Peak: Secrets From The New Science of Expertise

by K. Anders Ericsson

a number of Nobel Prize–winning scientists have had IQs that would not even qualify them for Mensa, an organization whose members must have a measured IQ of at least 132, a number that puts you in the upper 2 percentile of the population. Richard Feynman, one of the most brilliant physicists of the twentieth century, had an IQ of 126; James Watson, the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, had an IQ of 124; and William Shockley, who received the Nobel Prize in Physics for his role in the invention of the transistor, had an IQ of 125.44 Although the abilities measured by IQ tests clearly help performance in the science classroom, and students with higher IQs generally perform better in science classes than those with lower IQs — again consistent with Binet’s efforts to measure school learning — among those who have become professional scientists, a higher IQ doesn’t seem to offer an advantage.