[geeks] Mensa

[Doug McLaren]

On Fri, May 11, 2007 at 04:39:09PM -0400, Charles Shannon Hendrix wrote:
| Aaron Finley wrote:
| > As someone with a tested IQ of over 150 (way back in elementary
| > school, so I imagine I've lost a bunch of that now), I find the 130
| > cutoff for Mensa to be extremely pedestrian.
| 
| That depends.  It used to be said that average IQ was 100.
| 
| However, in the 20th Century Americans and English started scoring
| averages of nearly 130

Well, then the test was flawed -- either that, or the people taking
the test were not representative.

An IQ of 100 is supposed to be average, by definition.  People might
become smarter (via better education, nutrition, breeding, who knows?)
but the average would still be 100.

Beyond that, it's based on standard deviations, but different tests
assume different standard deviations -- so you might score 150 on one
test, but only 130 on another test -- but you haven't change at all.
The two tests might even have the exact same questions -- but be
scored differently.  Without knowing the standard deviation used for a
specific test (or at least knowing how that particular test is meant
to be scored), merely saying `an IQ of 150' only tells us that you're
above average -- it doesn't really tell us _how far_ above average.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ tells more.

|, so obviously the test wasn't so much a measure of IQ as it was
| literacy, language comprehension, and personal experience.
| 
| It's actually quite hard to know if IQ tests even mean anything.

It (it = scoring well on IQ tests) obviously means *something*, but
what exactly is the subject of much debate.

--
Doug McLaren, dougmc at frenzied.us
If at first you don't succeed, quit; don't be a nut about success.