I was just wondering what your IQ is? Preferably if you took an official one from a psychyatrist. But I guess post it if its based on one of those online IQ tests too, but say which sort of test you took: online or official.
I'm smart enough to know better, and that's pretty much all I need. The schools tried to test me several times only to run into my mom who would not allow it. And I know why she did it, and in that she proved herself smarter than my teachers.
But really, those numbers have very little to anything in reality. It's a measurement of potential, and not anything about putting it to work. And often, some of those people have personality problems great enough to negate any advantage that the potential for intelligence gave them.
Need proof? Of course you do.
So go to the MENSA site, and check out their list of members who've done great things. It's remarkable how devoid it is of anyone really great, or anyone who ever did anything good for anyone. Now go and find a list of famous Eagle Scouts, that's mindblowing. It's everyone from Supreme Court justices and presidents, to a pile of astronauts, to L. Ron Hubbard (founder of Scientology among other things) and David Lynch who did Twin Peaks and some of the strangest movies ever. I mean Sam Walton who founded WallMart was an Eagle Scout, and so was Charles Whitman (the U of Texas bell tower sniper, perhaps the first real famous serial killer). Lawrence Ferlinghetti who ran/runs City Lights Books and who first published Ginsburg's Howl and remains a champion of free speach was an Eagle Scout, as were John Ehrlichman and H. R. Haldeman, Nixon's two top henchmen.
That because one is about real and sustained accomplishment, the other is just a test.
You've got to love threads like this. :laugh: It kinda reminds of that other one "transgender & intelligence" If I recall correctly, everybody's IQ was above 120. Nobody said their IQ was below standard or even "average". :laugh:
Yeah it's always like Lake Woebegone.
In this case, it might be true, for precisely the reason that Tekla mentioned. If we're all a bunch of misfits (Internet misfits who like to post to online forums, to be precise), perhaps that makes us more likely to be good at the solitary skills that help you score high on those meaningless tests. A lot of us (I'm looking in the mirror, here) might fit in well with a bunch of frustrated geeks at a Mensa meeting. And remember Mensa is only the top 2% of that menaingless test. Even if it were meaningful, it would still be quite a bit less exclusive than, say, an Ivy League graduate education, or even Eagle Scouts.
Whatever my IQ, I'm sure it's quite a bit higher than any meaningful measure of my ranking with regard to potential impact on society. That's not because society is bad, but because IQ is bunk.
Yeah if I could get paid to take tests I'd be richer than the Rolling Stones and Tiger Woods, combined. However, of all the skills that are taught in school, doing real well at taking tests is perhaps the most devoid of any real world application.
But I sure enjoyed playing with the number two pencils and making pretty patterns on the paper filled with all them ovals.
I pretty much gave up on those things being of any value when I forgot that I had to take the SAT, and went out the night before to a Dead show and stayed up all night tripping my brains out on way too much very good LSD (this was 1973) at the coast. It's not exactly like I could tell my mom that, so I went in and took it. Still got in the top two percentile and I don't even remember taking the thing. (and it was a 100% bogus formality anyway, I had already been accepted at the university I wanted to go to, and my high school GPA was so high I could have scored a 0 and still got in.) So, that's its value, high as hell on LSD, no sleep after a night of dancing and partying out on a beach and taking a test I didn't care about at all and it was a few points higher than my PSAT score from the previous year which I really did take seriously and try very hard at.
And I knew a few MENSA members and no thanks, that level of social ineptitude gathering together is almost a critical mass of fail
You wanna give me an IQ Test?
Okay......But you'll have to pull it out of your butt later to score the results :laugh: >:-) :laugh:
I'm not sure the scanner would be able to recognize anal leakage instead of a number two lead pencil.
And really, if you've ever looked at one of those tests, the first thing any intelligent person would decide is "I've got a lot more important things to do with my time than this."
"OK class, iron filings are to magnet as?
