Famous people with high IQs. Do you make the list?
June 9, 2:44 PM
www.examiner.com
Stephen Colbert once said, “My IQ is 95. I got an A!” Then again, he also said, “I’m not the sharpest knife in the spoon.”
Intelligence Quotient or “IQ” is intended to measure the cognitive ability to reason, assess a problem, and form an appropriate solution.
It does not necessarily equate to having a higher degree of knowledge or practical application of intelligence, but instead attempts to measure the potential of reasoning skills.
The standard measurement related to IQ is that the average is 90-109, with above average and gifted individuals at 110-139 and near genius to genius rankings at 139+.
Arguably one of the smartest people in the world alive today is Christopher Michael Langan, a former bouncer of 20 years with a verified IQ of 195.
Also making the list are a smorgasbord of Chess players, including Garry Kasparov (195), Robert Byrne (170), and Bobby Fischer (167).
Here is the full article.
My IQ is 48 🙂
Garry’s IQ is defintely useful on the 64 squares.
In politics however…
At least that settles who would have won a match between Garry Kasparov and Bobby Fischer, something I have always suspected but never had direct evidence of.
I believe the number I have most
frequently seen associated with
Bobby Fischer is an IQ of 187 and
not the 167 listed in this article.
–Vic.
…and just for the record, I have
seen an article indicating that
Kasparov took an IQ test and scored
around 135. I’ll look for the reference
and am wondering if the 195 is an
an actual test result or an estimate
based on his chess genius. Fischer’s
187 was from, I am told, an IQ test
taken in grade school (which were
customarily given).
–Vic.
Is impressive the IQ of this guys Garry Kasparov (195), Robert Byrne (170), and Bobby Fischer (167).
Nice article. Thanks for sharing
I took it, and scored 140, 127, or 124 with the three standard deviations.
Wish I had the answer key to the test. I got the feeling that some of the early questions were deceivingly easy.
The 195 for Kasparov is bogus.
Richard Feynman’s IQ was 115.. and no, I’m not joking.
Chess uses specialized mental skills. There are many brilliant people who are not good at chess.
For the Record: Actual Scores:
Robert James Fischer: 187
Gary Kasparov:135
James Wood (Approximated at about 180 considering his SAT scores)
Fischer definitely around 190. Kasparov is a bum. Anand probably over 200!!
Feynman, in Gleick’s biography of
him (‘Genius’), lists his IQ as 123.
It came up because someone asked him
to be in Mensa and he replied that
his IQ wasn’t high enough (!).
V.
No one has ever EVER shown a genuine IQ score for Fischer. It’s just rumor that’s been repeated, probably first by Brady who said he knew someone who said he knew that Fischer took a test and scored XXX when he was in school.
Real IQ testsd are administered by those with psychological training, and on a one-to-one basis, and they take quite some time to complete.
Knowing the IQ points does not tell much, if the standard deviation is not known. It is usually 15 but can vary.
Most IQ tests have different maximum scores, which means that they can’t measure IQ higher than a certain number. That means, if you take such a test and get all the answers right, you can not get a higher score than the maximum score. This is also true for the minimum score if you get no answer right. Usually, what an IQ test is measuring is IQ within a certain interval.
Special IQ-tests have been constructed to measure IQ at the higher end of the scale, see
http://www.panteliq.com/tests.html
Estimated IQ of famous people are of course very uncertain, especially for those who never took an IQ test, see
http://hem.bredband.net/b153434/Index.htm
The Levitt equation estimates the maximum Elo rating as (10 x IQ) + 1000, see
http://www.chess.com/article/view/iq-and-chess—the-real-relationship3
Both Elo and IQ goes up and down due to mental training, nutrition and many other factors that influence mental functionings.
There are different kinds of intelligence, some hard to measure with a simple test, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligences
I’ve always done quite well on standardized tests (99.9+ percentile), and I have a Ph.D. in psychology. IQ does correlate well with success in some real-world endeavors, but anyone who has ever attended a Mensa meeting is likely to suspect that it isn’t necessarily a very complete picture of cognitive competence. For a start the tests don’t measure motivation, persistence or the ability to conentrate for very long periods on the same tasks and problems.
If the impossibly brilliant, eloquent, funny, and innovative Richard Feynman scored a 115 on an IQ test, then, to my mind, IQ tests are pretty worthless. IQ tests, it would seem, test for skills in the very circumscribed arena of those that are easily codified in IQ tests.
Brad H.
Obsession, or pride, over high IQ scores feeds a worthless vanity. Real achievement in the real world is infintely more impressive and worthy of admiration. People with high IQ scores can, and often, do very stupid things. Just as with anything else, humility is needed to counterbalance pride. And this goes for world-renowned chess champions, accomplished intellectuals, and manual laborers with 200 IQs. Success at high levels of competition requires internal (necessary) and external (contingent) factors. As much as someone is universally recognized as “great”, the appellation could very easily have been otherwise.