Having watched the three hour debate on CNN last, my impression was Carly Fiorina was the best debater on stage, and I wasn’t the only one who was impressed, as there’s a growing consensus that Fiorina was the star of the debate.
The main reason Fiorina was allowed to attend the debate with front-runners like Donald Trump and Dr. Ben Carson was that she performed so well in an earlier debate against second tier candidates that she jumped in the polls to front-runner status. And now as a front-runner, she stole the show again.
Debating, particularly in a fast paced improvisational format, is a good proxy for IQ, as it requires many g loaded cognitive functions like general knowledge, thought organization, verbal fluency, and the ability to flexibly adapt to unexpected arguments, and take advantage of opportunities. The fact that Fiorina dominated the competition twice in a row, indicates extremely high g (general intelligence).
Most impressive was how Fiorina took a negative situation (Donald Trump making insulting comments about her face) and turned it around to her advantage (the very definition of intelligence):
For a woman who obviously cares as much about her looks as Fiorina does, to have her face ridiculed by Trump and for his insults to dominate the news cycles for days on end, must have been extremely painful. So for her to respond with such class, conciseness, and dignity, trying to look strong, even though you could see she was hurting, was incredibly powerful.
So what is her IQ? According to scholar Jonathan Wai, the academic background of male Republican senators implies that 24.4% are in the top 1% of U.S. cognitive ability. The top 1% implies an IQ of 133+, so assuming their IQs are roughly normally distributed with a standard deviation of 15, this implies they have a mean IQ of 122. Although some of the men Fiorina debated are not politicians (i.e. Trump), but outsiders like Fiorina, the vast majority are governors or senators, so an IQ of 122 is probably a good approximation for the men Fiorina verbally dominated in her last two debates.
Given that Fiorina decisively trounced the competition when debating both second tier, and first tier nominees, it is reasonable to suspect she’s smarter than all 16 of her GOP rivals, with the possible exception of Ted Cruz, who reportedly scored extremely high on the LSAT.
So let’s say Fiorina is smarter than 15 of the 16 men she’s been competing with. Being smarter than 94% of a group of people with a mean IQ of 122 and an SD of 15, implies a towering IQ is 145, which would make her smarter than 99.9% of white Americans and would make her an astonishing 15 points smarter than the average U.S. president.
Pumpkin Person 
Pumpkin, do you ever profile High IQ Canadians, given the fact that Canada, has a higher average IQ than the US?
In America, sociopathy is more important than IQ.
The only Canadian I’ve profiled for IQ is Rushton, but i have profiled Canadian movies.
But I do need to include more Canadian content or at least less American content.
I think sociopathy is unfortunately a competetive advantage everywhere
High functioning psychopathy, sociopathy is more ”hotter extreme personality”.
Pumpkin, Yes, but I have to say your native country of Canada is significantly less sociopathic, when comparing to the states. I cannot fathom the USA becoming a great country in any stretch of the imagination, when it solely operates on sociopathic tendencies. NYC is incredibly prole, because of all the sociopathy!
Jeb Bush is tall and has a big noggin, pumpkin:
http://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2015/09/16/shifting-debate-strategies-gop-hopefuls-to-take-on-trump
Yes I noticed that. His IQ is probably in the top third of the group.
Lookit that! His head is tilted a lot yet it still looks way bigger than Trump’s. I was thinking about your blog while watching the debate 🙂
yeah it is pretty big
According to Wikipedia, he majored in Latin American studies. Makes him one of the few head honchos who isn’t a lawyer. And he graduated in 2 1/2 years, magna cum laude.
Idk..maybe her IQ is at least 120. nothing about her wikipedia bio suggests an IQ of 145
110-125 or so
indicates extremely high g (general intelligence).
indicates pp has a very low g.
dominating a debate among stupid people doesn’t make one smart, let alone “extremely” smart. don’t know about Canuckistan, but politics in the US is just show business for ugly people.
she has a GMAT and an SAT score crazy eyes.
carly is a totally un-technical person who headed a very technical company. only in the anglo-prole-sphere does this ever happen. and in the anglo-prole-sphere it’s the rule not the exception. only one scientist has ever led a big pharma company. the ceo of intel is like fiorina. the technical details of his very technical company…he has no idea.
her case is affirmative action all the way.
her ug degree was in medieval french or something equally stupid.
she’s where she is, because she got into a good b-school, she’s a woman.
but i guarantee my GMAT was higher.
on the practice test i scored 790.
on test day i scored 770.
but i never applied, because america is an UN-meritocracy, i knew i’d be rejected by all of the few b-schools worth the 100k price.
btw, it’s easier to hijack an airplane than it is to cheat on the GMAT.
no other test has such ridiculous “security” in the US. i guess cheating on the GMAT is a much bigger problem than it for other tests. why? because b-school applicants, as a group, are sociopaths. they run les etats unis merdeux.
LOTB sees Fiorina as a sociopath, and I don’t disagree but I’m not certain whether she’s the villainous sociopath that LOTB sees her as. He’s associating her with his female bosses, whom he’s spoken disparagingly of many times. However in support of his views, Fiorina’s track record at HP is abysmal. Yet, she’s clearly in the top 1% of IQ. Watch this clip, as she’s pressured by Chris Matthews and defends herself swiftly.
She seems no more sociopathic than the average presidential candidate.
If intelligence is the ability to adapt, then intelligence = ability to turn unfavorable situations into favorable ones. What is a favorable situation? A situation in which you posses well-being. So the ultimate measure of intelligence is…happiness? He who is happiest is most intelligent?
The other definition–“the ability to reason and learn”–seems more accurate.
So the ultimate measure of intelligence is…happiness? He who is happiest is most intelligent?
It’s not that simple because the happiest people are often mentally retarded (i.e. ignorance is bliss) and geniuses are often deeply depressed.
The happiest people may have adapted, but if they have simple personalities that are easily satisfied, they had an easy situation to adapt to.
Adapting to an easy situation does not show much adaptability.
Adaptability = problem solving. The happiest people are not usually the best problem solvers, they’re just the people who have very easy problems to solve because they’re naturally happy and easily placated.
Thank you for your take. You’re correct–if one needs only the morning paper to be happy (no derision intended), then not much problem solving ability is needed. Still, I can’t accept this definition… It just seems like a lot of geniuses focus on abstract, impersonal matter which don’t benefit their day to day lives in any way.
Still, I can’t accept this definition… It just seems like a lot of geniuses focus on abstract, impersonal matter which don’t benefit their day to day lives in any way.
Well for those geniuses, abstract impersonal matters are what give them the greatest satisfaction, so they are adapting the situation to their advantage in their own way by focusing on such matters.
The definition works best for people with very concrete universal goals (i.e. making money, getting power).
Intelligence can be defined in many different ways. This definition is useful in some contexts and awkward in others.
As long as we can all agree on how intelligence is measured (IQ tests), the exact verbal definition matters little. All of these definitions are more or less saying the same thing in different ways.
“For a woman who obviously cares as much about her looks as Fiorina does, to have her face ridiculed by Trump and for his insults to dominate the news cycles for days on end, must have been extremely painful. So for her to respond with such class, conciseness, and dignity, trying to look strong, even though you could see she was hurting, was incredibly powerful.”
seriously?
It was powerful to me, but I’m a sensitive guy.