# Bush's IQ higher than Kerry's
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushs-iq-higher-than-kerrys/271271
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [October 26, 2004, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushs-iq-higher-than-kerrys/271271 "2004-10-26T18:02:24Z")
**Posts on this page:** 16
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Tigers2B1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tigers2B1)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2004, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushs-iq-higher-than-kerrys/271271/1 "2004-10-26T18:02:24Z")
Just in ---- an estimate of Kerry’s IQ using his military records and IQ correlated tests he took during that period. OK — I know this is sort of silly – but, given the constant liberal whine about how smart they are and how much smarter their candidate always seems to be ---- and of course, the corresponding how dumb everyone else is – I figured I’d post this. While Bush’s SAT scores have been made available, as well as Al Gore’s SATs before him, Kerry’s SAT scores have not been made public. **YET** , other IQ like tests that Kerry did take while in the military have to used to estimate Kerry’s IQ.
Here’s the link to the original site which provides the details and how the estimates were derived –
[http://www.vdare.com/sailer/kerry\_iq\_lower.htm](http://www.vdare.com/sailer/kerry_iq_lower.htm)
AND HERE’S the related article from _The New York Times_
> [@](#):
>
> \*\*To Bush-bashers, it may be the most infuriating revelation yet from the military records of the two presidential candidates: the young George W. Bush probably had a higher I.Q. than did the young John Kerry.
>
> That, at least, is the conclusion of Steve Sailer, a conservative columnist at the Web magazine [Vdare.com](http://Vdare.com) and a veteran student of presidential I.Q.'s. During the last presidential campaign Mr. Sailer estimated from Mr. Bush’s SAT score (1206) that his I.Q. was in the mid-120’s, about 10 points lower than Al Gore’s.
>
> Mr. Kerry’s SAT score is not known, but now Mr. Sailer has done a comparison of the intelligence tests in the candidates’ military records. They are not formal I.Q. tests, but Mr. Sailer says they are similar enough to make reasonable extrapolations.
>
> Mr. Bush’s score on the Air Force Officer Qualifying Test at age 22 again suggests that his I.Q was the mid-120’s, putting Mr. Bush in about the 95th percentile of the population, according to Mr. Sailer. Mr. Kerry’s I.Q. was about 120, in the 91st percentile, according to Mr. Sailer’s extrapolation of his score at age 22 on the Navy Officer Qualification Test.
>
> Linda Gottfredson, an I.Q. expert at the University of Delaware, called it a creditable analysis said she was not surprised at the results or that so many people had assumed that Mr. Kerry was smarter. “People will often be misled into thinking someone is brighter if he says something complicated they can’t understand,” Professor Gottfredson said….\*\*
The link to this _New York Times_ article -
> **[Secret Weapon for Bush? (Published 2004)](https://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/24/politics/campaign/secret-weapon-for-bush.html)**
>
> Secret Weapon For Bush? To Bush-bashers, it may be the most infuriating revelation yet from the military records of the two presidential candidates: the young George W. Bush probably had a higher I.Q. than did the young John Kerry. That, at...
---
### Author:  [@Duke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2004, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushs-iq-higher-than-kerrys/271271/2 "2004-10-26T18:13:27Z")
> [@](#):
>
> To Bush-bashers, it may be the most infuriating revelation yet from the military records of the two presidential candidates: the young George W. Bush probably had a higher I.Q. than did the young John Kerry.
Will the media ever start focusing on what the candidates are and are doing RIGHT NOW, instead of freakin’ 30 or 40 years ago? We’re not voting on whether the Bush or the Kerry fresh out of college would make the better president, we’re voting on who’s going to make the better president right now, the year 2004, not 1972 or 1968 or any previous time. Seriously, is anybody going to think, “Wow, Bush scored 1206 on his SAT–I better vote for him!”
Furthermore, can anyone really extrapolate IQ from SAT scores? That sounds about as dodgy as extrapolating intelligence from word usage, or any _one_ of a dozen factors. Crazy.
In short, this is pure media drivel, once again. I spent the last three presidential elections abroad, and I am thankful that I did not have to put up with this kind of crap. Next election, no more.
---
### Author:  [@ShibbOleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShibbOleth)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2004, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushs-iq-higher-than-kerrys/271271/3 "2004-10-26T19:13:00Z")
I’m guessing that Kerry didn’t get into Yale based on his connections, so wouldn’t he have most likely done better on his SATs than Bush? If so that would make the columnists interpolations incorrect.
Kerry had better have pulled some good SATs. Mine were much better than Bush’s, and I’m not going to vote for anyone dumber than me. Maybe Nader or Badnarik had better scores?
---
### Author:  [@stpauler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stpauler)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2004, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushs-iq-higher-than-kerrys/271271/4 "2004-10-26T20:18:14Z")
My IQ is then better than Kerry’s, Bush’s, and Gore’s. It certainly doesn’t qualify me to president.
---
### Author:  [@FilmGeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FilmGeek)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2004, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushs-iq-higher-than-kerrys/271271/5 "2004-10-26T20:31:59Z")
Mine too, stpauler. By a TON.
However, it was tested when I was seven, so I doubt that matters much now. 😃
---
### Author:  [@alice\_in\_wonderland](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alice_in_wonderland)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2004, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushs-iq-higher-than-kerrys/271271/6 "2004-10-26T20:34:58Z")
> [@](#):
>
> That, at least, is the conclusion of Steve Sailer, a **conservative columnist** …
I’m sure this didn’t bias the analysis AT ALL! :rolleyes:
---
### Author:  [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2004, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushs-iq-higher-than-kerrys/271271/7 "2004-10-26T20:41:16Z")
> [@Tigers2B1](#):
>
> I know this is sort of silly
Silly? Try [meaningless](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilyn_vos_Savant).
