What animal has the highest IQ
Who has the highest IQ in the world in 2024?
Intelligence quotient (IQ) is used to measure a persons level of intelligence. Scores are gathered by participants completing standardised tests that measure abilities in puzzle-solving, memory, and more.
Based on a median score of whats typically around 100, your given IQ score is relative to that of the general intelligence of the population. Below 85 is seen as a poor score, 130 and above is smart (in the top 2 per cent of the population).
It is difficult to accurately judge intelligence and its always worth taking IQ scores with a pinch of salt due to cultural differences and other factors. As a study in Frontiers In Systems Neuroscience states, intelligence test scores are often misunderstood and can be misused.
Another factor to consider: an IQ score is not a unit of measurement. For example, someone with an IQ score of 130 is not 30 per cent smarter than someone with an IQ score of 100. Given the changes to testing across the decades, it is also tricky to compare scores achieved at different times.
Theoretically, there is no limit to IQ scores. 200 is often seen as the theoretical peak score but some people have shot past that number.
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Who has the highest IQ in the world?
Pictured above, Terence Tao is said to have the highest IQ score in the world currently, with an impressive score of between 225-230. If the Chinese-American mathematician scored 230 he is definitely out in front.
Effectively tying for the title, though, is Marilyn Vos Savant. Her recorded IQ in the Guinness World Records was 228, awarded between the 1986-1989 editions until the record was discontinued in 1990, with IQ scores deemed too unreliable to document.
Christopher Hirata has the second-highest confirmed IQ, with a staggering score of 225. There have been a few others with scores equal or higher. Again, the same caveat applies that IQ scores are to be taken with a grain of salt, especially for those before the IQ test was invented.
What has had the highest IQ ever?
It's tricky to judge who has had the highest IQ ever. For many great minds, the IQ test simply did not exist during their time on Earth. The validity of others who are said to have taken an intelligence test is in question, too, as official records are tough to locate.
However, this hasn't stopped some humans from being declared to have the highest IQ ever.
William James Sidis
Said to be the smartest person who has ever lived, William James Sidis is the benchmark for child prodigies. He was reportedly able to read the newspaper aged just 18 months and entered Harvard University aged 11, graduating at 16.
He wrote various studies, including creating a constructed language in the Book Of Vendergoord (aged 8) and The Animate And The Inanimate (which covered cosmology and the reversibility of the second law of thermodynamics and predicts the black hole).
In Psychology For The Millions, Abraham Sperling details how he had been told by Helena Sidis (William's sister) that "a few years before his death, her brother Bill took an intelligence test with a psychologist."
Sperling explains that William Sidis' "score was the very highest that had ever been obtained. In terms of IQ, the psychologist related that the figure would be between 250 and 300."
In the years since, however, the claims of Sidis' IQ score have been heavily disputed.
Ada Lovelace
The first computer scientist, Ada Lovelace is often mentioned when it comes to the most intelligent people who ever lived. Through her work on the Analytical Engine, she essentially invented the first computer programme the world had seen.
Christopher Michael Langan
Reported to have an IQ score of 195, Christopher Michael Langan is often considered one of the smartest people alive. The controversial figure has often sided with conspiracy theories and claims that the existence of God can be proven by mathematics.
Albert Einstein
Often regarded as one of the smartest people who ever lived, it is often claimed that Einstein's IQ was actually lower than you might think. Given that the test wasn't around when Einstein walked the Earth, however, it's impossible to know just how intelligent this famous scientist actually was.
Leonardo da Vinci
Another who is often regarded as one of the smartest people ever, Leonardo da Vinci was a mathematician, engineer, botanist, cartographer and much more, so its hard to single out one achievement.
Sho Yano
Sho Yano was a college freshman at the tender age of nine and became a medical doctor at just 21. This made him "the youngest student in the University of Chicago's history to receive an MD," according to Chicago Tribune.
Katherine Johnson
You will have come across mathematician Katherine Johnson if you've seen the Oscar-nominated film Hidden Figures. Her work was vital in early NASA space missions and played a role in getting astronauts John Glenn and Alan Shephard into space. Johnson's orbital calculations were even used in the Apollo missions.
Stephen Hawking
What can be said about Stephen Hawking? The Simpsons legend is one of history's most famous theoretical physicists and cosmologists. He famously showed that black holes radiate energy, slowly shrink, and explode in a flash of gamma rays, with Hawking radiation becoming a key cosmological theory.
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To have your mind blown by more science, check out our ultimate fun facts page.
Top 10 smartest animals in the world
The animal kingdom is filled with brainiacs. We find behaviours previously thought to be unique to humans reflected in distantly related species and see animals using their brains like a superpower.
In fact, theres such a great variety of brilliant minds that its very difficult to compare them.Scientists dont spend their time ranking animals by intelligence and there isnt an IQ test suitable for every species even if they tried.
That said, wed like to highlight some of the contenders for the smartest animals that have emerged from scientific research.
Keep in mind that most experiments to test animal intelligence are based on what humans can do, not what animals need to learn to survive.
So, caveats done, heres a list of some really smart animals.
