I was recently thinking of some extremely intelligent people I have known.. All are retired (or near) and all three in my thoughts were male. #3 was one of my college roommates who graduated undergrad with a major(s) in Math and Chemistry. He did his Master's in some form of chemistry at MIT, then did a PhD at the UC Boulder in Colorado and was a professor there in the Chemistry Department the last time I saw him. #2 Was a close college friend who was smart enough that the faculty in the college we attended decided he could develop his own major and curriculum. The faculty reviewed and graded his work, but he was free to take or not take classes, and taught himself completely independently, and I don't recall what his major(s) were, but he wasn't interested in any of the sciences as I remember, but he was brilliant in History, Literature, Languages, Sociology, Psychology, Philosophy, and Theology. He attended Law School (perhaps, Stanford, I can't remember) and is now in the waning years of his career in International Law in the Bay Area of California. He is the only one I am still in touch with. #1 Is a medical doctor I met in Illinois . He attended Northwestern Medical School after a 4.0 undergrad record. He found Medical School not to be a challenge, so he completed a Masters in Pharmacology while attending medical school. He had a full-ride scholarship to both programs, so no student debt. He was the only son of a wealthy family anyway, so income was not an issue. He had an Internal Medicine practice for 2 or 3 years (a requirement of one of his scholarships) and only saw 8- 16 patients a day and he had only one employee. He read the latest Wintrobe textbook at least once a year from cover to cover (He was interested in Hematology) as well as several others annually. He began each day at 4:00 AM reading tests and journals until he did rounds at the hospital beginning at 7:00 AM. After rounds, he manned his office from ~8:00 until 4:30 PM when he went on afternoon rounds. He had call duties at the hospital, and when he didn't we went out on the town as we were both single then, and he began his studies again in the evening, allowing about 4 hours of sleep nightly. When he had completed his obligation, he did an Emergency residency and started a Paramedic program in Peoria at St. Francis. He was very dedicated to that until he discovered that most of his students did not re-certify. Illinois at the time required re-certification for Paramedics every 18 months. He left Peoria, and did an Oncology Residency at Charity Hospital in New Orleans. After a couple years at that, he decided to do yet another residency in Bone Marrow Transplantation at the UW in Seattle and returned to Louisiana to become the Bone Marrow Transplant supervisor and Coordinator for the State of Louisiana. I lost track of him now, but according to the internet, he still has practices in Louisiana and In Illinois. The smartest person I have ever known. How about you? Do you have or have you had extremely intelligent friends or acquaintances?
My stepfather was one of the most intelligent people that I've ever known. He didn't complete high school but he could build or repair anything by taking the time to study, examine and understand what made it work, what made it fail, etc... I've often wondered how far he could have gone or what he could have accomplished if he had lived in a world where an advanced education would have been possible.
My father-in-law was like that also. He had trouble with reading and writing, but he could build or repair anything and picture large and complicated projects in his head. My dad was good, too, but he was an engineer.
I’ve had to approach the proposition on what constitutes an intelligent person on several occasions and to tell the truth I’m still battling over it. In some of the circles I have intermixed with, intelligence is measured by IQ and to that I have ought for I know of a few people with high IQ’s who can’t seem to be able to tie their own shoes without some difficulty. My x-wife, for one, was shooting for her Phd on some level of genetics at the age of 22 but she couldn’t shop for groceries on double coupon day without getting confused. IQ is based on one’s logic and reasoning abilities and not so much on knowledge acquired from a book so in her case, she exhibited the tendencies of being an educated doofus. My own IQ is in the 3% range and some of the people in a couple of the circles I intermix with have equal or even higher IQ’s than mine but I question the overall range of intelligence rather than specific ism’s or ology’s which leaves my own intelligence level in question also. So, the query remains: who do I know or have met who I can deem as being highly intelligent? Who can I honestly say that I know who has made it through life and met each one of life’s problems head on and solved each problem with a high degree of reasoning? Who do I personally know who can acquire knowledge and successfully apply it rather than glean knowledge just for the gain of it? Who can adapt to any situation handed to them without faltering to the degree of failure? I imagine I’ve met such people but I do not KNOW them and the only person who meets all the criteria I’ve proposed is my wife, Yvonne. Note: No, in circumstances such as this, I’m being blatantly honest and definitely not performing some obligatory powdering of a posterior. Just the facts as I see them.
and keeping the talc hidden just a little longer Bobby...I can see the great likelihood of Yvonne saying the same about you...
I'm a genius, lol. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-6039853/Tricky-quiz-tests-intelligence-higher-average.html
#1: My wife's girlfriend's husband. Boy, talkin about smart and intelligent.....WOW! Almost everything, but not rodeo, horses, livestock, ranching/farming, wildlife and sports, I ask him about, he knows or has researched. He doesn't know anything about the those things in the previous sentence, so I basically don't talk to him about them. #2: My last supervisor/director I had in Denver, CO.. Not quite as "exceptional" as #1, but absolutely 100% knew his career, mine and other things. Like #1, he didn't know a thing about rodeo, horses and so on, but I wouldn't expect him to.
I was used to always having the highest IQ in the companies I worked for and they rewarded me well. Most tested me. In one company I was told that I finally was supplanted by a new hire with an IQ of 170. However the guy had to work alone. He lived in a small apartment and never had an girlfriend. He was awkward and weird. He got it into his head that he could beat the stock market and the stock market won forcing him into bankruptcy. I remember sitting down with him for dinner in Hong Kong and he was crying about how they came in and took all of his clothes, TV, Car and everything else he owned. He was lucky that our boss, although a SOB, had a soft spot for some of us and gave him a used car and an advance on his salary so he could rent another apartment. Lost track of him when the company closed and I had to travel all over the world and take care of closing all offices and the legal work. I knew one other brilliant man who lived with is mother and never took a job because they were all beneath him. His mother died and he stayed in her house and never went to work. The guy who ran our local Mensa club was poor. Lived-in a cheap apartment next to railroad tracks. Also met another brilliant man who I loved to discuss things with; he drove a cab. Personally I did not finish college but went on to enjoy a successful life in all areas. I do not even know what my IQ is since I had so many tests and all I was told was that it was in the 99.8% Percentile. I look at IQ as something you are born with. In itself it is not something a person earns. It is what they do with the gifts they are born with like IQ, being tall, Musical, etc, that counts. I know that although I did very well for a guy from a poor background, I could have done so much more, but I am lazy and am content to get by enough so that money is not an issue in a upper middle class life.
The daughter of a friend. She went to the university here, majored in Biochemistry. Went on to get a PhD in Cancer Research at MIT. Elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2017. I only knew her back in the 80's. A very nice young girl.
Yep, he was a very special person who could apply his intelligence as no one else I have ever known. I didn't realize that some of the people here are the smartest people they themselves have ever known. That is amazing...or they have a very narrow set of friends, @Frank Sanoica
Three basic ways of seeing our physical selves come from the camera, artist and the mirror. Whilst the camera gives one rendering and can be enhanced by proximity and the portrait is in the hands of the artist, one would assume those to be of a lesser truth. But alas, it is not the portrait nor the camera which has the major flaws but the mirror. For it is the mirrored image which we can interpret on our own without another’s input as to its reflection. We see what we wish to see and imagine of what we wish to imagine. It is a rarity that we as kings and queens see ourselves nude rather than enshrouded in our new clothes.