Multiple intelligences is everywhere in education. Every school seems to teach it and every teacher seems to believe it. The idea that some kids are musical smart or bodily smart or interpersonal smart instead of just book smart is really appealing. But I also know that psychometricians are pretty skeptical of it. Is there actual empirical support for multiple intelligences as distinct abilities or is it mostly a feel good framework with weak scientific foundations?
The scientific consensus among psychometricians is pretty clear and it is not favorable to Gardner. The core problem is that his proposed intelligences do not behave like independent abilities when you test them empirically. Cognitive abilities tend to be positively correlated with each other, meaning people who are good at one thing tend to be somewhat better than average at other things too. This is the positive manifold and it is one of the most replicated findings in all of differential psychology. It is also the empirical basis for g. If multiple intelligences were genuinely distinct and independent you would expect near zero correlations between them, and you would expect people who are high on one to be average or low on others. That is not what the data shows. What the data shows is a hierarchical structure where a general factor sits above correlated broad abilities like fluid reasoning, crystallized knowledge, and processing speed. That is the CHC model and it is what well designed assessments like RIOT IQ are actually built on, not Gardners framework which was never derived from factor analytic research in the first place.
Gardner himself acknowledged his intelligences were not derived from psychometric data. They were theoretically proposed categories. The fact that education adopted them so enthusiastically says more about what teachers want to believe than what the research supports.