Shakira is a genius — literally.
The star’s sensual moves may impress fans on stage but Mensa International, the oldest high IQ society in the world, revealed that — with an IQ of 140 — the Colombian beauty has the brains to match, Notimex reports.
On Saturday, the UK-based organization released a list of celebrities with above average IQs that also included Madonna (140), Quentin Tarantino (160), James Woods (180), among others. According to the Mexican news agency, the report describes anyone with an IQ higher than 139 as “almost geniuses.”
For centuries, intelligence quotient (IQ) tests have been used to assess intelligence and Mensa International is known for only accepting members who score at the 98th percentile or higher on approved IQ tests with the “objective of enjoying each other’s company and participating in a wide range of social and cultural activities.”
The organization may have strict membership requirements but there are some within the scientific community who say IQ tests do not accurately reflect how smart an individual is. In December 2012, a two-year online study launched by the Daily Telegraph and New Scientist tested more than 110,000 people to prove this hypothesis.
“We can all think of people that have poor reasoning and brilliant memories, or fantastic language skills but aren’t so hot at reasoning, and so on,” one of the paper’s authors Dr. Roger Highfield told The Telegraph. “Now once and for all we can say there is not a single measure such as IQ which captures all the intelligence that you see in people.”