"Oh, oh teacher I know that, idiots to TV"
Oh! Oh! teacher!!! Def. my ass is a magnet!!! >:-) >:-) >:-)
Quote from: tekla on January 03, 2010, 11:06:48 PM
So go to the MENSA site, and check out their list of members who've done great things. It's remarkable how devoid it is of anyone really great, or anyone who ever did anything good for anyone. Now go and find a list of famous Eagle Scouts, that's mindblowing. It's everyone from Supreme Court justices and presidents, to a pile of astronauts, to L. Ron Hubbard (founder of Scientology among other things) and David Lynch who did Twin Peaks and some of the strangest movies ever. I mean Sam Walton who founded WallMart was an Eagle Scout, and so was Charles Whitman (the U of Texas bell tower sniper, perhaps the first real famous serial killer). Lawrence Ferlinghetti who ran/runs City Lights Books and who first published Ginsburg's Howl and remains a champion of free speach was an Eagle Scout, as were John Ehrlichman and H. R. Haldeman, Nixon's two top henchmen.
That because one is about real and sustained accomplishment, the other is just a test.
Okay, how about this question - How many Mensan's were Eagle Scouts? Probably not many. :P
Quote from: tekla on January 03, 2010, 11:06:48 PM
That because one is about real and sustained accomplishment, the other is just a test.
True, but how many of those people you mentioned COULD be members of Mensa if they really wanted to? I think a lot of eligible people are smart enough to realize that a Mensa membership doesn't mean squat.
Oh, and I wouldn't call an IQ test a test of potential. That's giving it too much credit. I'd call it a test of performance--how a person performs on that particular test.
My friends neighbor apparently has an I.Q. of 248. That's what he said one drunken evening anyways ;)
I've done many IQ tests online and usually get as low as 115 and as high as 142. I don't think we should put too much importance in these tests, as all human beings are highly intelligent - the difference is not the level of intelligence, it is the form of intelligence. A talented athlete is just as intelligent as a talented musician.
I'm going to regret this, but here goes. I am trans, and a card carrying member of Mensa. I have no need to convince you of that. I am horrified at the vitriol being cast against a fairly innocuous group, by people who obviously know nothing about it.
From the Mensa website, "provides a forum for intellectual exchange among members. Its activities include the exchange of ideas by lectures, discussions, journals, special-interest groups, and local, regional, national, and international gatherings; the investigations of members' opinions and attitudes; and assistance to researchers, inside and outside Mensa, in projects dealing with intelligence or Mensa."
I admit to being a nerd with some pretty esoteric interests. At parties I put people to sleep because I often use complete sentences and even paragraphs to put across my ideas. Even my wife occasionally starts snoring or gets "the dazed" look. I don't get that around Mensans, and don't we all tend to enjoy at least a little time around people like ourselves? Nothing wrong there.
I agree that being in Mensa means nothing more than having achieved a high score on a test. A test of one very important form of intelligence in a world where there are a number of kinds of intelligence. It can be shown, however, that intelligence does equate with approximately $500. per year of income for every 1 IQ point over the average. I think it shows that that form of intelligence does have some worth in our society.
At the 50th anniversary of Mensa, held at Disney World here in Florida, I met an older transitioner who taught advanced calculus at UC Berkley. She was head of a design team that perfects "quietness" in nuclear submarine profiles when underwater. Mensa gave her an outlet to tell her story in a lecture at that worldwide meeting(for those who wanted to attend) as well as a featured story in our national monthly magazine. Maybe that is why I felt a need to respond. I don't normally mention that I am a member to anybody. I just think that they have been open and accepting and maybe deserved a little bit of defending. Sorry for the rant.
I had a 142 score in an official test years back, but the shrink said I had some problems with "manual performance." More recently, I had one and it was a 128. I was way off the charts for verbal IQ, but scored retarded on some parts of the performance IQ section. Apparently, that fits the psych profile of a psychotic person, or maybe an acutely depressed person, or someone with ADD, or whatever. The shrink said if I was younger I would be classified as having a learning disability. Turned out I had really bad sleep apnia.
I took one of those online tests and scored "145." I took it again and maxed it out at "165+."
On a real IQ test, anything over 145 is essentially meaningless, as it is 3 standard deviations above the norm. Anyone scoring that high is likely to have very different results from test to test. An IQ that high is generally considered unmeasurable.
