Beth Hale and Claire Ellicott, Daily Mail (London), June 9, 2009
A toddler has amazed experts after scoring 160 in an IQ test—the same as Stephen Hawking and Bill Gates.
Two-year-old Karina Oakley is officially one of the smartest children in the country after her test results put her on a par with the 67-year-old author of A Brief History Of Time and the 53-year-old Microsoft billionaire.
At the moment little Karina—who likes to draw, paint and play make-believe—is not too concerned about being one of the smartest children in the country.
However, the bald statistics show her score sits her in the top 0.03 per cent of children her age, placing her mental age on a par with that of a four- or five-year-old.
As for mother Charlotte Fraser, she knew her daughter was bright, just not quite how bright.
She only decided to have Karina tested after watching a television programme about child geniuses.
She took her to see Professor Joan Freeman, a specialist education psychologist.
‘Quite a lot of people had said to me that Karina is quite smart, quite bright, quite clear with her speech and quick to pick things up,’ she said.
‘So I looked Professor Freeman up on the internet, and gave her a call see if she would see her and get her tested, it was just a bit of fun really.’
Katrina scored the same IQ as Microsoft chairman Bill Gates (left) and Brief History Of Time author Stephen Hawking
Karina, who turns three this summer, undertook a complex, 45-minute IQ test in which she was asked to complete challenges in a range of different categories, including verbal ability, memory, handling a pencil and numbers and shapes.
At the end of the test, which Karina took to with ease, the professor found that she had a special bias towards words, with a ‘wonderful imagination.’
‘Karina is a lovely, responsive and friendly little girl,’ said Professor Freeman. ‘She is more than very bright and capable, she is gifted.
‘Karina enjoyed the test. The pleasure she took in the mental challenge in itself I have found to be a sign of intelligence.’
The professor noted that Karina gave imaginative responses to questions.
For instance when asked, ‘What do you use your eyes for?’ she answered, ‘You close them when you go to sleep’ and then also said, ‘You put your contact lenses in them’.
Prof Freeman said she had been particularly struck by Karina’s maturity, describing her as ‘very articulate and confident’.
‘When I ask on the vocabulary tests “what is an orange?” most two-year-olds can’t answer, those that can say “it’s round” or something very simple. But Karina immediately said it’s a fruit.’
The toddler’s IQ is expected to change as she gets older.
But as if 160 isn’t high enough, Professor Freeman thinks it is more likely to rise than fall.
Karina’s proud mother said: ‘She has a very good memory. She seems to be quite aware of her surroundings, what’s going on around her, she’s very observant, she talks all the time, asks questions all the time.’
As for where her intelligence comes from, she said: ‘The nature verses nurture argument is a very interesting one.
‘I have stayed at home with her for almost three years, I have always talked to her a lot, always tried to answer her questions, we do a lot of things, we go to the park and we are part of various groups, that must make a difference.
‘I don’t know whether it’s that, combined with something that she was born with.
‘I just think of her as Karina, I don’t have anyone to compare her to.’
The mother used to work in marketing while Karina’s father Nick, works as a computer programmer.
Professor Freeman used the Stanford-Binet IQ test, originally devised by Alfred Binet at the beginning of the century.
Karina’s score of 160 was arrived at by converting a single raw score for the entire test to a figure indicating mental age.
She then used a formula to arrive at the IQ figure. An IQ of 100 means the child’s chronological and mental ages match.
Traditionally, scores of 90 to 109 are considered average and anything above 140, gifted.
Two months ago the Mail told how Elise Tan-Roberts—aged two years, four months and two weeks—had just become the youngest member of Mensa, with an estimated IQ of 156.
Karina Oakley and her mother, Charlotte Fraser.
Original article
(Posted on June 9, 2009)
Comments
IQ can’t change. The only reason it seems to is the deficiency of the tests. A good metaphor is that IQ is the size of the bucket, and education is the water inside the bucket. A good IQ test disregards the water to measure the size of the bucket.
I have come to the conclusion that some people’s buckets are so large that they inevitably self-fill with water. In other words, if you have a person with an IQ of 160 born on a deserted island, with no hope of formal education or vast scientific or cultural literacy, he or she will, just through the power of observing, be able to learn a lot about the world around them on his or her own.
Not to be a total jerk but I would guess that most specialists in this field don’t make much money telling their client’s that their children are dunces. If I had to place a wager, I’d bet that the good doctor’s clients range in IQ from “gifted” at the low end to “smartest toddler in the Country” like this child.
