You do need to be somewhat intelligent to be in the running for president of this planet.

Then that means I have a higher IQ than him. Yay!

According to an advertisement, I can get a larger penis, lose weight, and live longer by swallowing various pills. And I find myself trusting those ads more than I trust political ads.

My thoughts are that Obama is 24 points above the average. Apart from that, it doesn't mean much. Intelligence scales need to be interpreted with care, a lot of experts don't even take them seriously.

People make a huge mistake by estimating Obama's IQ on the basis of the official admission/honor requirements of the colleges he attended. In reality, Obama was not qualified to be anywhere near those colleges. His SAT or LSAT scores would show his low IQ, and that is why Obama fights like a savage to keep them secret.

I think that is probably stretching it a bit.

124 isn't low... it's above average. so what's the issue-- also, with bush, it's been proven that the president can surround himself with "smart people" and still pass.

The intelligence quotient test was developed by a man named Jean Piaget. Piaget was a pyschologist that wanted a tool to better equip educators with a method of determining where a child stood. IQ Tests are excellent measures of a child's intelligence because they measure what a child should know at say- age 6 vs. the "average" intelligence of children at that age. When intelligence is used to measure adults it is hard to say how much a 60 year old "Should" know compaired to "Average" 60 year olds.

It doesn't matter. Someone could have an IQ of 200-something but not be at all a good leader and may still make bad social and financial decisions and have no common sense and on the other hand, you could have someone with an IQ of 50 but still could be far more charismatic, make better social and financial decisions and have better common sense but just not be able to do anything beyond long division. Also as far as SAT scores go, honestly some of the smartest people can still do bad because they simply don't test well. I knew people that were A students and probably smarter than I am get below average scores while I got above average scores.

That's a pretty high "ignorance quotient"! I would have thought it was higher. This was my reply to the question. I could not post a reply to his comment, so I will reply by adding to my answer. Here goes: You are backing a man who will kill jobs with his taxation of small businesses which employ 95% of American workers, sympathises with and donates to domestic terrorists, gives money to groups which harass homeless people into voting democrat, who believes that the murder of a viable fetus is morally fine, whose Pastor is the most bigoted person in the country, a man who will cede the war to our enemies, who thinks that terrorists can be "spoken" to, who has never served his country militarily, who looks down on and mocks blue-collar workers, and will strip away our freedoms one by one. We back a man who sacrificed his time and his body in warfare, has the brains to realize that punishing businesses with higher taxes will cost us our jobs, who cherishes life, who knows that our enemies have no interest in befriending us, a man who wishes to expand our freedoms rather than strip them from us, and is willing to spend his later years serving his country and her people.

That makes him ineligible for MENSA. He's a moron by their standards. My guess is Palin 130, McCain 129, and Biden 90.

You'd think it would be higher. 124 is not a bad IQ, but you'd think the next savior of the free world would be smarter than that.

Mine is higher than that! You must have to have guts to run for president.

From Vox Popoli (9/10/08): "The gap in SAT scores persists even at the highest levels of achievement. A study of the 1989 applicants to five highly-selective universities found that white candidates' average combined SAT score was 186 points higher than the corresponding SAT average for African American applicants." Furthermore, the New York Times reports that "At the best schools, by contrast, efforts to diversify the student body translate into a 400-point bonus for minority students on the SAT tests." That 98.8 ranking based on the average Harvard LSAT translates to about a 135 IQ and a combined SAT score of 1290. That's pretty good, if not spectacular. However, due to affirmative action, one must reduce that score by at least 186 points. (Also, I suspect the NYT article is talking about the new SAT, which isn't valid for the purposes of this comparison.) Thus, giving Obama the benefit of the doubt drops his score to 1104, which is approximately equivalent to an IQ of 116. That's not bad, but it is significantly less intelligent than Hillary's 140 IQ, as well as being lower than George W. Bush's 125 IQ (1206 SAT). Before one points to the fact that Obama ranked highly in his class, it's important to keep in mind that Bill Bradley was a Princeton Rhodes Scholar despite his 485 Verbal SAT and mediocre 103 IQ. Academic success, like every other kind of success, is just as much about hard work and determination as it is about intellectual firepower, but Barack Obama's supporters obviously shouldn't be attempting to make their case for him on the basis of what is, based on the available information, probably an IQ of 116, only one standard deviation above the norm. Of course, this estimate is based on averages which don't necessarily apply to a single individual; Obama could lay the matter to rest by simply permitting his scores to be released to the public.

