Oscar Wrigley from Reading in Berkshire, has the same IQ as Einstein and Hawking. Or more accurately, his IQ is off the charts so they don’t even have an exact number for him (it only goes to 160).
He is two years old.
Oscar’s father Joe, 29, an IT specialist from Reading in Berkshire, said: “Oscar was recently telling my wife about the reproductive cycle of penguins.
“He is always asking questions. Every parent likes to think their child was special but we knew there was something particularly remarkable about Oscar.
“I’m fully expecting the day to come when he turns around and tells me I’m an idiot.”….
[Oscar's mother] added: “His vocabulary is amazing. He’s able to construct complex sentences.
“The other day he said to me, ‘Mummy, sausages are like a party in my mouth’.”
Two years old and already famous for his intelligence. There’s going to be a lot of pressure on that boy.
Can we clone him?
Smart alecky kid!
Does he already demonstrate this higher intelligence or is he just a normal kid?
“mummy, sausages are like a party in my mouth!”
there is my shit eating grin for the day!!!!!
thanks dan.
I have to say, when kids like this get stories about them out, they never seem to develop into much of anything. Probably because of the pressure.
Can we clone him? No. 1. because human cloning is so faulty as to be immoral (takes hundreds of failed attempts to make a healthy clone, and some of those failures are nasty) and 2. because intelligence is as much a product of nurture as it is of nature. There’s no way we could guarantee getting the same result.
Yeah that’s what I don’t like about cloning. It’s not really, er, cloning. ;)
I have to say that while this is cool, since IQ is adjusted for age, it’s not nearly as cool as it could be.
Yeah, an off-the-charts IQ basically means he’s as smart as a four-year-old. Comparisons to Einstein are not exactly useful.
Well, it’s an indication. I could read and speak well by two and had finished reading the Dune Trilogy by five and the Lord of The Rings triology by six (yes, I was a precocious little bastard and no, I dodn’t have many friends) and my IQ usually comes out between 150 and 156 on tests.
My first thought was that I, as a Christian, would’ve thought the kid was demon possessed. At that age, he couldn’t possibly know those things, so a demon must be telling him.
Then I remembered that the anti-Christ is supposed to be really smart. So this poor kid will be on many Christians’ radars on the look out for the anti-Christ.
No, silly; the anti-Christ is clearly Barack Hussein Will Kill Yo’ Grandma and Unborn Baby Obama!
The anti-christ is to be born from a catholic priest and a catholic nun having sex and producing a baby – which will be born with teeth. Clearly these parents do not meet this criteria.
Now if we clone this boy the question is – does the clone have a soul?
This is what passes for intelligence for a 2 year old? Maybe I should get mine tested since she says stuff more complex than that every day and is only slightly older than him. Granted, she can’t tell me all about penguin reproduction but she knows all about walruses. That’s close, right?
I know right? When I was 2 I used to correct people’s pronounce. If they tried to baby talk me, they’d just get me to stare at them and go like, “you’re an idiot.”
Then again, I’m not a genius. Just… pedantic?
“When I was 2 I used to correct people’s pronounce.”
I imagine, you didn’t correct their grammar, though.
Ten points if you catch the irony in my comment.
You don’t need two commas, in that sentence.
Twenty points if you can catch the irony in mine.
I imagine you didn’t correct their punctuate.
Was punctuation a noun that got verbed, or was punctuate a verb that got nouned? I’d guess the first, but you can never tell.
pronunciation > pronounce, grammar, punctuation > punctuate… just going full circle :)
Their pronouns? Their pronunciation?
Yes.
For the records, I do it better in my native language. ;p
I’m pretty sure it was the IQ test, not the fun phrase.
I think this is a really bad thing.
Extremely high intelligence is not easy to deal with. Not for the parents and not for the kid.
Putting him in the spotlight is about the most stupid thing you can do.
And extreme intelligence is no ticket for succes.
I know. I’m 36, jobless on wellfare and i have been tested for 165+ iq.
I couldn’t finish college and have had 3 burnouts at work.
I hope he gets better support than i did ;)
Personally I think extremely intelligent people find it hard to fit into society. This may explain your situation I don’t know. It is my personal experience that amazingly intelligent people tend to become hippies – self chosen outcasts from society. Not being part of the herd is freedom – not being part of the shared delusion that your bosses praise is something to seek. Once you achieve a certain level of awareness you start to think that EVERYONE else is crazy! I’ve felt this! It is a very lonely world when you think everyone else is blind except you.
I was just at a company awards ceremony and watched as people gleamed ear to ear with smiles when they got their recognition. Fools I thought – every single one of them – blind to the fact that they are slaves – slaves to the human appreciation they unwittingly seek. From birth we are programmed to seek this recognition. “good job” – it makes us productive – it gives us satisfaction to hear our boss say “way to go! You’re a winner!”. Most of us are drones and don’t even realize it.
Speaking from a paltry 129, I still realize I’m a little more intelligent than most people I know. I also realize that my intelligence is a congenital advantage, the same as if I were very attractive or even born into a wealthy family. Intelligent or not, I’ve done many stupid things in my life; some I’ve laughed about, some I’ve cried about. But I learned at a young age that it does no good to belittle others simply because they are less intelligent than me. I think real stupidity can manifest itself from any IQ level.
It would be difficult to convince me that an extremely high IQ will lead inevitably to thinking everyone else is crazy, blind or foolish. Perhaps you can use your intelligence to reconsider such an outlook. Otherwise, I believe you’ll be missing out on many valuable experiences and relationships in life. And yes, you probably will be lonely.
Well.. I don’t think everybody else is stupid.
Though i do have trouble accepting and understanding why a lot of people “just don’t get” a lot of stuff that’s so blatantly simple for me.