1. Chimpanzees
Chimpanzees and bonobos are fiercely intelligent creatures with complex social hierarchies. Thats not really surprising, considering they share 98.7 per cent of their DNA with humans.
Chimpanzees are famous for their great variety of tool use and both species are excellent problem solvers.
The Royal Zoological Society of Antwerp found that bonobos were better at solving puzzles than chimpanzees, beating them in intelligence tests. However, this appeared to be largely down to the persistence of one individual bonobo.
Behavioural biologist Jeroen Stevens noted at the time that most of the bonobos and chimps understood the puzzles but werent equally motivated to solve them.
2. Dolphins
Dolphins are quick learners that can mimic human behaviour, solve problems, teach others and demonstrate self-awareness.
Both whales and dolphins have larger brains than humans though humans have a higher brain-to-body ratio and they have the power to locate objects through sound with echolocation.
Researchers have also documented dolphins playing around to entertain themselves, including using shells and other ocean objects as toys.
Finally, they have sophisticated communication systems. Some dolphin species even use disincentive name-like whistles to identify each other.
3. Octopuses
Octopuses are the eight-armed Houdinis of the animal kingdom with a remarkable ability to escape human confinement.
There are stories of octopuses figuring out how to break out of tanks and even squirt water at overhead lights to turn them off. But people who have worked with octopuses say its not just that theyre smart. Theyre aware.
Philosopher Stefan Linquist, who once studied octopus behaviour in a lab, previously said: When you work with fish, they have no idea they are in a tank, somewhere unnatural. With octopuses, it is totally different. They know that they are inside this special place, and you are outside it. All their behaviours are affected by their awareness of captivity.
4. Dogs
We all know how smart our pets can be. Dogs and cats let us know what they want and seemingly manipulate us into getting their own way.
Researchers discovered in 2017 that dogs have twice the number of neurons in their cerebral cortexes than cats, which should give them a cognitive advantage and confirm anecdotal reports that dogs are easier to train.
The Frontiers in Neuroanatomy study also found that based on neurons, racoons should also have similar capabilities to dogs. But dont worry, cat owners, the study highlighted the need for systematic cognitive capacity comparisons across all three animals before ruling dogs are the smartest pet.
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5. Orangutans
Orangutans are another one of our close relatives with incredible brains. Among their many talents is the ability to talk about the past, a behaviour otherwise only seen in humans.
In 2018, researchers reported that Sumatran orangutans with infants delayed making an alarm call for up to 20 minutes after seeing a potential predator.
Researchers suggested that the apes didnt want to alert the predator to their presence but later made the noise to teach their infants that encountering such an animal is dangerous.
Communicating information about something that has happened in the past or will happen in the future is thought to be one of the key features of human language.
6. Crows and ravens
Ravens and crows are living proof that its not the size of your brain that counts but how you use it. These animals learn quickly, with research suggesting four-month-old ravens could be as intelligent as some adult apes.
Experiments have also shown that ravens can plan for the future with tools theyre taught to use by humans. Crows on the other hand have an excellent memory and remember human faces, identifying certain people as friend and others as foe.
7. African grey parrots
Many birds can mimic human speech, but African grey parrots are said to be the most accomplished talkers. Experiments also prove they understand words and can perform some cognitive tasks that are beyond even 5-year-old humans.
In 2019, a parrot named Griffin completed a series of experiments where he had to infer where nuts were hidden in cups based on which cups he was shown to be empty.
He always successfully picked the cup guaranteed to have a nut unless the researchers tried to make him gamble on a 50-50 chance.
Griffin reportedly hated gambling for a nut he usually had guaranteed odds on finding but would sometimes forgo a sure thing if it meant the chance of getting an extra special Skittle treat.
If he wanted that very special candy, hed have to go to the 50-50 side, cognitive psychologist Irene Pepperberg, a research associate at Harvard University, said at the time.
A good-enough percentage of the time, he gambled. But what was interesting was that if he lost, he wouldnt gamble on the next trial.
8. Bumblebees
Bees have been dubbed the worlds smartest insect for good reason. They can solve puzzles and have exceptional navigational skills.
One experiment found bees work out the optimal route to a flower with repeated visits, significantly reducing the time it takes for them to get there.
Another experiment found that bees create mental images of objects like humans do and can transmit recognition of objects across their senses. For example, they can identify objects in the dark by touch if theyve seen them before.
9. Gorillas
Call it human bias, but all of the great apes are going on this list. Gorillas, along with chimpanzees, bonobos and orangutans, can be trained to communicate using some sign language.
A famous gorilla named Koko took it one step further and reportedly mastered sign language. Koko is said to have known more than 1,000 hand signs and understood 2,000 words of spoken English. In the wild, gorillas use tools, have busy social lives and even laugh.
10. Humans
This might seem like a cheap entry, but its important to remember that humans are animals, and were super smart. Theres a tendency when discussing animal intelligence to be swept up in brain size and how much we still dont know about animal behaviour.
But while its true there are plenty of smart species out there, and we still have plenty to learn about their lives, its also clear that our intelligence is a cut above the rest.
Nothing else on this list has built complex civilisations and been to the moon. Were just in a league of our own. For now, at least.
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