Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Is Osama bin Laden a living genius?

According to a new report, Osama bin Laden, Nelson Mandela, Steven Hawking and the man who created the Simpsons are all among the world's greatest living geniuses. The Al Qaeda chief came in at number 43 in the list compiled by an expert panel following a survey of 600 Brits.

The geniuses were nominated by 600 UK based individuals and ranked by an expert panel of six consultants in the fields of creativity and innovation.

They ranked candidates on five factors of genius - paradigm shifting, popular acclaim, intellectual power, achievement and cultural importance - before giving them an overrall score.

The list shows 19 of the 100 ranked geniuses are musicians, 15 are scientists, 10 are writers, nine are engineers or architects and eight are from fields engaged in the study of man. Only one sportsperson made the cut.

Further analysis shows 43 are from the United States of America, 23 are from Britain, 13 are from Europe and 11 are from Asia. Only one African is listed in the top 100.

Only 15 of the top 100 are women.

TOP 100:

Rank Name Nation Field Score

1= Albert Hoffman (Swiss) Chemist (27)
1= Tim Berners-Lee (British) Computer Scientist (27)
3 George Soros (American) Investor & Philanthropist (25)
4 Matt Groening (American) Satirist & Animator (24)
5= Nelson Mandela (South African) Politician & Diplomat (23)
5= Frederick Sanger (British) Chemist (23)
7= Dario Fo (Italian) Writer & Dramatist (22)
7= Steven Hawking (British) Physicist (22)
9= Oscar Niemeyer (Brazilian) Architect (21)
9= Philip Glass (American) Composer (21)
9= Grigory Perelman (Russian) Mathematician (21)
12= Andrew Wiles (British) Mathematician (20)
12= Li Hongzhi (Chinese) Spiritual Leader (20)
12= Ali Javan (Iranian) Engineer (20)
15= Brian Eno (British) Composer (19)
15= Damian Hirst (British) Artist (19)
15= Daniel Tammet (British) Savant & Linguist (19)
18 Nicholson Baker (American Writer (18)
19 Daniel Barenboim (N/A) Musician (17)
20= Robert Crumb (American) Artist (16)
20= Richard Dawkins (British) Biologist and philosopher (16)
20= Larry Page & Sergey Brin (American) Publishers (16)
20= Rupert Murdoch (American) Publisher (16)
20= Geoffrey Hill (British) Poet (16)
25 Garry Kasparov (Russian) Chess Player (15)
26= The Dalai Lama (Tibetan) Spiritual Leader (14)
26= Steven Spielberg (American) Film maker (14)
26= Hiroshi Ishiguro (Japanese) Roboticist (14)
26= Robert Edwards (British) Pioneer of IVF treatment (14)
26= Seamus Heaney (Irish) Poet (14)
31 Harold Pinter (British) Writer & Dramatist (13)
32= Flossie Wong-Staal (Chinese) Bio-technologist (12)
32= Bobby Fischer (American) Chess Player (12)
32= Prince (American) Musician (12)
32= Henrik Gorecki (Polish) Composer (12)
32= Avram Noam Chomski (American) Philosopher & linguist (12)
32= Sebastian Thrun (German) Probabilistic roboticist (12)
32= Nima Arkani Hamed (Canadian) Physicist (12)
32= Margaret Turnbull (American) Astrobiologist (12)
40= Elaine Pagels (American) Historian (11)
40= Enrique Ostrea (Philippino) Pediatrics & neonatology (11)
40= Gary Becker (American) Economist (11)
43= Mohammed Ali (American) Boxer (10)
43= Osama Bin Laden (Saudi) Islamicist (10)
43= Bill Gates (American) Businessman (10)
43= Philip Roth (American) Writer (10)
43= James West (American) Invented the foil electrical microphone (10)
43= Tuan Vo-Dinh (Vietnamese) Bio-Medical Scientist (10)
49= Brian Wilson (American) Musician (9)
49= Stevie Wonder (American) Singer songwriter (9)
49= Vint Cerf (American) Computer scientist (9)
49= Henry Kissinger (American) Diplomat and politician (9)
49= Richard Branson (British) Publicist (9)
49= Pardis Sabeti (Iranian) Biological anthropologist (9)
49= Jon de Mol (Dutch) Television producer (9)
49= Meryl Streep (American) Actress (9)
49= Margaret Attwood (Canadian) Writer (9)
58= Placido Domingo (Spanish) Singer (8)
58= John Lasseter (American) Digital Animator (8)
58= Shunpei Yamazaki (Japanese) Computer scientist & physicist (8)
58= Jane Goodall (British) Ethologist & Anthropologist (8)
58= Kirti Narayan Chaudhuri (Indian) Historian (8)
58= John Goto (British) Photographer (8)
58= Paul McCartney (British) Musician (8)
58= Stephen King (American) Writer (8)
58= Leonard Cohen (American) Poet & musician (8)
67= Aretha Franklin (American) Musician (7)
67= David Bowie (British) Musician (7)
67= Emily Oster (American) Economist (7)
67= Steve Wozniak (American) Engineer and co-founder of Apple Computers (7)
67= Martin Cooper (American) Inventor of the cell phone (7)
72= George Lucas (American) Film maker (6)
72= Niles Rogers (American) Musician (6)
72= Hans Zimmer (German) Composer (6)
72= John Williams (American) Composer (6)
72= Annette Baier (New Zealander) Philosopher (6)
72= Dorothy Rowe (British) Psychologist (6)
72= Ivan Marchuk (Ukrainian) Artist & sculptor (6)
72= Robin Escovado (American) Composer (6)
72= Mark Dean (American) Inventor & computer scientist (6)
72= Rick Rubin (American) Musician & producer (6)
72= Stan Lee (American) Publisher (6)
83= David Warren (Australian) Engineer (5)
83= Jon Fosse (Norwegian) Writer & dramatist
83= Gjertrud Schnackenberg (American) Poet (5)
83= Graham Linehan (Irish) Writer & dramatist (5)
83= JK Rowling (British) Writer (5)
83= Ken Russell (British) Film maker (5)
83= Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov (Russian) Small arms designer (5)
83= Erich Jarvis (American) Neurobiologist (5)
91=. Chad Varah (British) Founder of Samaritans (4)
91= Nicolas Hayek (Swiss) Businessman and founder of Swatch (4)
91= Alastair Hannay (British) Philosopher (4)
94= Patricia Bath (American) Ophthalmologist
94= Thomas A. Jackson (American) Aerospace engineer (3)
94= Dolly Parton (American) Singer (3)
94= Morissey (British) Singer (3)
94= Michael Eavis (British) Organiser of Glastonbury (3)
94= Ranulph Fiennes (British) Adventurer (3)
100=. Quentin Tarantino (American) Filmmaker (2)

