Reddit mentions of Intelligence: It's Structure, Growth and Action (Advances in Psychology)

As you’ve intuited, talking about human “intelligence” is like talking about human “strength.” Dead-lift ability? Marathon time? 100 meter time? Similarly you can measure mental abilities like spatial rotations, random digit recall, pattern recognition, reaction time, etc.

Two points. First is that many special mental abilities are loosely correlated. That is, being good at one predicts a propensity to be somewhat better at others, compared to someone who was weak on the predictor. This has led some intelligence theorists to posit a “general intelligence” that manifests partly in these special abilities, just like a well-trained sprinter will probably be better than average at lots of strength measures compared to a couch potato. Making sense of these correlations among mental abilities has driven lots of research programs (notably, Cattell, 1987).

Second, more recently researchers have focused on the “situation” where intelligence is exhibited. Being clever at logic problems in law school is not necessarily strongly predictive of similar problems in a different field. The degree to which experiences and abilities generalize (or not) has also driven research programs. Jean Lave's seminal work in situated cognition lays the foundation. (Lave, 1988; Lave & Wenger, 1991)

Ok, third point. A helpful question to ask is “when does it matter?” Say I present two people, one at the 25th and the other at the 75th percentile of whatever general intelligence test you choose. When does that different matter, and how strongly does that difference manifest in things you might care about ( performance on a specific job, etc). You might be surprised how small a difference that measured difference makes in the real world.

Ok, last point, a bit tangential but related to the last. College entrance exams, while not “intelligence” tests, are designed to be as predictive as possible of college success (freshman GPA is often the target). Now, test companies apply the best psychometrics they can, and test scores plus high school GPA at best predict less than 25% of GPA variance. That’s when trying to be as predictive as possible. So imagine how well measured intelligence predicts performance in a wide range of domains when those instruments arent optimized for prediction.

Edit (citations):

• Cattell (1987). An oldie but goodie. https://www.amazon.com/Intelligence-Structure-Growth-Advances-Psychology/dp/0444879226
  
  
• Lave (1988). https://smile.amazon.com/Cognition-Practice-Mathematics-Everyday-Learning/dp/0521357349
  
  
• Lave & Wenger (1992). https://www.amazon.com/Situated-Learning-Participation-Computational-Perspectives/dp/0521423740
  
  
• (I don't have access to my home bookshelf and will post a reference for the predictive utility of college entrance exams)