There is no doubt that Kim Young Hoon is a brilliant test taker. There also is no doubt that he is lying when he claims to hold the official title of “world’s highest IQ record holder.” Millions have fallen for it. His posts on X have garnered him tens of millions of views and over 230,000 followers. Kim had little difficulty playing the Christian press, which repeated his claim in numerous articles, and used Kim’s own material as “verification.”

Kim Young Hoon is a fraud. I’ll give you details, but for now all you need to dismiss him are these three facts:

1. KIM SCORED 210, NOT 276. AND THE TEST WAS FATALLY FLAWED.

Amidst all the hoopla, remember that Kim’s “world’s highest IQ” claim rests on one test, the obscure VNPT-II, invented by a certain Dr. Kirk Raymond Butt, who appears to be the only one using it. This fact alone sets Kim’s claim immediately on shaky ground.

The test yielded a score of 210 (not a world record) rather than 276 (apparently a world record.) Dr. Butt then made a controversial standard deviation move to get the score up to 276. (An expert I interviewed told me that the method Dr. Butt used has been frowned upon in the IQ world for decades.)

Kim wasted no time trumpeting his new title across the planet. Dr. Butt was more cautious. He appears to never have endorsed the “world’s highest IQ” thing. Instead, he honored Kim with a certificate confirming the highest score in Dr. Butt’s own “Global Genius Directory.”

It gets much worse.

But before we go there, I urge you at some point to Google the VNPT-II IQ test. You will find no scholarly discussion of it, no published works, and other than a few critical discussions on Quora and Reddit, VNPT-II is only mentioned in the websites of organizations operated by and/or connected to Butt and Kim. Almost all (probably all) IQ experts will agree that nobody should claim to have the highest IQ in the world based on one VNPT-II test, not to mention that testing protocols urge caution about outlier results (like a new world record!)

Dr. Butt is a highly educated man with doctorate degrees in both theology and comparative religion. He seems to have no advanced degrees or courses of study undertaken in mathematics, statistics, psychology, or in any other subject relevant to IQ testing. He also demonstrated surprising ignorance of basic ethics and reliability protocols in testing. Dr. Butt administered the test to Kim despite having a serious conflict of interest, one that fatally tarnishes the results that shot Kim to instant stardom.

Dr. Butt was no disinterested clinician when he tested Kim. I went digging and learned that Kim and Dr. Butt had a business relationship centered around IQ testing. They served together on the boards of several IQ organizations, and Dr. Butt had a job as an editor at the United Sigma Intelligence Association, a company founded and run by Mr. Kim.

In 2022, they co-authored a book. The subject? IQ testing!

Did it never cross Dr. Butt’s mind that having an IQ mega star as his co-author and business colleague would be good for his own career? Granted, I speculate. But that’s exactly the point. Ethical people do not undertake highly significant testing under circumstances that inevitably create the appearance of impropriety.

If IQ buddies want to test each other for fun, fine. Just don’t plaster the results all over the world. But Kim and his business colleague did just that.

Kim Young Hoon’s 276 does not pass any smell test.

(Kim and Dr. Butt have ignored several requests to speak to me.)

2. THERE IS NO ORGANIZATION RECOGNIZED AS HAVING THE QUALIFICATIONS AND AUTHORITY TO CONFIRM THE WORLD’S HIGHEST IQ STATUS ON ANYONE. SO NOBODY CAN LEGITIMATELY CLAIM THAT TITLE.

The world of High-IQ clubs is a Wild West of tiny organizations formed by men (no women that I am aware of) who have appointed themselves as authorities to confer impressive sounding IQ and other smartness titles on others. Some have invented their own tests, which further exacerbates the significant problem of lack of standardization.

Kim Young Hoon has never been recognized by any competent authority as having the world’s highest IQ. (Serious IQ researchers know that the measurements are too imprecise and not sufficiently standardized to make such a title meaningful.) Instead, Kim has formed and allied himself with organizations that repeat his claim widely on the Internet. As of the launch of this website, not a single prominent expert in the IQ and intelligence evaluation world is willing to publicly endorse Kim’s claim.

3. KIM’S DECEPTIVE MESSAGING.

Here’s the education section of his website.

It implies that he has multiple academic degrees and has done significant graduate work. It seems, however, that Kim has no graduate degrees, and only a bachelor’s degree in theology.

Kim often refers to Guinness World Records as being in “partnership” with various organizations that support him. But Guinness has not bothered with IQ records since 1989.

Kim repeatedly invokes an organization called World Record Holder as affirming his claim. That organization is a certificate mill that will help anyone who pays become a world record holder.

The co-founder of the World Memory Championships (which Kim heavily relies on for his world record claim) told me that the organization has not done an IQ event in decades. He also said he was not aware that Kim was using WMC’s name as support for his highest IQ claim.

And so on.

In 10 minutes, you can do more fact-checking than the professional religious media has done. That’s all it will take to find compelling reasons to dismiss Kim Young Hoon as an imposter.