Behavior: Heeding Those Subtle

A researcher says it is social IQ that counts

Once, after spending only a moment with a new patient, the famed 19th century Edinburgh surgeon Joseph Bell correctly identified him as a noncommissioned officer who had just been discharged from a Highland regiment in Barbados. Bell, the real-life model for Sherlock Holmes, quickly noted the symptoms of elephantiasis, then prevalent in the West Indies. The man's speech was obviously that of a Scot. He had an air of authority, yet Bell concluded that he was not an officer. The reason: he did not remove...

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