In the early 1980s, Howard Gardner’s Frames of Mind(1983) was explicitly written as a rebuttal to the psychometric theory of intelligence. He wanted to challenge the idea that a single numerical score could capture human intellect. For Gardner, intelligence was plural and context-dependent; musical, spatial, interpersonal, and so on. On the surface, this appears to be a far kinder approach to childrens’ abilities than the cold, harsh instrumentalism of the psychometrician. But the problem is not that Gardner’s idea is unkind; it’s that it isn’t true.
Curiously, the most prominent critic of the theory is Gardner himself. Yesterday, I saw a clip of him make a startling admission about his own theory. He claimed that it may not be scientifically true, but that he believes it should remain influential nonetheless.