On its face, this post may seem partisan and inflammatory to some. But I want to explain up front that I do not intend it to be that way in the least. I'm posting something that I read in the hopes of sparking a serious discussion about leadership and intellect and to what extent the latter determines the quality of the former.
In the interest of disclosure, the information I cite below came from a liberal periodical called "Liberal Opinion Week". Its August 2nd issue had a small sidebar written by journalist Bill Press. In it, he cites the "Lovenstein Institute of Scranton, PA" (?) which apparently just released a study of the IQ of twelve American presidents over the last 50 years.
The individual results for all of the 12 were not provided in the article, but this is what was revealed:
Bill Clinton's IQ is 182
Nixon's IQ was 155
George H.W. Bush's IQ is 98
George W. Bush's IQ is 91 (!)
The article says that Clinton's IQ is the highest of the bunch and George W's is the lowest.
Additionally, the average IQ of the six Republican presidents - Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush 41 and Bush 43 is 115.5.
The average IQ of the six Democratic presidents - Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter and Clinton - is 156.
First of all, I have no way of verifying these numbers. Anyone know how we might do that?
But assuming for a moment that these numbers are correct, does it have any implications for the quality of leadership skills on the one hand, and/or the approach to, and creativity in, problem solving on the other?
I have been very concerned about what seems to me to be George W. Bush's extremely black and white, you're either with us or against us, it's just a matter of killing all the 'bad guys', approach to a world that is a myriad of various shades of grey to me. If it's true that his IQ is only 91, could the two things be related? Could his lack of "intellectual curiosity" as reported by a number of officials who left his administration be a reflection of intellect?
Furthermore, as a country, I am concerned that we are turning away from a celebration of intellectual power and sophisticated thinking in favor of a kind of folksy simplicity among our leaders. We reward politicians who can come up with simple black and white answers and punish those whose approach to a problem or issue is more nuanced. We reward what we see as moral clarity regardless of whether it is actually associated with the right or wrong answer to a problem.
So my question is, how important is it for our leaders to be smart??
And how important is it for a free democratic society to admire intellectualism rather than denigrate it as "elitism"?
I ask these questions in all sincerity. This is not meant as a Bush-bashing thread.
Leader Smarts
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Oh, don't worry. That won't happen.This is not meant as a Bush-bashing thread.
Of course they are entirely bogus. Somebody with a political agenda pulled them out of the sky. They can be neither proven nor disproven.
All the same, seventy-three percent of the people on this board will still accept them pretty much at face value.
And yes, I just pulled that figure out of the sky.
All the same, seventy-three percent of the people on this board will still accept them pretty much at face value.
And yes, I just pulled that figure out of the sky.
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Voronwë the Faithful
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truehobbit
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I think it's pretty strange to come up with IQ figures of people just like that, though I guess one might just infer things from having talked to them - but it gets really strange if the people rated are already dead.
Besides, all that IQ numbers show is how good someone is at doing IQ-tests.
So, I don't know about those numbers, but I think you raise an interesting point nevertheless.
For example, a high IQ might just mean a person is particularly cunning.
However, I do see a problem in a trend to look down on questioning minds and praising "simplicity" too much.
There needs to be a balance to this.
Yes, most important things in life strike one as "common sense", so you would want to listen to a common sense person more than to someone sly and cunning.
On the other hand, when it comes to interpersonal relationships (politics being one form of those), nothing is ever simple and straightforward, so you would want someone who is discerning and discriminating.
The problem with leadership is that you would want someone who is both highly intelligent and humane and kindly disposed.
Besides, all that IQ numbers show is how good someone is at doing IQ-tests.
So, I don't know about those numbers, but I think you raise an interesting point nevertheless.
I wouldn't say that a high IQ is an automatic qualification for leadership - there's much more to leadership than that!Furthermore, as a country, I am concerned that we are turning away from a celebration of intellectual power and sophisticated thinking in favor of a kind of folksy simplicity among our leaders. We reward politicians who can come up with simple black and white answers and punish those whose approach to a problem or issue is more nuanced. We reward what we see as moral clarity regardless of whether it is actually associated with the right or wrong answer to a problem.
For example, a high IQ might just mean a person is particularly cunning.
However, I do see a problem in a trend to look down on questioning minds and praising "simplicity" too much.
There needs to be a balance to this.
Yes, most important things in life strike one as "common sense", so you would want to listen to a common sense person more than to someone sly and cunning.
On the other hand, when it comes to interpersonal relationships (politics being one form of those), nothing is ever simple and straightforward, so you would want someone who is discerning and discriminating.
The problem with leadership is that you would want someone who is both highly intelligent and humane and kindly disposed.
Last edited by truehobbit on Sat Sep 16, 2006 3:51 pm, edited 2 times in total.
but being a cheerful hobbit he had not needed hope, as long as despair could be postponed.