News taken from here.

So that do you think? Is Osama a living genius for you, together with Bill Gates? In my opinion, I'm not sure we actually know this guy. All we read from the news might be fake or miss-interpreted. We didn't really know what was his role in the Islamic movement.

Another remark, none of the living geniuses here is French. Since this survey is done by the Brits, you can see how much they hate the French. :-)

5 comments:

  1. Anonymous8:03 PM

    I'm so PO'd that Bill Gates is number 43 on this list, tied with Osama Crazy Ass Bin Hiding. lmao. I'm so PO'd...what is the world coming to when Bill Gates and Bin Hiding are considered equally important??

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  2. Ya, putting richest guy in the world with wanted guy in the world...how did they vote the way they voted.

    I think they voted wrongly or do know how to vote. And they are supposed to be experts.

    How did they get info on Osama? (to make comparison)

    Info on Bill is easy.

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  3. All surveys should always be taken with a pinch of salt. How can 600 UK-based individuals represent the world?? And you are right about the obvious bias, Bee Ean. I'd bet a totally different list surfaces if this survey was conducted in France, the US or China or Malaysia.

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  4. looks like being rich has an influencing factor in getting on that list eh?

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  5. Yeah I really think this survey is biased in every direction. One thing I notice, if you want to get famous in the western world, try to piss of China. They put both Dalai Lama and the FaLungGong spiritual leader in the list.

    ReplyDelete