Barbara Walters is one of the most admired women in the World, and a trailblazer for women in television.
However for years Barbara carried a secret that haunted, overshadowed, and shaped her entire life: Her sister Jackie was mentally retarded. And no one could figure out why. In her autobiography Audition, Barbara explains that her sister was only mildly retarded: “Just enough to prevent her from attending regular school, from having friends, from getting a job, from marrying. Just enough to stop her from having a real life”.
Growing up, Barbara both loved and hated her sister. She had great compassion for her, but at the same time resented her for making her feel different, embarrassed, ashamed, and guilty for having so much while her sister had so little. And as her parents’ only non-retarded child, she felt burdened with the need to grow up and make a lot of money so that someone in the family could afford to take care of Jackie. Probably she felt burdened by the need to be a huge success, to prove she wasn’t retarded like Jackie. Perhaps that’s what drove Barbara to become the most successful woman in the history of TV news.
Once while growing up, the young Barbara through a huge party. Everyone was outside at the pool having fun, and then Barbara stepped inside for a minute and saw Jackie, sitting on the couch with their mother, staring at the TV. The mother knew young Barbara did not want to be embarrassed by the retarded Jackie, so Jackie was kept inside, hidden from all the fun and festivities taking place outside. That particularly memory would haunt Barbara for the rest of her life.
As an adult Barbara adopted a daughter and named her Jackie, so that her sister Jackie could feel like she had a child too.
Barbara writes on page 4-5 of her autobiography Audition:
My sister was a very pretty child. Her mental condition had nothing to do with her physical appearance…You wouldn’t have known looking at Jackie that there was anything different about her, until she opened her mouth to talk. Jackie was the worst stutterer I have ever known. She stuttered so badly that sometimes when she was trying to get a word out, her tongue protruded from her mouth.
On page 20 of the book, Barbara notes that a school nurse had diagnosed “Jackie’s condition as something usually caused by a birth injury.” This theory was boosted by their mother, who thought Jackie had been delivered by forceps.
The school nurse speculated that Jackie’s poor coordination, “unsteady gait” and stuttering were evidence of cerebral palsy, but when Jackie was later tested for this, it was considered unlikely.
On page 21 of her book, Barbara writes:
Now I wonder if it wasn’t genetic. Would Jackie today be diagnosed as “autistic”? Two of my cousin’s children had some form of “developmental disabilities,” but live relatively normal lives. They are considered to be autistic. The word “autism” didn’t exist when Jackie was young. Today there are special treatments, diagnosticians, workshops and support groups. Most of all there is understanding. But then there was no place for my sister or my parents to go. Seeking guidance, my mother was often told to “just send her away to an institution.” That was never a consideration.
For a short time Jackie was enrolled at another public school called Devotion, which also had a program for the “ungraded” but she didn’t last long there either. She then stayed at home and had tutors who taught her to read and write, although I’m not sure at what level, as I never remember her being tested. (I would guess third-or-fourth grade level.) Nor do I know her IQ. She was home, always.
If Jackie never progressed verbally beyond a third or fourth grader, that suggests a mental age of 8.5. On the WISC-R IQ test, if by late adolescence, you have the vocabulary of an 8.5 year old, your vocabulary is in the bottom 1% of your age group, equivalent to a deviation IQ of 65.
I estimate that elite television personalities, at least in certain genres, average IQs of 134, and the subset of top television personalities who are Ashkenazi Jewish, like Barbara, likely average even higher still; perhaps about 140. However other top Jewish TV personalities do not have mentally retarded siblings.
Assuming the 0.5 sibling IQ correlation holds among elite Jewish TV personalities, Barbara’s IQ should regress 50% to the mean from her sister’s IQ of perhaps 65, however instead of regressing to the white mean of 100, she would be regressing to the mean of top Jewish TV personalities: IQ 140.
Thus, based on her sister’s IQ and her own success, Barbara’s expected IQ would be:
140 – 0.5(140 – 65) = 103
One might predict with 95% confidence that Barbara’s IQ is anywhere from 77 to 129, with 103 as the single best guess; though still just a guess.
