The Answer Sheet: Intelligence

The people behind the Nobel Prizes are offering us regular folks a chance to directly question some of the brilliant winners. Here's how to pose your questions. One of my favorites:

Oprah Winfrey seems to love to teach--on her top-rated television show, through commencement speeches, in her successful magazine. But in an era where educators say the one thing students need to learn is so-called “critical thinking skills”--or the ability to deeply analyze problems--Winfrey does very little to help on several levels.

The annual naming of recipients of the MacArthur “genius” awards has come and gone--and, once again, there was not a grant for me. Twenty-four extraordinary people won half a million dollars each--with “no strings attached”--from the Chicago-based John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Though true genius is supposed to be exceptionally rare, the foundation found two dozen in one year, in the United States alone. And 25 last year. And 24 the year before that. Are geniuses a dime a dozen?