Neurosurgeon, rocket scientist or you: who’s the smartest?

‘It’s not rocket science’ is a phrase that has long been used to denote the intellectual rigour required or not required to do something. But a new British study says that being a rocket scientist or brain surgeon does not necessarily make someone sharper than a commoner.

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Researchers compared test results of 329 neurosurgeons and 72 aerospace engineers against 18,000 members of the UK public, all of whom took the Great British Intelligence Test (GBIT) which examines aspects of cognition, like planning and reasoning, working memory, attention, and emotion processing abilities.

Publishing the findings in the BMJ, the team said that only neurosurgeons showed a significant difference from the general population and that was their quicker problem-solving speed but slower memory recall. This may be due to the fast-paced nature of neurosurgery. Meanwhile, rocket scientists scored higher than neurosurgeons for attention and mental manipulation.

Are you smarter than a rocket scientist or neurosurgeon?

What this essentially means is that everyone has a range of skills, some may be better at certain skills but it is quite unlikely for one person to be the best at everything. So, it might be time to ditch the rocket science idioms and use something like ‘It’s a walk in the park’ or ‘It’s a piece of cake’ instead.

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