Marilyn vos Savant

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Marilyn vos Savant [ mæɹɪlɪn vɑs sə'vɑnt ] (born August 11, 1946 in St. Louis , Missouri ; born Marilyn Mach ) is an American columnist and writer. She writes the “Ask Marilyn” column that appears in the Sunday magazine Parade and has authored several guides and books, in which she primarily deals with math, political and socio-economic problems. Due to several well above-average results that she achieved in various intelligence tests, vos Savant was listed in the editions of the Guinness Book of Records published from 1986 to 1989 under the heading "highest intelligence quotient ".

In 1990, vos Savant published in her column her solution to the goat problem , a problem related to probability theory that sparked a great deal of debate.

biography

Family and youth

Marilyn Mach is the youngest child of Joseph Mach, a German immigrant from a mining family, and Marina vos Savant, an Italian immigrant, whose maiden name she later adopted. The couple ran a restaurant in a working-class neighborhood of St. Louis and later opened a chain of dry cleaners. Marilyn vos Savant's maternal grandparents were called Giuseppe vos Savant and Maria Savant before the marriage.

During her school days, vos Savant underwent various intelligence tests, each time achieving the highest possible number of points. While those around them reacted to these results with great astonishment, vos Savant felt no astonishment in view of their test results, as they stated in an interview with the "Financial Times" in 2009.

In an interview she granted to the Colombian magazine "Semana" in 2009, Marilyn vos Savant stated that she had no easy childhood and detested going to school. As a girl, she was always treated with disdain because of her gender. Her teachers would have regarded her intelligence as a "useless quality". Once, a teacher excluded her from his natural history class because she was the only girl in the class. When vos Savant graduated from school, she was in 178th place in a year of 613 students. She studied philosophy at Washington University in St. Louis , but dropped out after two years at her parents' insistence. Vos Savant then started working in stocks, investing and real estate, and working for her parents' cleaning chain. After gaining financial independence, she tried to become a writer. Vos Savant published short stories, essays and newspaper articles under a pseudonym.

Private life

Like her mother and maternal grandmother, vos Savant had her first marriage at the age of 16; however, after 10 years, the marriage from which her two children came was divorced. Vos Savant's second marriage also lasted 10 years.

On August 23, 1987, Marilyn vos Savant married the scientist and entrepreneur Robert Jarvik . He developed "Jarvik-7", the first usable heart implant, which could be used for the first time in 1982. Vos Savant has lived with her family in the New York borough of Manhattan since the 1980s .

Professional Activities

Marilyn vos Savant is the financial director of the Jarvik company, but she is also a researcher, mainly researching cardiovascular diseases . She also gives lectures at universities and companies.

Vos Savant is a member of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and has served on the boards of the National Council of Economic Education and the National Association for Gifted Children. She is also a member of Mensa International , the Prometheus Society and the International Society for Philosophical Inquiry . In the mid-1980s, Marilyn vos Savant was a member and secretary of the Mega Society, whose members must have an IQ with a percentile rank of at least 99.9999%.

Marilyn vos Savant also writes the column "Ask Marilyn" (Ask Marilyn), which has appeared weekly in the Sunday newspaper Parade Magazine since 1986. In her column, vos Savant answers readers who pose her - mostly mathematical or linguistic - puzzles, but sometimes also ask them for personal advice or ask philosophical, technical or scientific questions. From time to time vos Savant publishes a brain teaser itself or conducts a survey among its readers.

After vos Savant appeared for the first time in the Guinness Book of Records, Parade published an article on vos Savant and subsequently published some of the readers' questions she answered. As Parade received ongoing questions, “Ask Marilyn” was converted into a column.

The column will also be published on the Internet. The virtual version supplements the printed editions in that it discusses incorrect and controversial answers, explains some answers in more detail, repeats certain questions and answers additional questions.

Three of Marilyn vos Savants books - Ask Marilyn: Answers to America's Most Frequently Asked Questions (1992), More Marilyn: Some Like It Bright! (1994), and Of Course I'm for Monogamy: I'm Also for Everlasting Peace and an End to Taxes (1996) - emerged from her column. Each book sets out specific questions and answers previously published in Ask Marilyn.

