psychometric test

Addressing Critics of MI Theory

Recently I received a letter from a colleague who was sympathetic to the theory of multiple intelligences, but was being hounded by individuals who believed that intelligence was singular and that it could only assessed by psychometric instruments. Here is what I wrote to the colleague.

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Many thanks for your letter.  I always like to hear from those who have encountered my ideas and the ideas (including criticisms) of my colleagues. 

But, in candor, I have to say that your letter saddens me.  Over a forty-year period I have sought to make my ideas—their  sources, their claims, their implications, their limitations—clear. You can find the main points in my various books in education, on the MI Oasis website, which has posted dozens of blogs, and in two volumes of my collected papers, The Essential Howard Gardner on Mind and The Essential Howard Gardner on Education.

The critics whom you cite are fighting wars of the last century!  They are not open to new ideas, new ways of thinking, because their minds have already been made up...and appear to be calcified. 

Contrary to their claims: 

There are many kinds of science, many views of science.  Indeed, science changes with every decade—just think of the impact of microscopes, X-rays, cyclotrons, CRISPR, powerful computers, Large Language Machines, etc. And social science, a term I consider to be hyperbolic, is not the same as particle physics. 

The same goes for theory—many views of what a theory is. In history alone,  there are scores of theories about  history—the same in musicology or clinical  psychology. Importantly, there are many ways to test ideas and find out which ideas are worthwhile, which are worth pursuing and critiquing, which have educational implications, which do not. 

I cannot take seriously: the notion that intellect—and our research team is now studying animal, plant, and artificial 'intelligences'—can only be ascertained by a short paper and pencil (or computer-administrated) test.

Nor can I take seriously: a test that claims to determine one's intellect, one's potential, one's place in the world. 

Such notions could only be clutched tightly and retained indefinitely by ideologues. I speak, write, and address individuals  who have open minds (which is different from having intelligence, or multiple intelligences!). It is not worth trying to address individuals who have already closed their minds to any view of intelligence other than that developed over a century ago by psychometricians, some of whom were  open to having their minds changed. 

I hope that these brief remarks are of some help to you. If not, I am sorry. 

If you’re interested in my response to MI theory erroneously being labeled a “neuromyth,” see my article “Neuromyths: A Critical Consideration.”