Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Smarty
Okay, I admit that this hilarious interview segment -- featuring historian Michael Bechloss on the Don Imus show -- first came to my attention via Larry Johnson. It's worth a listen.
After declaring that Obama's IQ is "off the charts," Bechloss proclaims the Lightbringer to be the smartest guy ever elected to the presidency -- smarter than Jefferson, Lincoln, Teddy, FDR, JFK or Clinton.
Based on what? Just how does one arrive at that conclusion?
To your left, you will see the Google Adsense ads which incense some of my enemies because they fetch me a monthly night out at El Torito, a reward undeserved by such a fiend as yours truly. About six months ago, one recurrent ad featured the headline "OBAMA'S IQ IS 130. WHAT'S YOURS?" A short while later -- after the MSM had officially proclaimed Obi to be The One -- a new ad from the same firm fixed his IQ at 145.
Gee. You think maybe these guys are making it up?
145 is high, although it does not give the Lightbringer the right to mutter: "Barack H. Obama -- SUPER genius. I like the sound of that! Barack H. Obama, Sooo-per GEEEE-NIUS!" I have no idea what his actual IQ number might be, but I see nothing to indicate that our new president possesses genius-level brainpower. Is he smart? Of course. Obama is a quick study, he's not afraid to do his homework, and he has cunning. These are fine attributes; they may suffice.
But the smartest of the smarties display evidence of intellectual curiosity. They can't resist showing off the fact that they have read widely. They know a little bit about everything, and their unreachable goal is to know everything about everything. Such individuals, in both formal rhetoric and daily conversation, will spice their phrases with literary and historical allusions.
Here's a literary allusion to illustrate that point.
I've been told that Anthony Burgess (who had as good a right as any man to the title "SUPER genius") spent much of the last year of his life trying to learn Japanese. He knew that he did not have long to live, yet he took on that task. He did so not for the reasons that might motivate you or me -- to translate a certain author, to facilitate a visit to Japan, to watch Urotsukidoji without subtitles covering the tentacles. His motives were impractical, as the world judges practicality. He wanted the knowledge for its own sake. Burgess simply wanted to shove as much as he could into his brain before the brain ceased to function.
Can you imagine Barack Obama taking on that goal, for that motive, in his last year of life?
Have you ever seen any evidence that Obama reads for fun?
Obama's acceptance speech on the night of the election was universally hailed as a masterpiece of eloquence. Nonsense. The speech was boilerplate. A cliche quarry. By the time he got six words into any sentence, I knew how the sentence would end. I can't recall a single truly original or resonant phrase -- and neither, I'll wager, can you.
Even Obama's enemies say that his books display extraordinary literary merit. I disagree. He's a good writer (presuming he did his own writing), but no better than Al Gore or Bill Clinton are (presuming they did their own writing). Are we so starved for intellectual sustenance that we mistake Obama's flank steak for filet mignon?
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25 comments:
Dunno about O's IQ, but I suspect yours is up there.
Who was it who gave us that justest of mots: Colin Powell's "Lord Jim moment"?
Just keep em coming - I love reading a blog that turns a neat phrase for the fun of it.
BonneyAnne
I agree. Obama may be smart although there really isn't any evidence of even that. No transcripts, no SAT scores, no college or Law Review writings, just a couple of hopey-changey books that we are not even sure he wrote. It's like he's smart because everyone says he's smart and that's all there is to it. My guess is people HAVE to think he's smart because he HAS NOTHING ELSE. He has no experience, he has no record, even his "judgement" (which is no longer talked about) is questionable. So he BETTER be smart because if he ain't, we got a president with NOTHING. And a whole lot of people are pinning their hopes on him. When people say Obama is smart, they're trying to reassure themselves; it's not a statement of fact, IT'S A PRAYER!
Excellent point, Joseph. It is the same kind of behavior that a child exhibits when he or she says, "My daddy is the strongest man in the world!"
Kind of adorable in a child, and excusable, given the child's limited frame of reference. But not acceptable behavior for rational adults in a democracy.