It has been widely acknowledged by experts that Bill Clinton was the most intelligent president we've had so far. Senator Obama is at least equal to him if not smarter. My own IQ is will above 124 and I'm quite certain the both Clinton and Obama are significantly smarter than I.

It's already been proved you don't need to be particularly intelligent to be president

A 124 IQ means the same to me as him graduating from Harvard -- Nothing.

and also according to those advertisements--GW Bush's IQ is 125... draw your own conclusions! lol

Just goes to show even smart people can be stupid.

Two thoughts: 1.) If you believe everything in those ads, I'd like to show you an ad about a bridge in NYC that I'm selling. 2.) The average IQ is actually 100. So if it is true, Obama's at least 1 standard deviation higher than the mean. Sounds good to me.

Am I supposed to be impressed? (I have 37 points on the fool.)

It's not his intelligence that concerns me, it's his ideology.

Don't trust ads for information. Obama's IQ has not been released, but graduating Magna cum laude from Harvard Law suggests that it's a lot higher than 124. BTW, Sarah Palin's <a href="http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/1520322-iq-test/image/20627720">IQ is 82</a>. That's pretty low.

he's crafty I'll give him that

total crap, i saw the same thing on an ad. They're just trying to lure you in. His actual certified iq scores were released to the washington post and were 172 and 166 on two iq tests he took as a schoolboy. That's well over the genius mark.

um....it was an advertisement... how dumb do u think i am??( maybe i should take the IQ test)

In 2003, 3 African nations, Ghana, s. Africa, and Botswana participated in TIMSS physics. The average score for the 5,150 students in Botswana who took the test was 443, seven of whom scored over 505, and none of whom scored over 549. The average score for the 8,952 students in South Africa who took the test was 244, thirteen of whom scored over 447, and none of whom scored over 514. So also in Ghana, where the average score for their 5,100 students was 239, seven of whom scored over 427, and none of whom scored over 514. Conversely, the average score for the 6,018 students in Singapore was 579, eight of whom scored lower than 462, and none of whom scored lower than 423. At best we can say that eight students in Singapore MAY have scored lower than SEVERAL of the thirteen highest scoring students in South Africa and SEVERAL of the seven highest scoring students in Ghana. No student in Singapore scored 4 standard deviations higher than the mean, or 735, much less 5 standard deviations higher, at 774. So needless to say that no student in Botswana, South Africa, nor Ghana scored four standard deviations higher, or 549, 514, or 489, respectively, much less five standard deviations higher, or 593, 581, or 551 respectively. Such scores are in the range of the average for Taipei and Korea, whose IQs are in the range of 105. It simply boggles the imagination for us to be expected to believe that Obama was the ONE Kenyan in the entire world who scored not just one but TWO standard deviations higher than a place where NO Ghanan, Botswanan, or South African has ever ventured, with an IQ of 105 IQ points. Yet his campaign claimed his IQ is 132 IQ points, yet another three standard deviations higher than THAT?! The average IQ of Kenya is 71 IQ points, the same as for Ghana, and 1 point lower than both Botswana and South Africa, at 72 IQ points. Out of 38 million Kenyans, do you know how many score more than 5 standard deviations higher than that? Only 11 have an IQ higher than 96 IQ points, and NONE have an IQ higher than 101 IQ points. Obama’s not even a Kenyan. He’s a mixed breed and most mixed breeds of most species are of lower quality and intelligence than the pure breeds (otherwise why don’t mules race in horse races)? California voters consider affirmative action to be CHEATING, which is why we outlawed it with Proposition 209 which actually amended the state constitution for the express purpose of KILLING it. Obama is clearly left over from those days. Why not simply require him to take the normal IQ test which any dog catcher in the country has to take in order to qualify for his job? You can bet that this would settle the matter once and for all. Correction: 7% of the population of Botswana are Whites who score similar to their brethren back in England at 545, meaning that the 93% who’re blacks scored 358. Only seven black students from Botswana scored over 456 and none of them scored over 514. Therefore, none of the lowest scoring eight students in Singapore who scored lower than 462 are likely to have scored lower than the seven top scoring black students from Botswana, meaning there was no overlap between the scores of Singapore and Botswana. So the odds of Obama even scoring higher than the eight lowest scoring students in Singapore are ZERO, nada, zilch, zip.

