ABSTRACT
In navigating the complexity of day-to-day living, intelligence counts. The ability to separate important information from trivia, to order competing and conflicting priorities, and to select from innumerable options wisely but without undue deliberation—these everyday challenges demand intellectual readiness. Intelligence prepares the citizen of the modern world to accept complexity and to think and act rationally and purposefully within it. As the world complexifies, the ascendant value of intellect will increase (Ohlsson, 1998). Individual differences in intelligence will likely become more obvious and even more consequential (Bereiter, 1969), shunting people to differing opportunity paths. At a societal level, whether this leads to hope or to despair depends on whether intelligence can be cultivated.