Goat problem

On September 9, 1990, vos Savant answered the following reader question:

“Imagine if you had to choose one of three doors as a participant in a game show. Behind one door there is the prize, a car, behind the other two there are goats. You choose door # 1 and the showmaster, who knows what's behind each door, opens another door, e.g. B. Door # 3, behind which a goat appears. Now he asks you whether you want to stay at door # 1 or choose door # 2 instead. Should it be better to change? "

- Craig F. Whitaker : Columbia , Maryland

Marilyn vos Savant replied that door number 2 should be chosen as it would increase the odds of winning from 1/3 to 2/3. She then received around 10,000 letters, the majority of whom believed that the probability of winning would remain the same for both doors, i.e. 1/2.

The goat problem has been analyzed by staff at the Central Intelligence Agency , the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and in more than a thousand American schools.

Despite the largely negative reactions, Marilyn vos Savant refused to retract her statement. In her second column on the goat problem (December 2, 1990) she wrote:

"[...] You can illustrate the advantages of a change by going through all six possible sequences of the game. During the first three rounds you choose door # 1 and switch each time; during the next three rounds you choose door number 1 again, but without changing, and the showmaster opens a door each time, behind which there is a goat. This results in the following: "

Door 1 Door 2 Door 3 Result
Round 1 automobile goat goat You change and lose.
round 2 goat automobile goat You switch and you win.
Round 3 goat goat automobile You switch and you win.
Round 4 automobile goat goat You don't change and you win.
Round 5 goat automobile goat You don't change and you lose.
Round 6 goat goat automobile You don't change and you lose.

In her third column on the goat problem (February 17, 1991) vos Savant called on her readers to re-enact the goat problem and send her the results. She also stressed that the most important point was the fact that the showmaster always intentionally opens a door with a goat.

“My original answer is entirely correct, and the question of whether to switch is key to solving the problem. Imagine that the show is briefly interrupted at this point and that a UFO lands on the stage. A little green woman appears and the showmaster asks her to point to one of the two still unopened doors. The probability that she will pick the door with the prize is actually 1/2. But that's because, unlike the candidate, she didn't get any help from the showmaster. (Try to forget about any TV shows.) If you choose door # 1 at the start of the game, there is a 1/3 chance that you will choose the door with the prize. The probability that the prize is hidden behind one of the other two doors is 2/3. But then the show master gives you a tip. If the prize is behind door # 2, it will open door # 3, and if the prize is behind door # 3, it will open the second door. So when you switch, you win if the prize is behind either the second or third door. You win either way! If you don't switch, however, you will only win if the prize is behind door # 1. [...] "

In her fourth and final column on the goat problem (July 7, 1991), vos Savant revealed that many readers are now convinced of her original statement and that many have re-enacted the goat problem.

Both psychologists from the Berlin Max Planck Institute for Human Development and employees of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have come to the same conclusion as Marilyn vos Savant through their own experiments.

Vos Savant explained the goat problem not only in four issues of her column, but also in hundreds of newspaper articles.

Marilyn vos Savants IQ

With regard to Marilyn vos Savants intelligence quotients, different IQ values ​​are given depending on the source. These vary between 167+, 186, 218 and 228. The latter value is said to have been achieved by Savant when she was subjected to the Stanford-Binet test as a girl . The fact that different IQ values ​​are given depending on the source is due, on the one hand, to the fact that vos Savant has passed several intelligence tests. On the other hand, both the time at which Marilyn vos Savant took the Stanford-Binet test and the age of intelligence that she reached at that time are controversial.

Vos Savant states that in September 1956, as a ten-year-old, she underwent an adult edition of the Stanford-Binet test and achieved full marks. This resulted in an intelligence age of 22 years and 10 months, which corresponds to an IQ of 228. This result is 8.53 standard deviations above the norm. However , there is no agreement about the corresponding percentage rank of this result and the probability with which an individual will achieve such a result, since it is difficult to approximate these values ​​with a high IQ.

