Presidential IQs...

IQ doesn't necessarily mean a lot. It represents potential, to be sure. I say this knowing a guy who registered over 175 and barely got through high school, never got through college, lives off other people and barely makes any $$$ on his own. Yes, he has great potential, but if he doesn't use what he has, what good is it?

I'd rather have somebody who knows how to get the job done, even if he hasn't got as much potential as somebody who won't get off his butt to use what he does have.

It reminds me of a story I once heard about a guy who starved to death and when his body was found, it was found laying atop a mattress in which he'd stuffed several thousand dollars. He couldn't be bothered to spend the money to buy food to eat.

I agree Marty that "IQ doesn't necessarily mean a lot."

About all it can consistently predict is whether or not someone has the capacity to learn in an academic environment. And I think that a leader of a Great Nation like the U.S. should be able to do that. After all, basic learning skills are needed to make use of the vast amounts of information one must digest in order to make good decisions.

Logic is a much overated word it only tells part of the story of a persons makeup.

MO
User ID: 77266
4/15/2006 3:41 PM

Re: "Logic is a much overated word it only tells part of the story of a persons makeup."
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Perhaps MO. But the capacity for skills of Reason & Logic affect most, if not all, other aspects of a person's makeup to some degree...such as the capacity of moral/ethical reasoning.

Yes, it DOES say it all...

It SAYS that Bush's "IQ" is an extrapolated number...

in other words... utter bullshit. I can 'extrapolate' that his IQ is 7 quintillion.

Also, this debunked piece of crap is so old.. I have to say..

Welcome to last year.

Quit true Sinanju nli, you can. The researchers are quite up front about how they come to their conclusions. Such extrapolations are not accurate...note their overestimation of Clinton's IQ.

I apologize to those who find this old news. I missed it. I am sure some other people may have missed it, too. I did try a quick search to see if it was posted previously, but couldn't find it. But sometimes I just can't see for looking.

"note their overestimation of Clinton's IQ."

I have to disagree. Clinton WAS and IS a very smart man. He should have listened to his head(the one on his SHOULDERS) instead of his wife and her 'advisors'. I assumed they underestimated their approxiamation.

I also feel that people 'misunderestimate' Bush.

President Bush Has Lowest IQ of all Presidents of past 50 Years
If late night TV comedy is an indicator, then there has never been as widespread a perception that a president is not intellectually qualified for the position he holds as there is with President GW Bush.

In a report published Monday, the Lovenstein Institute of Scranton, Pennsylvania detailed its findings of a four month study of the intelligence quotient of President George W. Bush.

Since 1973, the Lovenstein Institute has published it's research to the education community on each new president, which includes the famous "IQ" report among others.

According to statements in the report, there have been twelve presidents over the past 50 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 Ford (R)
175 .. James E. Carter (D)
105 .. Ronald Reagan (R)
098 .. George HW Bush (R)
182 .. William J. Clinton (D)
091 .. George W. Bush (R)


or, in IQ order:

182 .. William J. Clinton (D)
175 .. James E. Carter (D)
174 .. John F. Kennedy (D)
155 .. Richard M. Nixon (R)
147 .. Franklin D. Roosevelt (D)
132 .. Harry Truman (D)
126 .. Lyndon B. Johnson (D)
122 .. Dwight D. Eisenhower (R)
121 .. Gerald Ford (R)
105 .. Ronald Reagan (R)
098 .. George HW Bush (R)
091 .. George W. Bush (R)


The six Republican presidents of the past 50 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."

The Lovenstein Institute of Scranton Pennsylvania think tank includes high caliber historians, psychiatrists, sociologists, scientists in human behavior, and psychologists. Among their ranks are Dr. Werner R. Lovenstein, world-renowned sociologist, and Professor Patricia F. Dilliams, a world-respected psychiatrist.

This study was commissioned on February 13, 2001 and released on July 9, 2001 to subscribing member universities and organizations within the education community.



Origins: No,
this isn't a real news report, nor does it describe a real study. There isn't a "Lovenstein Institute" in Scranton, Pennsylvania (or anywhere else in the USA), nor do any of the people quoted in the story exist, because this is just another spoof that was taken too seriously.

The article quoted above began circulating on the Internet during the summer of 2001. In furtherance of the hoax, later that year pranksters thought to register www.lovenstein.org and erecting a web site around it in an attempt to fool people into thinking there really was such an institute.

The piece is simply a political jibe, made obvious by its ranking all the Democratic presidents of the last several decades as having high (even exceptionally high) IQs — note that Bill Clinton's IQ is listed as being exactly twice George W. Bush's — while ranking all the Republican presidents from the same time frame as average to moderate in intelligence, with the current president and his father assigned below-average figures placing them at the very bottom of the list. (President Nixon is the sole exception, presumably because his reputation is still so tarnished that not even a high IQ measurement can yet redeem him in the court of public opinion.)

