Highest IQ in Waterloo?

June 25, 2009 D. H. McKee

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Whoa. That’s a toughie. What with the High-tech triangle, RIM, those nerds at the University of Waterloo, and the Perimeter Institute of Theoretical Physics (where Stephen Hawking is rumoured to be kept in a sealed jar these days), one would suspect we’ve got our own little Eureka here, in the heart of Southwestern Ontario. Of course, I’d always seen myself as a bald version of the cunning, but not too bright Sheriff Jack Carter, but that’s another story.
So, if I had to guess the highest IQ in Waterloo, I’d conservatively say it was around 175-180, in the highest genius category. Note, we’re not talking about average IQ, but highest IQ. I may be wrong, of course; feel free to let me know what your guess would be.
Oh, yeah. The whole reason this came up is because of this stupid “Test Your IQ” ad which foolishly showed up in my browser the other day:

Yup, 115, apparently. It’s not that I believed it would actually give me an accurate rating for the highest IQ in Waterloo (but wouldn’t that be something you’d like to see?), or that I didn’t already know that no matter what city my Internet connection originated, the number would always be 115, in order to entice me into clicking on the link to think that I might (gasp) have a higher IQ than whatever they listed.
No, it’s more that they picked 115 to be the highest number for the region.
It was kind of funny when the ads showed off IQs for Paris Hilton or George Bush. At least there was enough reasonable uncertainty that made you confident you could have a higher IQ than George Bush. Or you could be pseudo-outraged that Paris Hilton could possibly have a higher IQ than you. But nothing pulls back the veil of willful disbelief suspension than to say the maximum IQ in Techtown is a modest 115. I mean, really, guys.

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As a guy who occasionally curates art shows and wrangles artists together, I often have to edit and post artist bios, profile pictures, and artwork images. This can be a problem, since many artists and writers aren’t used to selling themselves. Artists rarely know how to present their art for display in a brochure, and writers aren’t used to writing about themselves.

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