From: The God \ Internet: (genius2010@hotmail.com)
To: Julia Cybele Cachia \ Internet: (gallae@casagrande.com)
Why have you barred power tests from qualifying potential members? It is difficult enough for a higher-IQ society to get enough members as many high IQ societies disband for lack of interest. The International Society for Philosophical Enquiry has written their own self-administered test to qualify potential members who do not have access to the SAT or Stanford-Binet. The Mega society, the Giga society, and TOPS accept either one of Ron Hoeflin's or Paul Cooijman's tests. It costs more than one hundred dollars to have a psychologist adminster a traditional IQ test like the Stanford-Binet. And as you might remember, the bureaucratic process of registering for the SAT, taking the SAT, and then waiting to receive the scores takes over three months.
Also, I noticed that you do not allow members to qualify based on subscores of the SAT or GRE that highlight math or verbal ability. Richard Feynman, the great physicist, while scoring perfect on the Physics part of the GRE, scored below the fifty percentile in history and the arts. It is quite obvious that most great physicists and mathematicians do not publish poetry, and most great poets do not make great physicists. And painters, composers, and writers have their own Genius that cannot be measured in terms of verbal or mathematical ability.
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From: Julia Cybele Cachia \ Internet: (gallae@casagrande.com)
To: The God \ Internet: (genius2010@hotmail.com)
Subject: Questions from God
Dear God,
I am pleased that you are writing me in a more civil tone now, though I believe you neglected to apologize for that last bit. Most of your questions are adequately treated in the Colloquy online pages, but I would be willing to discuss them more fully when you next write under your own name.
Question: Why have you barred power tests from qualifying potential members? It is difficult enough for a higher-IQ society to get enough members as many high IQ societies disband for lack of interest.
I was formerly quite an advocate of these tests, at least from the research standpoint. If nothing else, they are interesting and entertaining as puzzles. Ask rather why the unsupervised tests are recognized only among certain of the high-IQ groups, while qualified psychologists would (at best) smile. Simply, the lack of controls over test booklets, over the process of self-administration, and finally over the quality of item formulation and test norming ... these invalidate the whole thing, to a greater or lesser degree.
There *is* a significant degree of cheating in all unsupervised testing, largely by individuals of neurotic fixation who will do most anything to secure high-IQ "credentials". They don't seem to understand that fraud devalues such "IQ" results and further has a corrupting effect on the test designer's process of establishing correct percentile equivalents. It does not help matters that some of the norming populations have been exceedingly small, and the percentage of fraudulent answer forms disturbingly high. We are idealists at heart, preferring to look the other way. I admit that Dr Bidlack and others warned me years ago, and ultimately have had to admit further that they were right to regard all unsupervised amateur work with grave skepticism. The amateur, literally, is a passionate enthusiast in need of a more thorough, realistic, and rigorous approach to research methods. That would be the kindest face to put on it, and there are yet many more factors worthy of consideration.
A great opportunity was missed on the part of the designers of high-level tests. Perhaps the lack of research funds is inevitable, but they could have resolved to cooperate, working many years on the development of a single "power" test instrument, incorporating items crafted by each of the designers. A number of supervised test administrations, say, three hours each, would eventually have secured substantial norming data of objective validity. It would have required patient efforts, a few thousand dollars for advertisement, printing, site rental, and the like ... but the results would be on a basis worthy of professional respect. Unfortunately, too many of the test crafters openly condemn each others' efforts, and these efforts have long been entangled with IQ-societies in questionable conflict of interest.
Question: The International Society for Philosophical Enquiry has written their own self-administered test to qualify potential members who do not have access to the SAT or Stanford-Binet. The Mega society***, the Giga society, and TOPS accept either one of Ron Hoeflin's or Paul Cooijman's tests. It costs more than one hundred dollars to have a psychologist adminster a traditional IQ test like the Stanford-Binet. And as you might remember, the bureaucratic process of registering for the SAT, taking the SAT, and then waiting to receive the scores takes over three months.
Would you then have me send you a "certification of 143 I.Q." in less than five days for less than five dollars? Is that a wonderful deal or not? Maybe the ULC will give me a small percentage in an I.Q. franchise, but you must have faith! *smile* Seriously, not all so-called bureaucratic process is empty of purpose. Personally, I like the content balance of Hoeflin's Mega***. I put average, not extraordinary, efforts into it and received results which were quite plausible, but then again, I performed the Mega with integrity, understanding the points I have made above. On an equal-timed basis, I would have expected to place far better, and contrary to your view, "quick" is legitimately a common synonym for "intelligent". Speed is one factor among many and it would seem arbitrary to discount it altogether.
I might point out that the Miller Analogies Test can be taken for $40 - $50 at any of six hundred college sites, given quite frequently. That's not out of the range of a year's dues in many of the IQ societies, many of which charge you for unsupervised tests. Mensa does administer low cost tests which we will, in fact, accept, because at least some controls do exist. I am fairly well aware of the ISPE tests. *smile* The problem remains, how it is demonstrated that the candidate submitted results with total integrity. One can detect the extremely fishy, but it's awkward. I would like to believe that the majority have acted in good faith.
Question: Also, I noticed that you do not allow members to qualify based on subscores of the SAT or GRE that highlight math or verbal ability.Richard Feynman, the great physicist, while scoring perfect on the Physics part of the GRE, scored below the fifty percentile in history and the arts. It is quite obvious that most great physicists and mathematicians do not publish poetry, and most great poets do not make great physicists. And painters, composers, and writers have their own Genius that cannot be measured in terms of verbal or mathematical ability.
No. I'll accept subscores and specialty area scores on the college boards ... any of the special areas, including Music or Art would be worthy in my view. I agree with what you wrote here and would very much welcome another Feynman to Colloquy.
Regards,
Julia, a.k.a. Cybele, The Goddess (sorry, God, couldn't resist!)
** I sincerely thank this individual for providing the opportunity to address concerns that surely must exist among members of the various IQ societies. No ill-will is meant to anyone, particularly none to those idealists who have sought the truth of mind. By the way, I have known the identity of our correspondent from the beginning. There are certain unique patterns related to the speed of his typing, which cannot be disguised by a few intentional misspellings. I chose to clean them up for presentation here, because the questions raised are entirely worthy.
*** The Mega Society, at the time of this writing, admits members only on the basis of scores obtained on certain unsupervised and untimed high-level tests. These are Kevin Langdon's LAIT and Ron Hoeflin's Mega and Titan tests.
I have added this note after conferring with officers of the Mega Society. - Julia
