to test "raw IQ", I was mediocre on numbers, and failed every one of the "rotation shapes" and nearly all the "shape matching" tests. I think my IQ came out somewhere between the publicans and the students.

Now let me offer some consolation to those whose scores approximates to the blondes and celebrities. IQ tests are invariable devised by psychologists. This may help explain why the tests are so plodding. Take this question: "Apple, orange, potato, banana: which is the odd one out?" The answer is supposed to be potato - because all the others are fruits. But a really clever person could equally answer banana. Why? All the others are dicots - the seedling starts with two leaves. Bananas, like lilies, are monocots.

It is astonishing how IQs have become an ideological battleground. In the Seventies the late Hans Eysenk, a professor of psychology, argued that some races have higher IQs than the rest of us. (I think Jews and Asians came top.) He got into terrible trouble - even being assaulted in a public lecture - because in those days, before the triumph of genes, you were supposed to believe that all differences were the result of nurture, not nature. And the whole point of IQ testing is to discover inherent abilities.

The outrage was absurd. What is wrong with IQ testing is not that it is "racist" or anti-democratic - but that it is hopelessly naive. An older theory about human intelligence, which persisted until the early 20th century, was that being clever or stupid was voluntary, a matter of the will. Stupid people tend to be impatient, unwilling to re-examine their ideas and evidence, ready to stick to their first hunches, impulsive, stubborn. Intelligent people have qualities like concentration, a readiness to listen, to accept evidence that contradicts their first ideas, to be patient, attentive, honest with themselves.

In other words, intelligence was thought to be substantially a matter of character. The philosopher Aristotle talked of something he called "practical wisdom". He thought it went with all the other virtues - such as courage, temperance and justice - and explained why they were essentially good human qualities.

The silly thing about IQ tests is that they put all the emphasis on skills without knowledge. It would be equally silly to think that what matters is just to know a lot, to have plenty of general knowledge - the sort of person who becomes brain of Britain. But a really intelligent human being is someone who does know a lot, but who also can make allowance for what he does not know. Our ancestors greatly prized a quality that they called "wit" by which they meant something much grander than what we now attach to the word - something akin to genius. The person of wit was certainly well-informed, but could easily imagine ways of thinking and feeling quite different from those they had been brought up to.

But this does not just apply to people of genius. Politicians who do not always think in slogans, doctors who do not stick to their first diagnosis, people not drowned in their own self-righteousness, people with a good sense of humour can all be "wits" and have the share of practical wisdom that implies.

A few years ago, Mensa organised a dinner in an Oxbridge college, where their self-importance is said to have alienated servants and dons alike. But the self-importance engendered by their IQs is the only thing that could bring people into such a society. Otherwise they have no more in common than the double-jointed, or people who can waggle their ears. True wits, surely, are something more than this.