As far as the actual test goes the article says she is almost three years old but as smart as a four or five year old. That really doesn’t seem THAT impressive. I mean she is a little advanced for her age but that might be a temporary benefit of a very involved and attentive mother.
Also the writers clearly are not the smartest writers in Britain either. If she is amongst the top .03 percent of toddlers we would expect to see another child of her intelligence for every 3,333 persons. This would make her rare but unlikely to be the smartest toddler in the country.
I do not believe a two year old can be accurately tested for cognitive ability. You may be able to tell whether one is deficient in some area or very bright, but norming a response from a two year subject seems an impossibility to me. I also doubt that either Bill Gates or Stephen Hawking would release their IQ scores to the public even if they were actually ever tested. It has been quite a while since I did any work in the field, but I believe there are, or were, two recognized IQ tests, the WAIS and the Weshler, both of which were scaled differently.
What exactly would a two year old do at a Mensa meeting?
When a man confined to a wheelchair still pridefully insists that God does not exist, I do not consider that to be an IQ worthy of emulating.
Every Day I can get up and walk around, I praise God I am alive. I honestly feel sorry for Hawking…
As one of the persons, a Mensa member as a child, who tested off the scales as a child and above 160 now I have been harassed, threatened, and assaulted many times by jealous people. There are others as smart or smarter than this child and I hope her parents will see that she meets some of them so that they can help her through the problems that being very smart brings with it.
Isn’t 165 the IQ generally considered to be genius level?
The takeaway point is that there is nothing in her environment that accounts for her precociousness at this age. She just happens to be one of the smartest 2000 people in Britain.
In the US there are 10,000 people as smart as she is; on the planet, there are nearly 200,000 people as smart.
I don’t doubt that the child is bright, but at two years of age you really can’t determine IQ accurately.
I thought for sure ‘Katrina’ would be non-white. Was convinced of it. Why else run the story at all except to smash racism?
This is silly. A two year old who is as smart as a four year old has a higher IQ than Bill Gates—-that is the 2 year old has a 200 IQ, by definition
Francis Galton as reading newspapers and classical literature when he was 4…Just FYI
If there is one thing I’ve learned in my life about blacks and mestizos, it is that they regard blonds and reddish blonds as their antithesis of sorts, and they resent and dislike them. One of the terms the mestizos have for all whites in referring to them in private conversation, is “blondies.”
Remember the 5’ 10” 14 year old black on the school bus a while back jabbing and provoking a little 10 year old white kid who was a gifted student? He was only about 80 pounds and less than 5 feet tall. The black was so filled with hate and jealousy against whites he finally jumped to his feet and literally pounded on the little guy with his big fists, until the kid’s nose was bleeding, all because the black just couldn’t stand being reminded by this little boy that whites are smarter.
Here’s hoping this pretty little strawberry blond won’t suffer the same fate, but whites are so cowardly nowadays she could well be harrassed and despised by non-whites, especially blacks, simply because she is regarded by them as their polar opposite, and she could well be harassed and beaten, while other whites stand around and watch.
“I do not consider that to be an IQ worthy of emulating.
Well, I DO! I may feel sorry for his physical condition, but I admire his mind all the more.
ut I believe there are, or were, two recognized IQ tests, the WAIS and the Weshler, both of which were scaled differently.
Same test.
There are actually a number of other IQ tests. One is about as good as another, but I like WAIS and WISC. Those are about the gold standard. WAIS and WISC are scaled differently, sure, because one is for kids and another is for adults.
Kids with sky high scores, like that woman who writes column who claims she got an 210 IQ score, usually if not always see their scores decline into adulthood. Very high childhood scores just don’t hold up. 160 is pretty high, but you might be surprised how many people score even higher. Go to places like MIT and you will find folks scoring even higher than that.
Problem is that at some point, the scores just kind of wash out. The person is scoring so high that it’s not really measurable in any meaningful way anymore. They’re just total freaking brainiacs and giving them a point score is meaningless. And towards the high end, scores don’t matter all that much either. Recall Watson, discoverer of the double helix, has an IQ of only 117. Crucially, the tests do not measure creativity very well. The .03% can’t possibly be correct. IQ 145 is .10 and there are many more of them than IQ 160’s.
