Sunday 6 March 2016

Presidential Genius

One thing you would hope for a leader is intelligence, you would think twice about handing the reins of your economy over to a person who had L and R printed on their shoes but before he pulled out of the Presidential race Ben Carson argued that when it comes to being a good President, 'the thing that is probably most important is having a brain'.
While a high IQ does not guarantee success in the race to be President, it is true that intelligence is often associated with effective leaders. But does that trend hold true for former U.S. Presidents? Are the most successful American presidents also the most intelligent?
Armed with that question, InsideGov ranked the smartest presidents in U.S. history, using historiometric methods to estimate each President’s IQ, analysing information from their biographies and writings.
Between a score of 120-140 which comes with the label of 'superior intelligence' we find George Washington (132.5) and Abraham Lincoln (140).
The top 10 are all above 140 and come under the heading of 'Genius' so the most intelligent men to have ever been able to call themselves President are:

1 John Quincy Adams 168.8
2 Thomas Jefferson     153.8
3 John F Kennedy       150.7
4 Bill Clinton              148.8
5 Woodrow Wilson     145.1
6 Jimmy Carter           145.1
7 John Adams             142.5
8 Theodore Roosevelt 142.3
9 James Garfield         141.5
10 Chester A Arthur   141.5

Seeing some names on the list, looking at you number 4, some people must just seem very stupid or do some incredibly stupid things when actually they are apparently a genius.

3 comments:

Liber - Latin for "The Free One" said...
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Falling on a bruise said...

Jfk never struck me as a genius and bill Clinton definitely never. Don't know much about jimmy carter except he was a peanut farmer and never had a conflict under his administration. The rest I have no idea about

Liber - Latin for "The Free One" said...
This comment has been removed by the author.