Re: Mensa

Edd111@aol.com
Wed, 11 Aug 1999 00:14:48 EDT

I went to a Mensa gathering as an undergraduate at UCLA. You're right. It was fun for a visit, but I wouldn't want to make it a religious routine to attend their meetings. The other thing which has bothered me of recent vintage is that their criterion is the staid, old verbal/spatial reasoning aspect of IQ. Go into any Barnes and Noble and check out their tests for the masses.
They just don't 'get it'.
Mensans conveniently forget that IQ is now defined to measure other things in a person, viz. Creativity, Kinesthetics, Music Ability, etc. If Mensa was really concerned about some arbitrary cutoff of intellectual skills (the upper 2% if my 30 year old memory since college is correct), then they must include famous actors/actresses/musicians,athletes, etc. people whose IQ as defined by Mensans would be insinuatingly mediocre, but who have proven themselves as easily qualifying in the top 1 or 2% in their own 'intellectual abilities'.