Article 36371 of rec.puzzles:
From: hoey@aic.nrl.navy.mil (Dan Hoey)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: ASK MARILYN
Date: 04 Dec 1995 06:12:20 GMT
Organization: Navy Center for Artificial Intelligence
In-reply-to: wtc@cs.utexas.edu's message of 1 Dec 1995 08:13:49 -0600

wtc@cs.utexas.edu (Wichaya Top Changwatchai) writes:
> As I understand it, Marilyn vos Savant's claim to fame is that she has the
> highest IQ test score submitted to the Guinness Book of World Records....

I've heard the test that distinguishes her score from those of other
expert test-takers was one she had a hand in developing or
administering, at least in an earlier version.  It's amusing to
speculate whether this experience gave her an advantage in taking the
test.

> Perhaps it's best to think of her as an advice columnist with a penchant for
> puzzles.

... who fancies herself an expert in mathematics.
... who takes pride in her opposition to the "mathematical establishment".
... who was obviously out of her depth in writing a book that tried
    to explain Andrew Wiles's proof of Fermat's Last Theorem.
... who nonetheless made up a spurious theory that Wiles's proof was not
    applicable to FLT because of its use of "hyperbolic geometry".
... who has never explained how she came to the mistaken belief that
    there was any use of hyperbolic geometry in that proof.

Perhaps if she goes on making grade-school level mathematical errors,
the public may come to understand how incompetent she is to critique
serious mathematics.  If ever a fraud deserved deflation, she's it.

Dan Hoey
Hoey@AIC.NRL.Navy.Mil