[Liberty1970]

IQ is only one measure of intelligence, or to put it another way, only measures one facet of the complex reality that we call ‘intelligence.’ It’s like trying to characterize people physically solely by their height.

[rarestia]

Let’s not forget all of the pundits who said that Obama was the smartest president this country has ever seen!

*BARF*

ANY of the men from Teddy on back (and Reagan) would run circles around Obama. The man is about as intelligent as a sack of hammers, and that’s an insult to hammers!

As far as the article, great points. I know several people who have higher IQs than me, but they couldn’t write a sentence if they tried. Intelligence is not a measurable constant.

[Julia H.]

IQ only measures three types of mental abilities. That’s like judging someone’s overall athletic ability based solely on how accurately they can pitch a baseball, how far they can kick a soccer ball, and their golf swing.

Any measure of intelligence, at this point, is going to leave much to be desired. There are mental abilities we don’t even fully understand yet. And how do we categorize savants (mentally retarded individuals with select prodigious skills)?

[Interesting Times]

I doubt that Richard Feynman’s IQ was really under 130. It seems more likely that he didn’t take the test seriously.

[Since 2009-07-21]

he was also an artist

I watched a BBC doc about Feynman posted on Youtube. Feynman BECAME an artist...actually a VERY GOOD artist. His artist friend said his first drawings were literally stick figures. The documentary then showed some of his advanced stuff. Truly beautiful drawings. For some weird reason I expected his drawings to be something like those done by autistic savants...photographically precise but eerily dispassionate. They weren't though. But why would they be? The man himself was never dispassionate about anything, lol.

[LRS]

My observation made many years ago:

The left judges intelligence on ones acceptance of Marxism.

Accepting Marxism makes an idiot a genius.

Rejection of Marxism makes a genius an idiot...

[Vendome]

What Makes A Genius?

Easy question: My mom made a genuis. ME.

[hellbender]

I think Feynman, who was the very definition of a genius, didn't do better on his IQ test because he hadn't shown much interest in verbal thinking.

He obtained a perfect score on the entrance exams to Princeton University in mathematics and physics — an unprecedented feat — but did rather poorly on the history and English portions.

and:

Feynman (in common with the famous physicists Edward Teller and Albert Einstein) was a late talker; by his third birthday he had yet to utter a single word.

[Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman]

There most certainly are many different kinds of intelligence. I doubt that many football QBs get high grades in college, yet their ability to memorize complex plays and react instantly to conditions on the field shows a kind of intelligence of a very high order.

[lippqewxiv]

Doesn’t an IQ of 125 put him at 94-5th percentile of the population (assuming IQ tests back then used the same standard deviation as those now)? That score isn’t average at all if it puts him at top 5-6% of the population.

It just seems like a classic case of a combination of talent and a large amount of hard work to me. Feynman isn’t like most people; he sticks to a problem for hours on end and kept logs of his train of thoughts. You’d be surprised what you can achieve doing that. I think people generally have a dichotomous view of how success is achieved, either you had the talent, or you had the work ethic, but rarely both.