Dick Taylor, “Battle of the Brains” (2007)
In this BBC documentary, seven people outstanding in their particular fields of endeavour are collected at Oxford Universiity and run past a battery of tests that tests different aspects of intelligence to discover which of these people is the most intelligent. Firstly, the chosen seven do standard tests that measure their IQ levels: the pitfalls of the tests themselves in measuring people’s intelligence are quickly revealed, with the winner of the IQ tests, a quantum physicist, pointing out (correctly of course) that the tests favour him because they don’t measure practical productivity or skills that don’t require memory or a narrow academic education; on the other hand, the loser is a self-taught artist who dropped out of high school at the middle level (year 8 or 9). From then on, the seven are faced with tests that measure divergent thinking and creativity, adaptability, emotional intelligence and kinaesthetic or body intelligence (knowing where your body and its parts are in space).
Along the way, experts on intelligence discuss why determining IQ is not enough as a measure of intelligence needed to survive and thrive in society, how heritable intelligence is, which of the seven people tested did well and why, and whether it’s possible to predict which of the seven will shine in which test. One of the seven, Nathan the finance trader with an IQ of 162, undergoes a CAT scan which reveals his brain to be organised differently from the brains of people of average intelligence levels: his brain happens to organise its functions more efficiently with less energy. His competitors are also profiled throughout the documentary: the musical prodigy Alex is a flamboyant, fiery youngster who revels in dramatic flourishes; Bonnie the dramatist is also an art critic and writer; Susan the artist has a stubborn, rebellious side; and Seth the quantum physicist is a playful family man whose extended family boasts a number of academics.
The film is a very entertaining and light-hearted survey of recent studies in and the latest fashionable theories about human intelligence: a number of boffins debate whether particular theories are useful or not useful and whether evidence backs them. Although some of the tests themselves have an imaginative and ingenious design and reveal some surprising insights about the people tested – the fighter pilot proved to have more emotional intelligence than the dramatist who was expected to win that particular test – the film fails to explain how and why some forms of intelligence and human behaviour are valued more than others and there is no suggestion that there are other areas of human activity that might reveal intelligence and which are conducive to being tested. In addition it seemed that for every imaginative test that viewers saw, such as the body intelligence test, there was a test that looked so godawful in its design that it was a wonder that the competitors scored anything at all.
Significantly the film suggests that there is some value in the much derided traditional Binet standard IQ tests as tests of overall physical as well as mental health. Likewise, the film’s value is mainly as a fun introduction into the current state of research into human intelligence for the general public; anyone who was looking for insights into human intelligence and behaviour though must needs consult a wider and deeper range of works on the topic.