Yahoo posted an article this morning about the 16 people with the highest officially tested IQs.
These are obviously not the 16 smartest people on the planet, but merely people who have devoted a fair amount of time to taking IQ tests. Most are at least somewhat accomplished, but none in ways that would have made them famous. It's their test scores which have led to this publicity.
At the same time, there's no doubt that all 16 are highly intelligent.
The first thing that struck me was that there isn't a single woman on the list. The second thing was, no non-Asian minorities.
A little surprising that Yahoo, which leans liberal, ran this article.
Addendum, 10/27/12: Just did the math. Fifteen IQ points represent one standard deviation on either side of the average score of 100 (that score was normed for whites, but let's ignore that for the moment). This means that roughly 70% of the population falls within one standard deviation on either side of that, 95% within two standard deviations, 99.7% within three, and 99.99% within four, and 99.99994267% within five. (According to Wikipedia.) This would mean that you would find roughly one in a million people outside 4.89 standard deviations. Given that the IQ distribution is a normal distribution, and assuming that only half of that one in a million fraction ranks above (as opposed to that far below) the norm (although I'm not positive it works that way on the underside of the average), that would still mean that roughly one in every two million people are at 172 or above (which is approximately 4.8 standard deviations above the norm) in IQ. Given that we live in a world of seven billion, the 1/2,000,000 fraction should mean that there are approximately 3500 people in the world at 172 or above. (I guess the other 3484 had better -- or worse -- things to do than take IQ tests.)
I point this out just so that none of these 16 think they're quite that special. (And actually, those last five guys on the Yahoo list who checked in at 169 to 171 wouldn't even make the top 3500.)
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17 comments:
Very interesting about the no Asian deal. I thought I remembered one Asian guy toward the end who had a high IQ. Or he looked Asian anyway. I've had Asian people say that they have little creativity but they are great at copying what the Americans do (pirating) and making money that way. They don't care about IQ, just making money, which they do pretty well. It's all understandable, given their land mass and population. Brian
Brian --
You misread the post. I said, "No non-Asian minorities." There were two Northeast Asians on the list, plus an Indian (whom you could count as either white or Asian, depending on how you look at Dravidians).
Four of the guys are from the Balkans, one fourth of the listing. Other Western countries with much larger populations and greater wealth are underrepresented. Very interesting.
Pete --
I was struck by that too. But as I said, these results probably reflect who enjoys taking IQ tests and submitting their results to this particular group more than anything else. Where's Marilyn Vos Savant, she of the vaunted 204 IQ, who appears in the pages of Parade every Sunday morning? I know a playwright who tested at 211 when he was young (though his age might have disqualified him from this list). Where is he?
Actually, you just put an idea in my head, I'm going to add an addendum to this post.
In China if you are so special you classify as a one in a million.. there are 10,000 of you
Dave --
Check your math. One thousand, not ten. (There are one billion Chinese.)
The distribution for high IQs is NOT a normal distribution. There are something like four or five times as many people who score above 145 in the US population as a normal distribution would predict. There are a number of theories as to why this is. Most theorists believe it's because very high IQ people often marry and then procreate.
Thank you Jon. Having looked at a lot of bell curves showing IQ distribution I had always assumed it was a normal distribution, since that's what those curves look like. What you say makes sense, although I would have thought regression towards the mean would have negated that effect.
I'm a member of several high I.Q. societies. I saw the invite to join the 'Genius List', but passed it up as I felt that it was self-serving and irrelevant, kind of like listing yourself on a 'Who's Who' in your jurisdiction. The only people who know about the lists or refer to them are those listed on them.
Impress your friends. Trump your enemies. That sort of thing. You'll impress them with your narcissism alone.
Mr. Huszar --
I can tell from your comment alone how intelligent you are.
Thank you John. With all due modesty I have to say that intelligence has its perks. Without it I wouldn't be where I am today. On the other hand, I do find myself blogging away waaayyy too long, dispelling misconceptions or casting about various conspiracy theories to both entertain and inform. I'd like everyone to consider critical thinking a precursor to acceptance of any opinion fed to them by the MSM, 'The Authorities', or worse, a celebrity. Intelligence helps separate fact from opinion shaping. The 'Engineering of Consent' was not merely a philosophical paper by Bernays, it is a blueprint for the simulacra that was created for less intelligent people to live in. I chose the red pill. I'm sure I'm on lists all over because of that. By the way, everything written here on this blog finds its way to a data collection facility in Utah, and our profiles are continuously updated. See? I'm at it again.
Gyula --
What do you do for a living?
And are you telling me that everything on THIS blog makes its way to that facility in Utah? What sort of data do they collect?
Look me up on LinkedIn. I'm a businessman in North Vancouver.
The 'Terms of Service' of this blog service provider allows all of the data on your blog to be collected by the NSA. Patriot Act and straight up tyranny. Realize that nothing is sacred and nothing is secret.
Gyula -
Thank you. I actually did look you up, but there are a couple (three?) Gyula Huszars listed, I wasn't sure which one you were.
I never figured this blog was private, in fact the more public it is the better as far as I'm concerned. But I also hadn't realized that the NSA was watching; oh well, I'm quite disrespectful here but I certainly have never advocated violence or anything actionable. Most blogs on the Google blogspot service are about peoples' puppies and the like, there must be an awful lot of bored people at the NSA. Though now that I think of it, I doubt anyone there actually reads most of them, my guess is that most get filed away in vast data centers, never to be read unless certain red flag words come up.
= Complete list of DHS monitoring keywords =
Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
Coast Guard (USCG)
Customs and Border Protection (CBP)
Border Patrol
Secret Service (USSS)
National Operations Center (NOC)
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Task Force
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Fusion Center
Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA)
Secure Border Initiative (SBI)
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF)
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...and the rest of the 377 terms and words;
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Gyula --
Thank you -- I guess. Now I'm definitely on their list.
(Hope you're not too bored, fellas: I promise, I don't have the courage to do anything truly bad. My only naughtiness comes in the form of writing this blog.)
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