The first poster is correct. High IQ folks simply create an intelligent environment somehow. I remember a story about a high IQ kid in some village in India with about nothing. Regularly, he would take off and walk some miles to go to a city with a bookstore and stay there all day reading books. It was quite a far distance to walk. He didn’t have to do that. He did it because he wanted to. High IQ’s actively seek out stimulation even in impoverished environments.
The key to the article is Beth Hale and Claire Ellicott, and Professor Joan Freeman. These gals are sick and tired of hearing how men are so darn smart. They would like to break some stereotypes here.
We can imagine their next article. Little girls are the smartest people in the world and would continue to grown into the smartest adults in the world if the nasty males did not use their thick skulls and big muscles to beat them down and deprive women of their rightful place.
There a lot of smart women in the world. But we don’t need them wasting away their productive years trying to be Stephen Hawking and Bill Gates. Find a good man, be a good wife and mother. Having a flaky mom with a different name may be starting the kid off in the wrong direction.
Wait until she gets older and discovers ‘radical feminism’. That’ll dumb her down.
These threads about IQ test scores are a complete waste of time.The fundamental issue for Native Born White Americans is their race-replacement at the hands of post-1965 asians,hispanics,muslims and africans.
The Science Channel had a show on an alternative IQ test. IT was a mixed group of participants. The group included seveal with very high IQ scores-180-160 range and people in the average range. The high IQ test group included MIT professor of Quantum Computation Seth Llyod-a cousin of Bertrand Russell-a hedge fund manager with an IQ of 180,two classical piano prodigies with IQs in the 160 range. The others included a English female school dropout-at age 13-and others who scores were in the average range. On most challenging problem solving task,the English fermale eight grade drop out come closest to solving the problem-in fact she dam near got the correct solution. The others in her group did quite well also. And on some of the test-challenges, the high IQ group were incompetent. I actually felt sorry for some of them. I should point out that all of the tasks were quite cognitively challenging.
After the experiment was completed and the rankings based upon performance were made, Seth Llyod and the high IQ hedge fund manager stated that scores on an IQ test don’t mean very much. You can buy a video of the show from the Science Channel-Discovery Network.
The case againast the race-replacement of Native Born White Americans is very strong. It does not require side-racking a debate about it with arcane discussions about psychometrics.
“What exactly would a two-year-old do at a Mensa meeting?” My guess is she would be HAVING THE TIME OF HER LIFE!!! 130 to 150 is the normal range in my family, and the brightest of the toddlers mix right in with the rest of us. They take part in conversations, give opinions, soak up words and concepts like little blotters, and generally are THRILLED to be interacting with smart grownups.
Smart two-year-olds are not like dumb kids of that age. They don’t stagger around causing trouble and moaning like zombies. They focus on the world around them.
For our little pod, at least, the only time the kids misbehave is when we’re in a setting they perceive as being inferior. Then, they switch to normal kid mode, and with a vengeance. When we’re in the country, we often go to a local diner type place reserving a semi-private dining room). Then, the kids go wilder than wild. But at any restaurant they feel is on their level, the kids revert to their ‘smart kid’ settings, sitting quietly at their own table, deeply engrossed in their own very quiet conversations.
I know a brilliant film industry photographer married to a brilliant attorney…neither of them at all materialistic. He was astonished that his two-year-old son was already identifying Cadillacs. I remember being obsessed with status at that age, too (and hoarding money). The brightest (and blondest) tiny member of our pod quickly identified the richest member of our family (an industrialist), and announced that she was going to marry him. It was funny, but also telling, that a kid still using a potty chair had already learned to zero in on the Alphas.
I mention the status thing because it is relevant to DRIVE and DIRECTION. The few billionaires I (barely) know all exhibited ambition early in life, and from toddlerhood shaped their own paths in life in accordance with their ambitions. I know a man who as a truly impoverished tot made his own monopoly board, and played all by himself. Now, he’s a real estate mogul.
Same with the famous people I know. The architects were drawing buildings as babes, the authors were story-telling, the decorators were ‘decorating’ as soon as they could walk… I know one former antique dealer (who became famous in another walk of life) who sold her first antique at six. A baby genius tends to be FOCUSED and SELF-DIRECTED. They usually get derailed by life experiences (such as being bullied by minorities), but each has the potential to become a Bill Gates or Jim Barksdale.
And please notice that Oakley and Charlotte Fraser are redheads. They tend to be the very smartest. I worship them. ‘Mignon’ has told us that she is a red-headed Cajun from Lafayette. Also in her home town are a number of brilliant redheads, including ‘Red’ himself, who built up from nothing, the 40+ acre ‘Red’s’, frequently listed as the best health club on the planet.