The scale changed decades ago, so be aware that the highest IQ ever recorded of 232 is actually equivalent to about a 180 on today's tests.
as all human beings are highly intelligent
Oh you need to get out more. Einstein (pretty smart guy I hear, but not a MENSA member) once said: Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe. Frank Zappa - also pretty smart - put it a little more succinctly when he said we're dumb all over, and if that was true - and it is - then if we're dumb, then god is dumb and maybe even a little ugly on the side. Made in his image and likeness after all.
I did find one guy who was both an Eagle Scout and MENSA member, Robert Strange McNamara. (Yeah, that is his real name.) And what happens when someone that smart and such a little overachiever gets into power? Well back when he was the youngest person ever to run an auto company, Ford, he was fondly remembered for the Edsel, which almost ruined Ford. Not being content with that, he pretty much guided the U.S. situation in Vietnam, (clever boy, he refused to call it a 'war' always using the term 'conflict') getting us in so deep and so fast that right around the time we hit 10,000 young men dead and knew we really should end our involvement in their civil war, we were stuck so deep that took another 40,000 deaths to get out. Us little dumb people get to make little dumb mistakes, really smart people get to make huge mistakes.
At the 50th anniversary of Mensa, held at Disney World
Oh in that case I take it back, because of course Disney World is the center of the intellectual universe. What, was Chuck E. Cheese already booked with kid's birthday parties?
Always with the barbed tongue, eh Tekla? ;)
I met a professor of physics who won a Nobel Prize -- three of them, as a matter of fact -- as well as one who wrote the standard undergraduate text in electromagnetism, and one who co-wrote one of the standard texts in quantum field theory. I met the latter at a session of a conference where I gave a talk. It turns out he's a really nice guy. I guess that means I'm hot s**t.
Okay, really It doesn't. All it means is that you can find a whole lot of people that are really smart just by hanging around a university. There are some morons as well, but also a lot of people at the top of whatever field they happen to be studying, which might be any of a wide range of fields. It's not just universities, either; that just happens to be my millieu.
Now, I'm not actually knocking Mensa. Far be it from me to judge someone else's choices in friends or acquaintances; I just don't think much of the test they use for determining membership. IQ is simply bunk. Perhaps it has a very slight correlation with income -- accounting for about $20,000 (less than half of per capita GDP), between the dead average person (100) and a Mensa-scale genius (140). That's not very much, if you ask me. There are a lot of other things that correlate much more closely and dramatically, such as level of education. But, what the heck, it sounds fairly harmless.
Enough. Ofey put it far better than I can:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f61KMw5zVhg# (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f61KMw5zVhg#)
I think an interesting factoid about the IQ test is that, when it was being developed, thay ran into the problem that women kept scoring about 30 points higher than men on average for randomly selected questions. They knew the test would never gain widespread acceptance like that, so they started keeping track of the questions that men and women do better on, and loading the tests with questions that men do better on until they obtained an average IQ of 100 for both men and women. I wonder if they would have bothered doing that if men had typically scored higher than women on average for randomly selected questions.
Perhaps because of the way the test was manipulated for gender, the standard deviation for women is quite different than that for men. More specifically, the IQ scores of women are much more closely grouped around 100, while the scores of men tend to vary more greatly. As a result, most people with high IQ scores are men. Also, most people who are classified as severely mentally retarded are men.
I find it interesting that Tekla keeps mentioning Scouting. Isn't that the Organization that I couldn't join because I'm gay and, at the time, an atheist? Even though it is a Federally Chartered Organization? I personally find it offensive. More importantly, the two organizations have totally different missions. Mensa isn't designed to sell itself based on who is or isn't a member. Their official publications often have profiles of Mensans doing well, as well as doing good. The list of books and publications written by Mensans that are published every month is often extensive. They simply don't crow about it as a sales tool. Certainly they allow transgendered people, otherwise qualified, to join. Unlike scouting. While your denigration of Disney World as a meeting place seems bitter at best, my point was to show that they gave a world wide audience to let a very intelligent transgendered person air his life history. The thousands of people who attended from around the world seemed to have a good time. Oh well, if you try to bring insight and they prefer to wallow in ignorance, not much can be done. The good news is that you can always join Densa!
