If you had to choose one, which is more important - intelligence or common sense?

common sense. you can tell it’s more valuable because it’s so rare.

What @eponymoushipster said.

I’ll go with intelligence.

Common sense, definitely. In my opinion, people do not typically expect you to be highly intelligent and usually do not make fun of you behind your back if you don’t have a PhD or something. Common sense is a completely different story. For example, at my work, there are extremely intelligent professors with PhD’s and 30 years of research and teaching experience who simply cannot understand that when the copier stops printing their syllabi and says “Load paper in Tray 1,” you need to put paper in Tray 1 or else it won’t start printing again. For whatever reason, they just don’t get it…and it’s a source of unending amusement (and frustration, because it’s us they come to, freaking out and insisting that the copier is broken when it very clearly isn’t), and we make fun of them…a lot.

@Frankie

Do you think that the education that those PhD’s impart on to their students makes up for their inability to use a copy machine?

Depends on the application of said traits. If you are going to be a mathematician it matters not if you are quick with the new coffee maker with all its complicated buttons.. but rather that you are able to crunch crazy numbers with your god-like intelligence.

If, on the other hand, you plan on becoming a long haul truck driver.. your intelligence will likely go unappreciated on the cb.. your colleagues here would likely prefer that your haul didn’t fall out onto the highway.

Common sense because inteligence isn’t that much important

@Tink1113 A fact you clearly demonstrate.

@Ivan – Whats that supposed to mean?!

@Ivan I’m certainly not saying the professors’ intelligence doesn’t matter…as a university student it happens to be quite essential to my own education. What I’m saying is that no one really makes fun of you for not having a PhD, but if you have a PhD and you can’t figure out that “Load paper” means, well, load paper…it’s a bit humorous.

@Tink1113 you spelled intelligence wrong…it was kind of ironic.

@Tink1113

Please don’t underestimate the importance of intelligence. Do you think the computer you’re using right now was developed from common sense?

@Frankie

So importance is measured based on how much you get laughed at?

@Tink1113 intelligence is not important? it is the source of all technological and pharmaceutical achievements we have today. clearly not important.

@Frankie – Oh sorry for my bad english grammar!!!
@Ivan – Its an iPod and yeah it was

What I mean is I don’t really mind it’s just I don’t know I’m stupid and I’m not feeling well

@Tink1113

“yeah it was”

No, no it wasn’t. Nor was the car you ride in, the TV you watch, the medicines you take, the air-planes you ride in, or anything else you’ve used that was invented since the agricultural revolution.

Sorry people I didn’t mean to piss you off I gotta go

@Ivan No, not necessarily. I was using that as an example.

And to answer the question, if you want to get along in society, common sense. If you want to advance society, intelligence.

@Frankie

Well, I think I could handle getting laughed at every once and a while if it meant genuinely improving the world.

Come on people, use some common sense.

Common sense is a form of intelligence, just as are wisdom and cleverness.

@Ivan Just because I think common sense is more important does not mean I think intelligence is unimportant…as a university student I think it’s pretty obvious that I value education and intelligence and “improving the world.” In my opinion, when functioning in “the real world” (interacting with people in a variety of settings, driving, keeping yourself safe in different situations, etc.) common sense tends to be much more important than being “book smart.”

@Frankie

You are trying to apply “book smarts” in areas where they are not necessarily applicable. I don’t care what makes it easier for me to live my every-day life. I care about what makes it easier for me to improve the world.

@Ivan Well, technically, the same could be said for your own argument…if your main focus is “improving the world,” then yes, common sense is not necessarily as applicable as “book smarts” are. This is merely a difference of what we find important in our lives, apparently. That, or the question is inherently flawed, because you can’t apply common sense to situations that require only “book smarts” intelligence, and vice versa.

@ragingloli: GA

If I had to choose, I’d go with common sense – but I’d sure miss my intelligence.

You can’t have one without the other.

Common sense is having the presence of mind not to set your hand on the hot stove.

Intelligence is the knowledge and understanding of WHY you shouldn’t put your hand on the stove.

i don’t know!

I don’t think it’s possible to choose. Either without the other is just… incomplete. Both are necessary.

@Frankie

I believe we’ve reached an agreement.

I thought “common sense” was already a form of intelligence.

The most important choice for me is common intelligence which I have plenty of. It’s a balance between the original two choices and it suits me very well.

Common sense, as in whatever you think off the top of your head, tends to be wrong more often than evidence-based actions. Seems to me that it’s common sense to use your intelligence. Smart solutions almost always work better than knee-jerk solutions.

I think that what we really mean, generally, is that the policy wonks can be so focused on a problem, that they don’t see how it relates to things around it. Common sense tends to look at a broader set of consequences, and often the solution to a particular problem, as the intellectuals might propose, doesn’t make sense when you consider everything else that might happen as a result of that solution.

Just a thought.

They go hand in hand. Semantics. Common sense comes from experience. Experience generates intelligence. One is just fluffy, the other is hard edged.
With that said, some people are just dysfunctional and weak.
Survival of the fittest.

common sense.
but it depends on how you define intelligence. if intelligence is basically book-smarts, definitely common sense. i’d rather hold a conversation with someone who has a basic grip on things than someone who doesn’t understand people/etc, but knows a lot about math and chemistry, etc.

@tiffyandthewall

So now the most important thing in life is your ability to hold a conversation with someone?