Do you need high iq to become a great scientist?

Question

I'm wondering if you need a high iq to actually be a recognized scientist like Nikola Tesla, Stephen Hawkings, Albert Einstein, Nobert Weiner, and Isaac newton?

Answer 1

IQ means you can learn stuff.  But what you can't learn is what a scientist does... and that is to create new knowledge.  That takes creativity and imagination.

Answer 2

Thomas Edison apparently had an IQ of 145 but what

counted was his persistence rather than that.

I like the WikiAnswers comment on this- see below.

Answer 3

No.

learn and try are more important.

http://www.vvipvideo.com/Einstein

Answer 4

No, it is just as important to be creative and innovative.  Each one of those scientists are famous because they were the first to come up with an idea, not so much because they were brilliant.  You do have to be knowledgeable in your area of study, but knowledge and IQ are not the same thing.  There are plenty of people with high IQ who are not famous and plenty of people with low IQ who are.

Answer 5

IQ is only one flawed way to measure intelligence. Anyone can be a scientist, but it takes a lot of work. Diligent studying practices are required however.

Answer 6

Apparently James Watson, co-discoverer of DNA's helical structure with Francis Crick reportedly had an IQ of around 100.  So a person who is hard working and in the right place at the right time, can win a Nobel Prize in science with a normal IQ.

More important, I think, is the love.  If you don't love what you're doing, you can have an IQ of 170 and go nowhere with it.

Answer 7

A high IQ may help you grasp things more quickly than others, but doesn't mean you will be good at science.

All it takes if for you to become one a new great name is science is for you to study dillegently, get to know your area of expertise as best you can, and come at a problem in some creative way no other has done.

"Its not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer" Albert Einstein

Answer 8

all it takes is passion for science, curiosity, hard work and perseverance.

and dedication

Answer 9

IQ tests tell if you know lotsa words and can move things in your head.

Science involves ...Postulates, Theory, and then proof.

And there are many fields of science.

Most discoveries were made by accident, looking for something else.

Commen sense logic is all you really need.

Einstien was a patent clerk that laid out commen sense

He had severe trouble with math. ( he divided by zero once.

But he could envision things, which is what counts..

Answer 10

Albert Einstein was considered a mediocre student by the Swiss school system, and spent his early working life working as a clerk in the Patent Office. While intelligence is an important part of being a great scientist, we are not sure that the standard IQ tests actually measure real intelligence. Creativity, the ability to think in non-linear ways and sheer hard work are more important, I think

Answer 11

IQ testing, in my opinion, is a big bunch of c**p.  It means absolutely nothing at all except maybe in the most general sense.  As for science and being a good researcher, ability to think abstractly and creatively is far more important than the type of linear thinking associated with IQ testing. Einstein accomplished so much because of who he was, his time in history, his rebellious nature, his motivation for going against the norm and demonstrating the errors which some times occurs with commonsense thinking.  Einstein, like Tesla, was able to take an idea and develop it, fully, in the visual laboratory of their mind's eye before ever conducting a laboratory test on it.

If you can, get the book by Walter Lsaacson, EINSTEIN'S: His Life and Universe, ISBN: 13-978-0-7432-6473-0

and,

TESLA: Man Out Of Time

by Margaret Cheney

ISBN: 13-978-0-7432-1536-7

Both are wonderful reading on these two unique scientists.

The important thing, I feel, is to be able to recognize connections and patterns in nature; be able to tie them together in your mind and see the subtle interactions between all things. After all, all things are related through the singularity at the time of the Big Bang origin of the Universe. The patterns are there but it takes a special kind of way of looking at the world to understand those connections and relationships.

Find out what excits you; that gives your life more meaning than anything else.  Read about what others have done in that area of interest, expand upon that, then let that intuitive self, that enter-voice, guide you.