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Thursday, October 25, 2012

"The 16 Smartest People on Earth"

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.) 

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

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

John Craig said...

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).

Pete said...

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.

John Craig said...

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.

Dave Moriarty said...

In China if you are so special you classify as a one in a million.. there are 10,000 of you

John Craig said...

Dave --
Check your math. One thousand, not ten. (There are one billion Chinese.)

Jonathan Leaf said...

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.

John Craig said...

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.

Gyula Huszar said...

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.

John Craig said...

Mr. Huszar --
I can tell from your comment alone how intelligent you are.

Gyula Huszar said...

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.

John Craig said...

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?

Gyula Huszar said...

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.

John Craig said...

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.

Gyula Huszar said...

= 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)
Homeland Defense
Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE)
Agent
Task Force
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
Fusion Center
Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA)
Secure Border Initiative (SBI)
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF)
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS)
Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS)
Transportation Security Administration (TSA)
Air Marshal
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)
National Guard
Red Cross
United Nations (UN)
Assassination
Attack
Domestic security
Drill
Exercise
Cops
Law enforcement
Authorities
Disaster assistance
Disaster management
DNDO (Domestic Nuclear Detection Office)
National preparedness
Mitigation
Prevention
Response
Recovery
Dirty bomb
Domestic nuclear detection
Emergency management
Emergency response
First responder
Homeland security
Maritime domain awareness (MDA)
National preparedness initiative
Militia Shooting
Shots fired
Evacuation
Deaths
Hostage
Explosion (explosive)
Police
Disaster medical assistance team (DMAT)
Organized crime
Gangs
National security
State of emergency
Security
Breach
Threat
Standoff
SWAT
Screening
Lockdown
Bomb (squad or threat)
Crash
Looting
Riot
Emergency
Landing
Pipe bomb
Incident
Facility
Hazmat
Nuclear
Chemical spill
Suspicious package/device
Toxic
National laboratory
Nuclear facility
Nuclear threat
Cloud
Plume
Radiation
Radioactive
Leak
Biological infection (or event)
Chemical
Chemical burn
Biological
Epidemic
Hazardous
Hazardous material incident
Industrial spill
Infection
Powder (white)
Gas
Spillover
Anthrax
Blister agent
Chemical agent
Exposure
Burn
Nerve agent
Ricin
Sarin
North Korea
Outbreak
Contamination
Exposure
Virus
Evacuation
Bacteria
Recall
Ebola
Food Poisoning
Foot and Mouth (FMD)
H5N1
Avian
Flu
Salmonella
Small Pox
Plague
Human to human
Human to Animal
Influenza
Center for Disease Control (CDC)
Drug Administration (FDA)
Public Health
Toxic Agro
Terror Tuberculosis (TB)
Agriculture
Listeria
Symptoms
Mutation
Resistant
Antiviral
Wave
Pandemic
Infection
Water/air borne
Sick
Swine
Pork
Strain
Quarantine
H1N1
Vaccine
Tamiflu
Norvo Virus
Epidemic
World Health Organization (WHO) (and components)
Viral Hemorrhagic Fever
E. Coli
Infrastructure security
Airport
CIKR (Critical Infrastructure & Key Resources)
AMTRAK
Collapse
Computer infrastructure
Communications infrastructure
Telecommunications
Critical infrastructure
National infrastructure
Metro
WMATA
Airplane (and derivatives)
Chemical fire
Subway
BART
MARTA
Port Authority
NBIC (National Biosurveillance Integration Center)
Transportation security
Grid
Power
Smart
Body scanner
Electric
Failure or outage
Black out
Brown out
Port
Dock
Bridge
Cancelled
Delays
Service disruption
Power lines
Drug cartel
Violence
Gang
Drug
Narcotics
Cocaine
Marijuana
Heroin
Border
Mexico
Cartel
Southwest
Juarez
Sinaloa
Tijuana
Social media

Gyula Huszar said...

...and the rest of the 377 terms and words;

Torreon
Yuma
Tucson
Decapitated
U.S. Consulate
Consular
El Paso
Fort Hancock
San Diego
Ciudad Juarez
Nogales
Sonora
Colombia
Mara salvatrucha
MS13 or MS-13
Drug war
Mexican army
Methamphetamine
Cartel de Golfo
Gulf Cartel
La Familia
Reynosa
Nuevo Leon
Narcos
Narco banners (Spanish equivalents)
Los Zetas
Shootout
Execution
Gunfight
Trafficking
Kidnap
Calderon
Reyosa
Bust
Tamaulipas
Meth Lab
Drug trade
Illegal immigrants
Smuggling (smugglers)
Matamoros
Michoacana
Guzman
Arellano-Felix
Beltran-Leyva
Barrio Azteca
Artistic Assassins
Mexicles
New Federation
Terrorism
Al Qaeda (all spellings)
Terror
Attack
Iraq
Afghanistan
Iran
Pakistan
Agro
Environmental terrorist
Eco terrorism
Conventional weapon
Target
Weapons grade
Dirty bomb
Enriched
Nuclear
Chemical weapon
Biological weapon
Ammonium nitrate
Improvised explosive device
IED (Improvised Explosive Device)
Abu Sayyaf
Hamas
FARC (Armed Revolutionary Forces Colombia)
IRA (Irish Republican Army)
ETA (Euskadi ta Askatasuna)
Basque Separatists
Hezbollah
Tamil Tigers
PLF (Palestine Liberation Front)
PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization
Car bomb
Jihad
Taliban
Weapons cache
Suicide bomber
Suicide attack
Suspicious substance
AQAP (AL Qaeda Arabian Peninsula)
AQIM (Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb)
TTP (Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan)
Yemen
Pirates
Extremism
Somalia
Nigeria
Radicals
Al-Shabaab
Home grown
Plot
Nationalist
Recruitment
Fundamentalism
Islamist
Emergency
Hurricane
Tornado
Twister
Tsunami
Earthquake
Tremor
Flood
Storm
Crest
Temblor
Extreme weather
Forest fire
Brush fire
Ice
Stranded/Stuck
Help
Hail
Wildfire
Tsunami Warning Center
Magnitude
Avalanche
Typhoon
Shelter-in-place
Disaster
Snow
Blizzard
Sleet
Mud slide or Mudslide
Erosion
Power outage
Brown out
Warning
Watch
Lightening
Aid
Relief
Closure
Interstate
Burst
Emergency Broadcast System
Cyber security
Botnet
DDOS (dedicated denial of service)
Denial of service
Malware
Virus
Trojan
Keylogger
Cyber Command
2600
Spammer
Phishing
Rootkit
Phreaking
Cain and abel
Brute forcing
Mysql injection
Cyber attack
Cyber terror
Hacker
China
Conficker
Worm
Scammers
Social

John Craig said...

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.)