While I don't think Bush is all that smart, I still think he's gonna be above 100 which (iirc) is considered the average.
While reading that, I just kept thinking about how inprobable it would be that they could get all the presidents to do the IQ test anyways.
Anyways, regardless of whether Bush is an idiot or a supergenius, one thing I was majorly struck by during the Bush vs Kerry debates of 04 is how unwilling Bush seemed to be to acknowledge the color grey. I found that quite disturbing. Of course, you never know if that's how he really feels or if that's just the image they chose to project because they want to appear "strong". Either way, it obviously worked for him.
While reading that, I just kept thinking about how inprobable it would be that they could get all the presidents to do the IQ test anyways.
Anyways, regardless of whether Bush is an idiot or a supergenius, one thing I was majorly struck by during the Bush vs Kerry debates of 04 is how unwilling Bush seemed to be to acknowledge the color grey. I found that quite disturbing. Of course, you never know if that's how he really feels or if that's just the image they chose to project because they want to appear "strong". Either way, it obviously worked for him.
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TheTennisBallKid
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The Presidential IQ ReportIn it, he cites the "Lovenstein Institute of Scranton, PA" (?) which apparently just released a study of the IQ of twelve American presidents over the last 50 years.
It's five years old, actually...
ttbk
A Windy sighting!
It's so great to see you here!
On topic, thanks for the link ttbk. Yes the report is old, and I've read related reports about the measure as it is used in the study of Altzheimers disease.
They didn't draw their numbers from standard IQ tests but from an indepenent method. The results are neither completely reliable nor are they completely bogus. My sense is that they are inflated relative to the standard IQ test score ... i.e. we've never had a US president with an intellect equivalent to Einstein, which their numbers suggests ... but if all the numbers are obtained the same way then the comparison between presidents is legitimate.
The method involves analyzing speeches and writings for idea complexity ... the number of variable ideas that will be contained in a single sentence. The ideas don't have to be stunning, but they have to demonstrate an ability to make relationships between related things and between things in one's head and things in the larger world, hold these relationships in mind and then connect them in the sentence.
For example ... this is not an actual example but something approximating the actual examples I've seen ...
Sample 1: I was born in Ohio. My dad owned a company. That's how I learned business and politics, and later I went into politics myself. It is a great honor to be president. I hope everyone likes me.
Sample 2: Although I was born in Ohio, I was interested in national politics from an early age, perhaps because this was a great interest of my father's. He owned his own company and was involved in local business associations and his political party. It is a great honor to be president of of a country where the sons of businessmen can reach high office. I hope that history will judge me well.
How they calibrate the complexity of the sentence as measured to a rank score I do not know. But I have confidence that they do it the same for everyone, and this measure is also being studied in connection with the likelihood that a person will contract Alzheimer's in old age.
It only measures intelligence along one paramater that can be evidenced in language skills, so there's not a whole lot of extrapolation that can be done, but it is true that language skills will correlate well with other standard measures of intelligence. It does not of course tell us anything about a person's character.
To address Windy's question about the implications of this for public life, I think that Americans on the whole are deeply anti-intellectual, and our elected officials have never been characterized primarily by high intelligence. There are a few notable exceptions to this, and with one exception among the exceptions (Lincoln) the most intelligent presidents were the most controversial ones at the time of their presidency. People found it hard to understand what they were about. Jefferson is a perfect example of this, in my opinion. He has to have been one of the most intelligent Americans who ever served public office, a founding father with a fine devotion to governance principles, yet while he was in the White House he was not appeciated at all and at one point suffered to have rotten vegetables thrown at him when he appeared in public.
How important is intelligence to presidential ability? Well, there's a threshold below which you don't want to fall ...
But Nixon in his autobiography made the point that the ability to see too many dimensions can also be an impediment. Presidents have to be decisive and seeing things in too many tones of gray does wage against this.
As for the younger Bush and Reagan ... on a purely heuristic basis I would have to agree with the results of this study. These were men who did not (do not) come up to average intelligence levels, and I don't believe that they were (are) the ones running the country at all while in office. But I do not agree that Bush Sr. was below average. It was a really bad thing for us that Reagan got the nomination instead of Bush in 1980, in my opinion.
I don't think that intelligence alone is a good measure of Presidential ability because highly intelligent people vary a lot in their character. But there is a threshold below which the person is simply not able to consider enough factors to make good decisions, substitutes ideological script for principle, and is too easily manipulated by smarter folks feigning loyalty. We have had that situation more than once in our history. And, yeah, though Whistler and I disagree about the abilities of Bush, Jr., my own opinion is that we have that situation right now.
Jn
It's so great to see you here!
On topic, thanks for the link ttbk. Yes the report is old, and I've read related reports about the measure as it is used in the study of Altzheimers disease.
