Re: Is IQ usefully predictive? (and not in this case)

From: Brian Phillips (deepbluehalo@earthlink.net)
Date: Sun Aug 26 2001 - 05:48:15 MDT


Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2001 13:22:42 -0400
From: "John Clark" <jonkc@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Is IQ usefully predictive? (and not in this case)

<The man with the highest IQ ever may have been a fellow by name of
William James Sidis (1898-1944). Sidis's IQ can only be approximately
known even though he took many IQ tests, the tests were just not up to
the task, he was off the charts. Abraham Sterling, director of New York
City's Aptitude Testing Institute said " he easily had an IQ between 250
and 300, I have never heard of anybody with such an IQ. I would say
that he was the most prodigious intellect of our entire generation".

So what did this "prodigious intellect" accomplish in his 46 years?
He wrote a book about streetcar transfers, that's about it.
It seems high IQ and genius are not quite synonymous.

    John K Clark jonkc@att.net>

W.J. Sidis is an anomalous example. You can be highly
intelligent but emotionally unstable..which is often the case
when you have no real friends, only detractors and sycophants.
I understand Sidis book on transfers is considered brilliant,
if rather..ahem..focused. BTW While I wouldn't say this
about most superheavyweights in the IQ game... Sidis was
so brilliant I would have to ask... what did he do that he
never wrote down or shared? You're ignoring the substantial
possibility that he was just disinterested in interacting enough
to demonstrate what he had accomplished.
  Look at all the problems Mr. Tesla had at the social level.

brian



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 12 2001 - 14:40:15 MDT