Chess is not about intelligence

My original post was deleted some time ago. But since many are still commenting on the topic, here are the articles which discuss the issue:

http://www.nature.com/news/1998/021209/full/news021209-10.html

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289606001139

Science.  Neat.

Well, someone playing chess surely has to use his/her brain...

Gosh, let's hope this turns into a nice big debate on the subject.  Really.  It'll be like Bill Moyers or something.  The stuff of which Nobel Prizes are made.

i like the way the article refers to ...

"amateur chess" and "an area of the brain that is believed to house general intelligence"

pretty "scientific" i must admit!

Not woodpushers.

I'm not familiar with this expression... Could you explain it for someone who's English is not perfect?

(Could it mean people who use chess engines?)

Please Maien. Read carefully the link you indicate ----

It says clearly that when you PLAY chess, the brains sectors related to intelligence "appear" inactive. . . NOT tha the intelligence has vanished and disappeared.

And it is logical my friend.....When you drive a car and apply the brakes, the parts of your body active are the muscles....and you never will put your intelligence at work, at that moment, to findd out "why and how the brakes stop the car".

The real truth is that without some sort of intelligence you would never have learn how to drive, how to apply the brakes, what the brakes are for. . . etc etc etc.

Same with chess. . .

Bye

The board games chess and GO take practice, not intellect, brain scans of players suggest

1,2

. Intelligence areas appear inactive when people puzzle over game strategy.

Amateur chess and GO players do not use an area that is believed to house general intelligence, sometimes called 'g', US and Chinese researchers have found. "It's a provocative claim," admits team member Sheng He, who is based at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.

A wood pusher is just a bad chess player

It comes from way back when most sets were made of wood and players that didn't know what to do just pushed a pawn or a piece.  Usually, a pawn. 

Thank you both for clarifying (I also found out what conflagration means, woooot!)

I'm not surprised. I've said before that I know people with real talent in certain areas, like painting, and music, etc. that are only about average in most other areas. Why should chess be an exception? I've said many times that just because you're talented in a certain area, doesn't mean you will be good in everything.

I'm not a scientist, but thinking of all the chessplayers I have encountered good and not good, to me chess ability definitely DOES NOT necessarily correlate to intelligence.

It's possible to be highly intelligent and not be good at chess, just as it is possible to not have super intelligence and excel at the game.

I don't follow. Now you have confused me :)

I didn't say intellegence has vanished! I'm just pointing out that sicence is not in favor of the claim that chess improves your intellegence or is about being intellegent. Becasue you are not training it or using it while playing chess. That's the point I think.

It's like John McLaughlin or something, it really is.  I'm grabbing me a big fat bowl of popcorn and settling in.

Guys/gals, don't treat muppets settled with their popcorn with such cruelty!

We should be discussing about the nature of intelligence!

About how scientific studies are conducted.

The difference between evidence and proof.

And also about "g" spots! Those are very important! How many are there in a human body? Does training your "g" spot make you smarter? And how about training others' "g" spots?

Moreover, I read somewhere (it was a scientific study i guess) that having orgasms makes you more intelligent! So is there a correlation between sex and chess? :/

The truth is that memorization plays a big part in chess. Have there been any similar studies with FischerRandom/960 chess?

Chess, mathmatics and music are the three fields which produce child prodigies.  I suspect this is because each requires an intuitive grasp of relationship.

Whether that has anything to do with the myriad other qualities that get referred to as intelligence I don't know.

Isn't popcorn delicious?

And yes, in my opinion, there IS a correlation between sex and chess:  

It's hard to memorize all the possible moves and select the perfect one at just the right time, but even with a certain number of errors and missed opportunities, one can Still come out a Winner!