They didn't draw their numbers from standard IQ tests but from an indepenent method. The results are neither completely reliable nor are they completely bogus. My sense is that they are inflated relative to the standard IQ test score ... i.e. we've never had a US president with an intellect equivalent to Einstein, which their numbers suggests ... but if all the numbers are obtained the same way then the comparison between presidents is legitimate.
The method involves analyzing speeches and writings for idea complexity ... the number of variable ideas that will be contained in a single sentence. The ideas don't have to be stunning, but they have to demonstrate an ability to make relationships between related things and between things in one's head and things in the larger world, hold these relationships in mind and then connect them in the sentence.
For example ... this is not an actual example but something approximating the actual examples I've seen ...
Sample 1: I was born in Ohio. My dad owned a company. That's how I learned business and politics, and later I went into politics myself. It is a great honor to be president. I hope everyone likes me.
Sample 2: Although I was born in Ohio, I was interested in national politics from an early age, perhaps because this was a great interest of my father's. He owned his own company and was involved in local business associations and his political party. It is a great honor to be president of of a country where the sons of businessmen can reach high office. I hope that history will judge me well.
How they calibrate the complexity of the sentence as measured to a rank score I do not know. But I have confidence that they do it the same for everyone, and this measure is also being studied in connection with the likelihood that a person will contract Alzheimer's in old age.
It only measures intelligence along one paramater that can be evidenced in language skills, so there's not a whole lot of extrapolation that can be done, but it is true that language skills will correlate well with other standard measures of intelligence. It does not of course tell us anything about a person's character.
To address Windy's question about the implications of this for public life, I think that Americans on the whole are deeply anti-intellectual, and our elected officials have never been characterized primarily by high intelligence. There are a few notable exceptions to this, and with one exception among the exceptions (Lincoln) the most intelligent presidents were the most controversial ones at the time of their presidency. People found it hard to understand what they were about. Jefferson is a perfect example of this, in my opinion. He has to have been one of the most intelligent Americans who ever served public office, a founding father with a fine devotion to governance principles, yet while he was in the White House he was not appeciated at all and at one point suffered to have rotten vegetables thrown at him when he appeared in public.
How important is intelligence to presidential ability? Well, there's a threshold below which you don't want to fall ...
But Nixon in his autobiography made the point that the ability to see too many dimensions can also be an impediment. Presidents have to be decisive and seeing things in too many tones of gray does wage against this.As for the younger Bush and Reagan ... on a purely heuristic basis I would have to agree with the results of this study. These were men who did not (do not) come up to average intelligence levels, and I don't believe that they were (are) the ones running the country at all while in office. But I do not agree that Bush Sr. was below average. It was a really bad thing for us that Reagan got the nomination instead of Bush in 1980, in my opinion.
I don't think that intelligence alone is a good measure of Presidential ability because highly intelligent people vary a lot in their character. But there is a threshold below which the person is simply not able to consider enough factors to make good decisions, substitutes ideological script for principle, and is too easily manipulated by smarter folks feigning loyalty. We have had that situation more than once in our history. And, yeah, though Whistler and I disagree about the abilities of Bush, Jr.,
my own opinion is that we have that situation right now.Jn
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truehobbit
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Jnyusa wrote:
How important is intelligence to presidential ability? Well, there's a threshold below which you don't want to fall ...
[quote="Henry Fielding in "Joseph Andrews", II, 9"]He [Parson Adams] did not, therefore, want the entreaties of the poor wretch to assist her; but, lifting up his crabstick, he immediately levelled a blow at that part of the ravisher‘s head where, according to the opinion of the ancients, the brains of some persons are deposited, and which he had undoubtedly let forth, had not Nature (who, as wise men have observed, equips all creatures with what is most expedient for them) taken a provident care (as she always doth with those she intends for encounters) to make this part of the head three times as thick as those of ordinary men who are designed to exercise talents which are vulgarly called rational, and for whom, as brains are necessary, she is obliged to leave some roorn for them in the cavity of the skull; whereas, those ingredients being entirely useless to persons of the heroic calling, she hath an opportunity of thickening the bone, so as to make it less subject to any impression, or liable to be cracked or broken: and indeed, in sorne who are predestined to the command of armies and empires, she is supposed sometimes to rnake that part perfectly solid.[/quote]
but being a cheerful hobbit he had not needed hope, as long as despair could be postponed.
The IQ tests were designed as a diagnostic tool to place students in special education appropriately. Prior to their existence, all you could do is have the teacher say "I think this kid needs extra help." The IQ test provided a quantifiable number to aid those judgments, rather than just a subjective evaluation.
The cut-off limit for special ed is roughly 70. So, yes, 100 is about average, and anything above 125 is higher-than-average.
