The woman who outsmarted the IQ test
Provocations, Thought Experiments, and Tiny Actions to Take
Provoked is a reader-supported publication (benefits for subscribing are here). This is your one-stop source for insights on Purpose, Happiness, Friendship, Romance, Narcissism, Creativity, Curiosity, and Mental Fortitude!
Subscribers get the final section on Provocations, Thought Experiments, and Tiny Actions to Take
In 1956, a 10-year-old girl from Missouri sat down for a version of the Stanford-Binet IQ test. When the results came in, the numbers were so high they practically snapped the scale in half. Her mental age clocked in at nearly 23. That’s an IQ over 220. For reference, Mensa requires somewhere between 132 and 148 depending on the test, and the average person hovers around 100. By those rules, she was so-called brilliant, even mythological.
No one noticed the score for decades. Then one day, the Guinness Book of World Records dusted it off and crowned her the brightest child to ever take the test. Her name was Marilyn vos Savant. And just like that, the public decided she was a genius.
Here’s what she did after that. She got married at 16. Had two kids by 19. Raised them as a stay-at-home mom. Tried college. Didn’t finish. Got divorced. Got married again. Got divorced again. She published puzzles. Wrote a few essays under a pen name. Raised her boys and kept mostly to herself.
Then Guinness made her famous. Out of nowhere, she became a professional genius. She got a logic column in Parade magazine. Wrote books with titles like Brain Building in Just 12 Weeks. People sent her questions, and she’d solve problems most of us wouldn’t even know how to phrase. Her solution to the Monty Hall problem sparked a nationwide hissy fit, but she stood by it, and she was right.
How would you answer if I asked, “What should the person with the greatest so-called intelligence in society consider doing with their lives?” My guess is online blog for Parade magazine would be low on the list.
She married Robert Jarvik, inventor of the artificial heart. Their wedding rings were made of the same carbon compound used in his medical device. Isaac Asimov gave her away at the altar (now that is fucking cool!). It was all very high-IQ.
They told the press they were happy to finally meet people they could talk to (not as cool as the Asimov story). They went to Paris. He worked on a theory of physics that never panned out. She wrote a screenplay that was never made.
And still, the genius label stuck. Because once you get a score that high, people stop asking what you’re doing. They assume it must be something amazing. And if it’s not, they assume it will be, eventually.
But here’s what matters. Marilyn vos Savant was more than an IQ score. She was not her high school rank, or her college transcript, or the number of inventions attached to her name. She was a woman who found ways to engage her mind, raise her kids, solve puzzles that made her happy, and love people who challenged her. Her legacy is not measured in scientific revolutions. It’s measured in how she lived with the label, and how she made it her own.
Her story is a reminder. You can be smart, talented, extraordinary on paper, and still be completely lost. Or you can take all of that—scorecard or not—and build something meaningful. Something rooted in who you are, not what the world wants to call you.
We are obsessed with measuring potential. IQ. SATs. Rankings. Likes. Followers. But a score is not a soul. A test is not a life.
If you are waiting for someone to crown you worthy, here is some advice (nine thought experiments and tiny actions to implement in your life).