Who is the smartest person of all time? How do we measure intelligence? Are intelligence
tests themselves biased? What do the smartest people who ever lived all have in common?
I don’t know but they all saved a bunch of money by switching to Geico for my home
and auto insurance! We’re talking about the world’s smartest people in today's Nutty
History! You can show off your smarts by subscribing to this channel. Prove that you’ve got some
natural nutty intelligence and do all that right now. How do we decide what attributes
we even count as intelligence? A high level of understanding in mathematics and science?
Language? Art? Physical activity, dance and coordination? Creativity? And then, how do
we measure that intelligence and compare it to the intelligence from one specialty to
another? When we ask “who’s the smartest?” it really just brings up a bunch of dumb questions.
One generally accepted, but severely flawed measurement of intelligence is the I.Q. test.
Stephen Hawking, one of the most recent “Smartest People In The World”, said this about I.Q.
measurements “People who boast about their I.Q. are losers” He then popped a wheelie
and sped off. Hawking’s I.Q. score, for those that are worried about that kind of
thing, is thought to be between 160 & 180. Hawking was an English theoretical physicist
and cosmologist that managed the difficult feat of marrying the science of the very small,
quantum physics, with gravity, or relativity, to describe the Universe’s most extreme
objects: black holes. His key discovery was that black holes could leak ‘Hawking radiation’.
See, when you’re the person that discovers it, you can call it whatever you want. He
could have been like “Whoa, these black holes are leaking'' “Stephen Rock And You
Suck Radiation” but he went with “Hawking” so the dude was downright modest. He also
realized the Universe was essentially a black hole in reverse, starting with the Big Bang.”
Much of what we know of black holes and the expanding universe is from him. He was a super
smart dude, that really said smart things, and wasn’t just part robot, hooked up to
a computer that was programmed to say smart things. Our next super genius is German born
theoretical physicist and philosopher of science, Albert Einstein. Best known for his mass–energy
equivalence formula E = mc2 which has been called the world's most famous equation. Einstein
articulated the principle of relativity. Did you articulate the principle of relativity?
No. I didn’t think so. Estimates for Einstein’s I.Q. come between 160 and 190. In the eve
of World War II, he endorsed a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt alerting FDR to the
potential development of "extremely powerful bombs of a new type" and recommending that
the US begin similar research. This eventually led to the Manhattan Project, and the development
of the atomic bomb, which Einstein did not support. And most importantly, Einstein’s
last name became a thing you could add to the end of any sentence and it would make
you sound like a sarcastic jerk. Isn’t that right, Einstein.... Another fairly modernish
genius was Marie Curie. Curie was a Polish physicist and chemist best known for her research
into radioactivity. In fact, she coined radioactivity. People would ask her “Oh what are working
on?” And she’d be like “radioactivity” and they’d be like “wut” and she’d
go “Oh you wouldn’t understand. I’m inventing it. Her IQ estimate ranges from
180 to 200. Curie was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize and the first person to win
it twice; in physics and then in chemistry. Without Marie Curie’s work with radiation,
we wouldn’t have X-rays, The Incredible Hulk, or Spider-Man. Thank you. The big hitters
in the genius club have to include Renaissance bad boy and ninja turtle inspiration, Leonardo
da Vinci, which is Italian for the english name Leonardo The Vinci. Da Vinci was maybe
the most diversely talented person to have ever lived. His estimated IQ ranges from 180
to 220. He's one of the most celebrated painters in history, as well as a sculptor, architect,
musician, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist,
and writer. Da Vinci invented insane flying machines, an armored vehicle, concentrated
solar power, and adding machines, but was a chronic procrastinator, so few of his designs
were ever realized during his lifetime. Holy crap! Did Da Vinci invent the Killdozer? At
the top of most smart people lists is this German playwright that Einstein called "the
last man in the world to know everything,” Johann Goethe. Goethe was a polymath who founded
the science of human chemistry and developed one of the earliest known theories of evolution.
