Marilyn Vos Savant And Her Extreme Intelligence
Intelligence has been defined in various ways, but there seems to be agreement on considering it the ability to understand, assimilate and reprocess information and then use it to solve problems. Albert Einstein is thought to have been the smartest person in the world, yet… he isn’t. There are many brilliant minds and in this article we will talk about Marilyn vos Savant.
Today he is considered the smartest person in the world. After this statement one thinks “she will certainly be a brilliant scientist!”. Nothing further from reality. Read on to get to know this amazing woman up close.
Who is Marilyn vos Savant?
Marilyn was born in August 1946 in San Luis, Missouri (USA). Of an Italian mother and a German father, descendant of the scientist Ernst Mach (responsible for important discoveries in the field of optics, acoustics and thermodynamics), at school she suffered gender discrimination and her professors considered her intelligence useless, because she was a woman.
After completing her high school studies, she enrolled in the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Washington, which she had to leave after two years because she was forced to work in the family laundry. Once she achieved economic independence, she embarked on her career as a writer.
She reunited with Dr. Robert Jarvik, pioneer of the Jarvik-7 artificial heart, of which she became an accountant and aide in the research and prevention of cardiovascular diseases. In addition to that, she worked in the National Museum of Women’s History and was awarded the Women Making History Award for her fight against gender stereotypes.
Intelligence put to the test
During her childhood she was subjected to various intelligence tests: at 7 she obtained a score of 127 points, quadrupled three years later. However, it obtained the highest score on the Stanford-Binet scale, obtaining an IQ of 228 points. Thanks to this score, in 1986 she entered the Guinness Book of Records as “the person with the highest IQ in the world”.
It was then that the media began to take an interest in her case. On that occasion, Parade magazine published an article with questions and answers, an idea that was so successful that it started a column entitled Ask it to Marilyn . In this space she herself answered questions on mathematics, logic, philosophy, politics and other “generic questions”.
Inspired by his column, he wrote three books: Ask Marilyn: Answers to America’s Most Frequently Asked Questions (1992), More Marilyn: Some Like It Bright (1994) and Of Course I’m for Monogamy: I’m Also for the Everlasting Peace and an End to Taxes (1996).
Intelligence in the open: Marilyn solves the Monty Hall problem
In 1990 Marilyn received a letter from Craig F. Whitaker with the following content:
Marilyn Vos Savant’s response was (without knowing what awaited her):
Following the publication of her solution, Parade’s editors were overwhelmed by letters of complaint to Savant:
Let’s analyze the solution
Despite the pressure, Marilyn Vos Savant refused to rectify and devoted four columns to breaking down the solution. In the second column he proposed a method of shedding light on the probabilities. It was the list of all possible solutions to the riddle, represented as follows:
| Port 1 | Port 2 | Port 3 | Result | |
| Round 1 | Car | Goat | Goat | Change and lose |
| Round 2 | Goat | Car | Goat | Change and win |
| Round 3 | Goat | Goat | Car | Change and win |
| Round 4 | Car | Goat | Goat | It does not change and wins |
| Round 5 | Goat | Car | Goat | It does not change and it loses |
| Round 6 | Goat | Goat | Car | It does not change and it loses |
We can observe that by changing the door, the chances of finding the car would be 2 out of 3 ; if we decide not to change it, the odds are only 1 in 3.
Later, many readers started supporting his solution. Even the great mathematician Paul Erdos had to apologize for considering Savant’s answer incorrect!
Humility by Marilyn Vos Savant
What annoyed readers was not only the fact that the solution was an “attack” on common sense, but that it was a woman who questioned the question that had already been analyzed in various schools and by various mathematicians.
Yet another case of gender discrimination. Why in the world should we believe that intelligence is a male prerogative?
Despite being one of the brightest women in the world and gifted with superior intelligence, Marilyn is very humble. He admits that he has no great mathematical skills or photographic memory.
He claims that his “strengths” are objective analysis, knowing how to make decisions and solve problems. He also states that intelligent people may not be intelligent: much more likely they are people well educated in a certain field or particularly specialized in a branch of knowledge.
