Certain sites have characterized the below table as a “hoax”. I am curious whether or not the numbers are “real” for some definition of that word. I found this copy of the exact same table, posted on Usenet by Robert Calvert in 2002:

Average IQ by State

From the groups he posted it to (rec.org.mensa, sci.anthropology, alt.politics.british, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh) it’s quite possible that it was a troll, just trying to stir up controversy. Somebody else has contacted him in the past few days, but he still hasn’t said where he got the data from. He did hint that “If you’re exceptionally intelligent, I guarantee you that the
source for my data will absolutely blow you away. :-)”.

Right now my fake-or-real-ometer is starting to swing over to the “fake” direction.