Newsgroups: rec.org.mensa
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 14:04:50 -0400 
From: David O Hunt <dh4j+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Fwd: T: To All MENSA Members...

> You're not more intelligent, you simply scored higher on a test
> whose validity is questionable.

I don't disagree on the debatable correlation between test scores and
intelligence, though I will say that I believe there is a _loose_
correlation.

>Intelligence has many aspects.  MENSA is not an organization for the
>top fiftieth of the most intelligent people in the world.  It is an
>organization for people who a) THINK they are in that category (and
>what that says about those individuals is not, in my view,
>complimentary), and b) who have a particular style of intelligence
>suited to IQ tests.  People whose intelligence is expressed in other
>ways that the ability to pass tests need not apply -- even if
>accepted, the mindset of MENSA members is that of people who find the
>passing of tests to be important and valuable.

As to part a, I disagree (obviously).  In many ways I _am_ more intelligent
than most of the population.

As to part b, I'll agree with this wholeheartedly.  There are many forms of
intelligence which cannot be tested for, or for which there are no tests
currently known.
For example, musical ability. There are those who are truly gifted with
musical ability, something which I am not.  Would Scott object to a society
which was solely devoted to those who could pass some criteria (ability to
spot-compose, # of instruments capably played, etc)?

>White supremacists claim superiority based on the questionable
>critera of skin melanin content and regional and national heritage.
>It is no less dehumanizing, invalid, and wrong in my view to attempt
>to discriminate based on the even less tangible criterion of "IQ".

Mensa owns no property to bar people from.  The RGs/AGs/meetings _I_ have
been to allow guests/friends/non-mensan spouses, etc.  There is no "power
circle" of job networks keeping the "lower 98" from participating.  At a
lot of the serious discussions I've been in, the topic of a lack of minority
percentage has been brought up, and discussed, and we've always come to the
conclusion that a lack of education $ and facilities for the poor, who are
mostly minorities, as well as the social pressure not to be "too smart"
are the major factors in the lack of minority members.

As I'd pointed out a long time ago, you can't join what you don't know
exists.  I know that Mensa has had recruitment ads in magazines for blacks,
for example.  If we were a "white supremacist" organization would be we
actively (and advertizing is active) trying to recruit members from these
groups?


MENSA is simply one more dangerous way in which one group of people
attempt to set themselves apart -- and by 'apart' one invariably finds
'superior', since few people desire to join an organization which
claims its members are 'inferior' -- from the rest of the populace.  Of
such "harmless" little groups are born the divisive philosophies which
feed nationalism, racism, and separate us from each other.

> If you're so damn smart you ought to see that.

I don't.  Or are you given to insulting people simply because they do
not agree with your views?

Please note that in this entire post, this is the only comment that could
be construed as a personal attack, and it is not meant as such.  It's intent
is to point out that two different people can look at the same data and
reach different conclusions.  Is that racist?


David Hunt - Graduate Slave | My mind is my own.          | Towards both a
Mechanical Engineering      | So are my ideas & opinions. | Palestinian and
Carnegie Mellon University  | <<<Use Golden Rule v2.0>>>  | Jewish homeland!
============================================================================
Email:  dh4j@cmu.edu            Working towards my "Piled Higher and Deeper"

Democracy is based on the theory that the people know what they want...and
they deserve to get it - GOOD AND HARD!
Newsgroups: rec.org.mensa