Having read most of his works since high school, I could confidently say that Professor Mearsheimer is THE social scientist of the 21st century, with his magnum opus being Tragedy of Great Power Politics. He dwarfs the likes of Fukuyama, Pinker, Murray, and his close colleague Stephen M. Walt (who he has had many fruitful collaborations with.
He is a highly original and logical thinker, often finding detecting every single logical inconsistencies in the works of other eminent social scientists like Kenneth Waltz and being one of the pioneers of Offensive Realism, the brother of and in my opinion, the superior theory, to Defensive Realism. He can see connections that would elude lesser intellectuals, often applying the brilliant observations of the likes of Louis Hartz and James Scott on liberalism and civil society in novel ways to analyze domestic politics in contemporary Europe and American hegemony respectively.
Not only that, but he is also a prophet. Predicting the unpeaceful rise of China against the near unanimous consensus of Western Academics that its rise will be peaceful, the dilema Taiwan faces, the quagmire America would find itself in the Greater Middle East, Israel's fated destiny as an apartheid state, the disproportionate influence the Israel lobby has over American foreign policy, and the tragedy happening in Ukraine. He is an astute military expert as well, giving a detailed explanation of the importance of artillery to fighting in long wars such as the one in Ukraine alongside predicting the rapid collapse of Saddam's military in the first Iraq War (contrary to many analysts expectations of massive American casualties).
He is open minded as well, being wise enough to state that the victory of Liberal Democracy is not preordained (unlike Fukuyama), and that alternatives such as Fascism were wiped out after WW2 and are not necessary unviable economically or politically in the information age (which most Western Academics think).
On top of all that, he is a moral man (morality is positively correlated with IQ according to Pumpkinperson) which I won't elaborate on here
So that begs the question, what is his IQ? Stephen Walt, a tenured Harvard Professor and close collaborator with Professor Mearsheimer, probably has an IQ of 140 (my opinion). I think Professor Mearsheimer is at least 1 SD above Professor Walt. So perhaps 155-171 15 SD?
While I have never personally taken any of Hoeflin's Power Tests, I have read on Pumpkinperson's blog that it loads more on personality variables such as academic TIE and novel problem solving (since the problems take a long time to solve and very few people could solve them, meaning it measures both persistence and creativity) than more conventional IQ tests, and since Mearsheimer is an highly rational and original thinker (being the pioneer of Offensive Realism and being a prophet), I think he could potentially ace Hoeflin's Mega Test and qualify for membership in the Mega IQ society (176+ IQ 16 SD)
@DarthBurritoBastard @pedrolopezwasright @Castaway
He is a highly original and logical thinker, often finding detecting every single logical inconsistencies in the works of other eminent social scientists like Kenneth Waltz and being one of the pioneers of Offensive Realism, the brother of and in my opinion, the superior theory, to Defensive Realism. He can see connections that would elude lesser intellectuals, often applying the brilliant observations of the likes of Louis Hartz and James Scott on liberalism and civil society in novel ways to analyze domestic politics in contemporary Europe and American hegemony respectively.
Not only that, but he is also a prophet. Predicting the unpeaceful rise of China against the near unanimous consensus of Western Academics that its rise will be peaceful, the dilema Taiwan faces, the quagmire America would find itself in the Greater Middle East, Israel's fated destiny as an apartheid state, the disproportionate influence the Israel lobby has over American foreign policy, and the tragedy happening in Ukraine. He is an astute military expert as well, giving a detailed explanation of the importance of artillery to fighting in long wars such as the one in Ukraine alongside predicting the rapid collapse of Saddam's military in the first Iraq War (contrary to many analysts expectations of massive American casualties).
He is open minded as well, being wise enough to state that the victory of Liberal Democracy is not preordained (unlike Fukuyama), and that alternatives such as Fascism were wiped out after WW2 and are not necessary unviable economically or politically in the information age (which most Western Academics think).
On top of all that, he is a moral man (morality is positively correlated with IQ according to Pumpkinperson) which I won't elaborate on here
So that begs the question, what is his IQ? Stephen Walt, a tenured Harvard Professor and close collaborator with Professor Mearsheimer, probably has an IQ of 140 (my opinion). I think Professor Mearsheimer is at least 1 SD above Professor Walt. So perhaps 155-171 15 SD?
While I have never personally taken any of Hoeflin's Power Tests, I have read on Pumpkinperson's blog that it loads more on personality variables such as academic TIE and novel problem solving (since the problems take a long time to solve and very few people could solve them, meaning it measures both persistence and creativity) than more conventional IQ tests, and since Mearsheimer is an highly rational and original thinker (being the pioneer of Offensive Realism and being a prophet), I think he could potentially ace Hoeflin's Mega Test and qualify for membership in the Mega IQ society (176+ IQ 16 SD)
@DarthBurritoBastard @pedrolopezwasright @Castaway