And of course all of this assumes that Jackie’s retardation was familial (i.e. caused by normal polygenetic variation). If instead it was organic (caused by a genetic mutation of large effect that override normal causes), it would have no relevance to Barbara’s IQ, since it would be a genetic fluke that could occur in anyone’s sibling.
Is it plausible that someone as accomplished, worshiped and powerful as Barbara Walter’s could have an IQ as average as 103? It’s hard to imagine.
On the other hand, even among the most successful people, there is a very wide range of IQs, and not all will be bright. Barbara has been criticized for dumbing down the field of journalism with celebrity interviews and softball questions like “if you were a tree, what type of tree would you be?” In addition, Barbara has a bit of a speech impediment, and comic Gilda Radner got famous for making fun of her:
It’s also possible that having a retarded sister was a sign of high IQ in Barbara’s case. It’s been suggested that heterozygotes for Tay Sachs enjoy IQ benefits, but do not develop the disease. There might be other conditions afflicting Ashkenazim where if you have two copies of certain genes, you’re mentally retarded, but if you have only one, you’re very bright, thus causing some retardates to have very bright siblings. But there’s no evidence in support of such a theory.
Pumpkin Person 
”Barbara Walters is one of the most admired women in the World”
The situation is worst than i imagine!!!
And this woman below??
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wangari_Maathai
Idiocracy?? right now!!!
PP,
remember canadian (cultural) test that estimate iq of people by post-mortem.
Barbara Walters is a cheap entertainment. I think your iq based on this estimative drops 30 points, 😉
My guess is that her IQ is somewhere around 103. You feel that’s too high?
Pumpkin you didn’t say what her IQ would be if her sister was retarded because of a complication with her birth coming out of the womb, and not just born that way. If her sister wasnt born retarded what would Barbara’s IQ be then?
If I found out the sister’s retardation was caused by some fluke event (birth complication or gross chromosomal abnormality), then the best guess for Barbara’s IQ is 140 (perhaps average for the most successful Jewish broadcasters in U.S. history)
However given that Barbara has a bit of a speech impediment, I suspect she shares some of her sister’s low IQ genes.
ok thank you
Why???
I don’t feel nothing, i really don’t know precisely about this subject, but to be a tv communicator/entertainmer and passing the impression that you possess a good vocabulary and fast organization thinking (verbal reaction time, good to debate or to have the appropriate answer by verbal memmory/ general knowledge), at least in verbal iq, she should score around 110-120. If she is a neurotypical because in my opinion, neuroatypicality tend to be less correlated with iq tests scores.
Remember personality + cognition, some people have very interesting personalities and use it very well, more than cognition, people on tv tend to be like that and generally it can correlate with sycho spectrum. Strong personality tend to correlates with astuteness while better cognition tend to correlates with technical intelligence, the famous naive/technical genius, for example (many above-intelligent liberals fit very well with this profile). Mentalistic/mechanicistic spectrum.
People tend to have IQs similar to both their professional peers, and similar IQs to their siblings.
In Barbara’s case, her profession peers (top Jewish broadcasters in history) are absolutely brilliant (average IQ of maybe 140) but her sibling was mentally disabled (IQ of maybe 65).
So my guess for Barbara’s IQ is that she’s in between: IQ 103
Nope. 103 is way too low. Most 103 people don’t even graduate from a four year college.
Nope, when a person is create by conception, the probability start from zero. Yes, there are shared-similar risks, but your thinking look too simplistic. Is not a deficience sentence (”death sentence”), is a higher chance to born with this condition if compared with other people without historical risks. And, the same way this shared-risk can make you ”retard”, also will can make you bright, of course, is not a determination.
If “Muggsy” Bogues can become one of the most successful basketball players in America despite being taller than only 0.5% of American men, then it doesn’t seem far-fetched that someone who is smarter than over 65% of Americans (IQ 103) can become super successful in television.