And let’s not forget Thomas Jefferson, a redhead who, among many other things, helped invent the wonderful nation we inhabited until November of last year. Then, there’s Elizabeth I, England’s greatest monarch. I think little Oakley sort of looks like Jefferson. May she do so well.
Whats the point of this article? Surely there are babies born all around the world everyday with IQs greater than Hawkings or Einstein. IQ is more or less what you are born with is it not?
The fraction of people with IQs >160 is very very small, but there are many babies born every day, so some will inevitably have IQs >160.
So what’s the significance of this article?
As one of the persons, a Mensa member as a child, who tested off the scales as a child and above 160 now I have been harassed, threatened, and assaulted many times by jealous people.
I’m beginning to enjoy this - if I could have a dollar for every time an Amren member proclaims a genius IQ or Mensa membership I’d be a rich man.
I think it has something to do with the incredible narcissim that seems to pervade WN circles.
And Oldman, “harrassed, threatened, and assaulted ” for being a genius? Somehow this doesn’t ring true.
It is all good and well, but it would be heaven send if we get a political genius who can help us out of this mess.
Even a genius can be corrupted by a corrupt environment.
We need a genius who is not stuck in a Mensa hall, but one that moves out in public and has the courage to sweep with a mighty broom in the Western world.
These geniuses only appear in the run of a few centuries.
They are the people that call in a new era.
The last one shot himself.
A little off topic, but what did these really smart people do 5,000 years ago? The daily reality was almost completely physical, with not much more thinking required than planning out the hunt. It seems like too many brains could become a handicap at some point. Why did these very bright people evolve in a hunter gatherer society?
I suppose these smarts could be used to manoveur in a social setting, but they sure weren’t thinking about string theory.
19 — John Liu wrote at 1:08 PM on June 10:
If the significance of this is incomprehensible to you, then it would be a waste of time to explain anything further.
“I’m beginning to enjoy this - if I could have a dollar for every time an Amren member proclaims a genius IQ or Mensa membership I’d be a rich man.”
You certainly don’t sound as if you’re enjoying this. Not at all. In fact what you usually write about reveals considerable angst at many things written here.
This brings us around to the same question asked of you many times before, but you’ve never answered: “If you dislike whites so much, why did you come to this country?” And if you regard whites as less than your own people, why couldn’t you build a country as great as ours, as we did?
If you’ll notice, nobody here is writing an opinion from your country complaining about the people around them.
In fact, most here would be too polite to have been graciously accepted into a foreign land, then spend time condemning their benefactors, and would refrain from criticizing the people there, because they have the intelligence to know that they didn’t have to relocate and they’re free to go anytime they so choose.
Non-whites can’t seem to grasp such a simple concept.
If all of you had just stayed home and worked on improving your own societies, we would now be a successful homogeneous society with only about 10% of the problems we have right now. As it presently stands, we are in the process of collapsing economically and we will be taking the entire world down with us.
Many are forecasting open warfare as well. Where will you go then?
“The key to the article is Beth Hale and Claire Ellicott, and Professor Joan Freeman. These gals are sick and tired of hearing how men are so darn smart. They would like to break some stereotypes here. “
No, there have been many articles on smart little boys with high IQ’s, I don’t see this at all. I don’t think it’s about gender.
“There a lot of smart women in the world. But we don’t need them wasting away their productive years trying to be Stephen Hawking and Bill Gates. Find a good man, be a good wife and mother”
While marriage and kids are good things, regardless of whether you are a man or a woman, I find saying that that is the only thing women should be is ridiculous. If she wants to be a wife and mother, great but if she wants to be the next “Bill Gates” that’s great too or both. It’s the business of the individual what they want to do with their life, nobody else’s.
ranger wrote at 6:58 PM on June 10:
“You certainly don’t sound as if you’re enjoying this. Not at all. In fact what you usually write about reveals considerable angst at many things written here.”
Indeed. It’s only a guess on my part, but due to his command of the English langauge, I believe he grew up here. I wonder if the treatment he received at the hands of his White peers in school has anything to do with the “love” he frequently expresses for WN.
I often wonder the same thing about “nationally respected filmmaker” Spike Lee. He grew up in Brooklyn and went to a high school that had a predominantly Italian-American student body at the time (John Dewey). Could that be a factor in the decidedly “pro-Italian” slant that exists in many of his movies?
