This week Business Insider published some of the signs that would suggest you are smarter than average, citing a wide variety of scientific studies that support some of these arguments. But we’re going to have to disagree with some of those studies.
First of all, intelligence is something that scientists themselves find hard to define, identify and measure. One definition might be that intelligence is “the ability to solve complex problems in simple ways”. And the usual way to measure it is through the various IQ tests, tests that have always been called into question.
The truth is that some people spend years of their lives preparing to raise their scores on these tests. And they usually succeed. Which leads us to one of the first conclusions: most people could go from an IQ of 113 (average intelligence) to an IQ of 117 (above-average intelligence) if they spent several years preparing for it.
On this scale, a person with an IQ of 84 would be on the borderline of intellectual disability, and someone with an IQ of 160 would already be in the “genius level” range. Between an IQ of 115 and 160, there will be hardly any difference in what these people can achieve in life, in their success or in their sharpness in their careers and businesses. Of course, someone with an IQ of 180 or more would probably “wipe the floor with you” anywhere, in any situation.
How many people in the world have a high IQ?
It is estimated that 15% of the population has an IQ above 115, which would be 1 in 7 people; in other words, today there would be more than 1 billion people in the world with above-average intelligence.
1 in 50 people would have an IQ above 130; 1 in 924 would have an IQ above 145; 1 in 42,000 would have an IQ above 160; 1 in 3.5 million would have an IQ above 175; and 1 in 3 billion would have an IQ above 200.
That means there would currently be 2 people in the world with an IQ above 200, which means speaking languages fluently at 2 or 3 years old, and doing mathematical calculations that would be extremely complex even for intelligent adults before the age of 8 (these are the people who start doing work for the government and NASA at 10).
The most intelligent person in history was William James Sidis, born in 1898, who had an IQ of between 250 and 300 (the highest IQ ever recorded). He taught himself to read at 2 and spoke 8 languages at 7. At 11 he was already at university (bored, of course).
In short, these isolated cases are true geniuses, because they are born that way. Their gift is a very rare event of nature. Nobody can manufacture one of these geniuses, although every parent can make sure their child becomes much more intelligent by stimulating their brain in the right way.
(See: 9 things you can do to become smarter)
And as a curiosity, there’s a man called Richard Branson who would score very low on an IQ test, because his dyslexia was an obstacle even to finishing secondary school. Personally, I would hardly call unintelligent the man who built one of the biggest business conglomerates in the world: the Virgin Group, made up of more than 400 companies.
And what about scientific studies?
Some scientific studies are just a way of wasting time to justify the funding received. I reached that conclusion before I was 27, after reading books showing how the scientific studies I had read about in earlier books had been taken apart by new studies. It is estimated that 8 out of 10 scientific studies are poorly designed (or someone will show over the years that they were wrong).
For example: now olive oil is bad, now it’s good, now it causes cancer, and now it prevents cancer. As often happens in certain fields, research tends to be biased; in other words, scientists are often more likely to find whatever it is they are looking for.
In fact, during my time as a scientist I discovered that Google is responsible for an increase of more than 50% in cancer cases. And I can prove it: you only have to look at the growth rates of cancer cases, which, coincidentally, have soared since we started using Google.
But don’t worry. I’ve never been a scientist and I haven’t lost my mind (yet). That would be a biased scientific study. And nobody could question my figures. What explanation would I give? That people spend a lot of time searching on Google (so they become more sedentary), or perhaps that they self-medicate after googling their illness.
I’m completely sure that the rise in cancer cases has nothing to do with Google, or Facebook, but I could find a scientist who would come up with that result for me.
In short, many scientific studies lack scientific rigour. And an obvious question also arises: can we put a number on a quality we cannot define precisely, as is the case with intelligence?
These are some of the scientific studies that appeared in the Business Insider piece.
Left-wing people are more intelligent
That’s what the study says, but it isn’t entirely true. In fact, I read something (I don’t remember in which book) that explained why atheists are more intelligent than believers (and it’s related).
In politics, right-wing people tend to be more religious (or closer to the church), while left-wing people tend not to be so close to the church; that is, they lean towards atheism.
So left-wing people aren’t more intelligent; atheists are, and they happen to tend to sympathise with the left. Why? Because an atheist looks for other explanations of the meaning of life, and knows that their destiny doesn’t depend on a god but on themselves. They also doubt that a woman had never been intimate with her husband at a time when women married as young as 13. And they doubt even more that a spirit made a woman pregnant.
What is true is that as religious fanaticism increases, there is clear intellectual deterioration. It is very hard for an intelligent person to fall into the clutches of a sect or to blow themselves up believing that 72 virgins will be waiting for them in paradise (or 72 hunks, for that matter).
Now someone will say: “So-and-so was intelligent and got caught up in a sect.” There would be two possibilities: first, they might not have been that intelligent. And second, they might have been recruited at a low point emotionally (personal problems and a loss of meaning in life), which leaves brain activity at a minimum.
Studying music makes you smarter
Another study cited in the same article says that children who studied music for just one month improved their intelligence.
Right. Of course they improved their intelligence. They were acquiring new knowledge, which stimulates the brain. But they would have had the same result if they had studied a second language or started learning any other skill that required learning and cognitive effort.
Could studying music do it more? It would also have to be the case that the child in question likes learning music more than anything else.
People who take drugs are more intelligent
As you can imagine, this study makes no sense at all. According to the research, people with higher IQs are more inclined to seek new experiences, and experimenting includes drugs.
But the truth is that I have known a great many truly intelligent people. And they all had something in common. Almost none of them smoked (if not none at all), and they had a tremendous aversion to all kinds of drugs. Mostly because people with high IQs know what drugs do to the body and the brain. In fact, alcohol and drugs are the opposite of intelligence, because they cause brain damage. To a greater or lesser extent, they damage people’s cognitive abilities.
If there’s one thing people who take drugs have in common, it’s precisely that, sooner or later, all those who don’t quit end up ruining their lives. And that isn’t intelligent.
Left-handed people are more intelligent
Correct. And it’s no coincidence, because there is a scientific explanation that a right-handed person can take advantage of.
Right-handed people have left-hemisphere dominance, and left-handed people tend to have right-hemisphere dominance (although sometimes left-hemisphere too). So left-handers tend to work the part of the brain where creativity and genius are found.
In fact, according to some studies, right-handed people who broke their right arm as children and had to learn to do things with their left hand turned out to be more intelligent than average. As for ambidextrous people, they show above-average mental abilities more often.
In other words, giving tasks to your weaker hand exercises the most creative part of the brain.
See also: 5 books to read to become smarter and make better decisions
Featured image: J. E. Wallace Wallin, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
