IQ

Kelly says I'm just generally unimpressed with things out of principle, but I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

Lately, I've been unimpressed with Pranav Veera, this six-ear-old boy with an alleged IQ of 176. (By the way, each link I'm posting is a different news article about the kid.) I say "alleged" because I've been unable to find who performed his IQ test and which test was done - both of which can make a difference. The only reason this makes a difference to me is because of the "genius" activities he demonstrates in the media: reciting the alphabet backwards, listing presidents by number, stating days of the week by date. I grant you that these are not normal feats for a six-year-old child, but they're not completey abnormal feats for someone who has worked at memorizing such facts - because that's all it is: memorization. I also say "alleged" because news reports claim that he has a photographic memory, which would make something like reciting the alphabet backwards a piece of cake rather than a sign of genius.

Something else that puts me on guard about this kid's story is how so many sources compare him to Einstein, whose IQ was guessed to be around 160. Guessed. That's right, Einstein's IQ was never tested. We think we know it today based on guesses and nothing more. In reality, because of the subjectivity of IQ tests, there's no way we can be sure of Einstein's IQ.

I'm not completely discounting this child's aptitude, nor am I saying he should be treated as a normal, bratty little six-year-old. I'm saying we need to take this with a grain of salt because, until he does something with his intelligence like cure AIDS or put a man on Mars, he's not telling us anything we can't already find in presidential trivia books. And if someone out there actually does want him to accomplish something remarkable with his elevated IQ, they need to stop telling him how smart he is and start encouraging his self efficacy - because just being smart will get him nowhere if he knows nothing more about being smart than cheap parlor tricks on the Today Show.