Posted on 10/23/2004 7:52:58 PM PDT by Cableguy
The last paragraph is generally okay. It is only in the last sentence Michael Meehan blows it.
I tested and joined because of a playful challenge, an "I'm smarter than you are" thing. One personality type that is rare in Mensa is the arrogant type.
The reason you can have all sorts of friends (re IQ) is there are a couple dozen aspects of intelligence that generally are measured. Put another way, that's why you're genius in one thing and stupid in another.
It tells us that you are very good at taking certain kinds of tests. IQ tests measure IQ, and as any psychologist can tell you, IQ is not the same as intelligence; it's just the factor that IQ tests measure. It's positively correlated with intelligence, but it's not the same thing at all.
I'm generally accounted a very bright woman (about some things, at least); I'm talented, logical, a creative thinker, both broadly and deeply educated in both the fine and liberal arts as well as the hard sciences. And I'm very good at taking tests. But I score "mildly to moderately retarded" on IQ tests. Just can't figure 'em out and have no idea of how to go about it.
Ping
The point is that people reify IQ as if it had an existence independent of the instruments made to measure it. Intelligence has an existence independent of IQ tests, just as length has an existence independent of meter sticks, though unlike length its definition will be disputed along with the definitions of truth, beauty, knowledge and existence so long as there are human beings.
The possiblity of controversy over the definition makes the analogy with meter sticks weaker than popular conceptions would hold. IQ is conventional in a much stronger sense than height in meters is: use yards or rods instead and you get a scaling factor; change the weighting of subtests, add or remove a subtest, and you are measuring a different thing and still calling it "IQ". (e.g. if one omitted the short-term memory subtest from the Stanford-Binet, the new test, which still arguably measured intelligence, would push my IQ up a few points, if one uses the WISC or WAIS as age appropriate instead of the Stanford-Binet one will get different scores for almost all individuals. And not due to a scaling factor, but because IQ as defined by the two tests is different).
IQ as defined by a score on a standard test provides a convenient operationalization of the nebulous notion of intelligence the test-designers had in mind. If one wants to think of it as a 'measurement' in the sense measurement is understood in the hard sciences, what it measures is the interaction of an individual with the IQ test, nothing more nor less. While this will correlate with the 'measurement' taken by interaction with other tests, or with school grades, performance in certain jobs as defined by other similarly nebulous measures, it cannot be said to be measuring any of these things, nor indeed to be measuring intelligence unless intelligence is defined by the interaction with the IQ test.
No translation needed, I can speak Texan lol.
Hey....be careful there! : )
I was a poli sci major. I repeat the first comment,"How hard would that be?"
I hope you ar not dumping on mountain folks.
bttt
Me too! And I'm older!
That's the truth. Or if they have that disability when they join, they get over it sometime during their first Mensa meeting.
That is a point I've been trying to make with friends who thought Reagan and Bush weren't too bright based solely on their down to earth ways. I, on the other hand, view them as confident enough to be that at ease. Do you have a good argument for that?
Neither Reagan nor Bush would be attracted to Mensa. Probably both would be more interested in doing something constructive with their lives rather than just hanging out in the 2% room. Smart enough to see a bigger world than most. Mensans don't usually end up CEO, and a lot of them don't finish school. It's a different thing.
"There is no arguing that classical IQ, as measured by most intelligence
tests, is important in our personal, academic, and professional success.
However, emotional intelligence [maturity] matters as much as the classical
IQ. One could almost say that emotional intelligence [maturity] is a
prerequisite for the proper development and actualization of our other
intellectual abilities." ~ Author unknown
=====
"To Greenstein, emotional intelligence is the most important trait of a president."
Excerpt:
The third method comes from Fred I. Greenstein, a political scientist at Princeton widely admired for his writings on the presidency.
In The Presidential Difference, he proposes six measures for appraising the "leadership style" of presidents:
public communication, organizational capacity, political skill, vision, cognitive style, and emotional intelligence.
Clinton is strong on communication, political skill, and cognitive style (absorbing and using information).
On the other three, he falls short.
His White House and his personal decision-making style were chaotic.
Despite the talk of a "third way" in public policy, he was hardly a visionary.
And he stumbled badly on emotional intelligence, which Greenstein describes as "the president's ability to manage his emotions and turn them to constructive purposes, rather than being dominated by them, and allowing them to diminish his leadership."
To Greenstein, emotional intelligence is the most important trait of a president.
Clinton, he says, "provided a reminder that in the absence of emotional intelligence, the presidency is a defective instrument of democratic governance."
Fred Barnes - Weekly Standard - 6/28/04
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/241yvyww.asp
The Shrinking Clinton
From the June 28, 2004 issue: Big book, small legacy.
by Fred Barnes
06/28/2004, Volume 009, Issue 40 [] [snip]
Me too!
I extracted it to illustrate to a cluster of bushHaters how silly they looked citing a cartoon strip in a discussion of I.Q.
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