Duncan Posted October 29, 2004 Share Posted October 29, 2004 More fuel for the fire I suppose. I bet Badnarik has them both beat. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/24/politics/campaign/24points.html Secret Weapon for Bush? By JOHN TIERNEY Published: October 24, 2004 To Bush-bashers, it may be the most infuriating revelation yet from the military records of the two presidential candidates: the young George W. Bush probably had a higher I.Q. than did the young John Kerry. That, at least, is the conclusion of Steve Sailer, a conservative columnist at the Web magazine Vdare.com and a veteran student of presidential I.Q.'s. During the last presidential campaign Mr. Sailer estimated from Mr. Bush's SAT score (1206) that his I.Q. was in the mid-120's, about 10 points lower than Al Gore's. Mr. Kerry's SAT score is not known, but now Mr. Sailer has done a comparison of the intelligence tests in the candidates' military records. They are not formal I.Q. tests, but Mr. Sailer says they are similar enough to make reasonable extrapolations. Mr. Bush's score on the Air Force Officer Qualifying Test at age 22 again suggests that his I.Q was the mid-120's, putting Mr. Bush in about the 95th percentile of the population, according to Mr. Sailer. Mr. Kerry's I.Q. was about 120, in the 91st percentile, according to Mr. Sailer's extrapolation of his score at age 22 on the Navy Officer Qualification Test. Linda Gottfredson, an I.Q. expert at the University of Delaware, called it a creditable analysis said she was not surprised at the results or that so many people had assumed that Mr. Kerry was smarter. "People will often be misled into thinking someone is brighter if he says something complicated they can't understand," Professor Gottfredson said. Many Americans still believe a report that began circulating on the Internet three years ago, and was quoted in "Doonesbury," that Mr. Bush's I.Q. was 91, the lowest of any modern American president. But that report from the non-existent Lovenstein Institute turned out to be a hoax. You might expect Kerry campaign officials, who have worried that their candidate's intellectual image turns off voters, to quickly rush out a commercial trumpeting these new results, but for some reason they seem to be resisting the temptation. Upon hearing of their candidate's score, Michael Meehan, a spokesman for the senator, said merely: "The true test is not where you start out in life, but what you do with those God-given talents. John Kerry's 40 years of public service puts him in the top percentile on that measure." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Predicto Posted October 29, 2004 Share Posted October 29, 2004 I call bullsh*t. No one can have a 1206 SAT score. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kilmer17 Posted October 29, 2004 Share Posted October 29, 2004 Originally posted by Predicto I call bullsh*t. No one can have a 1206 IQ score. snicker. Does anyone else see the irony? Even now that's it changed to read correctly, it's still funny. It WAS possible to have a score not ending in zero until the mid 70s (maybe a bit earlier). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Predicto Posted October 29, 2004 Share Posted October 29, 2004 Dang, you are fast Kilmer! :laugh: My bad. I took the SATs in 1978. Never knew they scored it differently before. OH well... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevenaa Posted October 29, 2004 Share Posted October 29, 2004 Bush may not be quick witted, but anyone who thinks he is unintelligent is a moron. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Predicto Posted October 29, 2004 Share Posted October 29, 2004 By the way, I do not claim to think that GWB is not smart. Although I oppose his reelection, I think that he is very smart, as is every person to sit in the oval office in the last 50 years at least. PS - and I do not acknowledge SAT scores as a true sign of intelligence. If they were, I would be some sort of major genius, because I kicked the SATs butt. However, my total lack of accomplishment since I took the SATs reveals that the SAT score was basically a sham, and I'm just another schlub. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kilmer17 Posted October 29, 2004 Share Posted October 29, 2004 He's certainly not a genius. A genius is someone like Norman Einstein. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BIGGS_DADDY Posted October 29, 2004 Share Posted October 29, 2004 Man the cocaine must have fried his brain cells. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SnyderShrugged Posted October 29, 2004 Share Posted October 29, 2004 Originally posted by Predicto I call bullsh*t. No one can have a 1206 SAT score. Mine was 1300? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pr11fan Posted October 29, 2004 Share Posted October 29, 2004 Backs up what i've been saying for years. Being a good speaker doesn't equal intelligence. It's easy to butcher words when you get nervous doing speeches. I've done it more times than I care to discuss, yet I knew people in highschool who barely passed yet they could smooth talk their way out of anything. Some people are just like that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Predicto Posted October 29, 2004 Share Posted October 29, 2004 No, I was saying that the score had to be given in multiples of 10, not that no one could get as high as 1206. As Kilmer points out, I apparently am wrong about that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kilmer17 Posted October 29, 2004 Share Posted October 29, 2004 Please note, my irony comment was directed at your initial post that it was his IQ. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Predicto Posted October 29, 2004 Share Posted October 29, 2004 Originally posted by Kilmer17 Please note, my irony comment was directed at your initial post that it was his IQ. I know. And it was funny too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hitman56 Posted October 29, 2004 Share Posted October 29, 2004 1206 seems a bit low for Yale. I got 1275 and couldn't even get into UNC. Damn you, connections!