Both cases would be unlikely, but the Muggsy Bogues case is much, much more unlikely, especially considering that height is strongly related to basketball while IQ is only moderately related to TV success.
Both cases would be unlikely, but the Muggsy Bogues case is much, much more unlikely, especially considering that height is strongly related to basketball while IQ is only moderately related to TV success.
I’m skeptical. I’m guessing the correlation between height and basketball success, and IQ and TV success are about the same– around .4.
For random American men the correlation between height & basketball performance would be close to 0.8
Ashkenazi jews inherited ”low and high iq” genes, it explain why they tend to score assymmetrically between spatial and verbal capacities. Very or simply lower capacity may can improve other capacities, like happen many times with dyslexics. Very specialized brains. If Walters have a historical of relatives with mental deficits, then my tip, by logics, is that she have above-assymmetrical cognitive profile than jewish norm, because people with autistic relatives, tend to share similar cognitive traits, but less in extreme way, of this spectrum-condition. This mix between low and high iqs, can produce exuberant personalities as well cognition profiles, while uniform general intelligence may can be less advantageous. I look for this general smart people like someone with ”perfect” (contextualized) civilized behaviour.
PP,
you have the school historical of this lady?
WOw…I don’t agree with this at all. Her sisters’ brain deficiency may not only be caused by brain damage or chromosomal abnormality, but possibly some type of de novo mutation that caused gross defects in many different functions.
Do you really think Barbara Walters would become one of the top news anchors/reports and talk show hosts with an average IQ, out of the millions of people who try the same? Especially given the competitive Ashkenazi Jew environment she grew up in (if you accept environmental explanations for adult outcomes)?
WOw…I don’t agree with this at all. Her sisters’ brain deficiency may not only be caused by brain damage or chromosomal abnormality, but possibly some type of de novo mutation that caused gross defects in many different functions.
Quite possible, but if the sister’s retardation was familial (and most mild retardation, particularly without facial abnormalities, is familial), then it would be somewhat predictive of Barbara’s IQ too.
Do you really think Barbara Walters would become one of the top news anchors/reports and talk show hosts with an average IQ, out of the millions of people who try the same? Especially given the competitive Ashkenazi Jew environment she grew up in (if you accept environmental explanations for adult outcomes)?
It would be very unlikely that an average IQ person could have achieved all that Barbara has. On the other hand it would be very unlikely for the sister of a familial retardate to have a very high IQ.
This estimate was an attempt to split the difference.
Also, while Barbara is the most successful news woman in U.S. history, I would not consider her a successful talk show host. Yes “The View” was extremely successful, but Barbara was only one of about five women hosting that show. That’s very different from hosting a talk show on your own.
why couldn’t anyone figure out why Jackie was retarded?. It wast down syndrome because her physical appearance was attractive. Its possible Jackie could have just been autistic. actually its likely that she could have been autistic. Since autistics are over represented for the extremely dumb. Its possible Barbara inherited some autistic genes, causing her speech impediment and also other autistic traits that somehow allowed her to perform better in her profession, even with an IQ of only 103
”Since autistics are over represented for the extremely dumb”
Very lower iq scores and real retardation is positively correlated in neurotypical people. Almost functional autistics, low and high functioning, are very smart. It mean that iq scores generally don’t fit very well with autistics. Autism is a moderate savantism.
there’s a post around here by pumpkin that says autistics are over represented among super geniuses.
Meant to say It was not down syndrome
Tay-Sachs disease is as common in French North Americans (Quebec and Louisiana) as in Ashkenazim, it has a somewhat lower frequency in Ireland. I doubt the genes of Tay-Sachs are responsible for higher intelligence in healthy carriers since neither the Irish of French North Americans have the intellectual record of the Ashkenazim. What the three populations have in common is severe inbreeding due to founder effect and endogamy, they are in need of admixture to increase their genetic fitness. Hetersosis is the only workable form of eugenics.
