U.S. Presidents IQ hoax

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In mid-2001, a hoax circulated via email, that provided a list of estimated IQs of the U.S. Presidents from Franklin D. Roosevelt to George W. Bush.^[1]

1 The hoax
2 Reports about the hoax
3 Origin of the hoax
4 Real IQ estimates
5 Notes and References
6 See also
7 External links

[edit] The hoax

The hoax email showed Bill Clinton having the highest IQ (at 182) and George W. Bush the lowest (at 91). As with most hoaxes, the numbers claimed in the email were not backed up by any evidence but appeared plausible to some people. The sociologists and institutions (the "Lovenstein Institute") quoted in the article do not exist. The techniques used to measure the IQ of the Presidents are not recognized means of measuring IQs. The hoax also contains other factual errors.^[1] When the hoax was debunked, it appeared to many as a personal reproach on Bush due to its timing and the fact that Bush's IQ was reported as exactly half of that of Clinton.

[edit] Reports about the hoax

Perhaps because the issue of George W. Bush's intelligence has been a popular one, particularly amongst his political opponents, but raised by both Republican and Democratic media^[2] and other politicians, including a spokesperson of Tony Blair,^[3] the hoax report was taken to be true in some quarters. The British newspaper The Guardian, for example, quoted the report in its diary section of July 19, 2001 and used it to belittle Bush.^[4] The Guardian published a retraction two days after the Associated Press drew attention to the error.^[5] Also other mainstream media news outlets to fall for the hoax included Bild (Germany), Pravda (Russia), and the Southland Times (New Zealand) as well as a few small U.S. newspapers. Incredibly, the hoax came back to life in March 2007 in Spanish speaking media when the Press Agency Efe distributed a piece referring to it. Dozens of media (mostly in their online versions) reproduced Efe's text without further checking. Among those publishing the hoax was Spain's leading newspaper El País (Spain),^[6], as well as Abc and La Vanguardia.

[edit] Origin of the hoax

About.com reports that linkydinky.com was the original source of the spoof.^[7] Indeed, their page on the hoax calls the report “our spoof”.^[8] A copy of the spoof in full can be found there.

[edit] Real IQ estimates

In 2006, a real historiometric study published in the scientific journal Political Psychology, compared the estimated IQs of all US presidents since 1900. It rated G.W. Bush second last, with an estimated IQ between 111.1 and 138.5, and an average of 124.8 (which still is well above the standardised average of 100). According to the same study, the average estimated IQ of president Bill Clinton was estimated to be 149. ^[9] In an interview, it was noted by the study's director that “Bush may be ‘much smarter’ than the findings imply” but that he “scores particularly unimpressively for ‘openness to experience, a cognitive proclivity that encompasses unusual receptiveness to fantasy, aesthetics, actions, ideas and values.’” Other estimates of the IQ of G.W. Bush have been based on his SAT score of 1206 (566 for verbal and 640 for maths),^[10] which would equal an IQ of around 125-129.^[11]^[12] Still another estimate, based both on his SAT scores and IQ-type tests that he took as a required part of applying for Air Force Officer Training School in 1968, concludes that Bush has an IQ somewhere between 120 and 130.^[13]