According to these IQ ads Obama's, Bush's, and Hillary's IQ's are all 124. According to Harvard, Obama's is in the 150's and according to Wellsley so is Hillary's. Yale won't release Bush's as his Daddy is on the Board of Trustees. I just can't imagine why they won't release it. Interesting fact: Since they have been keeping IQ's of the Presidents, the 2 highest have been Bill Clinton's and JFK's. Clinton's is in the 160's (highest ever). Bit of trivia.

How can you respect someone who took advantage of affirmative action, and thus discriminated against many more highly qualified people? How do we know that about Obama?

If it's in an ad, I'm surprised they don't claim that it's 10 to the 24th power!

We should also add that 9% or 4.4 million of the population of South Africa who are called "colored" are neither pure Blacks nor Whites--they are mixed breeds. Obviously none of them distinguished themselves by scoring higher than 514. And in fact those 7 South Africans students who scored over 447 were undoubtedly some of the 4.4 million Whites still in South Africa, not Blacks, and particularly not "colored". So WHERE is the evidence, not the hot air, not political claims, not flat out fabrications which have been so unique to his political camapaign, that Obama scored MULTIPLE standards of deviation higher than a place where NONE of his brethren in Africa have ever tread? It's ONLY in his head. It's NO PLACE else. Furthermore, Harvard and the University of California both play the same game as revealed in the following article: <<<At UC Berkeley, where it's called "comprehensive review," the system is under attack. A study last month commissioned by UC Board of Regents Chairman John Moores and reported by the Los Angeles Times found that in 2002 Berkeley admitted 375 students with SAT scores between 600 and 1000, and rejected about 3,200 students with SAT scores above 1400.>>> Ah, ha. The plot thickens. Was Obama one of the 3,200 students with SAT scores above 1400 who were REJECTED, or was he one of the 375 with scores BELOW 1000 who were ACCEPTED? That's how Obama got into Harvard. You can bet that ALL of the above 375 students were Blacks, and that NONE of them graduate from EITHER institution with higher IQs than when they entered.

ADS are lies lol media twists everything these days....i think hes smarter than that