…but Tay-Sachs is not the only “high IQ disease” which have an high frequency among Ashkenazis.
The problem of heterosis is that it only work for one generation…look at brazilian mulattos.
There is no proven genetic disorder or disadvantage affecting Brazilian mulattos or highly genetically diverse Subsaharan Africa.
I would even say these populations have attributes of genetic fitness like attractivity, sensual morphology, well developed social skills. I would definitely say Brazilians are like a miracle of evolution, if we only except the faggot that comments on here.
The other Ashkenazim disease is Gaucher’s. It is not a primarily neurological condition (severe brain damage is only a complication like in many other diseases, Sickle cell can also affect the brain for instance via cardio-vascular accidents).
Also, only 8,9% of Ashkenazim Jews carry the involved genetic variant, this is nothing like a Pan-Ashkenazim trait that could satisfactorily explain this group’s advantageous situation.
Let me know if you know about other Jewish diseases and genetic specificities.
“There is no proven genetic disorder or disadvantage affecting Brazilian mulattos or highly genetically diverse Subsaharan Africa.”
Let me correct that: there is no proven genetic disorder or disadvantage that affects more mulattos or Subsaharans more than other populations. The only identified disorders give proven evolutionary advantage, namely resistance to malaria.
What I was meaning is that brazilians mulattos appears to have an IQ halfway between Blacks and Whites while we should expect them to have an IQ a little bit higher. I think you don’t understand how heterosis happen in an organism, heterosis happen when you have all the peers of chromosomes composed of, in the present case, a “black” chromosome and a “white” chromosome, and this create new allele combinations and avoid the risk of having genetic diseases. But when 2 “first-generation mulattos” have a kid, he can have, for one peers, 2 “white” chromosomes, and for another, 2 “black” chromosomes, and then he could develop some common “black” or/and “white” genetic diseases. Of course, he still could beneficiate hetorosis, but not as his parents does.
Concerning the ashkenazis diseases, there is possibly many genetic conditions which affect ashkenazis which we don’t know about. The fact that Tay-Sachs is common in other populations doesnt prove that ashkenazis high IQ doesnt have genetic origins.
I never talked about subsaharan Africans, you are quite off topic on this point.
“What I was meaning is that brazilians mulattos appears to have an IQ halfway between Blacks and Whites while we should expect them to have an IQ a little bit higher.”
Lynn’s estimate for Brazil is 87 (close to African Americans) whereas Brazilians are on average 2/3 European in Ancestry, the last third showing a mix of African and Amerindian ancestry with a dominant African element. Anyway, Brazilians should score closer to 100 than they do if racial genetics were the dominant factor here. The problem here is not that heterosis did not benefit Brazilians, it is just that any kind of genetic manipulation can’t seem to raise or lower a population’s mean IQ.
As far as identified genetic traits, Brazilians are a quite fit population and seem to benefit from enough genetic diversity to silence non-adaptive disorders caused by recessive alleles more often than in some low genetic diversity populations.
The reason why I mentioned Africa is because genetic diversity is so high there that any within group mating provides more chance for heterosis to happen than in Eurasia. Two Yorubas are more distant to each others than a French and a Chinese, hence a full blooded Yoruba has more chances of genetic fitness than a mixed French-Chinese.
“Concerning the ashkenazis diseases, there is possibly many genetic conditions which affect ashkenazis which we don’t know about. The fact that Tay-Sachs is common in other populations doesnt prove that ashkenazis high IQ doesnt have genetic origins.”
Lol, no I think Ashkenazim Jews are so successful in science that we of course know all of the genetic diseases that affect them more than average whites. If there are no signs of these diseases, they are not diseases, period. What I said was not that Ashkenazim intellectual productivity wasn’t caused by genes, I said it could not be said it is caused by genes linked to Tay-Sachs and Gaucher’s diseases, the two genetic disorders affecting this population more than usual.