My IQ is a number assigned to my mental capacities based off of how well I answer a group of questions that which only test a couple of aspects of intelligence (memory, information retention, solving logic puzzles).
" Isn't that the Organization that I couldn't join because I'm gay and, at the time, an atheist? "
----------------
Do not ask do not tell.
Isn't that the Organization that I couldn't join because I'm gay and, at the time, an atheist? Even though it is a Federally Chartered Organization?
Think its hard to join the scouts being gay or an atheist, try getting elected being one of those, there are a few openly gay members of congress, no senators, and not a single atheist. I doubt if an open atheist could be elected to congress from the most liberal California districts.
And the point was that people use IQ test as some sort of 'exceptionalism' designation - "look at all of our IQs, see, we are better than the rest of you" - when in real life, it seems to have very little bearing on any realistic assessment of being 'better'.
Or, perhaps sadder, and even worse, its one of those things like 'cool' or 'enlightened' - and when people run around saying that stuff about themselves you just have to kinda doubt it. If you really are that smart or whatever, why would you ever have to demonstrate it? Wouldn't most of the people around you come to know that pretty fast? Do you really have to 'prove i,' isn't everything you do proof of it?
Wouldn't using a criteria like 'success' or 'happiness' or 'accomplishment' all be somewhat better measurements of such things? In one of those passing statements that come to haunt our lives I was at some meeting in grad school listening to stuff kind of along this line when one of my friends leaned over to me and said "Gee, if all these people are so smart, how come they are so farking miserable? After all, lots of total idiots have figured out how to be happy?" I know she meant it as a joke, but there is a real truth there.
I've been very gifted in my life to work with all sorts of very smart people. From DOE Labs, the DoD, and the entertainment industry. And I've found that you can be smart in all sorts of different ways. Some are good with theory, some with practice, some with numbers, some with people, some have vast talents, others have no talent but are awesome at convincing others they have some. It's just not a quantifiable thing.
Quote from: Alyssa M. on January 05, 2010, 12:31:02 AM
Enough. Putsy put it far better than I can:
Not to be a pedant, and I can't find my copies of Feynman, but wasn't Putsy his first wife, the one who died of TB?
"He fixes radios just by thinking about them!!!" I wish SRS were as simple.
:embarrassed:
Dammit, I was thinking of "Ofey (http://www.museumsyndicate.com/artist.php?artist=380)".
Quote from: Alyssa M. on January 06, 2010, 01:31:16 AM
:embarrassed:
Dammit, I was thinking of "Ofey (http://www.museumsyndicate.com/artist.php?artist=380)".
Ah, that explains everything. I had heard of his drawings, but I never knew he painted, too...and I had no idea there were so many nudes!
I agree 100% with Tekla on this. If being able to score well on tests predicted success in the real world, I would rule the Universe..
High IQ + insecurity about one's perceived intelligence = MENSA member, imo. Isn't it funny how self-consiousness is so often at the root of a superiority complex?
In the end the only thing that matters is figuring out what it is that you want and what makes you happy, and then, finding a way to make it happen. That's the difference between 'want' and 'have.' And people who have are a hella lot happier then them that just wants and never have.
I bet I could slap you all aside with the wet end of my massive IQ, if I knew what that number was.
There are two problems with IQ tests. Firstly, they have to keep adjusting the test. If your grandparents were to take today's test, they would end up with an IQ of around 70, they would be classed as retarded.
Secondly. IQ test differ when apply to people of different ethenic groups. In assessing intelligence, an IQ test should be taken as one among several tests to rate intelligence.
Quote from: Pica Pica on January 07, 2010, 03:30:08 PM
I bet I could slap you all aside with the wet end of my massive IQ, if I knew what that number was.
Lol I don't doubt it.
Quote from: tekla on January 07, 2010, 02:33:22 PM
In the end the only thing that matters is figuring out what it is that you want and what makes you happy, and then, finding a way to make it happen. That's the difference between 'want' and 'have.' And people who have are a hella lot happier then them that just wants and never have.
