I always thought the E-man’s IQ was waay up there, like >200.
I mean 161 is high, but there are lots of them around. Relatively speaking.
If she is one in a million, with billions of peeps, it happens all the time.
Einstein’s ability was driven by how his brain was structure, not just IQ. There was an article recently on it — he had abnormal folds in certain areas of his brain tied to specific capabilities. I think the right way to look at Einstein is not as a genius but as a prodigy.
Genius is not always measurably by IQ. Richard Feynman’s was only 125 (determined in HS) and, though clearly a genius, he was always sensitive about his IQ.
He made a perfect score on the math/physics part of the graduate exam for Princeton (IIRC, he was the only one to have ever done so at that point in history).
Relativity speaking....
Years back they had several different IQ tests and each was scored slightly different. I don’t know if its still that way or not.
I agree with you, I believe the term "genius" is used much too frequently. The true geniuses ARE the Einsteins and mathematicians or the physicists and scientists of the world whose discoveries are off the scale in terms of what other people with similar IQ's can accomplish.
According to this course, Einstein had an IQ of “only” 160:
http://mostextreme.org/highest_iq.php
but, according to the same source, IQ tests are not reliable for very high IQs. So, the difference between Einstein and, say, Hawking at 200 is probably not meaningful.
Other uber IQs are inferred from child IQ tests extrapolated into adult IQs, which only give tendencies and are not reliable in individual cases; or, are inferred from writing samples and so forth.
Even with all the qualifiers I just listed, the score achieved by this girl is remarkable, and we should hope that she is will be able to develop her potential and enjoy a happy and productive life.
Beyond some point, tests become worthless at measuring intelligence, because they are limited by what the test creator considers "high intelligence" to be.
The true test of genius is: what does the person create/discover/develop?
IQ is simply the score on an IQ test, all of which are normed so that the average score is 100 and the standard deviation is 15.
In point of fact the degree to which IQ tests can distinguish meaningful differences in intelligence (even in the narrow sense they measure) drops off drastically at about four standard deviations and reporting of scores greater than 160 or below 40 always represents a dubious claim. Reporting of an IQ above 175 always represents hyperbole in claiming how smart a person is, rather than a realistic assessment of intelligence.