And if true, wouldn't you expect them to release his college records, which might reflect his superior intellect? (As he behaved like a monk in Columbia, you would expect he would have a lot of time to study and his grades would be high.) I have had to submit college transcripts for every job I have taken.
djmm
IQ ain't everything.
There are some seriously incompetent and dysfunctional people with very high intelligence quotients per the Stanford Binet test.
The Unabomber, for example.
I'm not grokking the Barry The Genius deal. It's hard to tell from two vehicle books like his -- difficult to know what was the editors and what was him. The excerpts I've read are fine, if self-consciously pompous, but hardly genius. How about this: they're far better writing than Michelle's Princeton thesis, but that's not saying much.
Off the teleprompter and away from the speechwriters, he strikes me as disconnected and repetitive, but that doesn't mean anything, necessarily. He could be highly intelligent and still fumble around until he grasped onto his familiar phrases.
Scholarly writing would likely be the best way to tell one way or the other, but it seems he hasn't produced any. I think mediocre grades are the reason we haven't seen the transcripts. If the grades were amazing, they'd be framed on his podium and hung in Chris Matthews' private bathroom.
His IQ numbers (130 or 145) aren't very exceptional, being around the same as JFK's (119 or so, according to Richard Reeves) and allowing for the Flynn effect (IQ increase of 3 points/decade in all populations).
Ooooh, I spotted a Robert Heinlein word. Might just re-read Stranger in a Strange Land now. Reaching for it as it sits 2 feet from me on my bookshelf. Got it in my hands. Pure intellectual ecstasy. Make a couple more sentences and its so long Cannonfire. I've got the original, uncut version sitting right beside me. Let me admit though that all of Heinlein's work is much better after the editor got his hands on it and Mr. Heinlein made the changes.
Anyway, back to the comments. If they have to tell you someone is smart. They are not. If they have to tell you some one is a hard worker. They are not. If someone has to tell you they are a good lover. They are not. Some things just go without saying. If someone is smart. You know it. If someone works hard. You know it. If someone fu&*s well. You know it. And of course, the corollary is always true.
Frankly,
Forget "grok"
RAH's greatest invention was the waterbed.
Ben Bernanke.
I think the guy might be mildly autistic.
Harry
Okay! So I love the fact he makes that comment re Obie's IQ but then cannot answer it? Could that be because you just pulled that statement out of your ass since you have nothing to base it on? DUH!
Anon 9:19 -- So, I'm curious about this Flynn effect. Let's just say, hypothetically, that back in the '60s there was this kid given an IQ test in school and a week later the Principal showed up at his home to talk to his Mom about the results. And the kid was pushed out of the room so the adults could talk privately. But the kid eavesdropped and although their voices were low, the kid was pretty sure he heard the number 140 something. Hypothetically. What would the number be in today's terms? Flynn-wise?
I get my kudos from attending the same uni and the same courses as a bona fide genius: Prof. Terry Tao, winner of the Fields medal, the mathematical equivalent of the Nobel Prize. Terry taught himself to read and count from Sesame Street. At two he was teaching five year olds to do the same. He started his college mathematics at 11, won the Maths Olympiad at 14, had his masters at 17 and his PhD at 20 when he started teaching at UCLA. In 2006 he won the Fields Medal, one of the youngest winners ever. Good mathematicians might write 5 papers a year -- Tao does 85! In all of this he is amiable, unaffected, genial. That's it about real genius, it's so damn effortless it makes even the best of us look like cretins. Go Terry! Just to have the same teachers is honor enough for me. Talk of genius is always over-rated unless you've seen the real thing.
Of course he's the smartest! And he knows it too!
"I think that I’m a better speechwriter than my speechwriters. I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I’ll tell you right now that I’m gonna think I’m a better political director than my political director."
(Obama - from Ryan Lizza article).
Jimmy Carter has an IQ of 172.
Bill Clinton's IQ is about 180.
Put on your dunce cap, Obama!