But the test has a few limitations. One, it's age-dependent. It was designed to be used on children, not 18 year olds. (GI's returning from WWII did very poorly on it). Two, if you get 'used' to the type of questions asked, you can improve your score
. Also, its meaning is sketchy at the higher levels. If you do the Tickle version, or the version they had on TV a few years ago, I think the highest score you can get is around 140.
What is being done with the Presidents is something different. It is analyzing a text to determine intelligence, and then correlating that result to an IQ score. As Jny points out, the errors should be consistent, though there are some questions as to how you correlate a writing sample to intelligence in the first place. In the case of the nun study (on Alzheimers), they were able to take a similar writing sample from each woman written at roughly the same age (their autobiographical essay when they joined the convent). In the case of the presidents, it is trickier, because each speech passes through the hands of others to be polished (or is even written by others in the first place). They are also written for different audiences and purposes, though hopefully they would have some roughly similar speeches to compare, such as inaugural addresses and state-of-the-union addresses. You also have to take into account the age differences, though none of these men were young, so it isn't going to be as crucial.
Windfola's question, though, is a valid one - how important is it that people in leadership positions be 'smart'? I won't lie; I was in the 99 percentile on most (though not all) standardized tests when I was in school. So, I am naturally prone to be a bit snobby on the issue of 'smart'ness. And....because of that, I have learned that being smart isn't everything it's cracked up to be. At the end of the day, a leader is going to be better for having excellent interpersonal skills and a decent decision-making capability. I have known plenty of indecisive people who are very intelligent - I would not elect them to public office. I have also been told, on many occasions, "smart people have no common sense" - and there is some truth to that. The people I've known who were most attentive to others (the best listeners), and therefore the ones who understood a situation the best, were usually not the smartest people in the room.
This doesn't mean we should praise idiotic behaviour. I'm a teacher, I give tests, and the answers had better be correct. I have to deal with people who don't learn well, who have trouble grasping concepts, etc. I can encourage them, and if they put in the effort, they can excel. But that doesn't mean someone who struggles with learning makes a good leader. The leadership within the school tends to correspond with the Honors program, after all.
Intelligence is useful for picking out the meaning of a text. If you want to analyze the words....you look at the smart people. Same with checking to see if an argument holds water or if a calculation/analysis is correct.
So, I would say that intelligence is a factor, certainly....but not the primary factor in leadership. Leadership is, first and foremost, about knowing people. If your interpersonal skills are abyssmal, you will fail as a leader. If you are indecisive, you may be a decent academic (you can study the subject), but you aren't going to be able to take charge of a group.
I would rank intelligence under people-skills and decisiveness, but over organizational skills...if we are evaluating whether or not someone is fit for leadership.
I recall at one instance in the Bush/Kerry debates, Kerry had given a fairly eloquent answer where he said something like, "I understand where you are coming from, and it's very important to me....but I've voted the other way because it's better." Bush stood up and replied, "I have no idea what you just said." Maybe the man was too stupid to figure it out, but I thought that the purpose of that 'play' of cluelessness was to point out that Kerry was saying two different things at once. Kerry certainly came across as more intelligent in the debates (I think he is in real life), but that was not necessarily a negative for Bush.
The cut-off limit for special ed is roughly 70. So, yes, 100 is about average, and anything above 125 is higher-than-average.
But the test has a few limitations. One, it's age-dependent. It was designed to be used on children, not 18 year olds. (GI's returning from WWII did very poorly on it). Two, if you get 'used' to the type of questions asked, you can improve your score
. Also, its meaning is sketchy at the higher levels. If you do the Tickle version, or the version they had on TV a few years ago, I think the highest score you can get is around 140.What is being done with the Presidents is something different. It is analyzing a text to determine intelligence, and then correlating that result to an IQ score. As Jny points out, the errors should be consistent, though there are some questions as to how you correlate a writing sample to intelligence in the first place. In the case of the nun study (on Alzheimers), they were able to take a similar writing sample from each woman written at roughly the same age (their autobiographical essay when they joined the convent). In the case of the presidents, it is trickier, because each speech passes through the hands of others to be polished (or is even written by others in the first place). They are also written for different audiences and purposes, though hopefully they would have some roughly similar speeches to compare, such as inaugural addresses and state-of-the-union addresses. You also have to take into account the age differences, though none of these men were young, so it isn't going to be as crucial.
Windfola's question, though, is a valid one - how important is it that people in leadership positions be 'smart'? I won't lie; I was in the 99 percentile on most (though not all) standardized tests when I was in school. So, I am naturally prone to be a bit snobby on the issue of 'smart'ness. And....because of that, I have learned that being smart isn't everything it's cracked up to be. At the end of the day, a leader is going to be better for having excellent interpersonal skills and a decent decision-making capability. I have known plenty of indecisive people who are very intelligent - I would not elect them to public office. I have also been told, on many occasions, "smart people have no common sense" - and there is some truth to that. The people I've known who were most attentive to others (the best listeners), and therefore the ones who understood a situation the best, were usually not the smartest people in the room.