As screwed up as I am, on that account at least I blow my parents out of the water, even if not on salary, standard of living, or prestige. So thanks for the consolation. ;)
The race issue is a major pot of worms. It's related to the gender issue -- they scale differently according to gender, but it's just a shift, without rescaling the standard deviation. This is part of the reason Larry Summers got in trouble back in 2005 when he was the president of Harvard. In a nutshell, the problem with IQ and Summers' comments is shoddy and uncritical reasoning.
I'm not going to bash any particular organization except based on what it does, and Mensa doesn't seem that much different than a grown up version of a high school physics club, as in, "It's social, sort of, demented and sad, but social, right?" (Oh, John Hughes movies, how I love them!) Who cares? Hey, some people like clubs. If that's how they get their kicks, who am I to judge?
The first use of IQ tests, in the Army during WWI, found that black men scored higher then the white Scotch-Irish of the Appalachian areas, which was so shocking that they had to redesign the test several times.
Quote from: Alyssa M. on January 07, 2010, 09:59:14 PM
Mensa doesn't seem that much different than a grown up version of a high school physics club
For me, the diff between Mensa and math club is the exclusion aspect, which is the thing that bugs me about it.
Quote from: tekla on January 07, 2010, 10:59:41 PM
The first use of IQ tests, in the Army during WWI, found that black men scored higher then the white Scotch-Irish of the Appalachian areas, which was so shocking that they had to redesign the test several times.
All this IQ test tampering reminds me of self-perpetuating standardized testing biased. People of color score lower on average due to biased questions, which in itself is not that shocking (oh, a bunch of rich white guys wrote a test, and it has bias. Whoo-ee). But when developing the new test, they perpetuate this; part of how they (I think the SAT? Yeah, some details will probably be wrong) do it is by adding unscored at the end of the test to random people. These are possible questions for future SATS. Part of how they determine if the question is a good one is if people score similarly on it as they do on the real SAT, so if there's a question that more black people answer right, bam! it's eliminated, because black people are supposed to score lower. Okay, rant complete.
Now back to the main topic, where I have to agree with everyone who says that IQ tests are bunk. It tests your ability to solve useless problems and your ability to take tests. I'm very good at that, so I'm sure I would score high (the gurl.com IQ test said my IQ was 166. I'm so special. And I'm
so sure it was an accurate measure of intelligence), while other people smarter than me who are bad at tests would not do as well (and some stupid people, like my high school's future valedictorian, would do better). And I have to say, even if having a higher IQ does mean you earn more money . . . so? Once I get to the level where I can buy food and clothes and rent, I really don't care. Money is not a measure of success, either.
And I have to say, even if having a higher IQ does mean you earn more money . . . so?
I haven't looked the charts for a long time, but I seem to remember a distinct curve in the IQ/income deal, income tends to go up corresponding to IQ up to a point, after which it tends to fall off again. Turns out you can be too smart for your own good.
Old scale IQ tests... I took them almost yearly... the scores fluctuated with in a 10 point range or so, but stayed relatively consistent... I haven't taken one since leaving high school though. I scored high... very high... not extremely high, just very. On standardized tests such as the TASS and SAT I scored extremely high.... Then I learned a very valuable lesson... All those tests are meaningless unless you jump through the same hoops everyone else does. They don't get you better jobs, they don't make life easier. In fact, I personally believe that the higher you score on such things the more difficult your life becomes. When I was young the scores gave me a "I'm smarter than you are :P" attitude and worse... As an adult It just brings me frustration as I watch IDIOTS and IGNORANCE, people who are dumb as bricks running things, managing places, handling money, being president of the US.... Its freaking scary.
What they need is a life aptitude test... if you don't score above a 75% they tie your tubes or give you a vasectomy so you cant have or make kids, you cant get a drivers licenses, get a cell phone, sign contracts for credit cards... and are tasked to low level menial work until you manage to pass the test.... If life were like that, the world would be a better place and IQ and standardized tests would have meaning....
BUT since that isn't reality... the tests don't mean a damned thing, so WHO CARES >:-)
This is the dark goddess signing out....
Quote from: tekla on January 08, 2010, 12:10:02 PM
And I have to say, even if having a higher IQ does mean you earn more money . . . so?
I haven't looked the charts for a long time, but I seem to remember a distinct curve in the IQ/income deal, income tends to go up corresponding to IQ up to a point, after which it tends to fall off again. Turns out you can be too smart for your own good.