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Gichin13 Posted October 29, 2004 Share Posted October 29, 2004 I have seen this article and "analysis" posted a few times. This is pretty bogus analysis ... So is the analysis that attempts to state the Democratic presidents all have high IQs and the Republican presidents low ones that is floating around the net these days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pr11fan Posted October 29, 2004 Share Posted October 29, 2004 Originally posted by Hitman56 1206 seems a bit low for Yale. I got 1275 and couldn't even get into UNC. Damn you, connections!! Friend of mine got accepted to UNC after getting something like 1030 on his sat's, but this was after going to VCU for a year. Plus his dad graduated from UNC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iheartskins Posted October 29, 2004 Share Posted October 29, 2004 All that the SAT's are supposed to show is that someone has the potential to succeed in college. They are not a bona-fide test of intelligence. Secondly, obviously, Bush's connections has something to do with his admission at Yale, but at that time there were far fewer people applying to college. Still being a member of the good ole boys has always, and probably will always give one a step up in the world. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Predicto Posted October 29, 2004 Share Posted October 29, 2004 Originally posted by iheartskins All that the SAT's are supposed to show is that someone has the potential to succeed in college. They are not a bona-fide test of intelligence. Secondly, obviously, Bush's connections has something to do with his admission at Yale, but at that time there were far fewer people applying to college. Still being a member of the good ole boys has always, and probably will always give one a step up in the world. Back in the mid-60s, connections were everything in Ivy League admissions, everything. Bush got in to Yale because of his connections, and so did Kerry. Don't kid yourselves. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duncan Posted October 29, 2004 Author Share Posted October 29, 2004 Originally posted by Gichin13 I have seen this article and "analysis" posted a few times. This is pretty bogus analysis ... So is the analysis that attempts to state the Democratic presidents all have high IQs and the Republican presidents low ones that is floating around the net these days. I imagine the IQ tests the two took in the military are public record. Don't you think the unofficial news division of the Kerry campaign looked up the facts on this one before it graced their website? You claim its bogus. Prove it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iheartskins Posted October 29, 2004 Share Posted October 29, 2004 Originally posted by Predicto Back in the mid-60s, connections were everything in Ivy League admissions, everything. Bush got in to Yale because of his connections, and so did Kerry. Don't kid yourselves. I am not kidding myself. My stepdad went to a prep school up in New Hampshire and then on to Yale (C of '58). So did about a third of his class. The other two thirds were equally split between Princeton and Harvard. I was never contesting that connections were crucial, only that at that time it was much easier to admit people based on legacy/connections at that time because there were so many fewer people applying to college in general. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Predicto Posted October 29, 2004 Share Posted October 29, 2004 Agreed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atloldskin Posted October 30, 2004 Share Posted October 30, 2004 The point is that both man are pretty smart. Bush is not a dummy and Kerry is not a genius. Maybe the media will finally report the news one day! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stu Posted October 30, 2004 Share Posted October 30, 2004 Originally posted by Hitman56 1206 seems a bit low for Yale. I got 1275 and couldn't even get into UNC. Damn you, connections!! The scoring of SAT's has been manipulated a bit over the years. While I am not sure of the actual magnitude of difference, scores today are somewhat inflated and don't compare on a point for point basis with scores of old. So, a 1206 in that era was in effect "higher" than your 1275. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thiebear Posted October 30, 2004 Share Posted October 30, 2004 When Kerry was asked he said how would anyone know his records were not available for people to see... Doesnt that go against him saying all his records were out there? They are both part of the good ole boy system of the 70's... Neither are stupid and both know exactly what they say when they say it... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkinsNumberOne Posted October 30, 2004 Share Posted October 30, 2004 Originally posted by Stu The scoring of SAT's has been manipulated a bit over the years. While I am not sure of the actual magnitude of difference, scores today are somewhat inflated and don't compare on a point for point basis with scores of old. So, a 1206 in that era was in effect "higher" than your 1275. I thought "recentering" was an adjustment made to better reflect the current society's intelligence? Just like the IQ has ratings associated with scores (i.e. 100 is average or something), I think the SAT has some concept of that as well- if you score a 500 on either test, your performance is considered "average" - the recentering they do every so often is the adjustment of that average as years pass. In other words, the SATs (and IQ tests for the same reason, I'd imagine) are probably not very comparable across multiple years, and they aren't meant to be. They (presumably/supposedly) measure your intelligence against your peers only. source about the 500=average: http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/sat/scores/understanding.html relevant quote: For example, if you scored close to the mean or average-about 500 on SAT verbal and 500 on SAT math-admission staff would know that you scored as well as about half of the students who took the test. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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