[JohnHuang2]

Tuesday, January 20, 2004

Quote of the Day by floriduh voter

[Utah Girl]

Great article, articulates exactly why the smartest people can fail and have failed at governing.

[LPM1888]

This story is nonsense; General Norman Schwarzkopf had an I.Q. of greater than 170. He certainly didn't have any problems analyzing and dealing with multiple scenarios.

[hotpotato]

Lt. Gen. Wes Clark is not a smart man. But he does like to propagate unfounded rumors and urban legends. From Snopes urban legend about the Chicken Gun/Cannon (test-firing chicken carcasses at windshields of airplanes):

"Further adding to the confusion over the validity of this tale, army Lt. Gen. Wes Clark has claimed the story is real on a number of occasions and is fond of using the anecdote in speeches."

[Carthago delenda est]

Any FReepers want to volunteer their IQs? I'm curious as to how many geniuses (IQ over 132) we have on this site. I've always thought that high intelligence and common sense are normally at odds, so I'd be interested to see how many FReepers (who are, by definition, commensensical!) defy my stereotype.

I would offer mine, but sadly, I've never had it reliably tested.

[Benjo]

As the brilliant doctor tells the brave captain in "Forbidden Planet," "you don't have to be smart to be a good leader, you just have to have a loud voice" (or words to that effect). Decisiveness, self-confidence and perseverence are far more important than making the "best" decision.

As for Clinton only having an IQ of 137. He wasn't my cup of tea but I always thought he was far smarter than that. I'm told he could recite verbatim long passages from policy documents he'd read years before.

[GulliverSwift]

I'd like to see this guy's sources for politicians' IQs. I doubt that Albert Arnold Gore, Jr. has an IQ of above 115. The author also underestimates the numerous ways in which ideology (political and otherwise) can cripple a person's thinking.

[Dante3]

It is hard for me to imagine Clinton -- a president of the US getting involved with a geek such as Monica -- as having a high IQ. His lies were so transparent they could have fooled only the likes of Madeline Albright. As for Gore having a high IQ -- if true, there is something else loose in his head.

[Benrand]

Well Bill Belichick, the coach of the Pats, scored ove 1400 on the SAT and has a degree in economics. He's very smart, but is ruthless as all hell.

Martz is smart, but it's not that he sees 10-12 disparate possibilities, it's that he's a wuss.

[ovrtaxt]

On Clark: " He has said almost nothing capable of withstanding even the most cursory analysis, and his globalist view of the world appears to have more in common with Star Trek than with what history suggests is a Hobbesian free-for-all of ambitious, power-hungry men wrestling for wealth and influence. "

Star Trek is right! Leftists credit this to 'idealism', while conservatives credit this to naivete.

[William McKinley]

Where did he come up with these 'estimated' IQ numbers?

I bet that whatever source it was, was completely without merit.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

According to Thomas Sowell, socialist theory with its emphasis on central planning is critically dependent on the idea that the socialist government will be headed by the "best and brightest," who will decide things for us lowly clods. Antisocialist leaders have no need to claim genius IQs because they point out that society, through markets operating in freedom, makes such effective use of the individual expertise and competence of its many citizens that free society outclasses even the most intelligent central planner.

The article mentions the IQs of several presidents, not including Reagan--who, like all Republican presidential candidates, was called stupid by Democrats. But the ability to write the way Reagan did--all those radio scripts in his own hand, for example--is certainly indicative of intelligence. Even his eloquent Alzheimer's letter was composed more quickly and hand-written more accurately than most of us could do it.

Nominally the IQ is normalized for the mean to be 100 and the standard deviation of the bell curve to be 10. That means that a 130 IQ would be 3 standard deviations above the mean--above about 99% of the population. I don't know my own IQ, but believe it to be in that neighborhood--which means "smarter than the average bear," but also that there are millions of smarter people in the country. Some of whom are (ugh) liberals . . . and plenty of those who would test lower in IQ would test higher in bank account, too.

[cookcounty]

Question for any DU lurker:

Before his father was famous, GWB won his Masters from Harvard. How is that possible, and why didn't you do that?

[Rytwyng]

This is because there appears to be a strong correlation between one's level of intelligence and the importance one places on the abstract as opposed to quotidian reality

Only among liberal-arts types. Engineers, scientists, etc, are firmly tied to the real world. Either the bridge falls down or it doesn't; either the chemicals react or they don't, etc. Experiments sometimes destroy abstract theory, hence experiments are paramount.