On page 69 of his book “The Global Bell Curve”, Lynn cites a 2001 study by Fernandez that finds the following IQs for the races in Brazil, as measured on the Standard Progressive Matrices:
Blacks 71
Mulattoes 81
Europeans 95
Japanese 99
These statistics are BS.
Genetic studies of Brazil show that people who self identify as Black in Brazil are on average 50% European in ancestry, full blooded blacks are almost non-existent their though they may appear more numerous since black phenotype is better adapted to Brazil climate thus allowing positive selection for black traits even with large European ancestry. If the black IQ figure is true, it is most likely due to social than biologic factors since it doesn’t give the result their admixture patterns would predict.
Mulattoes do not exist in Brazil, the Name for this population is Pardo and defines a tri-racial mix dominated by European genetics. This population should score closer to 90 if HBD was true.
White Brazilians have on average 20% of varying degree of African and Native American ancestry, this 95 IQ is kind of realistic in HBD terms.
The Japanese IQ of 99 is not explainable in a HBD perspective especially because a large part of those who did not make it in Brazil went back to Japan so the loss of this possibly lower IQ segment should have at least maintained an IQ closer or even higher than typical Japanese IQ.
Once again, ignorant numbers, for an ignorant theory believed by ignorant morons.
Well obviously racial IQ differences in Brazil are not 100% explained by HBD, but it’s stupid to dismiss HBD as a contributing factor, especially when you find almost the same racial ranking in almost every multiracial country in the World.
on an semi unrelated note. These IQ predictions are always about people that are old and have lived out there lives. Im curious about the IQ’s of successful younger people. Which is a bias because im young myself. I would like to see an IQ prediction of Miley Cyrus to be honest. She is 22 years old with a net worth of $150 mill and growing. Considering she made 76.5 million dollars last year, is it possible her net worth could reach the billions within 15-20 years?
I am planning on estimating the IQs of a few younger people, though not that young.
The reason I focus on older people is that the correlation between IQ and money is much higher at age 50 than at age 20. Indeed at age 20, the correlation might even be negative, as brighter people are in school where they make no money, while dumber people often dropped out in high school, and thus have had a huge head start in the labor market.
By the time Miley Cyrus gets anywhere near billionaire status, billionaires will no longer have the same cachet, and she’ll need to be a decabillionaire to really impress folks.
Already we’re seeing that a billion dollars is no longer enough to make the Forbes 400. In 1982, you only needed $100 million net worth to make the list.
makes sense, good job keep it up
the TRUTH:
that peepee lies about or is too fucking retarded to understand.
Nisbett is an idiot. He doesn’t understand findings of 0 shared environment.
uhhhhh.
no.
you don’t.
you don’t even know what you mean by shared environment nor that it’s meaningless even if you did.
VERY few people know what heritability is. Very few people can explain in non-mathematical language what the h in h^2 stands for. I don’t know of anyone other than myself who can do so.
”VERY few people know what heritability is. Very few people can explain in non-mathematical language what the h in h^2 stands for. I don’t know of anyone other than myself who can do so.”
LOL
Enlight us about heritability.
Jeezz…
You’re a troll, is not possible that you are talking seriously….
I knew a guy in high school that had the same speech impediment as Barbara Walters. He’s definitely not retarded and went to a decent university. He developed it during some severe childhood illness (according to him).
Look at this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhotacism#Disability
Besides, I think Ms. Walter’s so-called speech impediment is compounded by her native Boston accent, which suppresses the pronunciation of r-sounds. This has nothing to do with the mental abilities of Bostonians/eastern Massachusettians.
Even if your were to argue that Barbara Walters shares genes for poor enunciation with her sister, that doesn’t mean she shares the genes for low intellectual ability in general.
She really have poor enunciation, lile a below average ? Or its just poor in comparison to people who talk in TV ? Because if the last one is true, then the “poor enunciation” argument is irrelevant.
This is an awesome analysis of a woman I consider clever, anyways! I would be even more grateful still if you could please give an estimate of the IQs of Fiona Apple and Lana Del Rey, two women whose careers I have taken an obsessive interest in analyzing.