Oct
28th
Wed
28th
The “Bush is dumb” meme was always unfair. Those who’ve known him, and not just his loyalists, have always disputed such a characterization. First off, something I didn’t know, “Bush scored a 1200 on the SAT (roughly equaling 1300 on today’s re-normed SAT), placing him in the top 16% of all college applicants.” We also know he had better grades than the smarter-seeming John Kerry at Yale. The authors also peg the best estimate of Bush’s IQ at 120-125, in the top 10% of the population and above average for a college graduate — about the same as estimated for Eisenhower and Ford. The problem with Bush’s leadership style was never lack of intelligence. It was something much closer to intellectual laziness or lack of curiosity. As the authors put it: “Critics charge that President Bush does not seek out information or opposing viewpoints; disdains complexity, nuances, and expert opinion; views policy issues in black-and-white terms based on his own preconceptions; and, refuses to rethink problems or change his views. The research largely bears out these popular perceptions.” In summary of the president’s personality, the authos write, “Bush is an extraverted, domineering, and somewhat adventurous and impulsive individual, lacking in conscientiousness, who is intelligent but relatively superficial and unreflective.
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Ryan Sager - Neuroworld – Bush’s Brain: Smart, but Too Certain - True/Slant
It’s strage how someone can have high intelligence but be incurious. You don’t really consider those two as going together — I always thought that curiosity was sortof a defining characteristic of intelligence, and that holding preconceptions is basically the way people become stupid.
BTW, my SAT was 1440, so when do I get to be president?
