Re: Liberals, atheists, and sexually exclusive males have higher IQs

On Sat, 11 Dec 2010 19:38:51 -0600, "Kyle T. Jones"
<onexpadREMOVE@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

David V. Loewe, Jr wrote:
On Fri, 10 Dec 2010 11:31:24 -0800 (PST), Peach
<strawberry@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I didn't realize their bottom limits were so low....there is a
difference.

1) Then I'll repeat what I said earlier "On the one hand, I think that
you both think this [the cutoff for qualification for Mensa membership]
is far more selective than it is"

2) 1 in 50 is still pretty damned high.

OBTW, looking at the link I gave in my other response
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_IQ_society, you're overestimating
where the cutoffs are for the percentiles.

For example, the 99.5th percentile is 139 (on a scale where 130 is the
98th percentile) and only represents 1 in 200. 1 in 1000 is the 99.9th
percentile and represents an IQ score of 146 (again where 130 is the
98th percentile).

I'm a member in one of the bigger 1 in 1000 clubs (*). But I don't know
that this means I have a 1 in 1000 level IQ.

You guys are all missing something key here. MENSA isn't limited to 1
in 50 and the triple-nines aren't limited to one in a thousand. The
more qualifying tests they accept, the less restrictive they actually
are...

I looked at the One-In-A-Thousand and Triple Nine web sites from the
links on that Wikipedia page I posted the URL to. I was kind of
surprised that they both accepted ACT scores.

See, the thing is, they tend to take a ton of qualifying tests - and for
each test, they look for a score that corresponds to 1 in whatever. But
the fact that I happened to score well enough on one test, like the GRE,
doesn't imply that I've had those same 1 in 1000 scores on the rest -
basically, they've given me so many options I can choose the one I
performed the best on even if every other score indicated I was below
their threshold (and, to be blunt, several of them did).

Were they very far below the threshold?

This is one of the reasons that I like to point out (whenever we drag
this topic up out of the cellar) that I was consistently the Top Scorer
in my school district [1] for my class year (1980) on a number of
different tests over a long period of time. The state required testing
on a regular basis between Grades K and 8, presumably to monitor how the
various school districts were performing their jobs. I always had the
high score in the district and we had around 950 students taking the
tests at those grades. When we got to HS, I had the top score for the
PSAT, SAT and ACT for the Class of 1980. We graduated somewhere just
north of 900 students (we had nearly 900 receive diplomas at the big
spring graduation and we had a number of people choose to graduate at
mid-year which took us comfortably over 900 [2]) from my class. My
percentile ranks for all of these tests were consistent. When I took
the ASVAB and NFQT (Nuclear Field Qualifying Test) for the Navy
recruiter in the spring of 1980, those percentile ranks were consistent
with my previous scores.

So, while I've never seen an actual IQ test result for myself (my Uncle
Joe, who was a teacher in the district neighboring mine on the south,
has seen one I took in grade school and won't tell me), I'm confident
that any one of the tests and the results thereof represent pretty
accurately where I slot in at.

(*) Before anyone jumps on my case, I joined with thoughts of networking
opportunities (uh, no, not really) and stayed involved because the
mailing list is pretty good.

I joined Mensa because I was curious about what it would be like (and
found out that I didn't *have* to take their exam - I could just send
them my SAT score). I stayed because it was an opportunity to cultivate
a different set of friends with whom I had a good time and I enjoyed
going out to restaurants/bars with them to eat dinner and drink beer.
They were nice. They were fun. And they were friendly. Nor did I have
to prove anything to them.

[1] One unusual note about St. Louis County schools is that students who
were clearly learning disabled went to a separate school district
http://www.ssdmo.org/ so the bottom end of the Bell Curve for districts
in St. Louis County was and still is effectively truncated.

[2] We were the 4th largest graduating class in the state of Missouri
that year. It was quite a contrast from my father's graduating Class of
1957 at Bonne Terre High School which had all of 35 people in it and
should have been smaller as it included his brother Floyd who had been
held back in Kindergarten because of osteomyelitis and Dad was
technically too young to be in the Class - he didn't turn 18 until the
November after he graduated from High School.
--
"It's raining soup and we haven't built any soup bowls."
Dr. Jerry Pournelle
.

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