Our notions of brainpower are radically changing. We are on the threshold of a new age of intelligence, says a leading authority on learning

Earlier this year, it was declared that we are in the age of intelligence: 2,000 delegates at the 14th International Conference of Thinking in Kuala Lumpur embraced the fact that instead of thinking agriculturally, informationally or technologically, we will finally think intelligently. And as the year draws to an end, it seems that they were on to something. Everywhere in the world, intellectual capital has become the new buzz phrase ; people are realising that the brain is now the prime resource and the main currency is intelligence.

China has creative thinking on its curriculum, Malaysia has said its nation will be mentally literate. In Britain, Wellington College has declared it will become a beacon as a “thinking and intelligent” school, the LSE is providing introductions to intelligence and thinking skills to its new intake and tonight a Channel 4 series on race starts with a show exploring intelligence and ethnicity (see right) .

So what does it mean to be intelligent today? The notion was born at the turn of the 20th century, designed to test reading, verbal and numerical abilities. Today, people denigrate IQ test but it was only 100 years ago that we made these huge steps, to be able to determine an individuals’ intelligence quotient by the level of their verbal and numerical abilities.

However in the 1960s and 1970s a number of people, including me, began to question that as an all-inclusive definition. Many people with high verbal and numerical capacities seemed to be acting unintelligently. In a social situation, they tried to dominate everything with their words and numbers and bored people to distraction. It became apparent that there was a social intelligence that was, in many instances, far more important.

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