Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of highest I.Q. scores ever recorded


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. Daniel (talk) 21:14, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

List of highest I.Q. scores ever recorded

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This list can't work. The consensus of RS has no agreed-upon way to exactly "measure" the IQ of anyone. This becomes even harder when including children and historical geniuses. Many reported high scores are from unscientific IQ tests, as opposed to ones in common use by trained psychologists. The single source used here is unreliable and unscientific, and does not even cite where its IQ scores come from. It is yet another sensationalist or clickbait article on the Internet. If we continue to expand this list with similar sources, it will become a list of mere rumors, which would violate both WP:SOAPBOX and WP:INDISCRIMINATE.

Because of the variety of outlandish IQ claims, I am doubtful that even a list of claimed IQ scores can work. It is difficult to reliably verify an IQ test score, unlike height (which is objectively measurable and can be reliably reported, c.f. List of tallest people). I therefore propose deleting this article entirely. Wikinights (talk) 21:33, 23 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Rewritten for clarity, grammar. Wikinights (talk) 22:28, 23 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 21:39, 23 July 2021 (UTC)


 * Delete Not a viable list topic per nom, plus plenty of redlinks and WP:BLP violations. –LaundryPizza03 ( d c̄ ) 21:48, 23 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete Yikes, I don't even want to click on the link to see the article. Not a suitable list topic for Wikipedia. Excellent nomination, Wikinights. Gildir (talk) 21:55, 23 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete, no chance of it ever containing reliable data, let alone comprehensive data. Might as well have a list of claimed sizes of fish caught by amateur anglers. Elemimele (talk) 22:26, 23 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete: This has to be the most odd list I have seen, and relying on a single source, I don't see how it gets any notability whatsoever. As per above, list of claimed sizes of fish caught by amateur anglers might be a more interesting list. Delete. --Whiteguru (talk) 23:20, 23 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete per WP:DELREASON: Articles that cannot possibly be attributed to reliable sources, including neologisms, original theories and conclusions, and hoaxes. It's not possible to attribute an IQ score of 200 to reliable sources, because any source reporting an IQ score of 200 is simply not reliable for that assertion. It's impossible to calibrate a test that can accurately produce that result, because of the way the mathematics of IQ scores work—your score is determined by how large a proportion of the population you perform better than, and outperforming every single person on Earth would still only give you an IQ of (roughly) 195 (or equivalently, a Z-score of roughly +6⅓). An IQ of 200 means a Z-score of +6⅔, or 1 in roughly 76 billion (thanks, WolframAlpha) – roughly an order of magnitude more than the current world population. TompaDompa (talk) 23:29, 23 July 2021 (UTC)
 * You have just demonstrated there why I think that a foundation in statistics is a life skill that everyone should learn. Many claims by politicians or the press can easily be dismissed with such knowledge. Phil Bridger (talk) 09:44, 24 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete The fraught history of intelligence testing altogether makes this a 'no-go' type of article which cannot be reliably sourced in any manner.  Nate  • ( chatter ) 02:57, 24 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete as not a viable list topic. Rubbish computer Ping me or leave a message on my talk page 21:01, 25 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete the IQ claims are a mix of unsourced, untrustworthy, and after-death estimates; I don't consider the Reader's Digest listicle credible at all. Testing IQ is hard, and testing >150IQ is even harder; there's simply not the extant data to make a useful list of this form. User:力 (power~enwiki,  π,  ν ) 23:20, 29 July 2021 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.