---
### Author:  [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2004, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushs-iq-higher-than-kerrys/271271/8 "2004-10-26T20:47:58Z")
The only inference I can justify is that Bush must have blown doors in the math and written components.
---
### Author:  [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2004, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushs-iq-higher-than-kerrys/271271/9 "2004-10-26T21:10:27Z")
> [@lieu](#):
>
> The only inference I can justify is that Bush must have blown doors in the math and written components.
You realize that a certain US Airman is gonna be pretty pissed at you when he reads this post. I really doubt he was even proctoring this exam.
At any rate, when theory contradicts data, data always win. It’s not Kerry that I heard saying astonishingly stupid things over and over during the debate.
Daniel
---
### Author:  [@Sternvogel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sternvogel)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2004, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushs-iq-higher-than-kerrys/271271/10 "2004-10-26T21:33:15Z")
> [@ShibbOleth](#):
>
> I’m guessing that Kerry didn’t get into Yale based on his connections
As the Sailer article points out, John Forbes Kerry is a member of the Forbes family which “amassed a huge fortune in the China trade, initially trading North American furs and manufactured goods for tea and other goods from China”, and also “made a considerable fortune smuggling opium during the Opium Wars.” The material in quotes is taken from [this article.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbes_family) Kerry has not worked for the Forbes enterprises, but is a beneficiary of family trusts. He’d be a wealthy man even had he not married the former Teresa Heinz.
Kerry’s mother was Rosemary Forbes, but John’s father was a U.S. Department of State attorney for United Nations affairs – certainly a prestigious position. More on John Kerry’s background is [available here.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kerry)
Still, there’s no doubting that Bush is also a child of privilege. As Sailer says:
> [@](#):
>
> Kerry, being a Forbes, had family pull too—but certainly no more than Bush, whose father and grandfather were Yalies. And the latter, Prescott Bush, had been U.S. Senator from Yale’s state of Connecticut until the year before.
>
> During the 1960s, Yale tightened up entrance requirements for sons of graduates considerably, especially in the year after Bush was admitted. The late historian Jim Chapin, who taught at Yale during those years, told me that the intellectual quality of his students leapt upwards the next year.
>
> This sudden arrival of so many brainy, bookish, leftwing nobodies may be a major reason Bush became so alienated from Yale during his later years there.
>
> Still, it’s important to keep in mind that Kerry was admitted two years before Bush—when admission was even less meritocratic.
---
### Author:  [@wolf\_meister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolf_meister)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2004, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushs-iq-higher-than-kerrys/271271/11 "2004-10-26T21:38:02Z")
Geez, there’s an awful lot of bull shit in that “scientific analysis”. Things such as ‘not formal IQ tests’ and ‘Bush probably had a higher IQ’.
Gee whiz think I’ll get me one of them there Internetical websites and post my latest findings that it was really Dubya Bush who served in Vietnam and Kerry who stayed home in the National Guard. Really !!! I can back this up with a plethora of “maybe’s” a good dose of “probably’s” and several assertions of “could have”. :rolleyes:
Dubya smarter than Kerry ??? Make the pie higher !!!
---
### Author:  [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2004, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushs-iq-higher-than-kerrys/271271/12 "2004-10-26T23:30:26Z")
There are many intellectual qualities besides raw IQ that go into being suited for a given endeavor. I’ve never thought GWB was inherently stupid, but he seems to have narrowed his view of the world, and developed a notable habit of resisting unwanted information or changing his mind about something based on new knowledge. That kind of wilfull ignorance and intellectual laziness is unfortunate in a man and disastrous in a President.
---
### Author:  [@tnetennba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tnetennba)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2004, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushs-iq-higher-than-kerrys/271271/13 "2004-10-26T23:47:35Z")
I’m disappointed a publication like the New York Times would even paraphrase such a study. Many people consider IQ to be bordering on pseudo-science, and guessing at IQ is definitely a pseudo-science.
---
### Author:  [@\_m\_c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/_m_c)
#### Post date: [October 27, 2004, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushs-iq-higher-than-kerrys/271271/14 "2004-10-27T00:07:49Z")
> [@wolf\_meister](#):
>
> Geez, there’s an awful lot of bull shit in that “scientific analysis”. Things such as ‘not formal IQ tests’ and ‘Bush probably had a higher IQ’.
>
> :rolleyes:
>
> Dubya smarter than Kerry ??? Make the pie higher !!!
Yep more fodder for the compost pile.
---
### Author:  [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)
#### Post date: [October 27, 2004, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushs-iq-higher-than-kerrys/271271/15 "2004-10-27T00:11:11Z")
There are plenty of people who seem to think Bush’s intellect, or at least his ability to speak elequently, has declined in his later years. Maybe he did have a higher IQ or was smarter than Kerry 30 years ago.
---
### Author:  [@Larry\_Griffin-Kentzel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Griffin-Kentzel)
#### Post date: [October 27, 2004, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushs-iq-higher-than-kerrys/271271/16 "2004-10-27T00:45:23Z")
Sorry, folks . . . this is **MPSIMS**. Please take your partisan ramblings to either **GD** or **The Pit**.
**Cajun Man**
for the SDMB