Top 100 living geniuses
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Define genius. How can we define if someone is a genius? According to Wikipedia:
A genius is a person of great intelligence, who shows an exceptional natural capacity of intellect, especially as shown in creative and original work. Geniuses always show strong individuality and imagination, and are not only intelligent, but unique and innovative. The term may also be applied to someone who is a polymath, such as Goethe (estimated IQ of 210) or Da Vinci (estimated IQ of 220), but a polymath is generally considered a well-rounded genius, gifted in many areas, e.g. math, physics, art, poetry, etc. Einstein, for instance, was a genius in physics, but not necessarily in other areas such as art or literature.
Although the term “genius” is sometimes used to denote the possession of a superior talent in any field, e.g., Roger Federer may be said to have a genius for tennis or Winston Churchill for statesmanship, in many of these cases the term is applied incorrectly and should instead be used specifically to denote an exceptional natural capacity of intellect and creative originality in areas of art, literature, music, science and mathematics.
Creators Synetics compiled the top 100 living geniuses. They made a survey and a team of six experts ranks the long list of geniuses submitted in the survey. At the end they present a shortlist of 100.
Most of the geniuses listed are either an American or British. What shocked me the most is that Osama Bin Laden is sandwiched between Muhammad Ali and Bill Gates at number 43. Just imagine how many people consider him as a genius. George W. Bush, the President of the USA doesn’t even make the list.
The other thing that shocked me is that Matt Groening, the creator of The Simpsons, is ranked fourth on the list. He is ranked higher than the famous British physicist, Stephen Hawking or Frederick Sanger, the two time Nobel Prize winner in chemistry.
Here are the full 100 list (with the scores):
| 1= | Albert Hoffman | (Swiss) | Chemist | 27 |
| 1= | Tim Berners-Lee | (British) | Computer Scientist | 27 |
| 3 | George Soros | (American) | Investor & Philanthropist | 25 |
| 4 | Matt Groening | (American) | Satirist & Animator | 24 |
| 5= | Nelson Mandela | (South African) | Politician & Diplomat | 23 |
| 5= | Frederick Sanger | (British) | Chemist | 23 |
| 7= | Dario Fo | (Italian) | Writer & Dramatist | 22 |
| 7= | Steven Hawking | (British) | Physicist | 22 |
| 9= | Oscar Niemeyer | (Brazilian) | Architect | 21 |
| 9= | Philip Glass | (American) | Composer | 21 |
| 9= | Grigory Perelman | (Russian) | Mathematician | 21 |
| 12= | Andrew Wiles | (British) | Mathematician | 20 |
| 12= | Li Hongzhi | (Chinese) | Spiritual Leader | 20 |
| 12= | Ali Javan | (Iranian) | Engineer | 20 |
| 15= | Brian Eno | (British) | Composer | 19 |
| 15= | Damian Hirst | (British) | Artist | 19 |
| 15= | Daniel Tammet | (British) | Savant & Linguist | 19 |
| 18 | Nicholson Baker | (American | Writer | 18 |
| 19 | Daniel Barenboim | (N/A) | Musician | 17 |
| 20= | Robert Crumb | (American) | Artist | 16 |
| 20= | Richard Dawkins | (British) | Biologist and philosopher | 16 |
| 20= | Larry Page & Sergey Brin | (American) | Publishers | 16 |
| 20= | Rupert Murdoch | (American) | Publisher | 16 |
| 20= | Geoffrey Hill | (British) | Poet | 16 |
| 25 | Garry Kasparov | (Russian) | Chess Player | 15 |
| 26= | The Dalai Lama | (Tibetan) | Spiritual Leader | 14 |
| 26= | Steven Spielberg | (American) | Film maker | 14 |
| 26= | Hiroshi Ishiguro | (Japanese) | Roboticist | 14 |
| 26= | Robert Edwards | (British) | Pioneer of IVF treatment | 14 |
| 26= | Seamus Heaney | (Irish) | Poet | 14 |
| 31 | Harold Pinter | (British) | Writer & Dramatist | 13 |
| 32= | Flossie Wong-Staal | (Chinese) | Bio-technologist | 12 |
| 32= | Bobby Fischer | (American) | Chess Player | 12 |
| 32= | Prince | (American) | Musician | 12 |
