The highest IQ in the world – and the question that caused it to fail

Marilyn vos Savant holds a record that few will ever break: With an IQ of 228, she has the highest IQ in the world—far removed from Einstein’s 160 to 190 points, Hawking’s 160 points, or Musk’s estimated 155 points. Yet, despite this extraordinary intelligence, she was brutally torn apart by science and the public over a seemingly simple question. The paradoxical story shows how genius does not protect against massive misunderstandings—and how a mathematical puzzle can reveal the limits of our thinking.

From Overlooked Genius to Public Recognition

Marilyn’s exceptional potential was evident even as a child. At just ten years old, she could memorize the entire content of complex books, read all 24 volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, setting an IQ record that still stands today. Nevertheless, she remained in the shadows. “For a long time, hardly anyone was interested in me, mostly because I am a girl,” she recalls later. She attended a regular public school, studied for two years at the University of Washington, then dropped out to support her family in the family business.

The turning point came in 1985: Guinness World Records officially listed her as the holder of the highest IQ record with 228 points. Suddenly, Marilyn was in the spotlight—cover stories in New York Magazine and Parade, guest appearances on The Late Show with David Letterman. The world seemed ready to recognize this genius.

The Monty Hall Problem: A Question Dividing Society

In 1990, Marilyn began her famous column “Ask Marilyn” in Parade. A reader posed her a seemingly harmless puzzle that would become a turning point in her career—the so-called Monty Hall problem, named after the host of the game show Deal or No Deal.

The question was simple:

You are participating in a game show. In front of you are three doors. Behind one door is a car, behind the other two are goats. You choose a door. The host opens another door and shows you a goat. Now you have a choice: stay with your original choice or switch doors.

Marilyn’s answer was concise: “You should switch doors.”

The Storm of Outrage

What followed was a tsunami of criticism. Marilyn received over 10,000 letters, including nearly 1,000 from people with doctoral degrees. About 90 percent of the respondents declared her wrong:

• “You are the goat (idiot) yourself!”
• “You totally messed up!”
• “Maybe women see mathematical problems differently than men.”

Even mathematicians and statisticians wrote letters full of contempt. A university doctor wrote: “You have recognized the worst thing that can happen to a mathematician—confusing the public.” The situation became a symbol of underestimating female intellect.

The Mathematical Truth

But Marilyn was right. To understand this, let’s consider the two scenarios:

Scenario 1: You initially choose the door with the car (probability: 1/3)

• The host opens a door with a goat
• If you switch, you lose

Scenario 2: You initially choose a door with a goat (probability: 2/3)

• The host opens the other door with a goat
• If you switch, you win

The mathematical reality is clear: your chance of winning by switching is 2/3—not 50 percent, as most intuitively believe.

MIT conducted computer simulations that confirmed Marilyn’s answer. The show MythBusters performed practical tests and demonstrated the solution experimentally. Some scientists eventually admitted their mistakes and apologized.

Why Our Minds Systematically Fail Here

But why do so many people—including highly educated individuals—find it so difficult to see this? The reasons go deeper than just a lack of mathematics:

Resetting the Situation: Our brains tend to “re-evaluate” the initial setup when new information arrives. We unconsciously treat the remaining scenario as if the first choice never happened. This is a cognitive error.

Small Sample Size: With only three doors, the problem is unintuitive. With 100 doors, the solution would be obvious: switching wins in 99 out of 100 cases.

The 50-50 Trap: People unconsciously assume that two remaining options automatically mean a 50-percent chance. This is a fundamental misinterpretation of conditional probability.

Evolutionary Blindness: Our brains have evolved for immediate, small scenarios, not for understanding statistical probabilities over larger sets.

The Bigger Picture: Intelligence and Understanding Are Not the Same

Marilyn’s story—with the highest IQ in the world and her subsequent mockery—reveals an uncomfortable truth: maximum intelligence does not protect against massive collective misunderstandings. An environment full of experts can systematically be wrong.

The episode also showed that average people think in niches and fail to recognize the limits of their intuition—while a truly brilliant person—such as a woman—can break through these limits and give the correct answer, even when the entire established world opposes her.

Having the highest IQ in the world could not have been more impressive—or more helpful in revealing this mathematical truth.