The Woman with an IQ of 228

Newsthink is produced and presented by Cindy Pom

Thank you to our Patrons, including:
John & Becki Johnston
Igli Laci
Select images/video supplied by Associated Press and Alamy

Thumbnail source:
Image credit: Ethan Hill

Sources:

Articles and interviews referenced:

[Newsthink]

*What other biographies would you like to see?*

[mediaguardian]

The actual test she took was not standardized and was given unsupervised. And interpolating someone's actual score based on age is flawed. By her own admission, later in her life she retook a supervised test and scored 178 which is still quite high.

[mr.boomguy]

At least this person didn't get royally screwed over by the media. She for the most part lived her own life, and where sure of the answers she replied even when she got hated on. Heck, she seemed like a excellent formulator answering 'not so hard' questions patiently when she could be burning up on the inside of how obvious it should be.

[jimparsons]

Right. Emailed her a few years back, congratulating her on her calm demeaner (I had seen her on this clip), and she emailed me back. I wasn't expecting that. I think that she's lived a good life, had a lot of fun. And solved more than a few problems. Not too much more than you can ask.

[umslkju]

I remember ask Marilyn long time ago.

She was the most intelligent, and emotionally empathetic person you could imagine.

Intelligence is everything. Not just one side, but both sides.

[qwertyFUBAR]

The way Savant brilliantly pointed out that House and Senate majorities determined our fate surely as much as the party of the President at the time, got me thinking that the USA is actually one big Monty Hall Problem. To get the best odds I have switched to the Goat Party.

[reneekatz]

It's always interesting to me how peoples' attitudes are so different towards a male genius and a female genius...

[giuseppeLizzi-rjer]

I think my iq is 80 but it doesn’t bother me

[noreply]

Marilyn vos Savant achieve an IQ score of 228 on a non-standardized IQ test that was unsupervised. untimed and not valid. To her credit, when presented with this fact, she willing took a real IQ test, which was standardized, supervised, valid and reliable. She achieved an IQ of 178

[cabbytabby]

Definitely an outlier. And that’s ok. Intelligence doesn’t mean a better human.

[denimGoldenBlues]

Excellent job shining a light on this incredible person. Statistically and ethically, Marilyn had the right approach to her career choice. Her impact is more significant and less biased in her efforts toward humanity.

[bruhmoment]

I think there is an easier way to explain the door problem. The host picks a door and it is a goat or anything else. Regardless, the probability of the host picking the car in any case is 1/3. If a goat is picked and the host recommends another door the probability of it being right is also 1/3. So, the probability of the other door being correct should be 1 - 1/3 which is 2/3.

[MeAndMyRoyalEnfield]

Enjoyed the video but where is she now in life and what is she doing?

[tagoldich]

“Miss Savant was given an old version of the Stanford-Binet (Terman & Merrill 1937), which did, indeed, use the antiquated formula of MA/CA × 100. But in the test manual’s norms, the Binet does not permit IQs to rise above 170 at any age. So, the psychologist who came up with an IQ of 228 committed an extrapolation of a misconception, thereby violating almost every rule imaginable concerning the meaning of IQs.”

[ecocodex]

IQ is pseudoscience, but she was still smart regardless

[Almneur]

IQ is a number that represents how well she did on a TEST. What was her SAT score? How many patents does she hold? Has she won the Nobel Peace Prize? What is her net wealth? She's obviously very smart and she looks it (hot too) but the Guiness Book of World Records is a dubious reference to the best human achievements in the history of the world.

[Bash]

"she would have pursued a career as a politician". This mentality alone solidified her as a grift. Anyone who views being a politician as a career is an immediate red flag. Plus her dismissive attitude towards pursuing other careers is telling.

[CoD]

There is no such as female logic! GOD I LOVE THIS WOMAN! you apparently have to be a gifted genius to recognize that fact.

[helifynoe]

I perhaps had the lowest IQ in the schools that I had attended. But still, when in my 40's, I managed to independently derive the Special Relativity mathematical equations on my own, despite having dropped out of school and thus also having no prior physics education at all. So the point is, even though you have a nasty low IQ, that still can be misleading.

[pzdc]

What she said about not having anyone to turn to really hit me. I've said things akin to this, many times over the years.

By her metric, there are approximately 12, 000 people on earth who I could turn to. Thankfully, some of them are my friends.

Marilyn is in a uniquely solitary space.