[extropy-chat] Intelligence of Leaders (was Re: it's all understandable, except)

[Lee Corbin]

Andrew writes

> On Nov 6, 2006, at 10:19 PM, Lee Corbin wrote [to PJ]
>> RIGHT YOU ARE!   This is a very important point.
>> Dean Keith Simonton in his book "Greatness" explains
>> that it is seldom that people who are about 20 IQ points
>> lower than you are can even understand you.  He uses
>> this idea very convincingly to explain why British PMs
>> are smarter on average than U.S. presidents. The former
>> need to impress other MPs, the latter
>> only to impress the average American voter.
> 
> Here's a serious question then with respect to this hypothesis:  is  
> there evidence that the average US President was more intelligent  
> prior to 1913, and if so what kind of average discrepancy are we  
> talking about?

I don't know!  And I sure wish I did. But the change probably came
with the election of Jackson, which was more democratic. We may
surmise---as I think Simonton did---that before 1828 the Presidents
were smarter.

Now, in my opinion, incidentally, this is not necessarily a defect in the
American system. The president is not God. He or she has policy
formulations determined by the best staffs that he or she can find.
A good judge of character and ability to delegate is probably more
important than a very high IQ.  Reagan was more successful than
Carter, and Roosevelt was more successful than Hoover, though
in each case I strongly suspect the last mentioned in each case of
having a much lower IQ than the former.  Hoover was probably
the brightest U.S. president of all, but he embraced even before
Roosevelt the same government-meddling policies that caused the
great depression. (This is the Austrian view.)  If only Harding or
Coolidge could have remained president just a bit longer (so writes
Paul Johnson, IMO the world's greatest living historian), a great
deal of evil in the 20th century would have been averted.

> And does it account for basic differences in the process that
> determines who gets to be an MP and who gets to be a  
> Congressman that bias the selection of the two populations
> a PM or President had to interact with?

I'm assuming that Simonton was suggesting that MPs are very
parallel to Congresspeople. Both need to impress their constituents
and be understandable to them. The only difference I think there is,
as I mentioned, is the secondary one of how the final leader is
determined.

Lee