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We are fascinated with child prodigies, yet we still don’t know what causes one talented youngster to go on to a happy, productive life and what causes others to burn out, like William James Sidis.
Sidis is considered to be the smartest man who ever lived, by some, with an estimated IQ of 250-300.
Before his own experience with the terrible twos, Sidis had taught himself to read and shortly thereafter, became fluent in eight different languages and wrote four original works of his own by the age of seven.
After an incredible childhood – or lack of it – adulthood was a struggle for Sidis and newspapers at the time reported that his “genius had burned out” due to the numerous obscure blue collared jobs he obtained throughout his life.
Read about 16 famous prodigies, some from history, some who are adults now, and some who are just starting out. Link -via the Presurfer
Early
birds may catch the worm, but night owls have higher IQs. Hey, don't take
my word for it - it's been proven, you know, by science:
Research examining various psychological correlates of circadian type (also known as diurnal preference) has been, over the years, quite expansive. A notable omission within this research program would appear a systematic exploration of the relation between intelligence and morningness–eveningness. The present study redressed this imbalance. 420 participants performed two self-report inventories assessing circadian type, as well as measures of intelligence from two psychometric batteries: CAM-IV and the ASVAB. The results indicate that, contrary to conventional folk wisdom, evening-types are more likely to have higher intelligence scores. This result is discussed in relation to current theories concerning the nature of human cognitive abilities.
The 1999 study: Morningness-eveningness and intelligence: early to bed, early to rise will likely make you anything but wise! by Roberts RD and Kyllonen PC, Dept. of Psychology, University of Sydney, Australia - via Barking up the wrong tree
Apparently so, according to a new large-scale
study that found older brothers, statistically speaking, actually have
higher IQs than their younger siblings:
The study, detailed in the June 22 issue of the journal Science, analyzed the IQs of nearly 250,000 Norwegian 18- and 19-year-old draftees and found that older siblings had higher scores than younger siblings.
Another study, by the same authors of the new Science study but published recently in the journal Intelligence, looked at more than 100,000 Norwegian brothers and found that first-borns on average had an IQ 2.3 points higher than their younger brothers (the IQs were all taken when the brothers were 18 or 19, so they compare the older brother’s score at that age to the younger brother’s score when he reached that same age).
Does
IQ truly measure your intelligence or is it just another achievement test,
much like the SAT, with fluctuations in scores as you gain knowledge?
Maybe more the latter, according to a new study by researchers at University College London. Researchers show that IQs of a group of British teenagers fluctuate - sometimes by a lot:
The researchers tested 33 healthy adolescents between the ages of 12 and 16 years. They repeated the tests four years later and found that some teens improved their scores by as much as 20 points on the standardized IQ scale.
"We were very surprised," researcher Cathy Price, who led the project, tells Shots. She had expected changes of a few points. "But we had individuals that changed from being on the 50th percentile, with an IQ of 100, [all] the way up to being in the (top) 3rd percentile, with an IQ of 127." In other cases, performance slipped by nearly as much, with kids shaving points off their scores.
Price and her colleagues used brain scans to confirm that these big fluctuations in performance were not random — or just a fluke. They evaluated the structure of the teens' brain in the early teen years and again in the late teenage years.
"We were able to see that the degree to which their IQ had changed was proportional to the degree to which different parts of their brain had changed," explains Price. For instance, an increase in verbal IQ score correlated with a structural change in the left motor cortex of the brain that is activated when we speak.
Have you ever known a dog who couldn’t figure out how stairs work? Allie at Hyperbole and a Half has such a dog. I guarantee, you will love her no matter how intellectually-challenged she is! Link
Is there such a thing as “too smart” or perhaps too smart for your own good? Bruce G. Charlton states a common observation that “high IQ types are lacking in ‘common sense’ – and especially when it comes to dealing with other human beings.”
This is a statement that could easily be exemplified by Rick Rosner. Despite a high IQ and a firm grasp on a litany of subjects, including writing, Rick’s life has had some strange twists and turns that are the combined result of his skewed sensibilities, and his desire to be famous.
