Logical Mathematical Intelligence
Logical-Mathematical Intelligence The theory of multiple intelligences was thought up by Howard Gardner through his opinion on people having not only one way of thinking. Howard Gardner is a Professor of Education at Harvard Graduate School of Education and author of Multiple Intelligence: New Horizons and many other books. Gardner defines intelligence as an ability or set of abilities that allow a person to solve a problem or fashion a product that is valued in one or more cultures (Lane, 2005). It is suggested by Gardner that varying intelligences can be independent abilities, as a person can be low in one domain area but high in another (Lane, 2005). "It obviously spoke to some sense that people had that kids weren 't all the same and that the tests we had only skimmed the surface about the differences among kids," Gardner said (Checkley, 1997). The characteristics of logical mathematical intelligence will be discussed in this essay. Logical mathematical intelligence, related by Checkley, is defined by Gardner as the ability to understand the underlying principles of some kind of casual system, the way scientist or a logician does; or can manipulate numbers, quantities, operations, the way a mathematician does (Checkley, 1997). The skills and abilities of an individual that has this intelligence according to Wessman is called scientific thinking (Wessman, 2013). The ability to calculate, quantify, consider propositions and hypotheses, and also carrying out complex mathematical operations are all abilities brought by this intelligence (Wessman, 2013). In Gardner’s book of multiple intelligence, Gardner describes an anecdote which illustrates two essential facts of logical-mathematical intelligence where a scientist copes with many variables at once and creates numerous hypotheses that are each evaluated and then accepted or rejected in turn displaying a process of problem solving that is remarkably rapid (Gardner, 2006). The nature of this intelligence is
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