Back to the subject of the boy. I do hope that he gets a lot of support. Might seem odd that such a smart people would need support, but otherwise he will indeed estrange from society and people in general.
What I just don’t get is that with an IQ of 165+, you just don’t get that a lot of people just don’t get a lot of stuff that you do get. Did I get that right?
Yep :)
I sympathise (kind of). There is a tendency among people who are intelligent but not hugely arrogant with it to assume that “If I can do something, everybody else must be able to do it too because I’m not special”. I do it all the time myself. Ironically, it does tend to piss people off and make them think that you’re showing off.
There is that. There is also the difficulty, when you understand something, of figuring out at what step of the figuring-it-out process other folks are getting stuck on. It could be a piece of information, or some particular method of conceptualizing, or who-knows-what else. I find that when you are “smart” at something, it can be difficult to think about the steps in a finely-grained enough way to easily identify the snarl, because your mind is so used to doing it automagically.
“Automagically.” I think you’ve just coined a word there. : )
Heh, I wish. I’ve seen it around the webz here and there; can’t take credit.
Wow…129 is paltry? Sucks for my 122 brain then…although it was only an online test…
Actually, averages nationaly usually come in between 90 and 110 (it’s 90 in the US and around 110 in most Western European countries if I recall correctly). An IQ of 130 puts you in about the top half a percent worldwide. Most IQ tests only measure up to 160, although MENSA use tests which can measure (kind of) up to 200. An IQ of 180 makes you an official Genius by their standards.
It should also be remembered that IQ tests are so subjective as to be pretty meaningless in the real world. There’s too much debate about what constitutes “intelligence” to take these tests too seriously. They may prove a certain aptitude with theoretical logic, verbal reasoning, mental arithmetic, pattern spotting and spacial awareness, but a well-rounded individual requires an awful lot more skills than those which an IQ test examines.
I concur. There is difficulty fitting in socially; ‘going through the motions’, if you will, of what is ‘typically’ expected of the ‘average’ person growing up. Folks don’t know quite what to do with them. They get offended, they misunderstand their communcations, and thinking patterns considering them ‘fresh’ or impertinent. Schools don’t know what to do with them because they don’t fit the average mold… and in a “mold” is exactly what most of todays schools I’ve encountered want. .
Perhaps there are better days coming for these kids with awareness and education all around as to what these kids truly, genuinely need. Indeed, awareness is the first step in making change.
Have you read Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell? He talks about this tendency.
I agree intelligence ≠ success, but it’s also hard to be successful if you don’t have intelligence!
Being successful requires emotional maturity, empathy with and understanding of fellow humans who are going to keep you in your job and recommend you to others, the general ability to get along with others in a work environment, understanding job requirements, getting the job done, being organized, staying put in one place long enough to finish projects … the list goes on. If you have a very high IQ, but not the other requisites, maybe you can try to pick up learned behavior using half a brain out of that 165+ of yours?
Anyone who has such a wonderfully perceptive view of sausage, especially at such a young age, is a indisputable genius in my book. :-)
Mark my words, the kid’s parents are going to make a bundle off of that. We’ll soon be hearing it in a TV commercial!
The other thing is that IQ tests in young children are not very reliable. So this child could end up with an IQ of “only” 145 or even less. My twins had remarkable speaking abilities at the same age and neither one of them is a genius, one is above average and the other is even smarter, although I don’t know his IQ, and really don’t need to. IQ is actually really only applicable to success in school, that’s what it was designed for, to ID children who have special needs at either end of the spectrum. So it’s no surprise that it’s not super useful for predicting life success as well.
Deary me Daniel have you resorted to taking fillers from The Telegraph now!
It’s OK – I read it in the Mail.
WhichThe Telegraph seems to be trying to emulate …
And you make fun of American news sources…
The newspapers in the UK have been going down hill for a long time …
Just found it interesting. If you don’t, skip it. :)
Just joshing there …
i think the kid is extraordinarily intelligent…………………..all of you r just jealously of him………..or may be, just trying to show ur intellectuals!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So, does this shoot the notion of everyone being “created equal” out the window?
Read “created equal” as “presumed to have the same intrinsic value”, and all that created equal stuff starts to make more sense.
Totally agree … we aren’t ‘created’ equal be we should all have equal opportunities. There is of course the slight dilemma of whether we really do all have the same intrinsic value — live organ donors for those who benefit society more?
There is of course the slight dilemma of whether we really do all have the same intrinsic value…
I doubt that we do; hence the necessity of the fiction that is the presumption. If we stopped to analyze the presumption for too long, it–and society–would fall apart.
I certainly agree with that, well sort of … I think you second point is the key. Without a sense of justice, for want of a better word, for what life’s hand has dealt us society what indeed fall apart.
Didn’t it take a certain level of genius to conceive of the idea of a crocoduck?
I have to wonder just how accurate any IQ test can be at the age of two.
I speak as one who was precocious, has raised two precocious youngsters, and am now watching some precocious grandchildren – many of whom were verbally fluent at a young age; all of whom were reading by age 3. At age 2, I can say “this child is brighter than average”, but I’d hesitate to say “IQ of 160″ until the child has had time to master a few more skills.
In any case, I would not let papers print articles about my whiz kids at such a young age; they need not be exposed to the limelight so soon.
Theoretically, IQ tests give results irrespective of age, e.g. one person would get the same score at ages 2 and 20.
Im going to have to call the bullshit card. I have an iQ of 164 and i beleive this is a level that takes time and trained reasoning/thinking to get to. Thats good that the child can ALMOST say complex sentences…but then how does he even read the question on the test let alone answer them. Also, I beleive that he could use his mind to solve some of the test, but for the more complex math problems and reasoning only a brain who has been trained could understand. Also child iq tests are very unreliable.