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Who was the stupidest U.S. president?

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), June 23, 2001

Answers

Nancy Reagan

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), June 23, 2001.

Who WAS the stupidest, past tense?

In that case give it 3 1/2 more years and we will have the all-time undisputed champion who will never be defeated.

-- (duuuh-bya@without.a.doubt), June 24, 2001.


Intelligence has proven elusive to quantify. IQ obviously correlates with something, but what? All I can see for sure is that IQ correlates with the ability to be a good student.

But does IQ correlate with "intelligence"? Not if you define intelligence to include creativity, the ability to think on your feet ("street smarts"?), leadership ability, proprioception, musical aptitude, sense of humor, artistic aptitude and a few dozen more.

IQ may also correlate with cleverness. In my book, cleverness is not intelligence.

From the article---

(2) Is Bush the stupidest president? Doubtful, but here the data is lacking. You can get a book called "The Intelligence of Dogs" but not "The Intelligence of Presidents". I refrain from the obvious jokes. The best I could come up with was a 1926 list in which intelligence researcher Catharine M. Cox estimated the IQs of 300 famous people based on their achievements in childhood and early adulthood. Presidents ran the gamut from John Quincy Adams (165) to Thomas Jefferson (150) to Ulysses Grant (125). She didn't single out stupid presidents, but near the top of everyone's list you're sure to find Warren G. Harding, probably the nation's least competent chief executive, who described himself as "a man of limited talents from a small town. . . . I don't seem to grasp that I am president." Among presidents since FDR, political scientist Fred I. Greenstein (Presidential Difference: Leadership Style From FDR to Clinton) cites Harry Truman and Ronald Reagan as being "marked by cognitive limitations," although even detractors would concede they had their gifts.

Smarts aren't easy to judge. Greenstein gives John F. Kennedy high marks for brains, but according to biographer Thomas C. Reeves (author of the infamous "A Question of Character"), Kennedy as a kid scored a less-than-brilliant 119 on the Otis Intelligence Test and graduated 65th out of 110 at Choate. And remember Bill Bradley, who everybody considered brainy but boring? His verbal SAT score, according to "Slate": just 485.

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), June 24, 2001.


Clearly, IQ does not correlate with character.

-- (Slick_Willy@Chappaqua.NY), June 24, 2001.

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