Rick’s exploits, and the fact that he got a 44/48 on the Hoeflin Test are legendary. He’s also been said to have an IQ that rises each time he takes the test. Here’s his story.
Genius Prefers High School
Rosner liked high school a lot. After graduating with a (then) IQ score of 170 in 1978, he later successfully fooled school officials by repeating the twelfth grade four times. From 1979 to 1987, he returned as a valid senior four times using false IDs, prosthetics and makeup. On why he did this, he says:
High school’s attractive to me, not necessarily because you have a good time, but because it’s clear why you are miserable. As opposed to real life – post-high-school life- you can be miserable and not have a clear idea what makes you miserable. Dissatisfactions are more vague, more amorphous. (High school’s) an abridged version of real life, and its abridgment adds clarity, and that clarity is comforting.
It’s also interesting to note that he got away with one of his fake IDs using the alias Gilligan Rich Rosner. Gilligan.
Who Wants To Be A Genius?
The event that catapulted Rick’s life into the spotlight happened on a show that was simultaneously spotlight and knowledge heavy. This show asked viewers if anyone in the crowd would perchance want to have a lot of money.
After numerous tries to get on the show, Rick was finally in the hot seat. He was sailing along on the questions and felt really good until a relatively easy-level question messed him up. He guessed according to his logic, and lost. He then sued the producers after sending three detailed letters to them explaining his case.
The question was: “What capital city is located at the highest altitude above sea level?” and the choices were:
A. Mexico City B. Quito
C. Bogotá D. Kathmandu
The reasons Rosner lays out in those letters are spot-on critiques of the semantics of the question and its relative difficulty compared to all other questions asked at that level, but he never got anywhere with his suit. A sample of his correspondence: “I’m sorry to keep sending you letters. I’m not a grievance-oriented person, but a little research led me to a surprising amount of information indicating that it is an unacceptably-flawed question.”
15 Minutes Late?
I do think Mr. Rosner has a strong love affair going with the celebrity dance. Aside from his appearances (often in the nude) on cable TV shows like The Man Show, Jimmy Kimmel and Crank Yankers, he’s also appeared on a show called Obsessed, and took jobs guaranteed to draw attention to himself. Clearly this is someone eager for the 15 minutes of fame he thinks he deserves, but I also see a real human being, one who is acting naturally to the stimuli. He also got steamed at Domino’s when they featured him in this commercial, somehow managing to spell his last name wrong in the graphics (Rossner).
Errol Morris’ First Person
Errol Morris (The Thin Blue Line, The Fog of War) created a show where he interviewed subjects through an “interrotron”, a “self-designed camera that allows the interview subject to see” Morris’ face transposed into the cameraface focused on them. First Person is one of the best interview shows I’ve ever seen, as it tends to elicit more truth than can be seen in other shows. Errol Morris on Rick Rosner:
I imagine he is a pretty complicated character who doesn’t understand himself that well. He’s in the grip of all this stuff that he cannot control.
The journey he has taken, along with all the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and other stories of Mr. Rosner can be seen in six parts on You Tube, starting here. Notice how Morris strings the facts into a collection, much like a weaver manipulates the strings.
For a good time, watch and link to all 6 parts of the interview. Wikipedia on Rick Rosner More on Errol Morris’ interrotron. Photos: Errol Morris, Rick Rosner
Update:I originally listed James Woods as a member of Mensa, and although multiple sources corroborated this fact, the Mensa Director of Operations contacted Alex to say that they have no evidence of it. They’ve tried to contact Woods to see what the deal is, but neither Woods nor his publicist have responded. So there you have it! And now we have proof that Neatorama has some very intelligent readers (we already knew that, though).