This doesn't mean we should praise idiotic behaviour. I'm a teacher, I give tests, and the answers had better be correct. I have to deal with people who don't learn well, who have trouble grasping concepts, etc. I can encourage them, and if they put in the effort, they can excel. But that doesn't mean someone who struggles with learning makes a good leader. The leadership within the school tends to correspond with the Honors program, after all.
Intelligence is useful for picking out the meaning of a text. If you want to analyze the words....you look at the smart people. Same with checking to see if an argument holds water or if a calculation/analysis is correct.
So, I would say that intelligence is a factor, certainly....but not the primary factor in leadership. Leadership is, first and foremost, about knowing people. If your interpersonal skills are abyssmal, you will fail as a leader. If you are indecisive, you may be a decent academic (you can study the subject), but you aren't going to be able to take charge of a group.
I would rank intelligence under people-skills and decisiveness, but over organizational skills...if we are evaluating whether or not someone is fit for leadership.
I recall at one instance in the Bush/Kerry debates, Kerry had given a fairly eloquent answer where he said something like, "I understand where you are coming from, and it's very important to me....but I've voted the other way because it's better." Bush stood up and replied, "I have no idea what you just said." Maybe the man was too stupid to figure it out, but I thought that the purpose of that 'play' of cluelessness was to point out that Kerry was saying two different things at once. Kerry certainly came across as more intelligent in the debates (I think he is in real life), but that was not necessarily a negative for Bush.
Bush is embarrassingly inarticulate, and I think that makes him appear less intelligent than he is. I don't think he's terribly sharp, but I don't think he's stupid. I don't think there has ever been, or will ever be, a stupid president. Whatever a president's ideas may be, and regardless of whether those ideas are clever or foolish, the man himself cannot possibly have risen so high without a reasonable helping of brains. He may be delusional, depraved or crazy...but not stupid.
What amuses me about the most rabid Bush haters is that their assessment of his intelligence varies according to their political needs. Usually they portray him as a bumbling clown who probably cannot tie his own shoes. Then they transform him, without missing a beat, into a megalomaniacal James Bond villain whose aim is to topple our democracy through a labyrinthine web of sinister conspiracies.
He can't be both. Really, he can't be either.
What amuses me about the most rabid Bush haters is that their assessment of his intelligence varies according to their political needs. Usually they portray him as a bumbling clown who probably cannot tie his own shoes. Then they transform him, without missing a beat, into a megalomaniacal James Bond villain whose aim is to topple our democracy through a labyrinthine web of sinister conspiracies.
He can't be both. Really, he can't be either.
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JewelSong
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I agree with this assessment. Especially the "embarassingly inarticulate" part. And I also tend to agree with Windy's comment about Americans infatuation with the "good ole boy, down home on the farm" kind of mentality. Somehow, intelligence has become a symbol of being disconnected from the people.Whistler wrote:Bush is embarrassingly inarticulate, and I think that makes him appear less intelligent than he is. I don't think he's terribly sharp, but I don't think he's stupid. I don't think there has ever been, or will ever be, a stupid president. Whatever a president's ideas may be, and regardless of whether those ideas are clever or foolish, the man himself cannot possibly have risen so high without a reasonable helping of brains. He may be delusional, depraved or crazy...but not stupid.
I don't think Bush is "stupid" but neither do I think he has much overall intellect, vision, imagination or sense of the whole picture. I think he got where he is through a number of factors, not the least his connections and his father. While I did not like Bush Sr and did not agree with many of his policies, I always thought that the man at least had some idea of the whole. Bush Jr...I am not so sure. I think, while he is not "stupid" he is...well, "dull" might be a good word.
And I also think that those IQ numbers are completely bogus and someone pulled them out their ear. Or other orifice.
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Voronwë the Faithful
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No, no. That's Karl Rove.Then they transform him, without missing a beat, into a megalomaniacal James Bond villain whose aim is to topple our democracy through a labyrinthine web of sinister conspiracies.
"Spirits in the shape of hawks and eagles flew ever to and from his halls; and their eyes could see to the depths of the seas, and pierce the hidden caverns beneath the world."
Also, there is Gardner's Multiple Intelligences theory, which lists 8 or 9 different "types" of intelligence. You can be high in some and weak in others. I am horrendous in intrapersonal (self-evaluation), and thus I will get most bent out of shape with a self-evaluative test like the Myers-Brigg personality test, and am most comfortable with a technical test. Yes, I'd rather take the SAT's than the Myers Brigg...I'm just weird 
.
