From: Edd111@aol.com Date sent: Wed, 11 Aug 1999 00:14:48 EDT Subject: Re: Mensa To: extropians@extropy.com Send reply to: extropians@extropy.com
> I went to a Mensa gathering as an undergraduate at UCLA. You're right. It
> was fun for a visit, but I wouldn't want to make it a religious routine to
> attend their meetings. The other thing which has bothered me of recent
> vintage is that their criterion is the staid, old verbal/spatial reasoning
> aspect of IQ. Go into any Barnes and Noble and check out their tests for the
> masses.
> They just don't 'get it'.
> Mensans conveniently forget that IQ is now defined to measure other things in
> a person, viz. Creativity, Kinesthetics, Music Ability, etc. If Mensa was
> really concerned about some arbitrary cutoff of intellectual skills (the
> upper 2% if my 30 year old memory since college is correct), then they must
> include famous actors/actresses/musicians,athletes, etc. people whose IQ as
> defined by Mensans would be insinuatingly mediocre, but who have proven
> themselves as easily qualifying in the top 1 or 2% in their own 'intellectual
> abilities'.
>
>
>
I have been a member of both Mensa and Intertel (International
Legion of Intelligence, upper 1%), but let my memberships lapse
long ago because I found it more interesting to associate with
people with whom I shared interests than with people with whom I
shared test scores.