Adhara Prez, 10, has a higher IQ than Einstein and Hawking. She has her sights set on NASA

[douglas9]

Adhara Pérez started her life out by being bullied. At around 3, doctors told her mother she was on the autism spectrum, making life at school for the now-10-year-old a nightmare.

Kids called her “weirdo,” and “oddball,” and her teachers said she fell asleep in class and acted as if she didn’t want to be there. The little girl fell into a deep depression. But Pérez’s mother knew her daughter was special.

“At home, I saw that she knew the periodic table of elements and she knew algebra. I think she felt bored,” Pérez’s mother Nalley Sánchez tells Infobae.

Sánchez decided to take her daughter to therapy, and it wasn’t long before the psychiatrist recommended Pérez go to the Center for Attention to Talent (CEDAT), a school for gifted children.

Sánchez quickly learned that her daughter wasn’t simply gifted, she was a certifiable genius with an IQ of 162—higher than Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking.

The Sánchez family comes from Tláhuac, Mexico, one of the 16 boroughs into which Mexico City is divided. It’s one of the poorest in the city.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2069421

[Beakybird]

1. And she can't get a visa to come to the USA? WTF?

[Abolishinist]

15. If she would only change her career goals to modeling,

she might be able to obtain an Einstein visa, à la Rapunzel.

[whathehell]

20. Lol, but of course..

I mean, who needs a girl who 's smarter than Einstein? ..
So inconvenient

[Abolishinist]

43. I was being a little vague, becuase I REALLY don't like

even typing her name. But here goes... the former's wife's visa was an EB-1, which some have labeled the "Einstein visa" due to the qualifications (apparently not in all cases) required of one to obtain this particular version.

I have no idea WHAT her qualifications were other than being a model who attached herself to the former. Her secret service name was "Rapunzel", which I used cuz, like I said, I prefer not to see her name in print.

[OMGWTF]

24. Epstein Visa. FIFY

[Hortensis]

2. Well, good story, and I wish her well. But I think the IQ number

is either wrong or they've restructured the scale since I was in school. Back then 160s were very high scores, but quite common compared to Hawking and Einstein brains.

[Orrex]

4. IQ is a measure of how well people take IQ tests

I have no doubt that she's very smart, and probably a hell of a lot smarter than I am, but it's unfortunate that our media and our lazy, quick-answer society equates practical intelligence with a score on a dubiously accurate test.

[70sEraVet]

6. Every test is a measure of how well people take tests.

I don't know of any way around that.

[paleotn]

27. There's not. That's why they should be one data point among many.

When my better half taught pre licensure RNs she liked to make them write. Undergrads generally hate it, but that along with regular multi-guess and short answer tests gave her a better feel for their understanding of material.

[Orrex]

39. The way around it is to stop pretending that it's something that it's not

Every couple of months the media comes out with a story about some kid who has a higher IQ that Einstein or Hawking or whoever. All such stories should begin by saying "the story that follows is a lie," because that's what it is.

So the kid scored well on a test? Great! Say that.

But don't say "Kid McKid has a higher IQ score than Smarty McSmart" when the claim is based on a test that McSmart never took, or when it depends on some postmortem hocus pocus by which McSmart is declared to have had whatever IQ serves the media's agenda for the story.

Why not declare that Zippy McQuicker runs the mile faster than Christopher Marlowe or some other well known person who never, as far as we know, ran the mile for time? It's very much the same in this case.

It's also very similar to the media's beloved trend of diagnosing significant historical figures with modern-identified neurological conditions. It has very little or no basis in fact, but it get people to click on the story, which is, ultimately, the only goal.

While we're at it, let's abandon the much-loved but utter bullshit Myers-Briggs Test Instrument, which purports to identify personality types in some purportedly meaningful way.


As soon as a fundamentally inferential testing mechanism is used to stratify people in the real world, that testing mechanism has become nothing more than a tool of propaganda.

[Hortensis]

12. True-ish, and talk of people's "IQ" deserves skepticism.

I won't condemn testing to try to identify individual abilities and needs to maximize the benefits of schooling, though. Testing isn't responsible for being done or used for any reason but the child's benefit, but first do no harm.

[whathehell]

22. Especially when

it's a mere " girl" being touted as smarter than Einstein?

[Orrex]

40. The article's not saying that she's smarter than Einstein

I hope she is! We need her now more than ever!

But the article is irresponsibly claiming that she has a higher IQ than Einstein, when Einstein's IQ was never measured by the test that purports to measure Adhara's.


For me, that's the problem, and not whether or not she's smarter. It seems very likely that she's smarter than I am, but that's faint praise indeed.

[Bucky]

5. There's no such thing as one IQ test. There's different versions.

So when you talk about IQ score comparisons, it's not unlike comparing scores from baseball and soccer games.

I'm too busy and too bored with repeating myself to go into a rant about how IQ tests pretty much only test test-taking skills, can be studied for (invalidatinh any claim of measuring intrinsic intelligence), and invariably have extensive cultural biases.

