High-IQ Society Displays Low-IQ about Intelligence
Michael Jordan, considered by many to be the greatest basketball player of all time, had a B+ average in high school. He would not be considered intelligent enough to join Mensa.
Mensa, “the organization for smart people like you,” accepts people in the top 2% of “standardized intelligence tests.” These intelligence tests include:
- the LSAT — a test for law school admissions. Taking a pricey Kaplan test-prep course can significantly improve your score, thereby, according to Mensa, making you more intelligent in general.1
- the GMAT — same as above, but for business graduate school.
It may be difficult for overachieving academics to accept that logic and language skills aren’t the only types of intelligence humans possess. For instance, athletic, social, musical — and most importantly, satirical writing — abilities also come from the same piece of gray matter.
IQ tests also happen to be racist2 and classist3 — which makes Mensa perhaps the largest promoter of the widely debunked “Bell Curve” IQ-model.4
Mensa, more than a high IQ society, is a sort of nerdy networking club for the upper-class.
That gives me HOPE! I may still become a MENSA member, even if I don’t win a membership on eBay! Yippie!
Comment by USELESS MEN — February 21, 2006 @ 2:12 pm
umh, not entirely sure or care about mensa’s policies, but those technically wouldn’t qualify as “standardized IQ tests.” Things like the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale or the Stanford Binet are. Ofcourse, that wouldn’t really sound as awful in your post would it. I don’t think theres anyone that disagrees with the point that theres multiple kinds of intelligence and people have strengths and weaknesses.
Comment by Todd — March 20, 2006 @ 1:13 pm
Thanks for writing, Todd. One of the purposes of this post was to point out that Mensa’s definition of intelligence is pretty strange. Stanford Binet is more widely considered to be a “standard” intelligence test, but I’d argue that even that test hardly does the job of measuring intelligence. Stanford Binet is perhaps more harmful to society because more people respect it as a legitimate measure of “intelligence.”
Comment by organelle — March 20, 2006 @ 1:28 pm
Hi, I know this thread is a dead one, and thank god, but I do know like myself some other people might stumble across it. Your comment just shows your lack of understanding. Mensa DO test on the WAIS scale. It accepts people who have been tested in other recognized testing scales. Seriously Organelle, find somthing better to do than insult a group of people who like to feel good about their intellegence. Not many things these days really boost the social esteem of “nerds” so I say let them have a little bit of uncriticized pride you jack ass.
Alex, Aged 17 , Member of High IQ Society
(.05% percentile away from qualifying for Mensa, Ah sure I’m Happy with my little 134
Comment by Alex_Sheridan — March 1, 2008 @ 6:55 am