cgfunmathguy I've tried to stay out of this one as DvF has done an admirable job of presenting the points I wanted to make. However, please allow me to add my two cents' worth. First, you are comparing different systems that do different things. You are comparisons are being made between countries where there are NATIONAL curricula, those where there are STATE curricula, and at least one where it is a hodgepodge of STATE and LOCAL curricula. So, we are comparing apples to oranges to pears. The entire PURPOSE of an international study IS to compare different education systems to each other, which is exactly what TIMSS does. Just like the entire PURPOSE of a national study like NAEP is to make state to state comparisons to see what works and what fails. It’s not BAD to make international and national comparisons, it’s GOOD. cgfunmathguy Also, we need to address the differences in systemic student handling. In the US, we send the vast majority of our students to high school; other countries reverse this entirely. Thus, the 12th-grade cohorts aren't even comparable between countries, even though they are presented as such by the media (among many others). While the 4th-grade cohorts may be similar, there is even some question about the comparing 8th-grade cohorts by some. For the two reasons above, I don't believe TIMSS is as valid an indicator of differences between national systems as its exhorters proclaim. This is patently false. Fortunately, it’s PROVABLY false. Our OWN data from NCES claims that 74% of American 18 year olds graduate from high school, compared to more than 90% in most industrialized nations: http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2001/2001034.pdf The reason nobody has ever posted a cite which disputes that is that there is no cite, AND TIMSS disputes it in a different direction, claiming that they found that only 63% of American students are in their “TCI”, compared to 82% in Switzerland, 84% in Norway, 75% in Germany, 88% in Slovenia, etc. http://timss.bc.edu/timss1995i/TIMSSPDF/SRAppA.pdf They found that 1,245,594 American children of high school graduation age, 67% of that population, weren’t even IN high school, and thus were never included in our already LOW TIMSS scores. If the worst students were the ones who weren’t in high school, can you even IMAGINE how low our scores would have been had they been INCLUDED? If this is the reason you don’t “believe TIMSS is as valid an indicator of differences between national systems as its exhorters proclaim”, you need to use your new-found knowledge to go back and rethink your position. cgfunmathguy Finally, a word about why DvF keeps trying to get you to understand why comparing cohorts is important. Many states have been adjusting/rewriting their regulations (Pennsylvania), their state-mandated tests (Ohio), and their state-mandated curricula (Georgia) for the past decade or more. In mathematics, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) issued its first set of standards on K-12 mathematics in 1989. This was the first step in the reform process, and several states began the process of reforming state curricula in the early 1990s. Others waited longer. However, the process is not an instantaneous one. As an example, Georgia instituted the Georgia Performance Standards (GPS) in 2003 or 2004. The standards still aren't fully implemented throughout the schools yet, and they won't be for two more years. So, yes, cohort matters, and we need to deal with the data that way. The only fair comparisons about gains and losses in the report's 12th-grade cohort would be to take the 2007 report's 12th-graders and compare that gap (assuming all the other confounding variables didn't exist) to the gap found in the 2003 report's 8th-graders and to the gap found in 1999 report's 4th-graders. This assumes that the tests across that EIGHT-YEAR SPREAD are equivalent. None of which is relevant. The entire POINT of TIMSS is to make international comparisons, not state to state comparisons. Your idea that something in our education system was the “first step in the reform process” is the same thing educators have been mimicking for years, and none of it ever worked. Furthermore, all American parents I know believe that every single one of these so-called “reforms” only brought us back quicker to the stone age and improved nothing. TIMSS also proves how SAT scores have been politicized, feminized, manipulated, and watered down to the point they’re no longer credible. cgfunmathguy “For another view of it, let's look at your classroom. In a large lecture class, grades tend to be distributed "normally". This being the case, "curving" (with its true meaning) would assign Cs to the 68% of the students whose scores are within 1 SD of the mean. So, let's assume that the mean on Test 1 was 75 with a standard deviation of 8. So, any student with a score between 67 and 83, inclusive, should get a C. However, Susie with her 81 and Johnny with his 69 both got Cs! Is the difference significant? We don't know until we run tests on the scores. Even though the difference is 12 points (which is 1.5 SD), it is likely that this difference is NOT "statistically significant" at any appreciable level. To constantly quote raw numbers with no test results is worthless and misleading. Even those with an agenda don't do this because they know they will be accused of trying to bamboozle the people reading the report.” You complain about referring to different cohorts, then launch into a comparison between a large lecture room and an international study of hundreds of thousands of students. You CANNOT compare these and make any sense out of it. You literally can’t adjust for guesses on multiple choice questions in the “large” lecture hall, but you CAN when there are hundreds of thousands of students taking the SAME test in their own languages. Do you know what TIMSS is? Before you invite anyone to “take a statistics class” again, you ought to invite yourself to examine their methodology. You are as wrong about this as you are about “In the US, we send the vast majority of our students to high school”.

Is that on the chimp scale?