| 32= | Henrik Gorecki | (Polish) | Composer | 12 |
| 32= | Avram Noam Chomski | (American) | Philosopher & linguist | 12 |
| 32= | Sebastian Thrun | (German) | Probabilistic roboticist | 12 |
| 32= | Nima Arkani Hamed | (Canadian) | Physicist | 12 |
| 32= | Margaret Turnbull | (American) | Astrobiologist | 12 |
| 40= | Elaine Pagels | (American) | Historian | 11 |
| 40= | Enrique Ostrea | (Philippino) | Pediatrics & neonatology | 11 |
| 40= | Gary Becker | (American) | Economist | 11 |
| 43= | Mohammed Ali | (American) | Boxer | 10 |
| 43= | Osama Bin Laden | (Saudi) | Islamicist | 10 |
| 43= | Bill Gates | (American) | Businessman | 10 |
| 43= | Philip Roth | (American) | Writer | 10 |
| 43= | James West | (American) | Invented the foil electrical microphone | 10 |
| 43= | Tuan Vo-Dinh | (Vietnamese) | Bio-Medical Scientist | 10 |
| 49= | Brian Wilson | (American) | Musician | 9 |
| 49= | Stevie Wonder | (American) | Singer songwriter | 9 |
| 49= | Vint Cerf | (American) | Computer scientist | 9 |
| 49= | Henry Kissinger | (American) | Diplomat and politician | 9 |
| 49= | Richard Branson | (British) | Publicist | 9 |
| 49= | Pardis Sabeti | (Iranian) | Biological anthropologist | 9 |
| 49= | Jon de Mol | (Dutch) | Television producer | 9 |
| 49= | Meryl Streep | (American) | Actress | 9 |
| 49= | Margaret Attwood | (Canadian) | Writer | 9 |
| 58= | Placido Domingo | (Spanish) | Singer | 8 |
| 58= | John Lasseter | (American) | Digital Animator | 8 |
| 58= | Shunpei Yamazaki | (Japanese) | Computer scientist & physicist | 8 |
| 58= | Jane Goodall | (British) | Ethologist & Anthropologist | 8 |
| 58= | Kirti Narayan Chaudhuri | (Indian) | Historian | 8 |
| 58= | John Goto | (British) | Photographer | 8 |
| 58= | Paul McCartney | (British) | Musician | 8 |
| 58= | Stephen King | (American) | Writer | 8 |
| 58= | Leonard Cohen | (American) | Poet & musician | 8 |
| 67= | Aretha Franklin | (American) | Musician | 7 |
| 67= | David Bowie | (British) | Musician | 7 |
| 67= | Emily Oster | (American) | Economist | 7 |
| 67= | Steve Wozniak | (American) | Engineer and co-founder of Apple Computers | 7 |
| 67= | Martin Cooper | (American) | Inventor of the cell phone | 7 |
| 72= | George Lucas | (American) | Film maker | 6 |
| 72= | Niles Rogers | (American) | Musician | 6 |
| 72= | Hans Zimmer | (German) | Composer | 6 |
| 72= | John Williams | (American) | Composer | 6 |
| 72= | Annette Baier | (New Zealander) | Philosopher | 6 |
| 72= | Dorothy Rowe | (British) | Psychologist | 6 |
| 72= | Ivan Marchuk | (Ukrainian) | Artist & sculptor | 6 |
| 72= | Robin Escovado | (American) | Composer | 6 |
| 72= | Mark Dean | (American) | Inventor & computer scientist | 6 |
| 72= | Rick Rubin | (American) | Musician & producer | 6 |
| 72= | Stan Lee | (American) | Publisher | 6 |
| 83= | David Warren | (Australian) | Engineer | 5 |
| 83= | Jon Fosse | (Norwegian) | Writer & dramatist | |
| 83= | Gjertrud Schnackenberg | (American) | Poet | 5 |
| 83= | Graham Linehan | (Irish) | Writer & dramatist | 5 |
| 83= | JK Rowling | (British) | Writer | 5 |
| 83= | Ken Russell | (British) | Film maker | 5 |
| 83= | Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov | (Russian) | Small arms designer | 5 |
| 83= | Erich Jarvis | (American) | Neurobiologist | 5 |
| 91=. | Chad Varah | (British) | Founder of Samaritans | 4 |
| 91= | Nicolas Hayek | (Swiss) | Businessman and founder of Swatch | 4 |
| 91= | Alastair Hannay | (British) | Philosopher | 4 |
| 94= | Patricia Bath | (American) | Ophthalmologist | |
| 94= | Thomas A. Jackson | (American) | Aerospace engineer | 3 |
| 94= | Dolly Parton | (American) | Singer | 3 |
| 94= | Morissey | (British) | Singer | 3 |
| 94= | Michael Eavis | (British) | Organiser of Glastonbury | 3 |
| 94= | Ranulph Fiennes | (British) | Adventurer | 3 |
| 100=. | Quentin Tarantino | (American) | Filmmaker | 2 |
You can read the report on the survey here.