I was bothered by some of the discussion of John’s recent post, “Do We Need Smart Presidents?” John and the discussants use the terms “smart,” “intellectual brilliance,” “IQ,” “intelligence,” and “candlepower.” Commenter Jordan Phillips mentions “emotional intelligence,” which seems more on the right track. Not that emotional intelligence is the only thing that matters, but politics in general (not just for presidents) involves a lot of negotiation. IQ-test skills presumably help with negotiation, coalition-formation, etc., but there are a lot of other important skills here.
I also have a couple of statistical comments:
1. Sample size. It seems like a mistake to focus only on U.S. presidents. There are lots of other politicians out there so no need to restrict to only 50 data points (especially given that good measures of “x” are available for few or none of them).
2. Measurement. John is admirably restrained in his discussion of this research, but the blog he cites (by Daniel Franklin) is not so careful. For example, Franklin writes, “[George W.] Bush has an IQ of about 125” and then goes on to say that Bush has the same IQ as Dwight Eisenhower, Benjamin Harrison, and . . . Millard Fillmore! This all seems petty silly to me. John describes the analysis as a “credible effort” but I think the terms “hopeless” or “meaningless” would be closer to the mark.