How smart should a President be?

Following up on my previous post, I would like you all to consider a simple question: how smart should a President be? Also, I would like you to consider a related question: how smart should a politician be?

To give you a scale to measure your intuitive answer against, perhaps you would like to think in the following way. A moderately gifted person, in a population with a mean IQ of 100 (typical for Western countries, or thereabouts), would have an IQ of 130. This occurs with a rarity of 1 in 44. In other words, the moderately gifted child, in an ordinary, average school, is probably the brightest child in the class. A highly gifted child, in a population of mean IQ 100, has an IQ of 145. This occurs with a rarity of 1 in 741 (with a standard deviation of 15, typical of the West). In other words the child with an IQ of 145, is probably the brightest child in an ordinary school, or thereabouts. An exceptionally gifted child has an IQ of 160. This occurs only in 1 in 31,560 people. So a child with this IQ, would probably be the brightest child any teacher in the school, has ever seen, in their entire careers. Alternatively, this child would be the brightest person in a fairly average sized suburban town area. A profoundly gifted child, in the same population, would have an IQ of 180. This occurs only once in 20,696,863 people, according to IQ rarity charts (though in practice it could be as high as, perhaps, one in a million). Such a child would be the brightest of his generation, in some nations. Alternatively, they would be the brightest person in a very large "mega city". It is interesting to note that, one step further than this, the brightest person in America is likely to be around an IQ of 187, which occurs once in 300 million, or so, people, according to the ideal normal statistical distribution of IQ. (Again, however, in the real world this is likely be an underestimate, for the reason that IQ is trimodal, it seems, not normal). Incidentally, the brightest person in the world, by this method of estimating, would be about an IQ of 195 which occurs ideally once in 8.3 billion. (Again, an underestimate of real world IQs.)

Now, the question is: what is the most appropriate level of IQ for the President of the United States (or any other nation)? Furthermore, what is the appropriate level of IQ for any politician of any level, as a minimum entry requirement? Please give your views in the comments section below.

Should a President be the intellectual equivalent of the brightest person in class (IQ 130); the brightest person in school (IQ145); the brightest person in a town (IQ 160); the brightest person in a mega city (IQ 180); the brightest person in America (IQ 187) or the brightest person in the world (IQ 195)?

Posted by Valentine Cawley

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Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is athttp://www.genghiscan.com/This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)

A vote for President.

About four or five months ago, on a whim, I asked Tiarnan, four, an unexpected question.

“Who is smarter?” I began, catching his attention by the suddenness of my question.

His curious eyes peered up at me, in expectation.

“Daddy, or the President of America?”, I continued.

“Daddy!”, he said without even a millisecond of hesitation, as if nothing else could possibly be true.

It was sweet to hear his certainty, but then his certainty led me to reflect: not only was it most likely to be true of me, but true, too, of millions of people around the world. There are almost certainly enough people smarter than President Obama, to populate a very large country with…yet, he is President, and they are not. Is this right? Is this wise?

The question here is: should the President of America (or any other nation) be among the brightest of the bright? From the point of view of understanding the issues and making wise decisions, I would say that the brighter they are, the better. Obama has, for instance, in my view, made decisions that show a lack of moral intelligence: he just doesn’t grasp the issues deeply enough to see the essential moral problems of the questions he is called upon to answer…so he gives immoral answers (Google my prior posts on Obama and ethics). However, there is one problem: leaders have to lead – and, in practical terms, people don’t tend to follow someone who is too much brighter than they are – because they just don’t understand them.

The rule of thumb is that a leader should not be more than 30 IQ points smarter than the led, to permit effective communication. This certainly holds in the case of Singapore, for Lee Kuan Yew admitted in one interview on TV that his IQ was in the 120s…this would place him above average and still able to communicate to his followers, but does mean that he is most certainly not the brightest of the bright. He is just good enough to guide a majority of people – which is all you need in politics.

So, Obama has a brain. Yes. However, it is not the best of brains. It is an adequate one – one that allows him to bring to him, the greatest proportion of the electorate. Were Obama much brighter, he would probably have not been elected, for his way of thinking would be too opaque and unreachable to his electorate. Thus, America will have to be satisfied with Obama, the above average. Unless the electoral system changes, there will never be an “Obama the genius”, in American democratic politics.

That is why the world is the way it is. The very bright sit at home and wonder at the stupidity of the decisions made by politicians who are only bright enough to do their jobs, moderately well, at best. The very bright rarely get the chance to play a role in such arenas, simply because of the way they communicate with the world. Only if we moved away from the present form of democratic governments, would this ever be likely to change.

Until then, little children the world over, can rightfully declare their Daddies to be cleverer than the President of the United States – and in many cases, it would actually be true.

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page. To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.html and here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 4, this month, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here: http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at: http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is at http://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)