Editor’s Note: Apparently, this is an urban legend. I thought it was funny, but on a serious note I don’t think you could measure IQ purely based on writings and speaking. Moreover, as much as I think GWB is not the best president, I don’t think IQ is necessarily related to job performance. I wanted to have a debate about that in the comments section, but it’s pointless to debate a hoax.
From the Lovenstein Institute:
According to statements in the report, there have been twelve presidents over the past 60 years, from F. D. Roosevelt to G. W. Bush who were all rated based on scholarly achievements, writings that they alone produced without aid of staff, their ability to speak with clarity, and several other psychological factors which were then scored in the Swanson/Crain system of intelligence ranking. The study determined the following IQs of each president as accurate to within five percentage points:
147 Franklin D. Roosevelt (D) 132 Harry Truman (D) 122 Dwight D. Eisenhower (R) 174 John F. Kennedy (D) 126 Lyndon B. Johnson (D) 155 Richard M. Nixon (R) 121 Gerald R. Ford (R) 176 James E. Carter (D) 105 Ronald W. Reagan (R) 98 George H. W. Bush (R) 182 William J. Clinton (D) 91 George W. Bush (R) The six Republican presidents of the past 60 years had an average IQ of 115.5, with President Nixon having the highest IQ, at 155. President G. W. Bush was rated the lowest of all the Republicans with an IQ of 91.
The six Democrat presidents had IQs with an average of 156, with President Clinton having the highest IQ, at 182. President Lyndon B. Johnson was rated the lowest of all the Democrats with an IQ of 126.
No president other than Carter (D) has released his actual IQ, 176. Among comments made concerning the specific testing of President GW Bush, his low ratings were due to his apparent difficulty to command the English language in public statements, his limited use of vocabulary (6,500 words for Bush versus an average of 11,000 words for other presidents), his lack of scholarly achievements other than a basic MBA, and an absence of any body of work which could be studied on an intellectual basis.
The complete report documents the methods and procedures used to arrive at these ratings, including depth of sentence structure and voice stress confidence analysis. “All the Presidents prior to George W. Bush had a least one book under their belt, and most had written several white papers during their education or early careers.
Not so with President Bush,” Dr. Lovenstein said. “He has no published works or writings, so in many ways that made it more difficult to arrive at an assessment. We had to rely more heavily on transcripts of his unscripted public speaking.”
i have to wonder if there isnt some bias against a texas accent in this measure!
I think this might be a hoax, or at least Go visit Snopes. seems to think so.
Unless this is posted as a joke that went over my head, in which case, carry on.
i have to wonder if there isnt some bias against a texas accent in this measure!
How about a fake Texas accent? I grew up in Texas. My mother’s family is from Texas. None of us sounds remotely like GWB. He has a Hollywood Texas accent and I’m suprised that everyone in Texas didn’t vote against him just for that.
I’m also skeptical of the claim that Reagan had an IQ over 100. Probably test error.
sorry for the messy link
http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/hoaxes/presiq.htm
LOL!! I think it was funny. I didn’t know it was a hoax, but I put it up as humor.
I grew up in Tx too, and agree that GWB is also a hoax Texan. Those folks are from CT.
I am the first to say Bush is an idiot. And I would have no trouble believing that he has the lowest IQ of recent presidents, but the numbers themselves seem a little sketchy to me. I don’t know that they can accurately predict IQ based on what they measured.
I also don’t think IQ is necessarily the best measure of intelligence.
Jesus, did it snow in hell today? I just defended GW – sort of.
LOL!! Kate, but I actually agree with you. Since it is apparently a hoax, I need to put a statement in the header.
A hoax Texan–that’s a good point. LOL!! He’s a CT Yankee.
Oh yeah, I agree it’s funny, totally.
President Bush is not particularly articulate, but I wouldn’t say he was stupid. Especially considering that he got pretty good grades at Yale and learned to fly a jet fighter. People often confuse being articulate with being intelligent, and being inarticulate with being stupid.
RonF – I agree with you to an extent. You have no idea the amount of BS I have gotten away with in my life because I’m an articulate and confident speaker. It’s a little sad, actually.
Not to say that I’m unintelligent (I happen to be both intelligent and articulate) but I think I am questioned less frequently because I am articulate.
That being said, I have to say that I think being in public office is one of those jobs where being an articulate speaker is pretty important. Like it or not, those kinds of things matter to the rest of the world and without it, I’m afraid GW comes off as a good bit dumber than he might actually be (though, I also think he’s a stubborn fool without the sense God gave a walnut…).
Yeah, I actually think that being dismissed as an idiot is sort of part of Bush’s strategery. After all, the people who vote for him don’t really care that he lacks all that fancy educated talkin’, and it leads his opponents to misunderestimate him.
I don’t think he’s an idiot. I think he’s an intellectually incurious blowhard without an accurate sense of his own limitations.
