EverCurious
Gold Member
Actually it's believed that an American named William Sidis had the highest IQ ever, he literally broke the scale available at the time. Many people have gone back and compared the testing and estimated his IQ to be between 250 and 300. He puts me to shame. Another American, Mrs. Savant scored 228 in 1985, she received an entry into the Guinness, if I could be so lucky! Alas, Guinness stopped recording IQ in 1990 deciding that a flat measurement of IQ couldn't really determine a winner for the "smartest person in the world" (I'll touch on that in a second.) Ah well, even so, you're mistaken, there are many folks with an IQ over 200; Chris Langan, Rolf Mifflin, Scott Durgin, and those are just a few of the publicly known American's who score well over 210.
The general premise of an IQ testing scales is not based on some idea that 200 IQ is mythical/magical/unreachable level. It's exactly that kind of thinking that popped Mr. Sidis off the charts. In fact, closer to the opposite is the case, modern IQ tests are developed on the rational of standard deviation, in simpler terms percentiles of the population. An IQ of 200+ is in the 99th percentile, aka 1% of the general population - much like the wealthy are considered to be 1% of the population, you see? If one expands out that estimate to global population of 7,500,000,000 (7.5 billion) then I am one of an estimated 75,000,000 (75 Million) with an IQ over 200. AKA not so rare as one might at first presume.
Now to touch on the debate of the "smartest person in the world" one must understand that IQ is merely one factor to "smarts" - there is spatial, emotional, logical, etc. Many, many factors and disagreements about what can be considered "smart." To example, I score low on emotional IQ due to my synesthesia (I "feel" in color,) in fact, my highest score was a mere 130 - only a thin hair above average. Some would, perhaps rightfully, argue that one cannot be "the smartest person in the world" with such a low emotional aptitude. I am actually accused of 'cheating' in a sense, because I have a near photographic memory, which gives me an 'unfair' advantage on IQ tests. There have been many, many arguments with my intellectual friends over the subject heh (And worse, the argument that a "photographic memory" cannot exsist
Most common IQ tests test reasoning, spatial processing, comprehension, and memory. I'm sure you can see how a near photographic memory automatically gives me a huge advantage, yes? So too do I have an advantage in many aspects of "processing speed" - as I can almost instantly call up a "pattern" I can reach an answer far quicker and more reliably. I can, in a sense, call up massive cheat sheets - multiplication tables just to give the concept some context of easy comprehension. Another large part of the testing is verbal comprehension, which I have dedicated a lot of my time to understanding as a writer - in fact I am master rated in both English comprehension and vocabulary. (As well as verbal communication, but that's not really tested.) I'm a bit of a perfectionist, mildly OCD, which means I quickly pick up on minor visual details. I excel at visual puzzles, Tetris as a simple example. All in all it adds up to a huge advantage.
Does it invalidate my scoring? That depends. If the stated goal is to clock the best score, which has been my primary focus since my 20s... I obviously argue it does not
The general premise of an IQ testing scales is not based on some idea that 200 IQ is mythical/magical/unreachable level. It's exactly that kind of thinking that popped Mr. Sidis off the charts. In fact, closer to the opposite is the case, modern IQ tests are developed on the rational of standard deviation, in simpler terms percentiles of the population. An IQ of 200+ is in the 99th percentile, aka 1% of the general population - much like the wealthy are considered to be 1% of the population, you see? If one expands out that estimate to global population of 7,500,000,000 (7.5 billion) then I am one of an estimated 75,000,000 (75 Million) with an IQ over 200. AKA not so rare as one might at first presume.
Now to touch on the debate of the "smartest person in the world" one must understand that IQ is merely one factor to "smarts" - there is spatial, emotional, logical, etc. Many, many factors and disagreements about what can be considered "smart." To example, I score low on emotional IQ due to my synesthesia (I "feel" in color,) in fact, my highest score was a mere 130 - only a thin hair above average. Some would, perhaps rightfully, argue that one cannot be "the smartest person in the world" with such a low emotional aptitude. I am actually accused of 'cheating' in a sense, because I have a near photographic memory, which gives me an 'unfair' advantage on IQ tests. There have been many, many arguments with my intellectual friends over the subject heh (And worse, the argument that a "photographic memory" cannot exsist
Most common IQ tests test reasoning, spatial processing, comprehension, and memory. I'm sure you can see how a near photographic memory automatically gives me a huge advantage, yes? So too do I have an advantage in many aspects of "processing speed" - as I can almost instantly call up a "pattern" I can reach an answer far quicker and more reliably. I can, in a sense, call up massive cheat sheets - multiplication tables just to give the concept some context of easy comprehension. Another large part of the testing is verbal comprehension, which I have dedicated a lot of my time to understanding as a writer - in fact I am master rated in both English comprehension and vocabulary. (As well as verbal communication, but that's not really tested.) I'm a bit of a perfectionist, mildly OCD, which means I quickly pick up on minor visual details. I excel at visual puzzles, Tetris as a simple example. All in all it adds up to a huge advantage.
Does it invalidate my scoring? That depends. If the stated goal is to clock the best score, which has been my primary focus since my 20s... I obviously argue it does not
