Intelligence, what a wide open topic. I can't possibly do it justice here. I'll try to stick to the questions this topic raises. Lets start with smiley-faces view and extrapolate from there.

Paraphrasing SF, intelligence is the ability to understand data and see underlying principles behind that data, to make connections - absorbing data and regurgitating it doesn't indicate intelligence. You can't see behind data unless you've absorbed it, so absorption is necessary. But what is absorbion? Does the fact that you can't bring a fact immediately to mind and papaer mean that you don't know it, or that it has no effect on your thinking? What is data anyway? When I see 99 followewd by 100 I think 'ninety nine things' going to 'one hundred things'. An aquaintance of mine sees a change of shape - he teaches design. Your data is not necessarily other peoples data. I cantake the letters x,y, z and form them into a mathematical equation. Person A can maniulate three pieces of wood into a pleasing arrangement. Is my manipulation of symbols on a page a better indication of intelligence than person A's manipulation of wood?

Is someone who rises to the top in a culture intelligent? He's certainly better off than the mahority in that culture. Does that make him culturely intelligent?

Why can A absorb and regurgitate data but not make connections but B can make connections? Is this because A is not intelligent? Or has his education not included that ability or is it inbuilt? Could person A be taught the ability? Maybe just by moving them to a different set of environmental factors? Has that person been indoctrinated to accept data without question?

There are an almost unlimited number of possible questions.

Now a personal note. I believe that the inbuilt differences between human brain capabilities are so small that the resultant and perceived differences are solely a result of the differences in input to those brains.

Also see 'Social Intelligence' by Daniel Goleman. He also has a web site.