A traditional evaluation of IQ focuses on reading and math ability. Well, really, "language" - reading, writing, anything verbal or communications. I don't think anyone expects the president of the US to be great at math. Have some functional ability, yes, but if he didn't know calculus we wouldn't be shocked. Language and communications, though, is a bit different, and interpersonal is huge. It all depends how you measure intelligence, and what you require to know about someone before labeling them as "smart."
As soon as you make it standarized, issues come up as to who is setting the standards. Cultural bias is an important one, but you also have to deal with your results. Statistically, men are better than women at the spatial tests. What do we do about that? What does it mean?
. A traditional evaluation of IQ focuses on reading and math ability. Well, really, "language" - reading, writing, anything verbal or communications. I don't think anyone expects the president of the US to be great at math. Have some functional ability, yes, but if he didn't know calculus we wouldn't be shocked. Language and communications, though, is a bit different, and interpersonal is huge. It all depends how you measure intelligence, and what you require to know about someone before labeling them as "smart."
As soon as you make it standarized, issues come up as to who is setting the standards. Cultural bias is an important one, but you also have to deal with your results. Statistically, men are better than women at the spatial tests. What do we do about that? What does it mean?
Voronwë,
Yeah ... I don't think any serious person has suggested that Bush Jr. is where the buck stops in the megalomaniacal villain category. I've got an internet friend who is former gov't and his observation is that the buck doesn't stop with Karl Rove either.
To all, it's not true that the visible leaders can only get to the top of their party through leadership ability. Theory distinguishes, you know, between formal and informal authority. Informal authority will always be inhabited by brains and savvy, but formal authority willl not necessarily be so. We can and do get actual, real, stupid people in the Presidency from time to time (Calvin Coolidge comes to mind) and in lower offices with some frequency, because of the way our political parties are organized.
The true leadership within the party is not going to run candidates that are too difficult to handle, and future candidates tend to be selected and groomed pretty early on, before they've enough experience to have genuine thoughts of their own. Some of them enter the party right out of law school and just say, "here I am, I want to run for office, tell me what my platform should be," knowing that they must present themselves thought-free to the handlers if they want to be a future famous person. I've never participated in the Democratic Party but I was an active Republican for about thirty years and saw this process go into start-up again and again.
The primary process itself is a hoax in most cases. The winner is always selected beforehand in private conference and that's where party money goes, using the primary as pre-election publicity. In the twenty years that I've lived in my current precinct, I've never seen a primary candidate run opposed. If there would be an opponent, he/she would have been told beforehand that they're to be the goat this time around, a facade to make it look as if some kind of democratic process is at work.
This business of losing the primary and running as an independent ... sometimes it's for real because the person is really pissed about something and there's been some factionalization within the party, but most of the time ... how do you think those poor sods pay their campaign costs after they lose? Independents hardly ever win. Do you think anyone is really stupid enough to accrue millions of dollars of debt pursuing a sure loss? Even to run for dog catcher costs a tens of thousands of dollars these days.
The Green Party doesn't have any money, you know. We just run candidates with zero support. We can't even afford those signs they stick on people's lawns. We can't even afford to leaflet neighborhoods or hand out bumper stickers. The whole State party couldn't raise enough money for one television commercial, much less a blitz. Candidacy is all about money, and about informal authority within the established parties.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that if the leader in each generation wants to be grooming successors just a tiny bit stupider than themselves, the average is going to fall, fall, fall over time.
This doesn't explain everything of course, but it explains probably 80% of what we get to vote for. There are also clots of influence that develop sometimes, and I think that the Kennedy family was one such clot and so are the Bushes - wealthy and connected enough, or in the case of the Kennedy's, wealthy and articulate enough to drive the party instead of letting the party drive them. (I'm waiting to hear Voronwë's exposé of the Kennedy assasinations.
I've been hearing some stuff lately that gives me a slightly new perspective on that.)
Anyway ... it's not always what it appears to be. This is not to promote some broad conspiracy theory of government, but to point out how much happens behind the scenes (which anyone can join, of course, just by joining the party and attending the meetings and presenting oneself favorably to the right people) before it reaches the very public eye of a general election.
Jn
Yeah ... I don't think any serious person has suggested that Bush Jr. is where the buck stops in the megalomaniacal villain category. I've got an internet friend who is former gov't and his observation is that the buck doesn't stop with Karl Rove either.
To all, it's not true that the visible leaders can only get to the top of their party through leadership ability. Theory distinguishes, you know, between formal and informal authority. Informal authority will always be inhabited by brains and savvy, but formal authority willl not necessarily be so. We can and do get actual, real, stupid people in the Presidency from time to time (Calvin Coolidge comes to mind) and in lower offices with some frequency, because of the way our political parties are organized.
