Posted on 10/28/2007 7:25:16 PM PDT by blam
British brains dominate list of living geniuses
By Aislinn Simpson
Last Updated: 1:07am GMT 29/10/2007
Britain has more living geniuses per head of population than anywhere else in the world, according to a new survey which reveals the country's influence on science, technology, business and the arts.
Almost a quarter of those featured in the list of 100 living geniuses are Britons, including Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the world wide web, in joint first place, and physicist Stephen Hawking at seven in the list.
British artists and musicians feature heavily, including Brit Art leader Damien Hirst at number 15, poet Seamus Heaney at 26, playwright Harold Pinter at 31, Sir Paul McCartney at 58, David Bowie at 67, Harry Potter author JK Rowling at 83 and filmmaker Ken Russell at 100.
Sir Richard Branson, the head of Virgin Group, at 49, chimpanzee expert Jane Goodall, at 58, and psychologist Dorothy Rowe, at 72, also made the list.
With 24 Britons in the list, the country has generated one living genius per 2.5 million people – a higher proportion than any other country.
The list, compiled by a panel of six experts in creativity and innovation, is jointly topped by Sir Tim and Albert Hofmann, the Swiss scientist who created the drug LSD.
They are followed by George Soros, the American financier and philanthropist, Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons and Nelson Mandela, the former South African president.
There are also some surprise entrants. Osama Bin Laden ranks at number 43, a spot he shares with Bill Gates, the Microsoft founder and Mohammed Ali, the former world heavyweight boxing champion.
The Americans have 43 geniuses on the list – one per 6.9 million people.
Creators Synectics, a global consultants firm, chose their geniuses by awarding scores out of 10 to each entrant against a number of factors: paradigm shifting; popular acclaim; intellectual power; achievement and cultural importance. The firm emailed 4,000 Britons this summer and asked them to nominate up to 10 living people who they considered geniuses.
They received back 1,100 nominations for individuals in all walks of life, more than 60 per cent of whom were either American or English. Only 60 per cent were still alive.
The panel was then charged with ranking the list in order of genius and to present a resulting shortlist of 100, who were then scored against the five factors.
Nigel Clarke, a managing partner of Synectics UK & Europe, said: "Many people argue that a genius can be defined by their contribution, where it turns conventional thinking on its head.
"I think that Albert Hoffman and Tim Berners-Lee have this in common with the great geniuses of the past.
''Both of them have, in their own way, turned the world that we live in upside down. And it may be that alone that accounts for their acclamation as the world's greatest living geniuses."
Must be the food!
Top 100 living geniuses
Last Updated: 1:06am GMT 29/10/2007
1= Albert Hoffman (Swiss) Chemist 27
1= Tim Berners-Lee (British) Computer Scientist 27
3 George Soros (American) Investor & Philanthropist 25
4 Matt Groening (American) Satirist & Animator 24
5= Nelson Mandela (South African) Politician & Diplomat 23
5= Frederick Sanger (British) Chemist 23
7= Dario Fo (Italian) Writer & Dramatist 22
7= Steven Hawking (British) Physicist 22
9= Oscar Niemeyer (Brazilian) Architect 21
9= Philip Glass (American) Composer 21
9= Grigory Perelman (Russian) Mathematician 21
12= Andrew Wiles (British) Mathematician 20
12= Li Hongzhi (Chinese) Spiritual Leader 20
12= Ali Javan (Iranian) Engineer 20
15= Brian Eno (British) Composer 19
15= Damian Hirst (British) Artist 19
15= Daniel Tammet (British) Savant & Linguist 19
18 Nicholson Baker (American Writer 18