I thought the Flynn effect applied to SAT scores, not IQ?
The Flynn effect doesn't adjust like inflation's dollar value. A 1960's kid with 140 IQ is still 140 today. The Flynn effect says a kid born in the 2010s with the same innate cognitive abilities as the 1960s kid should score in the 150s. If you ask me, I think IQ scores since the early 1970s underwent the same sort of paradigm shifting as ground coffee in cans, which became a 12 oz. 'pound' to avoid sticker shock after the collapse of Brazil's coffee crop.
Anon 9:19
I think those IQ scores are very unrealistic. The IQ ranges I am familiar with are:
Low IQ/Mentally Retarded...70 - 79
Dull Normal IQ.............80 - 90
Normal IQ Score............91 - 110
Bright Normal IQ Score.....111 - 120
Superior IQ Score..........120 - 130
Very Superior IQ -
Genius IQ Scores ..........131 and above
Most people in the "very superior to genius" tend to go into the geeky professions, or rather, most people with highly developed math & spatial skills tend to score high on the IQ test.
I seriously doubt even Clinton is an IQ genius, and I think he is probably in the very superior range. I don't see Obama as being anything more than in the superior range, if that.
ruthlessness, hate and opportunism are NOT a source of brilliance, as we have experienced the last 8 long years! IQ is BS anyway - EQ, emotional quotient, tells us about a person's stability, center and ability to care for anything beyond their own narcissistic desires, something neither obama or w seem to have.
Forget IQ, I'm more interested in Obama's LSAT scores and legal writing. His pieces in the Chicago community papers were not what I would call articles that were penned by a genius.
Anyone see Jack Cashill's theory about who wrote Obama's book?
My brother has a high IQ and reads law books for the sheer fun of it. Don't know if he is a genius, but his gift conversation surpasses anything I've ever heard from Obama.
I feel that Obama has always had a profound gift of the Malarkey.
FembotsForObama
Obama isn't all that smart; his wife is smarter than he is by far. And no, he isn't in the league with Carter or Clinton, perhaps the two smartest presidents ever.
Just because somebody went Harvard it doesn't mean anything. Bush did, after all.
"Most people in the "very superior to genius" tend to go into the geeky professions, or rather, most people with highly developed math & spatial skills tend to score high on the IQ test." Which doesn't mean they are smarter; it just means the tests are geared towards those with higher math skills.
Listen to Clinton or Carter and come back and tell me their intellect is just "very superior." Hardly.
I.Q. tests are bunk anyway.
Terence Tao is indisputably a genius. But he didn't "win" the International Mathematical Olympiad. When he got the gold medal, at the amazingly young age of 12 (which no-one has ever equalled), he got the 13th highest score.
People can be trained to get high scores on IQ tests. Doesn't make them more intelligent. Behind the ideology of IQ lies the lie that people are born clever or stupid. They aren't.
b
Interesting debate, mebuckos. I've taught a few certified geniuses and found they had excellent memories, knew lots of big words, and could take tests to beat the band. But none were very good at FPS games and they were not that great at strategy games. Chess, yeah; they could all read chess books and memorize moves. But when it came to open-ended problem solving, they were not as successful, in general, as the dope smoking hippies who could often see problems from much different angles.(Think Kirk in the Corbomite Maneuver).
Sometimes a paradigm shift is more than 20 cents.
Oh. Obama. Just the typical rubbing-his cheek-with the bird finger bullshit artist who will duck any confrontation where two sides are roughly evenly matched. He wins by cheating, not by succeeding.
Speaking of scientific arbitrariness, music's A note above middle C hasn't always been so high, either. It's now tuned to 440 Hz, while "An 1815 tuning fork from the Dresden opera house gives A = 423.2 Hz ..., while one of eleven years later from the same opera house gives A = 435 Hz .... At La Scala in Milan, the A above middle C rose as high as 451 Hz ...".
Wikiwahoo
On what is currently the standard IQ test, 140 is the highest you can score.
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