I'll only point out that an IQ test by design assumes that there's only one type of intelligence.

Anyone who tells you one person has a higher IQ score than someone else doesn't know what the hell they're talking about.

[KS Toronado]

11. I beg your pardon........

Joe Biden has a higher IQ score than IQ4.5.......IMHO

[Hortensis]

25. Most people know better than to talk of "IQ" as if it's as

simply indicative as the reading on a thermometer. Standardized-type IQ tests are called that for a reason, of course.

[mcar]

3. What people don't understand

is that high IQ children aren't just "smart" or "learn easily," their minds work differently than does the average persons.

My 2 kids have "gifted" level IQs (not near 162) and I had to advocate for them on a regular basis at their very decent public schools. There are so many myths surrounding these kids and educators learn next to nothing about giftedness in the college training so they fall back on those myths.

I ended up home schooling kid 2 in 2nd and 5th grade because he was being "taught" things he already knew - that is not learning. In 2nd grade, he got despondent and was sick all the time until he begged me to give him a "proper education." He learned more in about a quarter of the time. In 5th grade, he decided that if nobody was teaching him, he'd focus on his social life and started getting into bits of trouble.

He hated high school and barely completed an associate's degree. Yet, he is more learned than even his high achieving older brother in many respects. The thing that saved him was music - school band, marching band, independent drum corps. He now teaches/writes music/coreographs shows for HS and independent bands.

[Bucky]

7. Did you ever hear of a book called "Bright Minds Poor Grades"?

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/565689.Bright_Minds_Poor_Grades

I highly recommend it

[mcar]

32. I hadn't. I'll look it up

Thanks.

[JI7]

16. We need to teach more music in schools

There are many kids who have trouble with the usual learning structure but if you add in music they seem to adapt to things better. But people don't always figure this out until later if at all so it's better to include this early on and regularly.

Parents if special needs kids usually have to fight to get what they need but usually offering those things to all students still help everyone.

[mcar]

33. That is so true

Music and arts are the first things to get cut but are so needed. I honestly don't know if my son would have finished HS if not for band.

[Disaffected]

8. Nice story but

comparing her (or anyone else) to Einstein or Hawking etc. based on some sort of IQ test is quite nonsensical.

IQ tests give a rough qualitative indication of intelligence but there are too many variables, such as a test subject's background, education and experience for a test to give any sort of meaningful quantitative measure.

[elleng]

9. 'Prez's mother knew her daughter was special.

“At home, I saw that she knew the periodic table of elements and she knew algebra. I think she felt bored,” Pérez’s mother Nalley Sánchez tells Infobae.

Sánchez decided to take her daughter to therapy, and it wasn’t long before the psychiatrist recommended Pérez go to the Center for Attention to Talent (CEDAT), a school for gifted children.'

[nolabear]

14. Thank goodness for moms and good psychiatrists.

Having them in her corner and thinking of her “problems” as potential assets is key.

[paleotn]

29. Moms always know.

[Collimator]

10. There is a quote somewhere from Hawking. . .

. . . That suggests he didn't even know his IQ score. And Einstein valued imagination over raw intelligence.

Much luck and encouragement to young Ms. Perez, though.

[bucolic_frolic]

13. NASA my ---

Politics is in need of some great thinkers, have you noticed?

[Hortensis]

18. :) I've noticed that a talent for self aggrandizement can elevate

people who have no other far above their level of incompetence in politics.

However, I've also noticed what I think is a much bigger, more fundamental problem in politics: That's that voters could have nothing but great thinkers and not know it.

We do have many fine quality people and almost certainly a number of great thinkers in the Democratic Party*, but they are dismissed or even looked on contemptuously because people are unable to recognize and value them. For that, we have historians to someday enlighten us, or more often our descendants.

*By definition, great people from among 250 million adults would be far more likely to choose to serve in government as Democrats, or at least independent liberals or moderate conservatives.

Notably, over 200 years have produced NO great conservative political leaders. Strong conservatives of Abraham Lincoln's day despised and even loathed him, and those of today would also, but they need to be able to claim him as their own because they literally have no one.

[pnwmom]

17. I'm sure she's gifted but no IQ test today could prove she's smarter than either of those men.

Einstein's IQ isn't known, because he didn't take an IQ test. Stephen Hawking has also never reported an IQ score.

Also, different IQ tests have different upper limits, and IQ tests have changed over the decades.

The immediate problem is that no one knows what Einstein's IQ was, as he was never tested. It is assumed he would have an IQ score of 160+, which is reckoned to equate with genius level.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/shortcuts/2019/mar/04/does-having-a-higher-iq-than-einstein-guarantee-success

Stephen Hawking, seen by many as the world's smartest person, never revealed his IQ score. It's not even known if he took an IQ test.

https://www.newsweek.com/what-stephen-hawkings-iq-score-late-physicist-called-people-who-care-losers-843895

[Beakybird]

19. They mean the Einstein who created Einstein Bagels. He was very smart too.

[Lucky Luciano]

37. Hawking is overrated, but is notable for having accomplished what he did given his condition.

Last edited Mon Jan 3, 2022, 12:33 PM - Edit history (1)

Einstein really truly thought differently. revolutionary.

