In the year 2000, Al Gore ran against George W. Bush for the presidency of the United States. Both candidates had highly successful political careers, Gore as a U.S. senator from the state of Tennessee and as vice-president of the United States, Bush as governor of the state of Texas, certainly one of the most complex states in the United States. Their success in politics was not preceded by success in school (Simon, 2000). Both men were mediocre students in college. In four years at Yale University, Bush never received an A, and Gore's grades at Harvard were even lower than Bush's at Yale. During his sophomore year, Gore received one B, two Cs, and a D (on a scale where A is high and D is the lowest passing grade). Their college admission test scores were also undistinguished. Gore received a 625 on the verbal SAT (on a scale where 200 is low, 500 average, and 800 high, and where the standard deviation is 100 points). Bush received a score of 566. Bill Bradley, a former U.S. senator and a Democratic presidential primary candidate, received an even less impressive score of 485.

Are these famous politicians unintelligent, intelligent in some way not measured by conventional tests, or what? What does it mean to be intelligent, anyway, and how does our understanding of the nature of intelligence help us understand concrete cases such as Bradley, Bush, and Gore?