Flagpole wrote:Well, I was using the original standard from 1916 when Stanford University psychologist Lewis M. Terman classified an IQ score of 140 or higher as "genius or near genius". Go do a search for that if you like. A tip for the future -- don't spout off stuff that you know nothing about.
As I indicated, I consider the usage of "near/genius" for someone with a 140 to be flawed. Languages change--something I do know about, because an earlier career was in linguistics--and conceivably Terman's use of the terms, nearly 100 years ago, carried a different weight than it does now.
I believe you aren't as familiar with the scoring scale as you think you are (which is the problem most people have),
and I believe you err--we'll have to agree to disagree here--
and I don't believe you know "several" people with IQs above 160. A 160 is 1 in 100,000,
Well, 160 AND ABOVE, which is what we're discussing, is actually more like 1 in 30,000 (for a 15SD IQ test)--so ~10,000 such people in the U.S. at present--
and above that is an even smaller percentage, and yet several of them somehow congregate around you? BS brother.
The "congregation" was hardly random. In my youth, I attended an NSA-sponsored summer science program for which professional IQ scores had to be submitted. The program's counselor matter-of-factly talked about one score that was officially "161 plus" and another that was off the scale--a scale that ended with 179. (NO, I'M SORRY THAT I DON'T KNOW THE NAMES OF THOSE TESTS--I DIDN'T THINK TO ASK ABOUT IT, 40+ YEARS AGO. Neither of those scores was mine, btw.)
Some time later, I was a member of one of the early Presidential Scholars groups. YOU'RE RIGHT--I'M ONLY GUESSING--but based on statements made, by and about my fellows, and my previous experience with holders of such elevated IQ measurements, I'm confident that "several"--at least--of the 121 Scholars were at or above the 160 level.
After that, I was a member of a Ford Foundation-financed program (for which I turned down admission to Caltech and Stanford) that was designed to get students their Ph.D.s six years after starting undergrad. No one in our bunch made a big deal about scores--it wasn't typical sport, in particular because we all knew we had nothing to prove--but once again, over the course of many months we learned there were *multiple* people over 160 IQ.
More subjectively: I personally got a test result that qualified me for the Prometheus Society, yet I can assure you that many of my program-mates were significantly better/faster than I on the high-g puzzles and games we sometimes played for amusement.
[I'm also just guessing, I'll confess, about Hans Bethe and Carl Sagan having been 160+ (I spent some time as a physics major), but my term "several" doesn't rely on them anyway.]
So, over the course of my life, *I have indeed known "several" people at 160+ IQ.* (I guess you shouldn't "spout off [about] stuff that you know nothing about.") Most of them were a joy--a pleasure and privilege--to get to know well.
Do you sit around and talk to people about their IQ scores? What a load that is.
Nope, never did. This was info that only came out over time.
If you actually do this, do you think that people will tell the truth about this?
Yeah, I think they did, because I was in aggregations where no one had anything more to prove. We were mostly just thrilled to finally not have to be "the smart one." Most of us loved being with people who were smarter than (or at least as smart as) we were, for once.
Do you think that maybe some of them took some non-standard IQ test that gave them an inflated score?
Absolutely possible, but because this was all some decades before the 'Net, and at a time when IQ tests were given to many "smart" children (especially when they were being considered for grade-skipping) and not generally available for one to take by oneself, I consider it unlikely.
People who apply to be Mensa members aren't necessarily geniuses...most of them are longing for praise, and Mensa's level of top 2% does not include just geniuses. To squeak into the top 2% isn't anywhere NEAR genius level.
We certainly agree here. That does not negate, however, the fact that there are *some* extraordinarily high-IQ people in the group.
To question the Mensa test as I did, gives a possible out to a guy who could just be lying his ass off...I'm pleasant to people in that way.
I understand your sensitivity on this topic, because I get the impression that people have often accused you of lying in some of your posts. I don't think you do--what would be the point, on an anonymous board? As it happens, I don't lie on here either.
INTJ's typically know what they don't know, so this is surprising to me that you would respond as you did. NOW you should know a little better.
Thanks for your effort. I now know some things that I didn't know before. I hope you know a couple, too.
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Fixed.