Everyone Is Above Average

I used to collect bad answers from the old Family Feud. ("Name an English-speaking country." "France." "When's a good time to end a New Year's party?" "Midnight.")

I don't watch it much any more, but I caught the final round today. The host (Richard Karn from Home Improvement) asked "what is your IQ?" The first contestant answered 160, which is genius level--she apparently believes in a group of 10,000 randomly selected people, she's the smartest.

In a survey of 100 people, she got zero matches. Not so smart any more, are you?

The next contestant answered 350. So this guy's obviously a super-duper genius, smarter than anyone else is or can be. We're lucky to be living while he's around.

The average IQ is 100. The most popular answer was 120. Only one in ten people have an IQ of 120 or higher, so I guess we can conclude that the average person's IQ is above average.

Columbus Guy says: What are you laughing at? I'll be you my average annual salary (a nickel) or the total daily profits of the oil companies (a trillion dollars) that IQ tests are subject to the same upward pressure and political correctness to which grades are subject. Sure, they'll tell you it's normalized to 100 (and they'll tell you C is average, t5oo), but I'd say it's more likely the average score is 120 than it is 100.