His estimated IQ ranges from 210 to 225. This guy wrote Faust. Ever hear of Faust? It was
written by this genius. Then there are those smarty-pants that are already geniuses, but
a feud with another genius sets them over the edge to further greatness. Take Nikola
Tesla and Thomas Edison. The two waged a “War of Currents" in the 1880s over whose electrical
system would power the world. Tesla was the inventor of the Tesla coil, alternating current
machinery, and had grand plans for a transatlantic wireless communication system. Edison invented
the phonograph, the motion picture camera, long-lasting, practical electric light bulb,
and direct current electrical systems. Would these two have been driven to the levels of
genius they achieved if they didn’t have the other pushing them? For more info on these
two, watch the documentary film The Prestige. Wow. That’s a lot of white guys. And one
lady. And that’s how it goes anytime there’s lists like this. Einstein said, “If you
judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is
stupid.” Which means, there’s other intelligence out there besides IQ, so don’t use that
as your only measurement. But it’s more than that; it’s not just IQ and other types
of intelligence. It’s what we’re exposed to. We’re taught a curriculum of predominantly
Western civilization history. Meaning, mostly European history. Meaning mostly white history.
So those historical players are the only ones we pull from. Could there possibly be anybody
in the history of East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, or African history
that would have scored just as high as these people on an IQ test? Undoubtedly! But we
never even consider that because we have a natural bias. When we think “Smartest people
in history” because of the history we’ve been taught, we just naturally think “Smartest
people in WESTERN history”. And it never gets corrected because it’s too hard to
be an expert in all world histories and cultures, so we stay as we are: separate identities,
pitted against each other. Just like Marvel & DC; XBox & Playstation; and big fat Italian
guys & tiny motorcycles. So can you measure intelligence with an IQ test? Some researchers
say that intelligence is a culturally specific concept. Intelligence appears different depending
on the cultural context, like how burping may be seen in some cultures as showing you
liked a meal or a sign of praise for the host, but in other culture it would make my mom
spank my little butt. So, what may be considered intelligent in one environment, might not
in others. Like, knowledge about medicinal herbs is seen as a form of intelligence in
some places, but doesn’t mean crap on traditional Western academic intelligence tests. According
to some researchers, the “cultural specificity” of intelligence makes IQ tests biased towards
the environments in which they were developed: white, Western society. That would make them
potentially problematic in culturally diverse settings. But we have this desire to rank
things and put people against each other and we desire a way to rank them. It’s not enough
to say, these people are smart. We want to be able to say, “This is the order from
smartest to dumbest.” And like I always told my mom, that’s not fair. And I am too
smarter than my brother. Some things are universal indicators of intelligence. One of those things
is creativity. Everyone talked about today had a creative outlet. They weren’t just
smart, they had the ability to visualize their expertise and approach the world from a new
angle. Einstein with music, The Vinci with painting, even someone like Steve Jobs who
may not be an outright genius, he didn’t exactly invent things, just took other people’s
inventions and made them more marketable, but he had a creative vision that pushed him
to another level. One indicator NOT to use to measure intelligence is wealth. We tend
to think that just because someone has a lot of money, they know what they’re talking
about, especially in the US. The opposite is often true. The most common way people
become wealthy is by being born wealthy. That’s how Elon Musk did it. Musk has developed a
cult following that hangs on every dorm-room stoner, first year philosophy major, style
tweet as if it’s gospel. Elon Musk did not invent anything. He got rich by being born
into a rich family. Elon’s father Errol was a partial owner of a South African emerald
mine that came into his possession through apartheid. Elon used his money to make more
money in the early days of Silicon valley with Paypal. Then used that money to invest
in Tesla, then sued the inventors and original owners to force them out of the company and
install himself at the top. Not exactly an expert on all things science. When someone
insists they are an expert in something and won’t shut up about it... they probably
aren’t. If you think you’re a genius, leave a comment, like this video, ring the
bell, and subscribe! Thanks for watching!