4 ms·

A lot of people would argue that Mensa itself is a joke...

by ivalm 7y ago

Der_Einzige 7y ago
I always tell people this who want "only high IQ" people to run society. "Oh, you want the people at Mensa to run your society?"
- opportune 7y ago
  Well to be fair, those are the subset of high IQ people who have the time/desire to join a club about having a high IQ. Kind of an adverse selection bias
- barry-cotter 7y ago
  The overwhelming majority of the high IQ are not Mensa members. They are academics, doctors, lawyers, successful businesspeople, the kinds of people for whom it is more common in their friends group to have a Master’s degree than to be a high school dropout.
  - perl4ever 7y ago
    Some people consider a person with a Master's degree to be a dropout. (yes, I know, not necessarily...)
    - barry-cotter 7y ago
      Those people are called academics. The kinds of Master’s degrees that are rent seeking credentialism, MBAs, MSWs, M.Ed.s are far more common than consolation prizes for those who didn’t get their Ph.D.
      - perl4ever 7y ago
        Perhaps, but the context I heard it in was self-deprecating from someone working in industry, relative to engineers with PhDs.
quartzite 7y ago
That's irrelevant, what matters is that a high IQ society has a vested interest in measuring IQ as a proxy for general intelligence and standardized testing results should reliably correlate to IQ and general intelligence.
- jschwartzi 7y ago
  But is IQ really a proxy for general intelligence?
  - Hydraulix989 7y ago
    Yes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_factor_(psychometrics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_factor_(psychometrics) An individual's performance on one type of cognitive task tends to be comparable to that person's performance on other kinds of cognitive tasks.
    - bsanr2 7y ago
      It's not impossible that these tests measure something other than general intelligence, that just happens to correlate with social outcomes (like historical, relative familial wealth). IIRC general intelligence also doesn't simply measure speed of cognition, but also ability to choose what to focus on ("intuition"), which these tests do not measure.
      - barry-cotter 7y ago
        Adoptees have IQs in line with their biological parents, not their adoptive ones. It’s heritable like every other psychological variable I’m aware of. Speed of cognition is absolutely correlated with IQ but the difference in speed doesn’t cause the differences in results. Both are downstream of being more intelligent. > Speed of information processing and general intelligence > One hundred university students were given five tests of speed-of-processing, measuring their speed of encoding, short-term memory scanning, long-term memory retrieval, efficiency of short-term memory storage and processing, and simple and choice reaction time or decision-making speed. They were also given the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale and the Raven Advanced Progression Matrices. A number of multiple regression analyses show that the cognitive processing measures are significantly related to IQ scores. Other analyses indicate that this relationship cannot be attributed to the common content shared by the reaction time and the intelligence tests, nor to the fact that parts of the WAIS are timed. It is concluded that the reaction time tests measure basic cognitive operations which are involved in many forms of intellectual behavior, and that individual differences in intelligence can be attributed, to a moderate extent, to variance in the speed or efficiency with which individuals can execute these operations https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0160289683900065 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/016028...
llcoolv 7y ago
This is more of a joke story, but a few years ago a friend of mine who is neither ambitious nor succesful surprisingly scored 165-170 on their test. When they offered him a membership and told him the membership fee, his reaction was - Alright, but as I am in the top 5% of your members - should not you be paying me to hang out with you? :D :D :D

A lot of people would argue that Mensa itself is a joke...

by ivalm 7y ago

A lot of people would argue that Mensa itself is a joke...

I always tell people this who want "only high IQ" people to run society. "Oh, you want the people at Mensa to run your society?"

opportune 7y ago
Well to be fair, those are the subset of high IQ people who have the time/desire to join a club about having a high IQ. Kind of an adverse selection bias
barry-cotter 7y ago
The overwhelming majority of the high IQ are not Mensa members. They are academics, doctors, lawyers, successful businesspeople, the kinds of people for whom it is more common in their friends group to have a Master’s degree than to be a high school dropout.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  Some people consider a person with a Master's degree to be a dropout. (yes, I know, not necessarily...)
  - barry-cotter 7y ago
    Those people are called academics. The kinds of Master’s degrees that are rent seeking credentialism, MBAs, MSWs, M.Ed.s are far more common than consolation prizes for those who didn’t get their Ph.D.
    - perl4ever 7y ago
      Perhaps, but the context I heard it in was self-deprecating from someone working in industry, relative to engineers with PhDs.

quartzite 7y ago

That's irrelevant, what matters is that a high IQ society has a vested interest in measuring IQ as a proxy for general intelligence and standardized testing results should reliably correlate to IQ and general intelligence.

jschwartzi 7y ago
But is IQ really a proxy for general intelligence?
- Hydraulix989 7y ago
  Yes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_factor_(psychometrics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_factor_(psychometrics) An individual's performance on one type of cognitive task tends to be comparable to that person's performance on other kinds of cognitive tasks.
  - bsanr2 7y ago
    It's not impossible that these tests measure something other than general intelligence, that just happens to correlate with social outcomes (like historical, relative familial wealth). IIRC general intelligence also doesn't simply measure speed of cognition, but also ability to choose what to focus on ("intuition"), which these tests do not measure.
    - barry-cotter 7y ago
      Adoptees have IQs in line with their biological parents, not their adoptive ones. It’s heritable like every other psychological variable I’m aware of. Speed of cognition is absolutely correlated with IQ but the difference in speed doesn’t cause the differences in results. Both are downstream of being more intelligent. > Speed of information processing and general intelligence > One hundred university students were given five tests of speed-of-processing, measuring their speed of encoding, short-term memory scanning, long-term memory retrieval, efficiency of short-term memory storage and processing, and simple and choice reaction time or decision-making speed. They were also given the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale and the Raven Advanced Progression Matrices. A number of multiple regression analyses show that the cognitive processing measures are significantly related to IQ scores. Other analyses indicate that this relationship cannot be attributed to the common content shared by the reaction time and the intelligence tests, nor to the fact that parts of the WAIS are timed. It is concluded that the reaction time tests measure basic cognitive operations which are involved in many forms of intellectual behavior, and that individual differences in intelligence can be attributed, to a moderate extent, to variance in the speed or efficiency with which individuals can execute these operations https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0160289683900065 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/016028...

llcoolv 7y ago

This is more of a joke story, but a few years ago a friend of mine who is neither ambitious nor succesful surprisingly scored 165-170 on their test. When they offered him a membership and told him the membership fee, his reaction was - Alright, but as I am in the top 5% of your members - should not you be paying me to hang out with you? :D :D :D