Vos Savant's school files contain contradicting information. On the one hand, the files state that vos Savant did not take the Stanford-Binet test in September 1956, but in March 1957. On the other hand, it is in the files that Marilyn vos Savant took the test at the age of 10 years and 8 months - i.e. in April or May 1957. Their result - the highest possible number of points - showed, according to the files, an intelligence age of at least 17 years and 10 months, which corresponds to an IQ of 167+. Vos Savant stated this value in order to be able to join Mensa International.

In addition, when she was seven, eight and nine years old, vos Savant was subjected to an IQ test once, each time also achieving the highest possible number of points.

Finally, Marilyn vos Savant contacted the philosopher Ronald K. Hoeflin, who had founded several “gifted” clubs, including the Mega Society. According to Hoeflin, vos Savant told him that when she was ten, she got full marks on the Stanford-Binet test. Hoeflin calculated vos Savants IQ by dividing an intelligence age of 22 years and 11 months by an age of 10 years and 6 months, which corresponds to an IQ of 218. However, the maximum intelligence age that the Stanford-Binet test could record was not 22 years and 11 months, but 22 years and 10 months. In addition, Marilyn vos Savant was neither 10 years and 6 months old in September 1956 nor in March 1957.

In 1985 vos Savant achieved 46 out of 48 raw points in Hoeflin's “Mega-Test”, which corresponds to an intelligence quotient of 186. According to Hoeflin's statistics, this value is 5.4 standard deviations above the norm and corresponds to a percentile rank of 99.999997%, so that statistically only one in 30 million people can achieve such a result. The editors of the Guinness Book of Records took notice of this result when the Boston attorney Andrew Egendorf, who wrote a book about “gifted” clubs, sent Savants test results to the editors of the Guinness Book. As a result, vos Savant was in the editions of the Guinness Book published from 1986 to 1989 with its intelligence test values ​​of 228 and 186 under the heading "highest IQ". Since 1988 vos Savant has been listed under the same heading in the "Guinness Book of World Records Hall of Fame". Before Marilyn vos Savants' results were entered in the Guinness Book of Records, an IQ of 196 was listed as the highest IQ ever measured.

When creating the mega-test, Ronald K. Hoeflin assumed a standard deviation of 16 points, which means that different scales were used to calculate the two values ​​of 228 and 186. On the scale used for the mega test, vos Savants Stanford-Binet value of 228 would correspond to an IQ of 188. In contrast, the IQ value of 186, which she achieved in the mega-test, corresponds to the scale of the Stanford-Binet test a value of 224.

Marilyn vos Savant is of the opinion that even professionally conducted IQ tests are difficult to measure intelligence. Intelligence is shaped by so many factors that it is hardly possible to measure this property. In June 2011, she replied to a reader who had asked her if she really had the highest IQ in the world:

"I do not think so. How do you want to check this information? "

Awards

In 1998, vos Savant was named one of fifty "Women of the New Millennium" as part of the "Vital Voices: Women in Democracy" campaign organized by the White House. The “National Women's History” museum has presented vos Savant with the “Women Making History” award. In May 2003, vos Savant received an honorary doctorate in literature from the College of New Jersey . Toastmasters named vos Savant one of the "Five Outstanding Speakers of 1999".

Quote

“Marilyn vos Savant believes success in life depends more on social skills than on intellectual skills. [...] She says she knows things in many fields and is like a 'conductor rather than a violinist.' She is good at systems analysis, has an excellent visual memory, and is very good at logic. She has no idiot-savant skills at all — no photographic memory, no ability to remember statistics or compute long sums in her head. She says she is best at 'objective synoptical analysis,' making decisions, problem solving, critical thinking, and analysis. "

“Marilyn vos Savant believes that success is based more on social skill than intellectual ability. [...] She is well versed in many areas and is 'more of a conductor than a violinist'. System analysis and logic are easy for her; she also has an excellent visual memory. She has no island talents - she has no photographic memory , cannot memorize complicated statistics and cannot add up high numbers in her head. She claims that she can best 'analyze objectively and synoptically ', make decisions, solve problems, think critically and analyze. "

