U.S. Presidential IQ Hoax
From Wikipedia,
the free encyclopedia.
In mid-2001, a hoax list
of estimated
IQs of the
U.S. Presidents from Franklin D. Roosevelt
to George W. Bush was circulated via email.
The hoax email shows
Bill Clinton having the highest IQ (at
182) and
George W. Bush the lowest (at 91). The
numbers claimed in the email were not backed
up by any evidence but appeared plausible
to some people. (Clinton's top ranking may
have seemed more plausible due to his having
been a Rhodes Scholar.) When the hoax was
debunked, it appeared to many as a personal
reproach on Bush due to its timing and the
fact that Bush's IQ was reported as exactly
half of Clinton's. Nevertheless, personal
slurs upon sitting U.S. Presidents have
been common fare in the United States at
least since the administration of John Adams.
Perhaps because the issue
of George W. Bush's intelligence has been
a popular one, particularly amongst his
political opponents, the hoax report was
taken to be true in some quarters. The British
newspaper The Guardian, for example,
quoted the report in its diary section of
July 19, 2001 and used it to belittle Bush
(see
[1] below). The Guardian published
a retraction two days after the Associated
Press drew attention to the error.
Other mainstream media
news outlets to fall for the hoax included
Bild (Germany), Pravda (Russia),
The Hillsboro Argus (Oregon, USA),
The News Sun (Illinois, USA) and
the Southland Times (New Zealand).
About.com reports
[2] that linkydinky.com was the original
source of the spoof. Indeed, their page
on the hoax
[3] calls the report "our spoof". A
copy of the spoof in full can be found there.
The sociologists and institutions
quoted in the article do not exist. The
techniques used to measure the IQ of the
Presidents are not recognized means of measuring
IQs. The hoax contains other factual errors
— see the Snopes article ([4])
for further details.
Hoax IQs of U.S. Presidents
for the Past 50 years
182
175
174
155
147
132
126
122
121
105
98
91 |
William J. Clinton (D)
James E. Carter (D)
John F. Kennedy (D)
Richard M. Nixon (R)
Franklin D. Roosevelt
(D)
Harry Truman (D)
Lyndon B. Johnson (D)
Dwight D. Eisenhower
(R)
Gerald Ford (R)
Ronald Reagan (R)
George H. W. Bush (R)
George W. Bush (R) |
Urban Legends Reference Pages:
Presidential IQ
|
References
-
The Guardian falls for
the hoax
-
About.com on the origin
of the spoof
-
linkydinky.com page -
the apparent source of the spoof
-
Debunking the IQ hoax
on snopes.com
|
Most (I would like to think all)
psychologists saw through this hoax immediately. The preposterousness
of the claim that George W. Bush has an IQ of 91 was exceeded
only by the preposterousness of the journalists and news
organizations that believed it and distributed the story
without checking out the facts.
The facts, as any clinical or school psychologist
could have immediately pointed out, are that Bush's educational
record (a bachelor of arts degree in history from Yale,
an MBA degree from Harvard Business School, and fluency
in two languages), not to mention his work record and current
position as the chief executive officer of the highest office
in the land, make it more than apparent that this is someone with
a superior intellect.
The relationship between IQ and educational
level, while not perfect, is strong enough that inferences
can be made about one's IQ, based on educational attainment,
with a high degree of confidence. A study by American psychologist
Joseph Matarazzo (1972) that is still pertinent today found
that college graduates had a mean IQ of 115. For graduate
school and professional degree recipients, the mean IQ was
significantly higher. (See IQ Scores
and IQ Classifications).
Based on this and the entirety of Bush's educational and
occupational record, it is reasonable to assume that Bush's
IQ is at least 120 (superior), and I would not be surprised
if it was over 130 (very superior).
That brings up another hoax, namely the
stratospheric IQs claimed for the the top five presidents
in the list. To put this in perspective, as a practicing
clinical psychologist specializing in psychological assessment
and testing, with a large segment of my practice involving
cognitive evaluations of physicians and health care professionals,
I can not recall testing any one who ever obtained an IQ
score over 150!
So why did it seem plausible to some that
Bush's IQ may have been as low as was claimed? His slow,
halting manner of speaking and occasional mispronunciations
when speaking extemporaneously in certain situations may
give some the impression that his lack of verbal facility
reflects a corresponding lack of intellectual ability.
Actually, it may reflect only a careful, deliberate style
of expression resulting from the great weight put on his
every word and utterance by the media; while his
occasional malapropisms may reflect only a remarkable
lack of guardedness in certain situations where he feels
comfortable.
Whatever the reason for this impression
regarding Bush's intellect, and the hoax it spawned that
was swallowed hook, line and sinker by more than a few gullible
pundits, Bush is obviously confident in his intellectual
ability and sure of himself, as only someone could be who
is under as much scrutiny as the President of the United
States.
References
- Kaufman, Alan S.
Assessing Adolescent and Adult Intelligence.
Allyn and Bacon, 1990.
- Matarazzo, Joseph D.
Wechsler's Measure and Appraisal of Adult Intelligence,
5th Edition.
Oxford University Press, 1972.
|