The true leadership within the party is not going to run candidates that are too difficult to handle, and future candidates tend to be selected and groomed pretty early on, before they've enough experience to have genuine thoughts of their own. Some of them enter the party right out of law school and just say, "here I am, I want to run for office, tell me what my platform should be," knowing that they must present themselves thought-free to the handlers if they want to be a future famous person. I've never participated in the Democratic Party but I was an active Republican for about thirty years and saw this process go into start-up again and again.
The primary process itself is a hoax in most cases. The winner is always selected beforehand in private conference and that's where party money goes, using the primary as pre-election publicity. In the twenty years that I've lived in my current precinct, I've never seen a primary candidate run opposed. If there would be an opponent, he/she would have been told beforehand that they're to be the goat this time around, a facade to make it look as if some kind of democratic process is at work.
This business of losing the primary and running as an independent ... sometimes it's for real because the person is really pissed about something and there's been some factionalization within the party, but most of the time ... how do you think those poor sods pay their campaign costs after they lose? Independents hardly ever win. Do you think anyone is really stupid enough to accrue millions of dollars of debt pursuing a sure loss? Even to run for dog catcher costs a tens of thousands of dollars these days.
The Green Party doesn't have any money, you know. We just run candidates with zero support. We can't even afford those signs they stick on people's lawns. We can't even afford to leaflet neighborhoods or hand out bumper stickers. The whole State party couldn't raise enough money for one television commercial, much less a blitz. Candidacy is all about money, and about informal authority within the established parties.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that if the leader in each generation wants to be grooming successors just a tiny bit stupider than themselves, the average is going to fall, fall, fall over time.
This doesn't explain everything of course, but it explains probably 80% of what we get to vote for. There are also clots of influence that develop sometimes, and I think that the Kennedy family was one such clot and so are the Bushes - wealthy and connected enough, or in the case of the Kennedy's, wealthy and articulate enough to drive the party instead of letting the party drive them. (I'm waiting to hear Voronwë's exposé of the Kennedy assasinations.
I've been hearing some stuff lately that gives me a slightly new perspective on that.)Anyway ... it's not always what it appears to be. This is not to promote some broad conspiracy theory of government, but to point out how much happens behind the scenes (which anyone can join, of course, just by joining the party and attending the meetings and presenting oneself favorably to the right people) before it reaches the very public eye of a general election.
Jn
A fool's paradise is a wise man's hell.
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Túrin Turambar
- Posts: 6160
- Joined: Sat Dec 03, 2005 9:37 am
- Location: Melbourne, Victoria
I’m fairly sure that those numbers are bogus. An IQ of above 140 makes you a super-normal genius, and neither Clinton nor Nixon were geniuses. Both intelligent men, but not super-normal. I agree with yovargas that Bush’ IQ is certainly above 100.Windfola wrote: Bill Clinton's IQ is 182
Nixon's IQ was 155
George H.W. Bush's IQ is 98
George W. Bush's IQ is 91 (!)
Some 99% or more of the population will have an IQ between about 80 and about 140. 100 is average. My own IQ, from testing, is about 130.
I think it is more likely a matter of personality – Bush is not an intellectual type. Some people aren’t.Windfola wrote: I have been very concerned about what seems to me to be George W. Bush's extremely black and white, you're either with us or against us, it's just a matter of killing all the 'bad guys', approach to a world that is a myriad of various shades of grey to me. If it's true that his IQ is only 91, could the two things be related? Could his lack of "intellectual curiosity" as reported by a number of officials who left his administration be a reflection of intellect?
Important, but not the be-all and end-all. FDR was described as having a ‘second-rate intellect, but a first-rate heart’. And intelligence can be hired.Windfola wrote: So my question is, how important is it for our leaders to be smart??
That was the concept behind the Brain Trust, right?
But as for Silent Cal....the only anecdote I know about him is that someone came up to him and said "I have a bet on that I can get you to say more than two words."
To which he responded "You lose."
I know nothing else about him, but he seems to be able to think on his feet, at any rate. Or was able to, when he was alive...
I also would maintain that you could not "diagnose" someone with an IQ of 182 without rigorous testing. As I pointed out earlier, on most standard IQ tests, a perfect score only gives you about a 140 or so. To get a higher score, you must be a very young child. There is no way to diagnose an adult with that score using a traditional IQ test. I have no doubt that Clinton is an intelligent man. But that number has an accuracy of about +/- 75.
But as for Silent Cal....the only anecdote I know about him is that someone came up to him and said "I have a bet on that I can get you to say more than two words."
To which he responded "You lose."
I know nothing else about him, but he seems to be able to think on his feet, at any rate. Or was able to, when he was alive...
