by William Cobbs

Created on: May 23, 2008

We brain specialists say that humans in general use 5% of their brains, not 10%!

It is not entirely the fault of the individual. All physically well persons are born with pretty much the same potential, the one non-identifying character being heredity. Brainy people tend to descend from brainy people.

One writer stated that 200 was about the top IQ to be obtained. The NEW YORK TIMES has carried articles relating scores of 216 or so in several cases. But having a high IQ does not

at all guarantee more than 5% use of that bright brain! It is what you do with it that counts.

A case history:

Dr. X, a close and long allied colleague of this writer, was featured in papers in 1945 as having the highest IQ ever tested in the United States Army. He was just back from a devastating tour in World Wat II wherein one of his duties was acting as interpreter and guard for General Patton, often in combat.

After the war, he obtained a doctorate in French at The University of Virginia top honors with a dissertation on the life of Emile Zola. He then went to France and obtained another PhD in French language (linguistics) in which his dissertation was "Twenty French expressions meaning "HORSE".

While in France, this genius learned and conquered fourteen (14) languages, with the English and the French he had already learned.

The languages included Basque, a most difficult syntactical task.

He was also personally vulnerable in TWO ways:

He loved the military life for he could then forget about working for eating, clothing, etc. and apply his brain to abstractions He ignored the emptiness of that arena.

The second failing was an addiction to alcohol.

Gradually his great brain succumbed to drinking, and he died at age 59, having accomplished nothing, his mastery of all the languages dead with him, and only his theses as witness to his brilliance.

This tale to show that REASON and HIGH IQ are different functions! One EXISTS, the other must be LEARNED.

Several of the great thinkers of all time have had their brains removed and kept for study when and if the future finds out anything about the brain and intelligence. EINSTEIN is one of them in the United States and BROCA one in France. We often refer to EINSTEIN when we want a comparison indicating high intelligence. While extremely intelligent in physics, Einstein was child-like in some ways. A set of thirty or so love-letters he wrote to a female friend in New Jersey reveal a petulance and inattention to language of a middle aged suitor.

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