Marilyn Vos Savant, Ron Hoeflin, and High IQ

Marilyn Vos Savant: "the surname is real, it was her mother’s maiden name – has had a unique claim to fame since the mid-1980s. It was then, almost 30 years after she took a test as a schoolgirl in downtown St Louis, Missouri, that her IQ came to light. In 1985, Guinness World Records accepted that she had answered every question correctly on an adult Stanford-Binet IQ test at the age of just 10, a result that gave her a corresponding mental age of 22 years and 11 months, and an unearthly IQ of 228.

William James Sidis: The Smartest Person Ever?

The following essay is about William James Sidis, whom Robert Persig (Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance) discusses in his novel, Lila. Sidis's one great passion in life was collecting street car transfers.

The account comes from a web page I saved to my hard drive. Before uploading it, I checked it and found it dead, but still want to give credit, so here is the obsolete URL--http://members.aol.com/popvoid/TOC.html. Jim Morton, the essayist, uses Peridromophilia as a term for Sidis's love of street car transfers.

Peridromophilia Unbound:William James Sidis
By Jim Morton

The great geniuses of mankind are often said to be "born ahead of their time." William James Sidis, on the other hand, seems to have been born out of his time completely; on the wrong world, in the wrong dimension. Perhaps someday the world will understand "Willie" Sidis's strange genius, but that day is far off indeed.

William James Sidis, The Smartest Person Ever?

The following essay is about William James Sidis, whom Robert Persig (Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance) discusses in his novel, Lila. Sidis's one great passion in life was collecting street car transfers.

The account comes from a web page I saved to my hard drive. Before uploading it, I checked it and found it dead, but still want to give credit, so here is the obsolete URL--http://members.aol.com/popvoid/TOC.html. Jim Morton, the essayist, uses Peridromophilia as a term for Sidis's love of street car transfers.

Peridromophilia Unbound:William James Sidis
By Jim Morton

The great geniuses of mankind are often said to be "born ahead of their time." William James Sidis, on the other hand, seems to have been born out of his time completely; on the wrong world, in the wrong dimension. Perhaps someday the world will understand "Willie" Sidis's strange genius, but that day is far off indeed.

Sidis was born in 1898. His father, Boris Sidis, taught psychology at Harvard and was considered one of the foremost psychologists of his day. The boy was named after William James, a leading psychologist and brother to author Henry James. Boris argued that traditional approaches to child-rearing obstructed the learning process. The elder Sidis was determined not to make the same mistake with his son.

He started by stringing words together with alphabet blocks above the child's crib. He eschewed the usual "googley-goo" baby-talk that adults lapse into around infants, speaking instead to the child in the same way he would speak to an adult. If the boy showed any interest in a subject, Boris encouraged his curiosity and study.

The effect of all this on the boy Sidis was astounding. By the time he was two, Willie was reading literature meant for adults; by age four he was typing letters in French and English; at age five he wrote a treatise on anatomy and dazzled everyone with a mathematical expertise few adults could match.

Why Smart People Do Dumb Things

Why Smart People Do Dumb Things

Dysrationalia—"the inability to think and behave rationally despite adequate intelligence." Let's see, Bobbie Fischer and his mouth, Bill Clinton and his zipper, Richard Nixon with his White House Plumbers, and William James Sidis and his obsession with street car transfers. . . . It is a "disorder" affecting some of the smartest people you know.

Natural selection evolved the brain to enable the human species to survive. In shorthand, aptitude as shown by an IQ test is not a measure of street smarts. (Include emotional intelligence with that.) To be sure, in a technologically advanced society, IQ can foster success despite relatively less street smarts. But bear in mind we're not talking CEOs here. They have to think on their feet. (At least that's the theory, and a theory that gives us pause after learning that John Thain gave bonuses amounting between $3 and $4 billion to his Merrill Lynch executives after getting a $15 billion dollar bailout for Bank of America from TARP, the Troubled Assets Relief Program.)

As for IQ, the social class in which you were raised is claimed to affect your score by 12 to 18 points. But here is another term for you: intellectual capital. According to some, it is better than IQ as a predictor of academic success. Intellectual capital results from stimulation and support from the home, school and neighborhood for exploration and achievement. More at The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Here is an explanation of dysrationalia and of intellectual capital.

The list below reminds us of IQ and street smarts. In terms of dumb business practices have you heard of these?

• The Heidelberg Electric Belt for the modern era of 1900. Think of it as a low-voltage jockstrap. It was supposed to cure what ailed you. Wife complained? Buy it to to cure impotence. Kidney stones? It was claimed to fry them. Insomnia? Well, I'm not quite sure how voltage jolts would put you to sleep.
• Then there was the drink Beech-Nut sold as "100% pure apple juice." Beech-Nut's nose became beech wood. Like Pinocchio's, it grew long for that lie. The product had absolutely no apple juice.
• Midas had a memorable ad. An old woman ripped open her blouse to show her "mufflers" to the shop mechanics.
• Our dearly beloveds need your help. In London a video game maker had a stroke of brilliance. The company asked for volunteers to let the company advertise on the headstones of loved ones dead and gone.