IMPORTANT UPDATES: In 2003, three African nations, Ghana, South Africa, and Botswana participated in TIMSS. The average score for the 5,150 students from Botswana who took the test was 443, seven of whom scored over 505, and none of whom scored over 549. The average score for the 8,952 students from South Africa who took the test was 244, thirteen of whom scored over 447, and none of whom scored over 514. So also in Ghana, where the average score for their 5,100 students was 239, seven of whom scored over 427, and none of whom scored over 514. Conversely, the average score for the 6,018 students in Singapore was 579, eight of whom scored lower than 462, and none of whom scored lower than 423. At best we can say that eight students in Singapore MAY have scored lower than SEVERAL of the thirteen highest scoring students in South Africa and SEVERAL of the seven highest scoring students in Ghana. No student in Singapore scored 4 standard deviations higher than their mean, or 735, much less 5 standard deviations higher, at 774. So needless to say, no student in Botswana, South Africa, nor Ghana ever scored four standard deviations higher, or 549, 514, or 489, respectively, either, much less five standard deviations higher, or 593, 581, or 551 respectively. Such scores are in the range of the average for Taipei and Korea, whose IQs are in the range of 105 IQ points. It simply boggles the imagination for us to be expected to believe that Obama was the ONE Kenyan in the entire world who scored not just one but TWO standard deviations higher than a place where NO Ghanan, Botswanan, or South African has ever ventured. To claim that his IQ is 132 IQ points, yet another three standard deviations higher than the impossible, is the height of absurdity. Yet that’s exactly the claim that his presidential campaign made and you should be embarrassed to the hilt to see so many of your fellow countrymen fall for this circus act. The average IQ of Kenya is 71 IQ points, the same as for Ghana, and 1 point lower than both Botswana and South Africa, at 72 IQ points. Out of 38 million Kenyans, do you know how many score more than 5 standard deviations higher than that? Only 11 do, at an IQ of only 96 IQ points, four standard deviations higher than their mean, and NONE have an IQ higher than 101 IQ points, five standard deviations higher than the mean. Obama’s not even a Kenyan. He’s a mixed breed and most mixed breeds of most species are of lower quality and intelligence than the pure breeds (otherwise why don’t mules race in horse races)? If there's any place on Earth where we'd expect mixed breeds, "Coloreds", "Quadroons", "Mulatos", "Mestizos", or the offspring of Whites and Blacks to illustrate an IQ higher than that of their lowest IQ parent, it's not Kenya, it's South Africa where the majority of the 4.3 million Whites (9.1% of the population) are from the Netherlands who has consistently scored higher than us on all the international tests. In 8th grade TIMSS, the Netherlands scored 541 which was 41 points higher than us, by the 12th grade they scored 560 or 99 points higher, and in PISA they scored 531 (almost as high as South Korea) which was 57 points higher than us. With such a legacy, it's surprising that only 13 South African students scored over 447 and inevitable that they were not any of the 37 million Blacks or 4.3 million "Colored", but instead were Whites of Netherlands ancestry. By what process did Obama achieve something that NO African of either race as ever achieved, an IQ between 123 and 132 IQ points as his ads claimed? Where could his White mother possibly have come from to produce such an offspring? Even worse, if she's a Russian jew or an Israeli as the rumors indicate, then she's from a race which scores even lower than Whites, and much lower than Whites from the Netherlands. Israel, where the vast majority of the population are of her race, scored only 442 in PISA, a whopping 107 points lower than Hong Kong but only 36 points higher than Mexico where the average IQ is only 87.. California voters consider affirmative action to be CHEATING, which is why we outlawed it with Proposition 209 which actually amended the state constitution for the express purpose of KILLING it. Obama is clearly left over from those days. Why not simply require him to take the normal IQ test which any dog catcher in the country has to take in order to qualify for his job? You can bet that this would settle the matter once and for all. Correction, Tues. Dec. 23, 2008 7% of the population of Botswana are Whites who score similar to their brethren back in England at 545, meaning that the 93% who’re blacks scored 358. Only seven black students from Botswana scored over 456 and none of them scored over 514. Therefore, none of the lowest scoring eight students in Singapore who scored lower than 462 are likely to have scored lower than the seven top scoring black students from Botswana, meaning there was no overlap of test scores between Singapore and Botswana. And THAT means that we can prove that Obama LIED when he said his IQ was 132. Many other things he said of questionable veracity might be considered to be just matters of opinion, but THIS is a PROVABLE lie. Even if all of his other questionable claims are 100% true, that does not absolve him of this KNOWN LIE. And why LIE about this when it’s so easy to be PROVEN to be a lie? He was too busy lying to stop and figure out when to stop lying? He got away with so many other lies that what could possibly be wrong with one more white lie? He thought the American public was so badly dumbed down that we’d never catch him in yet one more lie? Update, Wednesday, December 31, 2008 We should add that for anyone in Ghana to score 676, an IQ of about 110 IQ points, he would have to score seven standard deviations (7 S.D.) higher than the average score for Ghana of 239, which is a mathematical impossibility. This is a range where only 137 students from Singapore and 12 students from the US scored. Many specious statements Obama made might be considered by some to be just "matters of opinion". But this is a CERTIFIABLE LIE, and can easily be proven to be.