19 Daniel Barenboim (N/A) Musician 17
20= Robert Crumb (American) Artist 16
20= Richard Dawkins (British) Biologist and philosopher 16
20= Larry Page & Sergey Brin (American) Publishers 16
20= Rupert Murdoch (American) Publisher 16
20= Geoffrey Hill (British) Poet 16
25 Garry Kasparov (Russian) Chess Player 15
26= The Dalai Lama (Tibetan) Spiritual Leader 14
26= Steven Spielberg (American) Film maker 14
26= Hiroshi Ishiguro (Japanese) Roboticist 14
26= Robert Edwards (British) Pioneer of IVF treatment 14
26= Seamus Heaney (Irish) Poet 14
31 Harold Pinter (British) Writer & Dramatist 13
32= Flossie Wong-Staal (Chinese) Bio-technologist 12
32= Bobby Fischer (American) Chess Player 12
32= Prince (American) Musician 12
32= Henrik Gorecki (Polish) Composer 12
32= Avram Noam Chomski (American) Philosopher & linguist 12
32= Sebastian Thrun (German) Probabilistic roboticist 12
32= Nima Arkani Hamed (Canadian) Physicist 12
32= Margaret Turnbull (American) Astrobiologist 12
40= Elaine Pagels (American) Historian 11
40= Enrique Ostrea (Philippino) Pediatrics & neonatology 11
40= Gary Becker (American) Economist 11
43= Mohammed Ali (American) Boxer 10
43= Osama Bin Laden (Saudi) Islamicist 10
43= Bill Gates (American) Businessman 10
43= Philip Roth (American) Writer 10
43= James West (American) Invented the foil electrical microphone 10
43= Tuan Vo-Dinh (Vietnamese) Bio-Medical Scientist 10
49= Brian Wilson (American) Musician 9
49= Stevie Wonder (American) Singer songwriter 9
49= Vint Cerf (American) Computer scientist 9
49= Henry Kissinger (American) Diplomat and politician 9
49= Richard Branson (British) Publicist 9
49= Pardis Sabeti (Iranian) Biological anthropologist 9
49= Jon de Mol (Dutch) Television producer 9
49= Meryl Streep (American) Actress 9
49= Margaret Attwood (Canadian) Writer 9
58= Placido Domingo (Spanish) Singer 8
58= John Lasseter (American) Digital Animator 8
58= Shunpei Yamazaki (Japanese) Computer scientist & physicist 8
58= Jane Goodall (British) Ethologist & Anthropologist 8
58= Kirti Narayan Chaudhuri (Indian) Historian 8
58= John Goto (British) Photographer 8
58= Paul McCartney (British) Musician 8
58= Stephen King (American) Writer 8
58= Leonard Cohen (American) Poet & musician 8
67= Aretha Franklin (American) Musician 7
67= David Bowie (British) Musician 7
67= Emily Oster (American) Economist 7
67= Steve Wozniak (American) Engineer and co-founder of Apple Computers 7
67= Martin Cooper (American) Inventor of the cell phone 7
72= George Lucas (American) Film maker 6
72= Niles Rogers (American) Musician 6
72= Hans Zimmer (German) Composer 6
72= John Williams (American) Composer 6
72= Annette Baier (New Zealander) Philosopher 6
72= Dorothy Rowe (British) Psychologist 6
72= Ivan Marchuk (Ukrainian) Artist & sculptor 6
72= Robin Escovado (American) Composer 6
72= Mark Dean (American) Inventor & computer scientist 6
72= Rick Rubin (American) Musician & producer 6
72= Stan Lee (American) Publisher 6
83= David Warren (Australian) Engineer 5
83= Jon Fosse (Norwegian) Writer & dramatist
83= Gjertrud Schnackenberg (American) Poet 5
83= Graham Linehan (Irish) Writer & dramatist 5
83= JK Rowling (British) Writer 5
83= Ken Russell (British) Film maker 5
83= Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov (Russian) Small arms designer 5
83= Erich Jarvis (American) Neurobiologist 5
91=. Chad Varah (British) Founder of Samaritans 4
91= Nicolas Hayek (Swiss) Businessman and founder of Swatch 4
91= Alastair Hannay (British) Philosopher 4
94= Patricia Bath (American) Ophthalmologist
94= Thomas A. Jackson (American) Aerospace engineer 3
94= Dolly Parton (American) Singer 3
94= Morissey (British) Singer 3
94= Michael Eavis (British) Organiser of Glastonbury 3
94= Ranulph Fiennes (British) Adventurer 3
100=. Quentin Tarantino (American) Filmmaker 2
Ironic, isn’t it?