- Julie Baumgold , "In the Kingdom of the Brain," New York Magazine, 1989

Works

  • 1985: Omni IQ Quiz Contest , McGraw-Hill , ISBN 0-07-039377-X
  • 1990: Brain Building: Exercising Yourself Smarter (with co-author Leonore Fleischer), Bantam Books, ISBN 0-553-35348-9
  • 1992: Ask Marilyn: Answers to America's Most Frequently Asked Questions , St. Martin's Press, ISBN 0-312-08136-7
  • 1993: The World's Most Famous Math Problem: The Proof of Fermat's Last Theorem and Other Mathematical Mysteries , St. Martin's Press, ISBN 0-312-10657-2
  • 1994: Ask Marilyn: The World's Smartest Woman Answers America's Most Difficult Questions , St. Martin's Press, ISBN 0-312-95181-7
  • 1994: More Marilyn: Some Like It Bright! , St. Martin's Press, ISBN 0-312-11384-6
  • 1994: “I've Forgotten Everything I Learned in School!”: A Refresher Course to Help You Reclaim Your Education , St. Martin's Press, ISBN 0-312-10457-X
  • 1996: Of Course I'm for Monogamy: I'm Also for Everlasting Peace and an End to Taxes , St. Martin's Press, ISBN 0-312-16951-5
  • 1996: The Power of Logical Thinking: Easy Lessons in the Art of Reasoning… and Hard Facts about Its Absence in Our Lives , St. Martin's Press, ISBN 0-312-15627-8
  • 2000: The Art of Spelling: The Madness and the Method , WW Norton & Company , ISBN 0-393-32208-4
  • 2002: Growing Up: A Classic American Childhood , WW Norton & Company, ISBN 0-393-05125-0