Yeah, I think the man estimated to have the highest IQ ever spent his short adult life at a series of menial jobs.
Post Merge: January 08, 2010, 02:26:55 PM
Quote from: tekla on January 05, 2010, 09:23:02 PM
Isn't that the Organization that I couldn't join because I'm gay and, at the time, an atheist? Even though it is a Federally Chartered Organization?
Think its hard to join the scouts being gay or an atheist, try getting elected being one of those, there are a few openly gay members of congress, no senators, and not a single atheist. I doubt if an open atheist could be elected to congress from the most liberal California districts.
I think there is/was recently an atheist in Congress. Only one, though.
Quote from: LynnER on January 08, 2010, 12:11:09 PMWhat they need is a life aptitude test... if you don't score above a 75% they tie your tubes or give you a vasectomy so you cant have or make kids, you cant get a drivers licenses, get a cell phone, sign contracts for credit cards... and are tasked to low level menial work until you manage to pass the test.... If life were like that, the world would be a better place and IQ and standardized tests would have meaning....
If those are the penalties, the test would have to be so stupidly easy that 99.99% of people can pass it... in which case, what's the point? Tests to measure these things are dumb, actions speak louder.
I guess I was among those weeded out by tests in grade school: I was tested for the "gifted program" twice and came just shy of whatever their benchmark IQ score was. Every teacher I had at that level was confused by this since I severely outperformed most of those kids in all subjects. Nowadays I'm sure would I score somewhere in the very high levels since everyone I know makes a point of telling me I'm smart when I solve problems very quickly at work. I don't need some test to confirm or deny that.
Quote from: Kieri on January 08, 2010, 04:15:42 PM
If those are the penalties, the test would have to be so stupidly easy that 99.99% of people can pass it... in which case, what's the point? Tests to measure these things are dumb, actions speak louder.
Thats the whole point, so 99.9% of the morons running things wont have the opportunity, and so stupid people cant have more stupid kids...
They tested me frequently, but they didn't have a gifted program in my school district till the year after I finished a grade........
Ok, I'm getting pissed off now. I am being reminded of when I was growing up and my racist mom would exclaim how there ought to be a law that all the little unwed mothers and girls that get abortions ought to have to have their tubes tied.
I envision two future worlds. One is filled with primitive, stupid, violent humans. The other with cultured, advanced, peaceful ones. Either way, the sun eventually expands and burns the world clean. Both worlds equally deserve it.
And that the trouble with such things that create exceptionalism and elitism.
Quote from: Pica Pica on January 08, 2010, 06:26:47 PM
I do
Well be careful with that thing, you could hurt someone!
Quote from: glendagladwitch on January 09, 2010, 09:55:26 AM
I envision two future worlds. One is filled with primitive, stupid, violent humans. The other with cultured, advanced, peaceful ones. Either way, the sun eventually expands and burns the world clean. Both worlds equally deserve it.
I agree, Let it burn.
Its not like its going to burn anytime soon in that scenario. That's a couple of hundred of thousands of years off. In the meantime, lets keep the matches out of the reach of children shall we?
You're only off by four orders of magnitude -- have you considered a career in cosmology? Or perhaps economics?
p.s. ... Am I actually reading about trans people advocating for eugenics? I don't think it takes an IQ of 180 to see how that could be seen as ever so slightly ironic.
have you considered a career in cosmology? Or perhaps economics?
Oh like there is some sort of major difference, excepting that cosmologists have to be right on occasion, somin' economists don't exactly get held to.
And no, irony around here is a self-administered gift, so enjoy it. God knows I do.
I think IQ is a load of bull.
Apparently mine is high enough to be in gifted, and a year above grade level (technically two, but because of where my birthday falls, I got pushed ahead a year... probably not the smartest move)
That's total crap. I can barely handle my grade level, I'm far from 'gifted' and 'common sense' tends to elude me.
And I totally bombed my PSAT writing section... like, 2/6 bombed. (Thank god THAT one isn't going on my transcript...and I have time to do better next year...)
It means nothing. How well you can do on a single test means nothing to your intelligence, or capability in life.