I also would maintain that you could not "diagnose" someone with an IQ of 182 without rigorous testing. As I pointed out earlier, on most standard IQ tests, a perfect score only gives you about a 140 or so. To get a higher score, you must be a very young child. There is no way to diagnose an adult with that score using a traditional IQ test. I have no doubt that Clinton is an intelligent man. But that number has an accuracy of about +/- 75
.An IQ of 140 on a Stanford-Binet is genuis-level, but this is not a Stanford-Binet test.
As Mith pointed out, other kinds of intelligences have been identified and people are working to develop measures for them. They're not bogus just because they're not Stanford-Binet, but we do have to be careful not to read the numbers as if they were Stanford-Binet numbers. Jimmy Carter would never measure 182 on a Stanford-Binet - you couldn't find more than a handful of people in the whole country who would measure that high.
160 is the Intertel cut-off for MENSA - the super-genius subgroup within MENSA - and I'm trying to think what proportion this would represent. I believe that one in 250 people test above 125, one in 1000 people above 130 (or 132? - something like that) which is the MENSA cutoff, iirc, and then about 1% of that group tests into Intertel, iirc, ... so that would be one in 100,000. So you might find 3,000 people in the whole country falling into that category?- and of course it tapers even more sharply as you go farther out into the tail.
I believe that 90-110 is one standard deviation on either side of the Standford-Binet mean, so 67% of the population would fall into that range, and my guess is that a similar proportion of political office-holders would fall within that range, too. But I have no idea what the distribution would look like for the method these other guys are using. The variance looks to me considerably greater than that of standard IQ test scores.
Jn
ETA - the above was addressed to Lord M., and Mith and I crossposted so I think she was addressing me.
ETAA: the quote is too short too appear in quotations dictionaries (and it requires context.) It might have been Coolidge - would certainly fit him - and I've simply misremembered it.
As Mith pointed out, other kinds of intelligences have been identified and people are working to develop measures for them. They're not bogus just because they're not Stanford-Binet, but we do have to be careful not to read the numbers as if they were Stanford-Binet numbers. Jimmy Carter would never measure 182 on a Stanford-Binet - you couldn't find more than a handful of people in the whole country who would measure that high.
160 is the Intertel cut-off for MENSA - the super-genius subgroup within MENSA - and I'm trying to think what proportion this would represent. I believe that one in 250 people test above 125, one in 1000 people above 130 (or 132? - something like that) which is the MENSA cutoff, iirc, and then about 1% of that group tests into Intertel, iirc, ... so that would be one in 100,000. So you might find 3,000 people in the whole country falling into that category?- and of course it tapers even more sharply as you go farther out into the tail.
I believe that 90-110 is one standard deviation on either side of the Standford-Binet mean, so 67% of the population would fall into that range, and my guess is that a similar proportion of political office-holders would fall within that range, too. But I have no idea what the distribution would look like for the method these other guys are using. The variance looks to me considerably greater than that of standard IQ test scores.
Jn
ETA - the above was addressed to Lord M., and Mith and I crossposted so I think she was addressing me.
Ahhhh .... that wasn't Calvin Coolidge, was it? Who was that? .... I've heard that quote before but I have to look it up, Mith. I don't believe it was a President at all, I seem to recall it being an author who was infamous for being laconic in public, but I'll try to check it out.To which he responded "You lose."
ETAA: the quote is too short too appear in quotations dictionaries (and it requires context.) It might have been Coolidge - would certainly fit him - and I've simply misremembered it.
A fool's paradise is a wise man's hell.
Wasn't the Lovenstein Institute IQ report debunked awhile ago? 
Here is what Snopes had to say about it.
I personally don't like IQ "scores" at all. You can't put a number on intelligence. An IQ is merely the your score on a test that is one explanation of what intelligence is. So you can be intelligent according to an IQ test, but what does that number say about how you live your life? I have no doubt that innumerable great accomplishments have been made by people who have scored "average" on IQ tests. Conversely, having a high IQ does not mean that you are marked for great things. I can't see what good IQ scores provide except a false sense of intelligence or stupidity. I took an IQ test when I was 7, and I wish that I hadn't, because once I knew my results (several years later) I was far too focused on comparing my score to the scores of others. And how could such rigid self-assessment and forced comparison of a simple number possibly have done me any good whatsoever?
Here is what Snopes had to say about it.I personally don't like IQ "scores" at all. You can't put a number on intelligence. An IQ is merely the your score on a test that is one explanation of what intelligence is. So you can be intelligent according to an IQ test, but what does that number say about how you live your life? I have no doubt that innumerable great accomplishments have been made by people who have scored "average" on IQ tests. Conversely, having a high IQ does not mean that you are marked for great things. I can't see what good IQ scores provide except a false sense of intelligence or stupidity. I took an IQ test when I was 7, and I wish that I hadn't, because once I knew my results (several years later) I was far too focused on comparing my score to the scores of others. And how could such rigid self-assessment and forced comparison of a simple number possibly have done me any good whatsoever?