But Asimov's answer was an indication of intelligence -- not the opposite. Intelligence often means dealing at a conceptual level as opposed to a more detailed level. There's a reason that there's the stereotype of the absent-minded professor. He or she will publish an important paper and then leave their sweater at work. They've sacrificed one level for the other. Asimov's mistake answering the question was the same as forgetting a sweater -- he just didn't spend any effort thinking about it.

And as for his point that there's an educational bias to IQ tests -- that's just silly. The intellectual requirements of being a nuclear scientist are more stringent than those of being a car mechanic. The qualities we ascribe to intelligence map more to the former than to the latter. Next, IQ tests don't measure intelligence. Intelligence is qualitative, like beauty, not quantitative, like height. We use it to look for attributes of intelligence. Knowing a woman has high cheekbones doesn't tell you if she's beautiful, but it gives an indication that she might be, for what that's worth.