I heard that the two highest IQ scores in recorded history belong to women. Is this true? If so who are they? I can’t find proof to back this statement up.
While I too have heard this “fact”, it seems to be like a lot of things on the internet, just pulled out of someone’s butt. There is a female on the list of the top 5, she comes in at #3 and her name is Marilyn Vos Savant.
The highest recorded IQ was William James Sidis. His IQ lands somewhere between 250 to 300.
In comparison, both Stephen Hawking and Albert Einstein only had an IQ of 160.
William James Sidis was a child prodigy with exceptional mathematical and linguistic skills. He was born on April 1, 1898, in Manhattan, New York, and died on July 17, 1944. At the age of 5, he could use a typewriter and learned to speak Latin, Greek, Russian, French, German, and Hebrew. Originally he was denied admission to Harvard because he was called too emotionally immature. Later, at age 11, they were forced to admit him, after which he gave his well-received first lecture on 4-dimensional physics.
- William James Sidis (IQ – 25o – 300)
- Terence Tao (IQ – 230)
- Marilyn Vos Savant (IQ – 228)
- Christopher Hirata (IQ – 225)
- Kim Ung-Yong (IQ – 210)
Marilyn Vos Savant claims the record of having the highest “recorded” IQ according to the Guinness Book of Records. Guinness retired the “Highest IQ” category in 1990 after concluding IQ tests were too unreliable to designate a single record holder.
Another impressive female with a high IQ is Edith Stern. Her IQ is thought to be over 200. She holds a Ph.D. in Mathematics and is a distinguished engineer and inventor at IBM.