It's an advertisement. No verification of it. However, that is a score in the 'very bright' range.

Just an advertisement and their way of getting our attention.

I saw another ad that said it was 121.

Not genius material, but not bad.

The idea of Clinton's IQ being unusually high stems from a hoax that started as a chain email. All of the data from it was fabricated, and the "institutions" allegedly reporting it were also fake. However, the hoax, which was actually a political attack on George Bush and other Republicans, was accepted by many as fact. Bill Clinton's actual IQ is still unknown, but experts estimate it could be no higher than 149 (not too shabby, but he may not even be close). Personally, I would estimate MUCH lower, because he seems anything but "smart" to me. Barack Obama's IQ is also by no means exceptional. You would have to say he IS smarter than the "average Joe", but he is certainly no super genius. Much of Obama's "perceived intellect" is derived from the "feeling" people get from his speeches. In fact, giving a good speech, or being a good speaker is not indicative of intelligence at all. Intelligence is also not indicative of good leadership qualities, which one could assert this with the fact that most of the top Nazi officials had IQs quite above average. Hermann Göring had an IQ in the neighborhood of 140, and though Hitler was never actually studied by unbiased experts, his IQ is believed to be similar to Göring's. The truth is, one's IQ does not necessarily make them any better of a presidential candidate than another. Sometimes brilliant people make terrible leaders, and sometimes an average person can be a great one. You also must consider that a real IQ test is not even 100% accurate. Some people could actually be poor test takers, and more intelligent than their test results indicate. I have been IQ tested three times in my life, and of my scores the lowest result was 176, from a test I took at age 16. Yes, my score is exceptional, but that does not mean I would be a good presidential candidate. I can have a very bad temper, and probably wouldn't be a very good diplomat, despite my IQ being high. I also hate bureaucratic establishments, and the extreme lengths they go to in completing often simple tasks. So I do not think I will ever be running for president! The point I want to make is that one's IQ means nothing in choosing a leader. You should make your choice based on what you believe in. In my case, I strongly oppose Socialism, and hold more to Libertarian ideals. Therefore, Barack Obama is not my choice.

It's just an ad. He was smart enough to get elected president, just like Bush was. They must be smarter than me. My IQ was tested at 145 in 4th grade. Does that mean anything to you?

The average IQ for a graduate of Harvard Law School is 145. Obama graduated in the top 10% of his class. I would GUESS his IQ is higher than 125. What's Bush's IQ?

According to that ad everyone has an IQ of 125.

So Obama's real IQ is 71, not 124, and not 134.

I think that is an advertisement not a test result. Mine is about 140 and he's smarter than I am. I'd say his is considerably over 140.

My IQ is 178 and I am a Mensa member - 124 is about average.. the 150s still won't get Obama or Hillary into Mensa... So that may be considered above average but not the brightest bulbs in the bunch... Just to let you know Harvard has not released any of Obama's records including his IQ.. so I am not sure where you are getting your information from... I also understand that he was not in the top of his class at Harvard he was just the President of the Law Review and he was no where close to the top of his class at Columbia either. I do not believe his IQ actually to be in the 150's either as Hillary's was validated at 140. Obama doesn't think quickly he mulls things over and will give a poor response when pressed - you are timed on a real IQ test and he is also poor when it comes to mathematics and logic which about 2/3rds of the test. So my estimate is that he is @130 at best, smooth talker, but his IQ is not that high.

I am much more interested in Obama's birth certificate than I am in his IQ. If he was born in America then why did he have his birth certificate sealed and why wasn't any of this checked out before he was able to become Senator, let alone, to be president. Why is he hiding his birth certificate. Remember, his grandmother said he was born in Kenya. According to The Constitution you must be born in America in order to be The President of The United States of America.

doubt it!!! hes obviously not dumb but its not a hard job to read a speech that someone else wrote for you!!!