Despite foreboding weather and the coinciding time slot with the State of the Union address, Howard Gardner delivered his lecture to a full house.

Gardner, Harvard professor in cognition and education, spoke on “Art, Science and Interdisciplinary Thought” Tuesday night in Stephens Auditorium.

“This must be the largest audience in the world for a lecture with ‘interdisciplinary’ in its title,” said Gardner.

Gardner is well known for his theory of multiple intelligences.

Mark Engelbrecht, dean of College of Design, said Gardner was, “The first scholar to come to mind when you think of art and science as collaborative studies.”

An example that Gardner gave to demonstrate the idea of interdisciplinary thought in terms of art and science was Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso.

“What would happen if they had met? What would have come from their theories,” Gardner said.

Gardner suggests in his studies there are nine kinds of intelligence. They include linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, spatial, body kinesthetics, interpersonal, and intrapersonal and existential intelligence, he said.

Each person is unique to these intelligences, Gardner said.

“We all have intelligences, they make us human,” said Gardner. “No two individuals – not even clones or twins have identical [intelligences] profiles.”

Gardner said the problem with school systems today is their uniformity and focus upon language and logic.

“Schools today are heavily biased to the fit [the ideal of] a law professor’s mind,” he said.

Gardner said education and intelligence should be used for understanding.

“[Understanding of a discipline is the] application of knowledge and concepts in new situations for which that knowledge is appropriate. If you can’t use it flexibly, then it’s no use at all,” Gardner said.

Gardner defined intelligence as “the bio-psychological potential to process info in certain ways, in order to solve problems or fashion products that are valued in a culture or community.”

An example he used to demonstrate the idea that culture is essential to labeling someone as “smart” or “not smart” is Bobby Fisher, the chess genius.

“Bobby Fisher is lucky that chess existed. His brain matched chess perfectly,” Gardner said. “If chess didn’t exist he would just be a nut.”

Gardner said understanding interdisciplinarity is not memorizing facts.

“You could know all the facts in the world and I wouldn’t bring you any closer to interdisciplinary understanding,” he said.

Gardner is also the author of 18 books. “Gardner is a provocative and wildly published author,” Engelbrecht said.