Web links

Press

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Julie Baumgold: "In the Kingdom of the Brain" (Engl.), New York Magazine, February 6, 1989
  2. ↑ a b c d e f Sam Knight: "Is a high IQ a burden as much as a blessing?" ( Memento from January 14, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) (English), Financial Times , April 10, 2009
  3. ↑ a b c d Semana.com - "Coeficiente intelectual: 228" (Spanish), Semana, June 6, 2009
  4. ^ "The cleverest person answers your questions" , Financial Times, May 30, 2009
  5. ^ Ask Marilyn - "A Nom de Plume?" , December 8, 2009
  6. ^ Mary T. Schmich: "She Outsmarts the Human Race with an IQ of 230, Woman's One of a Kind" (Eng.), Chicago Tribune , October 8, 1985
  7. ↑ YouTube: “Marilyn Mach Vos Savant - Feb. 1986 Air date” : “Actually, I've lived under a pseudonym for many years now. [...] That's because I was writing, and I wanted to avoid possible premature publication. I wanted to get decent enough before the work was published. "
  8. ↑ a b c About Marilyn ( Memento of the original from May 7, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (engl.) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.marilynvossavant.com
  9. ↑ Stephanie Saul, "Artificial heart inventor returns to spotlight - and controversy" , New York Times, February 6, 2008
  10. ^ A b Mary Jane Sterling: Math Word Problems for Dummies (Engl.), For Dummies, 2007, ISBN 978-0-470-14660-6 , p. 319
  11. ^ Marilyn vos Savant, Leonore Fleischer: Brain Power - The 12 Week Mental Training Program (Eng.); Piatkus Publisher, London 2005, ISBN 0-7499-2555-8 , p. 2
  12. ↑ CSI Fellows and Staff (Eng.)
  13. ↑ Bob McTeer: The Dismal Science? Hardly! Wall Street Journal, June 4, 2003, archived from the original August 19, 2008 ; Retrieved October 15, 2012 .
  14. ^ Andrew York: "Marilyn vos Savant y la lógica" ( Memento of the original from May 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Spanish; PDF; 7.3 MB), La revista Mercedes , 2007, p. 52f. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.daimlerchrysler.es
  15. ↑ Michael Vitez: "World's Smartest Couple Robert Jarvik, Marilyn Vos Savant Both Married Into Brains", KNT News Service, July 5, 1988
  16. ↑ Ron Yannone: "Pending Inquiry to Marilyn vos Savant on Publishing the Titan Test in Parade Magazine" (PDF; 1.3 MB), published in Noesis - The Journal of the Mega Society on January 3, 2006
  17. ↑ About the Mega Society (Eng.)
  18. ↑ Marilyn vos Savant.com - Game Show Problem ( Memento of the original from March 10, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. September 9, 1990: Suppose you're on a game show, and you're given the choice of three doors. Behind one door is a car, the others, goats. You pick a door, say # 1, and the host, who knows what's behind the doors, opens another door, say # 3, which has a goat. He says to you: 'Do you want to pick door # 2?' Is it to your advantage to switch your choice of doors? @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.marilynvossavant.com
  19. ↑ John Tierney, "Behind Monty Hall's Doors: Puzzle, Debate and Answer?", New York Times, July 21, 1991
  20. ^ A b c Morton Ann Gernsbacher, Sharon J. Derry: Proceedings of the Twentieth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society , Psychology Press, 1998, ISBN 978-0-8058-3231-0 , p. 18
  21. ↑ Marilyn vos Savant.com - Game Show Problem ( Memento of the original from March 10, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , December 2, 1990: […] The benefits of switching are readily proven by playing through the six games that exhaust all the possibilities. For the first three games, you choose # 1 and “switch” each time, for the second three games, you choose # 1 and “stay” each time, and the host always opens a loser. Here are the results: @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.marilynvossavant.com
  22. ↑ Marilyn vos Savant.com - Game Show Problem ( Memento of the original from March 10, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. February 17, 1991: The original answer is still correct, and the key to it lies in the question, “Should you switch?” Suppose we pause at that point, and a UFO settles down onto the stage. A little green woman emerges, and the host asks her to point to one of the two unopened doors. The chances that she'll randomly choose the one with the prize are 1/2, all right. But that's because she lacks the advantage of the original contestant — the help of the host. (Try to forget any particular television show.) When you first choose door # 1 from three, there's a 1/3 chance that the prize is behind that one and a 2/3 chance that it's behind one of the others. But then the host steps in and gives you a clue. If the prize is behind # 2, the host shows you # 3, and if the prize is behind # 3, the host shows you # 2. So when you switch, you win if the prize is behind # 2 or # 3. You win either way! But if you don't switch, you win only if the prize is behind door # 1. [...] @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.marilynvossavant.com
  23. ↑ Jochen Paulus: The problem of the three doors. Die Zeit, November 18, 2004, accessed October 15, 2012 .
  24. ↑ Andrew M. Colman, David D. Stretch: "Paranormal IQ Scores?" ( Memento of the original from December 13, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English; PDF; 421 kB) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.le.ac.uk
  25. ↑ Dennis Coon, John O. Mitterer: Psychology: A Journey , Wadsworth Publishing, 2007, ISBN 978-0-495-09553-8 ; P. 305
  26. ↑ a b The Sixth Norming of the Mega Test ( Memento of the original from February 17, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. by Ronald K. Hoeflin @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.eskimo.com
  27. ↑ "Ask Marilyn" by Marilyn vos Savant - Parade (Eng.)
  28. ^ John Scoville: Statistical Distribution of Childhood IQ Scores ( Memento August 9, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (Eng.)
  29. ^ Ask Marilyn - "Are Men Smarter Than Women?" , July 17, 2005
  30. ↑ Ask Marilyn - "Marilyn's IQ" , June 25, 2011: I don't think so. As a practical matter, how could such a thing possibly be determined?
  31. ↑ First Annual "Women Making History" Awards ( Memento of the original from May 7, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (engl.) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.nwhm.org
  32. ^ "President's Report to the Board" by President R. Barbara Gitenstein, June 30, 2003
personal data
SURNAME vos Savant, Marilyn
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mach, Marilyn (maiden name); Make the savant, Marilyn
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American columnist and writer
DATE OF BIRTH August 11, 1946
PLACE OF BIRTH St. Louis