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Thread: Survey finds Britain has most living geniuses

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    Survey finds Britain has most living geniuses

    Britain, the country that started the Industrial Revolution becoming the first mechanised, industrialised and urbanised country on the planet, the country that spawned the world's biggest ever empire, the country that gave the world the computer, the lightbulb, the television, the train, the World Wibe Web, the cardiac pacemaker, the lawnmower, innoculation, the discoverers of gravity, evolution and dinosaurs, the father of geology, the photographic negative, the jet engine, the internal combustion engine, penicillin, the radar, the tank and the aircraft carrier, has more living geniuses per head of population than any other country in the world. The country that gave the world Newton and Darwin still produces great geniuses.

    More than 60% of the people in the list are British and American. But Britain is way ahead of even second-placed America - it has one genius per 2.5 million people, more than any other nation. Next is the US, with one genius per 6.9 million people.....

    British brains dominate list of living geniuses


    By Aislinn Simpson
    30/10/2007
    The Telegraph

    Britain has more living geniuses per head of population than anywhere else in the world, according to a new survey which reveals the country's influence on science, technology, business and the arts.



    British scientist Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989


    Almost a quarter of those featured in the list of 100 living geniuses are Britons, including Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the world wide web, in joint first place, and physicist Stephen Hawking at seven in the list.

    British artists and musicians feature heavily, including Brit Art leader Damien Hirst at number 15, poet Seamus Heaney at 26, playwright Harold Pinter at 31, Sir Paul McCartney at 58, David Bowie at 67, Harry Potter author JK Rowling at 83 and filmmaker Ken Russell at 100.

    Sir Richard Branson, the head of Virgin Group, at 49, chimpanzee expert Jane Goodall, at 58, and psychologist Dorothy Rowe, at 72, also made the list.

    With 24 Britons in the list, the country has generated one living genius per 2.5 million people – a higher proportion than any other country.

    The list, compiled by a panel of six experts in creativity and innovation, is jointly topped by Sir Tim and Albert Hofmann, the Swiss scientist who created the drug LSD.

    They are followed by George Soros, the American financier and philanthropist, Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons and Nelson Mandela, the former South African president.

    There are also some surprise entrants. Osama Bin Laden ranks at number 43, a spot he shares with Bill Gates, the Microsoft founder and Mohammed Ali, the former world heavyweight boxing champion.

    The Americans have 43 geniuses on the list – one per 6.9 million people.

    Creators Synectics, a global consultants firm, chose their geniuses by awarding scores out of 10 to each entrant against a number of factors: paradigm shifting; popular acclaim; intellectual power; achievement and cultural importance.

    They received back 1,100 nominations for individuals in all walks of life, more than 60 per cent of whom were either American or English. Only 60 per cent were still alive.

    The panel was then charged with ranking the list in order of genius and to present a resulting shortlist of 100, who were then scored against the five factors.


    British scientist Richard Dawkins is at number 20 in the list


    Nigel Clarke, a managing partner of Synectics UK & Europe, said: "Many people argue that a genius can be defined by their contribution, where it turns conventional thinking on its head.

    "I think that Albert Hoffman and Tim Berners-Lee have this in common with the great geniuses of the past.

    ''Both of them have, in their own way, turned the world that we live in upside down. And it may be that alone that accounts for their acclamation as the world's greatest living geniuses."