We all know them – the celebrities who are certainly pretty to look at but would probably be better off keeping their mouths shut lest they expose their stupidity. But they aren’t all that way – here are four famous people who are so smart they belong to Mensa, an international intelligence society that only admits people who score in the top two percentile of their approved intelligence tests (the Stanford-Binet is one, the Cattell is another). Translation: they’re really dang smart.
Some of you might be familiar with porn star Asia Carrera and some of you might not be. You don’t have to identify yourselves. But just because she’s in the pornography industry doesn’t mean she’s not smart. As a kid, she got grounded every time she got a “B” in school. Her grades and SAT scores were so high that she got a full ride to Rutgers, but turned to stripping to make some cash during school. She soon found her way into porn and became a big hit in the industry, but I bet you not many other big porn stars learned HTML so they could design and program their own website. Asia did. Her IQ, she says, has tested at 154 and 156.
Julie Peterson was the Playboy Playmate of the Month in February 1987, but she’s done a lot since then as well. For starters, she’s now Dr. Julie Peterson and has her own chiropractic practice now. For four years, she had a syndicated radio show for CNN called “Health Watch” that she produced, wrote and recorded. She’s an active member of The Society for Neuroscience. And, obviously, she’s a member of Mensa. But we might have guessed at her intelligence by her Playboy profile – her favorite books include Shibumi, Maia, Ramtha, and East of Eden. To compare, Anna Nicole Smith’s favorite authors were “The people who write my favorite soaps.” I know, I know, that’s not a very fair comparison.
It’s not enough that she’s gorgeous and a successful actress – Geena Davis is also an accomplished athlete and, yes, a Mensan. She’s fluent in Swedish and her I.Q. has been reported at about 140, which is on par with George Washington. OK, we obviously don’t know Washington’s I.Q. for a fact, but a study was conducted in the 1920s that estimated the intelligence quotient of a bunch of leaders and scholars from the past. And when you think about it, isn’t being the lead actress in Earth Girls Are Easy just as brilliant as developing and leading the United States? (I kid.)
Yep, Tess Trueheart is super smart. Glenne is another member of the multiple languages club – she’s fluent in French and Spanish. She’s probably pretty well versed in American Sign Language as well, because she studied it intensely for her role in Mr. Holland’s Opus. Also, this has nothing to do with her intelligence (or does it?), but she was married to John Malkovich for six years in the ’80s. I don’t know about you, but I never would have made that connection.
Despite popular belief, Sharon Stone is not a member of Mensa. After she started to get a reputation as a bubbly blonde, Sharon told reporters that she was so smart that she belonged to the society that only admits people who score in the top two percent of their intelligence test. She maintained the story until 2002, when Jim Blackstone, Mensa’s national marketing director, called her out. After admitting that she wasn’t actually a member, she claimed that she did, however, go to a Mensa school. Blackstone says that couldn’t be true either, because no Mensa schools have existed since the early 1960s – Stone was born in 1958. That’s not to say that she wouldn’t qualify for Mensa, Blackstone pointed out – she reportedly has an I.Q. of 156 (higher than Abraham Lincoln’s supposed score).
Although James Woods is certainly very accomplished, he is NOT a member of Mensa (see the disclaimer at the beginning of the article). However, his SAT scores put mine to shame (and probably yours, too), coming in at 1580, including a perfect 800 in the verbal section. After high school he moved on to MIT, where he was planning on majoring in political science. He didn’t quite make graduation, though – after joining the school’s drama troupe and acting in and directing a number of plays, James decided to drop out of MIT just shy of graduation to jumpstart his acting career. “It was a very wrenching and painful decision for me–in my senior year at MIT, on high dean’s list and full scholarships–to decide that maybe I wanted to be an artist,” he said. “Whether I’m making 30 grand a day or union scale, I have found something that I truly love, and that is something [my father] would have admired.” He dropped out of school in 1970 and just two years later he had his first major film role in Elia Kazan’s The Visitors. He followed that up with The Way We Were the next year and hasn’t really been hurting for roles ever since, so it looks like his decision to switch careers worked out. We’re hoping to hear his response to the Mensa issue!