[Some noticeable errors: Although the study includes Franklin D. Roosevelt, who died in office in 1945, the report is described as covering presidents in office "over the past 50 years." Also not true is the claim that "all the Presidents prior to George W. Bush had a least one book under their belt" — some of them authored no books until after becoming president, and George W. Bush did have a book to his credit before being elected president, 1999's A Charge to Keep. Plus, if there's a "Swanson/Crain" system for ranking intelligence, nobody else seems to have heard of it.]

In any case, IQ is a dodgy enough concept even when measured by tests designed for the purpose — trying to guess not just relative rankings but specific IQ scores based solely on writings and speeches is bound to be error-prone. Based on President George H. Bush's extemporaneous speech-making, for example, he couldn't "speak with clarity" to save his life, but he was clearly far more intelligent than the insultingly low IQ assigned to him above. And a recent article reports President Kennedy's IQ as 119, far below the genius-level 174 ascribed to him here.

Update: As obvious as this joke was, at least two publications were taken in by it: The [London] Guardian and the New Zealand Southland Times. Both ran the "Presidential I.Q." tale as a factual item (on 19 July and 7 August 2001 respectively). The Associated Press publicized The Guardian's error on 12 August, moving The Guardian to post a retraction on 14 August, and U.S. News & World Report clearly reported the I.Q. item as a hoax on 20 August, 2001.

Gary Trudeau's 26 August 2001 Doonesbury comic strip features an invisible George W. Bush being told about his ranking on the presidential I.Q. ladder by an underling. (This strip appeared on the Doonesbury web site on 2 September 2001).

Last updated: 15 July 2004


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-------------------------------------------------------------​-------------------
Sources:
Bedard, Paul. "Navy Cringes at Heroic Tales."
U.S. Newes & World Report. 20 August 2001 (p. 8).

Dyer, Gwynne. "Lack of Strategic Vision and IQ Apparent in the White House."
The [New Zealand] Southland Times. 7 August 2001 (p. 6).

Norman, Matthew. "Comment & Analysis."
The [London] Guardian. 19 July 2001 (p. 22).

Norman, Matthew. "Comment & Analysis."
The [London] Guardian. 14 August 2001 (p. 14).

The Associated Press. "London Paper Quotes Apparently Nonexistent Scranton Think Tank."
13 August 2001.

Well, one thing IS certain.

Command of and proper use of the English language is highly indicative of intellectual capacity. (for native English speakers)

We think in words. We communicate in words. If language skills are poor, then so is the individual's capacity for logic, reason and communication.





Room temp.

SNOPES.COM
User ID: 500
4/15/2006 4:10 PM

Thanks Snopes for bringing this to my attention. I appreciate it.

Then as a spoof, it still does it's job!

"Command of and proper use of the English language is highly indicative of intellectual capacity."

Indeed it is.. however, I have contended for a while that Bush's "bushisms" are on purpose.

Recent reports indicate that the President is much much more proper with his language when off camera.

A bit Machiavellian if you ask me.

>>>A bit Machiavellian if you ask me.<<<

I hope that is so...

But the Bushisms make me cringe.

IQ means a lot.

"But the Bushisms make me cringe."

Laugh at them and use them yourself.

If people 'misunderestimate" you then itis easier to go 'nukulur' on them... especially on the 'internets'.

So FIND the 'Lovenstein Institute'.

Find it ANYWHERE.

Oh, by the way, By, the Lovenstein Institute says YOUR IQ is 3.5, I saw it on their website.

For those of you who are like me--a bit behind on these satire runs...

I see that The Lovenstein Institute group has a website with such article titles as:

"Bush rests comfortably after surgery to implant pacemaker in brain

Thanks to a device similar to the one in Vice President Dick Cheney's heart, the nation has healthy, clear-thinking, plain-speaking leaders again."

[link to lovenstein.org]

Iq does mean a lot, I am at 135iq and I dont find myself hanging out with many low IQed people they are too busy at hard labor jobs. I started my own successful company, thats the difference between people with low Iqs they dont have vision or aspire for higher goals.

and low iqed represent the cops and the military also, nobody over 110 in those fields, they would question too much. Cops and the military are the only 2 jobs that being dumb is considered a desirable attribute.

AC55380.

>>cops and the military also, nobody over 110 in those fields<<


YOU ARE SO FULL OF SHIT!

You have absolutely no idea of the reality going on around you...

Contrary to your make-believe world, the proportions of below average- average - above average IQ individuals are the same in all walks of life.

Take statistics 101.

I have a hard time believing Reagan's IQ was over 100

What about Stalin, Hitler and Mao?
What about Tony Blair and Vladimer Putin for that matter, how smart are those guys?