I doubt that the results of IQ tests for two-year-olds are terribly meaningful.
The child could be mildly autistic. This is called Asperger’s syndrome and in my opinion is NOT a deficit. I am an Asperger’s person, caucasian, IQ of over 150, speak multiple languages fluently and can play ANY musical instrument made. When I was growing up, it was not generally recognized and was taken as extreme shyness. Where Asperger’s people can fall short is in social interaction; however, this can be remedied with appropriate intervention and understanding.
“…what did these really smart people do 5,000 years ago? … Why did these very bright people evolve in a hunter gatherer society?…”
They were busy trying to keep themselves and their loved ones alive in an unforgiving, freezing-cold northern climate marked by long, dark winters with scarce available food. Those without an ability to plan ahead for this lengthy period did not survive.
Ancient Northern Europeans may have once been hunter-gatherers, painting themselves blue while hunkering down in crude shelters, but the harsh winters selected for higher intelligence, an ability to plan for the future, and for a sense of cooperation needed to bring down large game and mete out scarce resources. They either had to become brutal marauders or protect themselves from such—it was this or elimination from the gene pool.
We’ve come a long way from being hunter-gatherers.
In an article entitled “Winters are Good for Your Genes” Ruston explains:
“…As early humans migrated out of Africa they encountered the cognitively demanding problem of having to survive cold winters where there were no plant foods and they had to hunt, sometimes big game. They also had to solve the problem of keeping warm. This required greater intelligence than was needed in tropical and semi-tropical equatorial Africa where plant foods are plentiful throughout the year…”
http://tinyurl.com/m9o9mc
Darwin was right.
Bon
“I think it has something to do with the incredible narcissim that seems to pervade WN circles.Oldman, “harrassed, threatened, and assaulted” for being a genius? Somehow this doesn’t ring true.”
As a child, I also tested off the chart. But since I do not like appearing boastful, I’ll not sign this. I suspect that others here (myself included) do not find it seemly to speak of one’s own intelligence, and so we ordinarily do not. I have always maintained that if one is truly bright, that fact will speak for itself and people won’t have to be told. People don’t really want to hear about it, and if you’re smart you won’t tell them. (And why tell them anyway? To what purpose?)
William Hendershot wrote : “A little off topic, but what did these really smart people do 5,000 years ago? The daily reality was almost completely physical, with not much more thinking required than planning out the hunt”
I suppose they would have planned the hunt intricately; they would have figured out ways to make improved tools, make fire, construct huts, chip flint, make pottery and baskets, make string and rope, and perhaps weave cloth. They would have studied the stars, the seasons, the weather, the trees, the plants and nature. They would have tried to figure out ways to cure sickness, and to understand the erratic workings of fate. They would also have concerned themselves with how to defend themselves from (or attack) the neighboring tribes, and with power and social organization within their own.
ranger wrote: “This brings us around to the same question asked of you many times before, but you’ve never answered: “If you dislike whites so much, why did you come to this country?”
I believe Mr. Liu has told us that he lives in Hong Kong with his American wife. Yes, his command of English is such that he could have grown up in the USA (and I would guess that is the case), but he could have mastered English in Hong Kong also. I don’t know if he has said he has American citizenship, but I suspect that is also highly likely.
23 — Anonymous wrote at 8:19 PM on June 10:
“While marriage and kids are good things, regardless of whether you are a man or a woman, I find saying that that is the only thing women should be is ridiculous. If she wants to be a wife and mother, great but if she wants to be the next “Bill Gates” that’s great too or both. It’s the business of the individual what they want to do with their life, nobody else’s.”
Lol, a little ‘atomized’, are we?
I think his point was that, regardless of her abilities, the most important link that females have with the larger society is their fertility. You can try to spin things any way you like, but historically our societies have functioned best when women focus first and foremost on selecting healthy mates for stable, lasting relationships. That doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t pursue education, and contribute in any other way that they are able; but, it does mean that these other things shouldn’t take priority over the most important thing of all. Already, after only a single generation of the ‘me-centered’ culture, we can see the degenerate impact it has had on female behavior (and male behavior as well). This might not sound too ‘groovy’, but it’s just what works best.
As for the article, I was unaware that Gates had ever been tested? I don’t think he has. IMO, I would estimate his IQ to be significantly higher than that, probably around 175-180.
Karina Oakley and her mother, Charlotte Fraser.