is heavily, heavily based on their writing. I know, on a practical level, that there are many different kinds of intelligence, and someone far more brilliant than me at math or science or just about damn anything might still be a sloppy writer. But I can't help it--if I read a person's writing and I don't like it, it makes them appear stupider to me. Some people say that art is a window to a person's soul. If that's the case, then I think writing is a window to their mind. How can someone think deeply, reason thoughtfully, if they can't put those thoughts down? Or, on an even more elementary level, how can someone so smart have failed to pick up on the basic syntactical and grammatical rules that are drilled into our heads since childhood? I would imagine that someone of greater intellectual capacity than me could not only form coherent sentences, but play with the intricacies of language in the same way they play with ideas or equations. Doesn't the problem of how to phrase a thought stir the same intellectual curiosity?
Sigh. It seems like there is a negative correlation between putting a premium on intelligence and valuing good writing.