Kate L., I agree, and have stated on numerous right-wing blogs, that the President’s inarticulateness makes him deficient as a leader. A leader, especially someone who is at the level of the President of the United States, should be very articulate and able to communicate his thoughts and vision in a clear and concise way. Presidents Clinton and Reagan are good examples of this. If you can’t do that, you’re not going to be an effective leader.
It also only considers verbal intelligence, which is not the only factor usually used in IQ tests. Mathematical or abstract reasoning is not measured at all.
Obviously, some of these remarks are being made based on some of the inanities
that have gone on on race and IQ on the nospeedbumps web site blog. My problem
with TJ Hooker and his reference to Dr. Lynn is that I got my doctoral degree
in a brain research environment with a heavy emphasis in evolutionary
psychology (my formal Ph.D. was in brain physiology and I had an NSF
predoctoral fellowship) and I have never heard of this “reknown” Dr. Lynn.
Intelligence does exists. The important point is to recognize the limitations of
intelligence testing as well as its usefulness as a adjunctive tool in the educational
system.
Too bad this is a hoax because y’all really do have some interesting comments. LOL!!
That anyone still takes IQ numbers seriously, now that is funny–almost. As if the complexity that is intelligence could be reduced to a single number, and as if the tests I have seen measured even half of what a person can do. I have never been able to follow the political situation in any detail, but what Myca said abt. Bush sounds true. Incurious, no sense of own limitations–not a good sign. That a person can wangle themselves into such a high position shows some social smarts/talents, but there are others that seem to be missing.
This is a very old hoax . As I mentioned at Rachelstavern , Bill Press fell for this and printed a retraction . Consider the actual “science” behind the “study” . It would be extremely racist to say the least .
GW *IS* an Idiot.
See, the republican party is engaged in some, er,politics (note euphimism) that could be considered inhumane, cunning, shifty, diabolical, etc.
The last thing a diabolical group of rich white prodestant landowning males can be accused of is stupidity.
SO, what better move than to put a dumbass who takes orders in charge and make the opposition look like a bunch of guttersniping bullies who care more about mocking the president for his speech impediments than making a better future for our children…
Anyone remember the hoax that purported to show the IQ distribution by state, with blues at the top and reds at the bottom? That one was a hoax too. Most people who have tried to influence social policy, even at the most minute level, with blathering by IQ, have turned out to be charlatans. And by ‘most’ I mean all.
This urban legend meme makes my poor psychology major head hurt. Bush may seem dumb, but iff he were only at a 91 it would be much more obvious. Similarly, if Clinton was a 182 it would be more obvious. IQ can only be determined through an IQ test, not through casual observation. Verbal intelligence is not the only thing that makes up IQ.
It could be a great test questuion in a 101 class: Name 5 reasons why this data is probably incorrect.
Eisenhower was “dumb as a stump”
Scratch that. Nixon was a moron. (and evil to boot)
Never mind. Gerald Ford. Now there was a man who was a congenital idiot! (Just look at all the Chevy Chase SNL sketches)
Wait a second here. Reagan. Now there was a man who was an aimiable dunce.
Hold on, Bush, Sr. Dumbest President ever. Outdone in stupidness only by his VP Quayle.
Wait a second here. Bush, Jr. Now there is a man who is the dumbest President, Dumbest man alive.
You know, the Presidencies change, but the rhetoric of the left does not. Time to get a new songbook, kiddies. It isn’t the 1930s anymore.
One of my friends (sadly, now deceased) knew George W. Bush from his time down in Texas. Comment was “he’s the stupidest man I’ve ever met.”
“One of my friends (sadly, now deceased) knew George W. Bush from his time down in Texas. Comment was “he’s the stupidest man I’ve ever met.”
Your friend was condescending. I assume your friend thought very highly of himself, better than others, that he himself was quite smart, intelligent and that his bleep didnt smell. I too knew Geoprge W. Bush from his time down in Texas,( inlcuding the time he was Governor), and while I would not call him the “smartest” man I ever met, he was certainly not the stupidest man I ever met. I’d say he was about average, intelligence wise.
It also only considers verbal intelligence, which is not the only factor usually used in IQ tests. Mathematical or abstract reasoning is not measured at all.
More to the point, emotional intelligence should be a key characteristic for a leader.
Anyone who mocks a death-row inmate to a reporter has problems.
“More to the point, emotional intelligence should be a key characteristic for a leader.”
Ayyyy… the whole ‘EQ’ deal. It doesn’t mean what some people think it does. Initially, the concept of ’emotional intelligence’, or EQ, dealt with the ways the brain can function better at certain stages of emotion; emotion and reason are not necessarily at odds. (The Romantic poets are retroactively out of a job.) So what it measured was a specific, limited factor dealing with certain areas of cognition, but it has blown up into this watered down pop culture notion that EQ is synonymous with any social or leadership skill. It’s a sad state, really, that something has to be called (inaccurately) an ‘intelligence’ in order for it be considered a real virtue, which is probably the only real thing we learned from this whole flap.
Not to seem like a fisker or anything; that was just free association.
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