Terence Tao, John von Neumann, Emmy Noether, Ed Witten, Marie Curie, Vladimir Voevodsky are also some big guns.

Kim On-Young

[abqtommy]

21. Autism giveth to some and taketh away from others. My two autistic sons both have

below-normal IQs of 85. I wish Adhara the best in life. Autism of any kind is no picnic.

[3Hotdogs]

23. I made MENSA. But I don't feel much smart.

My life isn't as fucked up as most of my relatives but I still fuck up.

[Orrex]

41. In my experience MENSA is mostly intended for people who like to be told how smart they are

If that's what makes someone happy, then more power to them.

[3Hotdogs]

45. I thought it might be fun.... I joined a New Jersey group, just as they were going to break out

into two regional N.J. groups. And the carping and sniping between the two groups.... well, it stopped being fun, if it ever was going to be fun.

So I never went back.

[Orrex]

46. Here's a disappointing fact I've learned over the decades

Any group that forms to shield itself from the petty politics and social caste system of society at large will duplicate the petty politics and social caste system at the earliest opportunity.

Not at all surprised to hear that MENSA is the same.

[Takket]

26. Good. Someone get this young lady on unifying gravity with the standard model...

[BigmanPigman]

28. I took the IQ tests that my students took.

Since I was teaching a Gifted and Talented class I had the training and part of it was the test. It is a bunch of shapes that follow a certain pattern. No words at all. Any age or culture can take it. It started out easy but got very difficult quickly.

After the 3rd graders at my school took the test (they did it in 3rd and 5th grades) I asked their teacher how it went. She told me one of her students took the longest time since he carefully studied the images to find the pattern. He ended up having such a high score that he was sent to a special school.

I had a friend who had a 165 IQ and he dropped out of High School, never kept a job for long and turned to drugs and was homeless often. Sometimes being super smart isn't a "gift".

[pansypoo53219]

36. in one of my 1891 encyclopedia brittannica, had a young man who knew many languages + he died young.

[panader0]

42. "Too much intelligence is a disease".---Dostoevsky

[BigmanPigman]

44. Actually, the Gifted kids

were in the "special needs" group along with those who had other disabilities and needs such as those who had ADD, learning difficulties and physically in need of assistance. The classroom is a mixed bag and a teacher has to juggle 1,001 balls, always keeping them in the air.

[ismnotwasm]

30. Well I hope she soars.

Not interested in the IQ debate, although I understand where the comments are coming from. Simply put, for a child to know the periodic table is far more impressive that knowing the alphabet. Finishing high school by 8 is also impressive.

When she was just 5, Pérez finished elementary school. At 6 she finished middle school, and at 8 she finished high school. Today, she’s studying two careers online—Industrial engineering in mathematics at UNITEC and systems engineering at CNCI. The University of Arizona has offered her a scholarship.

Pérez was invited to study there personally by the university’s president, Robert C. Robbins, who sent her a letter with the news. “I was thrilled to read about your incredible story online and to find out that your dream school is the University of Arizona,” Robbins said in his letter. “We have many outstanding space sciences programs, you would have many opportunities to work side by side with the world’s leading experts … You have a bright future ahead of you, and I hope to welcome you on campus one day as a Wildcat.”

However, with the challenges of the U.S. visa, she hasn’t been able to go.

Forbes magazine named Pérez one of the 100 powerful women of Mexico, and she recently authored a memoir titled Don’t Give Up.

“The most difficult thing was breaking the stereotype that children with autism cannot and are incapable of achieving things,” Sánchez told The Mazatlan Post.

[Lucky Luciano]

38. Agreed - the above is much more interesting than 162.

[pnwmom]

34. Also, there isn't agreement on how to test IQ's of children with autism.

By itself, it isn't considered a very useful measure with autistic children.

https://www.appliedbehavioranalysisedu.org/how-is-iq-testing-handled-when-working-with-patients-with-asd/

It’s important to note that even psychologists that use IQ tests do not assume that test results correlate directly to human intelligence. In addition to requiring expert interpretation for scoring, it’s also implicit that IQ scores not be used for purposes outside their range of validity. For example, attempts to use IQ to determine what therapeutic approaches to use with ASD patients would fall flat—there can be tremendous functional and perceptual differences between two different individuals who both happen to have the same IQ score.

[iluvtennis]

35. Wow, just wonderful. n/t

[Deep State Witch]

47. Elon Musk

Elon Musk could actually do a good thing by giving this young woman a full scholarship to the university of her choice - either inside or outside of the US. That is, if he would stop being a supervillain long enough to care about someone other than himself.