Well, thank you. My real name is on it, but I’ll let you guess!
George Soros? Ahahahahahahahahaha.....
So much for that list.
Dolly Parton??????
not for long..... where’s the ratio and who is determining their immigration policy?
just askin..
101.Bubba (just ask him)
Osama? That’s adorable.
Yeah, it's that tasty halal pork.
Rupert Murdoch?
“...including Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the world wide web,”
I thought Al Gore invented the internet!
Father of LSD. Amazing that he is still with us in this century. Brillant man.
I am a Tarantino fan, but he DOES NOT belong on this list, even at #100.
How can a country that is suppose to be that smart, be so stupid as to let the Religion of Peace dominate it, and cause the Empire to start falling down?
Questions:
Who is on the committee that determines who is a genius?
Do you have to be a genius to get on the committee?
Why is Mr. Bean not on the list?
I refuse to believe any top 100 list that includes Henrik Gorecki but not Albert Gore....or Philip Roth but not David Lee Roth.
Aretha Franklin?
Think!
I’d be more interested in seeing their methodology for the metrics used to compile the list. Somethin’ stinks...
>>>Almost a quarter of those featured in the list of 100 living geniuses are Britons, including Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the world wide web, in joint first place, and physicist Stephen Hawking at seven in the list.
I didn’t know Stephen Hawking was British. He doesn’t sound British.
Whoever put together this list has a different idea of genius than I do.
And Gore’s not even on the list. I think Randi Rhodes needs to get to the bottom of this conspiracy.
What, no Benny Hill?
Signal to stop reading right there!
See what can be accomplished when time isn’t wasted on dental hygiene.
That’s a pretty smelly list. Dario Fo is the greatest contemporary writer? Horse manure.
I don’t recognize half the names, but most of those I do are highly questionable.
Where’s Paris Hilton or Shirley McClaine?
What! Al Gore didn’t make the list?
This is an asinine exercise - it is obvious from a cursory review of names on this list that this is merely a leftist/pop culture interpretation of ‘genius’ - there are so many idiots on that list, and many brilliant scientists, musicians, mathematicians, etc. left off the list. At best this list merely measures notoriety and left-leaning politics.
Harold Pinter ranked #31 in the world???? That alone is enough to show the ranking process is total rubbish.
Is Paul McCartney or Rowling really deserving of a "genius" designation? And Damien Hirst is just a pretentious art-hack weirdo like Schnabel.
Genius is no measure of goodness. This is demonstrated by the presence of Soros and bin Laden on the list. Hitler and Stalin would probably have made the list seventy yeas ago. Lex Luthor and Hannibal Lecter would have made the list if they were not fictional characters.
Stan Lee. The Dalai Lama. I wonder what strain of hemp they were smoking when they put this list together?
Ah yes, the Brits will naturally fare well on a list of geniuses — but the list of Super Geniuses is like a yankee roll call, with the #1 spot held of course by the #1 Super Genius, Mr. Wile E. Coyote.
Osama bin Laden and Paul McCartney but not Michio Kaku??? WTF???
I suspect sampling bias.
Is Paul McCartney or Rowling really deserving of a “genius” designation?
Of course they aren’t. This is just a combination of pop culture icons and a very PC selection of others. On the other hand, as Bubba would say, “It all depends on what the meaning of “genius” is”...
Someone once said that she was not insulted by dumb blonde jokes because she wasn’t dumb, and she wasn’t blonde.
Yup.
If he truly were a genius, he'd be an "ethical predator", rather than an international blight.
And that is just ONE from this misnamed list...
I had a similar thought. Michio is one of my favorites...
what a crock
I think they confuse fame and cleverness with genius. I would guess that maybe 20% of those people are actually geniuses.
From Wikipedia.
George Soros born August 12, 1930, in Budapest, Hungary.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Soros
"British?Why yes, yes I am".
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