Posted on 05/01/2014 7:17:25 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Does IQ correlate with power? How many powerful people in the U.S. are actually geniuses, and how much does intelligence really affect success?
In one of my research papers published last year, Investigating America's Elite, I set out to address these questions. I collected data on some key groups that greatly influence society: Fortune 500 CEOs, billionaires, federal judges, Senators, and House members.
Individuals were deemed to be in the top 1% of ability if they attended an undergraduate or graduate school that had extremely high average standardized test scores that put the typical person well within the top 1%. Researchers have determined that standardized tests, such as the SAT and ACT, give a reasonably good — yet of course imperfect — measure of a person's general reasoning capacity. For more detail on the method used, including its limitations, please read the full paper, published in the journal Intelligence.
Roughly 40% or more of billionaires, judges, CEOs, and Senators, and 20% of the House were in the top 1% of cognitive ability. Therefore, a large fraction of the U.S. elite are indeed smart and highly educated. This does not mean they are geniuses (I would reserve that term for someone who does mind-bending work like Albert Einstein); but they are really smart.
Moreover, it turns out that even within the highly select groups of Fortune 500 CEOs and billionaires, higher cognitive ability and education was associated with higher compensation and net worth, respectively, supporting the idea that brainpower has a payoff when it comes to certain forms of leadership and performance.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Really, the more amazing story is the large number of people in Congress who are in the bottom quartile... Sheila Jackson-Lee almost certainly has to be one of those. We can all name several others.
Intelligence is nothing without wisdom.
From the standpoint of good governance, however, it is critical that the subject be able to apply their intelligence to the actual realities of this world, as they apply to the situation & interests of those to whom the subjects' duty lie.
Unfortunately, far too many of those who were born with decent intelligence, today--even many in that upper 1%--have been so conditioned, that their fears or compulsions reduce their functional intellect to that comparable to those on the opposite side of the "Bell Curve."
Some years ago, I coined the term "dysrons" to describe this type. They are very evident, every time we see our Government or the news media, go off on a new tangent, which seems inexplicable to anyone with intelligence enough to learn from human experience. These intellectual misfits, regardless of their I.Q.s, are destroying the West.
William Flax
they are also dangerous psychopaths with no morals or character
Also that using these selective, “elite” institutions as a criteria introduces another entire factor.
Even if the education you get at Stanford, Harvard or Yale is no better than at Podunk Jr. College, the people you meet and befriend at those institutions are going to *GREATLY* influence your odds of climbing the ladder; indeed that is the payoff for spending $50K a year - not the education, the connections.
Need proof? A Mensa meeting is all the proof you'd need.
“Us Big Guyz is Smarter Than Youz Little Guyz, So Knuckle Under”
That's exactly what it is.
Fortunately, our oligarchs are true populists whose every thought, word, and deed is for the benefit of the helpless, dispossessed, common man . . . except for those awful rednecks, of course.
Senators smarter than House members? Shows me this whole thing is bogus.
I concur. Here, in WA State, we have Patty Murray. DIM.
Let me get this right. So if you finish last in your class at a top school, you are in the top 1%?
I call bullshit.
“I’d rather be governed by the first 2000 names in the Boston phone book than by the dons of Harvard.”
-—William F. Buckley, Jr.
Washington went back to the farm. Everyone in DC should sent back where they came from.
Methinks JONATHAN WAI must've drank a Big Gulp size glass of the kool aid! If the smartest people run the US, then we've really dumbed down - case in point - Idiot Joe Biden!
Or is your question really, how can I impress Freepers with my outstanding intellect?
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