I was watching Bill O’reilly interview Kristen Powers (who I adore) on Fox News tonight and once again he was complaining about how unrealistic Bernie Sander’s socialist vision was, but then he made a good point about the authoritarianism of socialism.
He said that had he been British, he never would have become a successful talk show host, because they gave all the kids a test at 16 and if you do poorly, you’re not allowed to go to college and are confined to the working class. O’reilly said he would have flunked the test because was a thug at 16.
I believe the test Bill was referring to is the 11+ exam, which I assume people took at 11, not 16. But O’reilly’s point still stands.
According to the internet, Bill O’reilly scored an astonishing 1585 on the older much harder version of the SAT. equivalent to an IQ of nearly 170, but I saw an episode of his show where O’reilly laughed at the fictitious number as an example of why you should never believe what you read on the Internet. He said his actual SAT scores were nowhere near that high. Indeed they were low enough that he attended the same college as Howard Stern (who also claims to have unimpressive SATs) and who O’reilly remembers because Stern was the only student on campus taller than he was.
But years later, O’reilly realized that if he wanted to be taken seriously in the elitist world of media, he would have to get a better degree. He became a student at Harvard, and the fact that he, like Howard Stern, dominated extremely competitive and verbal industries, indicates high IQ, so why the mediocre test scores?
Is the SAT biased against kids from working class schools? Probably more than official IQ tests are. Another factor could be that if IQ becomes increasingly genetic as we get older (as some studies suggest), tests taken at 17 or younger do not fully reflect genetic ability. A final possibility is that these men are just not that smart. Although Stern has many signs of high IQ (super rich, Jewish, super tall) his scatological humor indicates very low IQ.and after September 11th, he recklessly encouraged the U.S. to bomb any Muslim country at random, at least according to Bill Maher.
Bill O’reilly seems very smart sometimes and also has signs of high IQ (very rich, funny, Harvard degree, very tall), but his small looking cranium, extreme patriotism and disdain for Noam Chomsky, indicates a closed mind. Also eminent scientist and atheist Richard Dawkins considers him unintelligent, so that carries some weight.
But regardless of how smart O’reilly and Stern might be, I’m glad their unimpressive test scores did not prevent them from reaching the top of American life, because that’s what makes America so fascinating. The market decides who is king.
Would you mind elaborating on why scatological humor is an indicator of low IQ? It isn’t the finest form of wit, no, but I find it strange that something like that would correlate significantly with intelligence, because there are plenty of very bright people with crude senses of humor. (Does this apply only to scatological humor, or other forms of humor as well?)
There have been studies showing that media preferences and aesthetic tastes are correlated with IQ, and while I didn’t read the studies, so I don’t know what aesthetic or media tastes were considered low, it’s hard to imagine anything much lower than bathroom entertainment.
On the other hand sense of humor and liberalism are signs of high IQ, so you might get a subset of brilliant people who like vulgar jokes, partly for that reason.
Interesting. Thanks for answering my question.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jan/29/dark-humour-high-intelligence-study
The 11+ was a test (basically like an IQ test) that determined if you went to a Grammar School or not.
You normally did more academic subjects at a Grammar School so the vast majority of university students attended Grammar school – but you could also do the same subjects in other schools and if you did well that was also a route to higher education.
There were also Technical Colleges and Polytechics that provided a more vocational focus and were easier to get into.
Grammar schools weere phased out from the 60s, but strangely enough they are supported primarily by conservatives rather than socialists, who viewed them as entrenching middle class priviledge.
Basically the comment from Bill O’Reilly is b*****ks as we would say here in the UK!
Thanks for the clarification.
I think he is 122 or he could be 115. It depends because he is very quick in how he responds to guest on his shows. I am not that fast when it comes to such reaction time. I can express myself from what I know. But it seems he is able to understand more material on what he needs to talk about and fast people can read faster. Harvard has the mean student IQ at 122. I would not have his personality set against him. He is just arrogant not dumb.
Pumpkin PersonIs the SAT biased against kids from working class schools? Probably more than official IQ tests are. Another factor could be that if IQ becomes increasingly genetic as we get older (as some studies suggest), tests taken at 17 or younger do not fully reflect genetic ability.
at 23 I got 108
recently at 28 I got 113
I have a new idea about IQ. Fast brain cells make you smarter. Education just gives you experience. Expertise is transferable because of good study habits. But your brain cells remain the same speed. Some areas of the brain may have faster cells than others. I plan on making my brain cells faster by changing my biology.
Jedi have very fast brain cells. They can win pod races.
And they know how to make light sabers without instructions.
The evolutionary pressures of living in a galaxy far far away are intense.
There’s something very virginal about Pumpkin…
By which, I don’t actually mean he’s a virgin… He just seems very innocent… Too innocent…
Not many straight men would admit they “adore” Kristen Powers… Maybe they’d say, “I want to fuck her”, but not, “I adore her…”
Do you have Asperger’s, Pumpkin? Or are Canadians really that nice?
I looked up her picture.
She is beautiful.
I do think PP is nice.
I am a virgin.
I don’t have Asperger’s
That is what they though I
had in school because
I had no friends. But no.
I don’t have that.
It is just no one in school
was interested in A.I.
and I stopped having friends
after an incident in 7th grade.
I have OCD but at fist they
thought I had schizophrenia.
I don’t have that either.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2016/01/27/scientists-open-the-black-box-of-schizophrenia-with-dramatic-genetic-finding/
I talked to my doctor and he is going to put me on prozac.
A.I. needs to be designed so it is not susceptible to such problems.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recurrent_neural_network
Pumpkin is nice, AK. And you are nice, too. It’s too late for me. I grew up in the NYC area, so I’ve been exposed to douchebaginess all of my life. I’m tainted.
http://i3.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article1263685.ece/ALTERNATES/s615/Oprah%20Winfrey's%20Next%20chapter%20interviewing%20Rihanna%20in%20Barbados
So you think PP is Oprah in disguise. Oprah must be very talented. She can run multi million dollar corporations and still has time to blog well pretending to be a person living in Canada. 🙂
in my land this talent have other “name”, 😉
peepee is now a comedian.
o’reilly and stern would have been eliminated by a testocracy?
how is that a “danger”?
Pumpkin,
What is the IQ estimate for this great Brazilian composer *
That video of O’reilly is disturbing, and doesn’t speak well of his IQ, given the negative correlation between IQ and hysteria:
https://pumpkinperson.com/2014/12/21/iq-and-hysteria/