    Top 100 living geniuses

    1= Albert Hoffman (Swiss) Chemist
    1= Tim Berners-Lee (British) Computer Scientist
    3 George Soros (American) Investor & Philanthropist
    4 Matt Groening (American) Satirist & Animator
    5= Nelson Mandela (South African) Politician & Diplomat
    5= Frederick Sanger (British) Chemist
    7= Dario Fo (Italian) Writer & Dramatist
    7= Steven Hawking (British) Physicist
    9= Oscar Niemeyer (Brazilian) Architect
    9= Philip Glass (American) Composer
    9= Grigory Perelman (Russian) Mathematician
    12= Andrew Wiles (British) Mathematician
    12= Li Hongzhi (Chinese) Spiritual Leader
    12= Ali Javan (Iranian) Engineer
    15= Brian Eno (British) Composer
    15= Damian Hirst (British) Artist
    15= Daniel Tammet (British) Savant & Linguist
    18 Nicholson Baker (American Writer
    19 Daniel Barenboim (N/A) Musician
    20= Robert Crumb (American) Artist
    20= Richard Dawkins (British) Biologist and philosopher
    20= Larry Page & Sergey Brin (American) Publishers
    20= Rupert Murdoch (American) Publisher
    20= Geoffrey Hill (British) Poet
    25 Garry Kasparov (Russian) Chess Player
    26= The Dalai Lama (Tibetan) Spiritual Leader
    26= Steven Spielberg (American) Film maker
    26= Hiroshi Ishiguro (Japanese) Roboticist
    26= Robert Edwards (British) Pioneer of IVF treatment
    26= Seamus Heaney (Irish) Poet
    31 Harold Pinter (British) Writer & Dramatist
    32= Flossie Wong-Staal (Chinese) Bio-technologist
    32= Bobby Fischer (American) Chess Player
    32= Prince (American) Musician
    32= Henrik Gorecki (Polish) Composer
    32= Avram Noam Chomski (American) Philosopher & linguist
    32= Sebastian Thrun (German) Probabilistic roboticist
    32= Nima Arkani Hamed (Canadian) Physicist
    32= Margaret Turnbull (American) Astrobiologist
    40= Elaine Pagels (American) Historian
    40= Enrique Ostrea (Philippino) Pediatrics & neonatology
    40= Gary Becker (American) Economist
    43= Mohammed Ali (American) Boxer
    43= Osama Bin Laden (Saudi) Islamicist
    43= Bill Gates (American) Businessman
    43= Philip Roth (American) Writer
    43= James West (American) Invented the foil electrical microphone
    43= Tuan Vo-Dinh (Vietnamese) Bio-Medical Scientist
    49= Brian Wilson (American) Musician
    49= Stevie Wonder (American) Singer songwriter
    49= Vint Cerf (American) Computer scientist
    49= Henry Kissinger (American) Diplomat and politician
    49= Richard Branson (British) Publicist
    49= Pardis Sabeti (Iranian) Biological anthropologist
    49= Jon de Mol (Dutch) Television producer
    49= Meryl Streep (American) Actress
    49= Margaret Attwood (Canadian) Writer
    58= Placido Domingo (Spanish) Singer
    58= John Lasseter (American) Digital Animator
    58= Shunpei Yamazaki (Japanese) Computer scientist & physicist
    58= Jane Goodall (British) Ethologist & Anthropologist
    58= Kirti Narayan Chaudhuri (Indian) Historian
    58= John Goto (British) Photographer
    58= Paul McCartney (British) Musician
    58= Stephen King (American) Writer
    58= Leonard Cohen (American) Poet & musician
    67= Aretha Franklin (American) Musician
    67= David Bowie (British) Musician
    67= Emily Oster (American) Economist
    67= Steve Wozniak (American) Engineer and co-founder of Apple Computers 7
    67= Martin Cooper (American) Inventor of the cell phone
    72= George Lucas (American) Film maker
    72= Niles Rogers (American) Musician
    72= Hans Zimmer (German) Composer
    72= John Williams (American) Composer
    72= Annette Baier (New Zealander) Philosopher
    72= Dorothy Rowe (British) Psychologist
    72= Ivan Marchuk (Ukrainian) Artist & sculptor
    72= Mark Dean (American) Inventor & computer scientist
    72= Rick Rubin (American) Musician & producer
    72= Stan Lee (American) Publisher
    83= David Warren (Australian) Engineer
    83= Jon Fosse (Norwegian) Writer & dramatist
    83= Gjertrud Schnackenberg (American) Poet
    83= Graham Linehan (Irish) Writer & dramatist
    83= JK Rowling (British) Writer
    83= Ken Russell (British) Film maker
    83= Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov (Russian) Small arms designer
    83= Erich Jarvis (American) Neurobiologist
    91=. Chad Varah (British) Founder of Samaritans
    91= Nicolas Hayek (Swiss) Businessman and founder of Swatch
    91= Alastair Hannay (British) Philosopher
    94= Patricia Bath (American) Ophthalmologist
    94= Thomas A. Jackson (American) Aerospace engineer
    94= Dolly Parton (American) Singer
    94= Morissey (British) Singer
    94= Michael Eavis (British) Organiser of Glastonbury
    94= Ranulph Fiennes (British) Adventurer
    100=. Quentin Tarantino (American) Filmmaker


    telegraph.co.uk

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    Hey, wait just a dam' minute, there: I don't see timhaughton on that list!



    HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!)
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    12= Li Hongzhi (Chinese) Spiritual Leader

    LOL. okay, so much for credibility.
    The human mind cannot grasp the causes of phenomena in the aggregate. But the need to find these causes is inherent in man’s soul. And the human intellect, without investigating the multiplicity and complexity of the conditions of phenomena, any one of which taken separately may seem to be the cause, snatches at the first, the most intelligible approximation to a cause, and says: “This is the cause!"

    -Leo Tolstoy
    War and Peace

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    Distant Deeps or Skies Senior Contributor HistoricalDavid's Avatar
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    Right, Blackleaf, so you think Botswana is the cleverest country in the world? I can't say I agree with your decision, but I nevertheless respect it.

    astralis, I have no idea who Li Hongzhi is but a quick wiki gives a Time interview:

    TIMEasia.com 05/10/99

    "TIME: Have you seen human beings levitate off the ground?
    Li: I have known too many.

    TIME: Can you describe any that you have known?
    Li: David Copperfield. He can levitate and he did it during performances. "


    Bahahahahaha! Did he say that with a straight face?

    PS love the inclusion of Quentin Tarantino! Where would we be without films which try to pretentiously cram four decades of pop-cultural references into two hours!
    Last edited by HistoricalDavid; 01 Nov 07, at 20:33.
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    Surely this list was meant to be published on April the first?
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    Former Staff Senior Contributor Ironduke's Avatar
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    Most of the inventions listed in the top paragraph were invented in the US. And genius is just somebody with an IQ of over 140.

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    WAB Resident Historian Senior Contributor Kansas Bear's Avatar
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    I'm curious as to Muhammad Ali's IQ. Ranking 43rd in the world??

    LMAO

    That list of 100 geniuses which Blackleaf hurriedly posted.....

    British geniuses feature heavily in a recent list that notes the greatest living thinkers of our time - proportionately more than any other country.

    The top 100 living geniuses was compiled by a panel of six experts in creativity and innovation from Creators Synectics, a global consultants firm.

    The company emailed 4,000 Britons this summer and asked them to nominate up to 10 living people who they considered geniuses.

    Each genius was then awarded scores out of ten against criteria which included: paradigm shifting; popular acclaim; intellectual power; achievement and cultural importance.

    Which explains HOW Muhammad Ali ranked 43rd in the world as a genius.

    FYI: Muhammad Ali's IQ was 78.
    ESPN.com - Page2 - Muhammad Ali from A to Z

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    Distant Deeps or Skies Senior Contributor HistoricalDavid's Avatar
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    'Popular acclaim' is pretty much antithetical to any sensible notions of genius.

    I'm puzzled as to how so many Britons knew of Albert Hoffman (I didn't, creator of LSD apparently) and considered him so great a genius.
    Last edited by HistoricalDavid; 01 Nov 07, at 20:55.
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    Oh, I'm impressed alright, but not favourably impressed!
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    Senior Contributor Archer's Avatar
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    That list doesnt have Glyn or any of the 1RTR chaps in it!!



    )
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    OAF-Old Aggravating Fart Senior Contributor Shamus's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Archer View Post
    That list doesnt have Glyn or any of the 1RTR chaps in it!!



    )
    I agree Archer.Totally bogus list.....Tankie is nowhere to be found .
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    Making a tank actually invisible is much more effective than just using smoke. It's still possible to see, at times, through the smoke, especially depending on where you are standing.

    But this technology makes it completely invisible.

    The MOD is also developing a vest for British soldiers to wear using the same technology, to give them more extreme camouflage.

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    Senior Contributor Archer's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Shamus View Post
    I agree Archer.Totally bogus list.....Tankie is nowhere to be found .
    I know, shame innit? I read it twice to make sure!! Without tankie the list aint worth nuthin!! )
    Karmani Vyapurutham Dhanuhu

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    Quote Originally Posted by Blackleaf View Post
    Making a tank actually invisible is much more effective than just using smoke. It's still possible to see, at times, through the smoke, especially depending on where you are standing.

    But this technology makes it completely invisible.

    The MOD is also developing a vest for British soldiers to wear using the same technology, to give them more extreme camouflage.
    Wrong thread, bro.

    You're automatically disqualified for a mention in this one.
    "The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it, and if one finds the prospect of a long war intolerable, it is natural to disbelieve in the possibility of victory."
    - George Orwell

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    Distant Deeps or Skies Senior Contributor HistoricalDavid's Avatar
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    ...Even if he was in the right thread, what he's saying is still patrioteering nonsense. Completely invisible... heheheh.
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