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Far-right conservative Scott Greer ridiculed for bragging about ‘ridiculously’ high IQ score

Far-right conservative Scott Greer ridiculed for bragging about ‘ridiculously’ high IQ score
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As if there weren’t enough reasons for the internet to come for an alt-right white supremacist, one in particular decided to make it even easier this week.

Scott Greer is the former deputy editor of the Daily Caller, the right-wing website founded by Fox News’ Tucker Carlson as a "conservative answer to The Huffington Post".  The publication is known for its pro-Trump content, and regularly publishes alt-right views, including those of climate change deniers and white nationalists.

After Greer left the Caller, it was revealed that he had also been publishing articles under a pseudonym in white supremacist publication Radix Journal, where he expressed “racist antiblack views and antisemitism”, according to The Atlantic.

Safe to say, he’s not especially liked by a lot of people.

But this week, people suddenly realised that Greer’s Twitter display name included two very specific factoids, which we can only assume are meant to refer to his height (6ft 2in, apparently), and his IQ (the now-infamous 187).

After people spotted this, “IQ 187" began to trend on Twitter, something Greer appears to be quite proud of, given he has a screenshot of the trend as his cover picture:

While he may be proud of his viral moment, the fact remains that people were pretty unimpressed with his bizarre bragging.

Many were sceptical about the claim, pointing out that this would give him a higher IQ than some of human history’s most celebrated thinkers.

Others pointed out that even if his claim is true, IQs don’t really hold much meaning as an isolated measurement of intelligence.

Scientists have disputed the reliability and validity of IQ tests for decades, with it being compared to the practice of determining intelligence via craniometry by evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould in 1981.

The IQ trending moment also seemed like a perfect time to remind people of Greer’s disturbing past.

But lots of people just took the opportunity to ridicule the whole debacle and speculate as to where the score might have come from.

For what it’s worth, the average IQ score is 90 to 110, while the minimum required score for Mensa membership is 132 to 148, depending on the test.

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