Empire's new Mensa games not only for the 200 IQ crowd

I was just about to ask if there people that actually still think if they are funny. Guess I have my answer.

They will never get old for me.

What will those crazy lolcats do next?!?

huffing all that glue probably isn't helping

Mensa is supposed to be the top 2% of IQ. That means that only 1 in 50 should qualify.

Of course IQ isn't intelligence. It's a reasonable measure of overall puzzle-solving skill, but intelligence it is not.

"Mensa is supposed to be the top 2% of IQ. That means that only 1 in 50 should qualify."

If a person takes an IQ test multiple times, their scores will vary by a small amount. Mensa accepts *any* IQ score you've gotten, not just the most recent. So in actual practice, it's really a little more than just 2% who qualify.

"Of course IQ isn't intelligence. It's a reasonable measure of overall puzzle-solving skill, but intelligence it is not."

Intelligence is analytical cognitive ability. And that's exactly what IQ measures. The problem is, most people think that "intelligent" means the same as "smart", and while "intelligence" is a large part of "smartness", "smart" is a much more general (and ambiguous) term that encompasses not just intelligence, but also other things like skill and creativity.

On other words, the idea that IQ doesn't measure intelligence is nothing but a bunch of garbage out by all the "political-correctness" whores who get all pissy at the idea that some people are actually more/less intelligent than others. That doesn't fit into their hippie "everyone is exactly the same" worldview, so they made up this "EQ" garbage that's designed to rank everyone roughly equal, and then spread bullshit about *that* sort of thing being real "intelligence".

"Empire's new Mensa games not only for the 200 IQ crowd"

I realize Joystiq didn't intend that number to be accurate, but I thought I'd point out that Mensa's requirement of "top 98%" is really more in the general area of 135 (the exact number depends on the actual IQ test). Heck even the 99.9% organizations out there accept people in the 150's. So 200 is rather large exaggeration (As I'm sure it was intended to be).

""smart" is a much more general (and ambiguous) term that encompasses not just intelligence, but also other things like skill and creativity."

..and knowledge and wisdom.

(I'd really like an edit feature...)

My Father and I qualify, but neither of us are willing to pay their yearly dues.


As for IQ meaning anything, I've met some brilliant people that didn't have a damn bit of common sense. You can be brilliant at puzzle solving, and a complete moron when it comes to social situations, and everything else. By no means should a high IQ ever be a bragging point, if it's not backed up by a ridiculously high paying job that you couldn't have gotten if you were just a stupid pleb.

@Abscissa: "On other words, the idea that IQ doesn't measure intelligence is nothing but a bunch of garbage out by all the "political-correctness" whores who get all pissy at the idea that some people are actually more/less intelligent than others."

Not quite. IQ was developed to detect under-performing students in British schools. The idea was that an IQ on below about 80 indicated that the student was falling behind his peers and needed remedial help. IQ does a great job of testing this.

Above this mark, or especially 100, the idea of IQ loses its usefulness. Those with high IQs are genuinely smart people, but their score might be higher than someone of equal 'intelligence' if they spent more time studying certain types of puzzles for more efficient ways to solve them.

But the biggest problem with IQ is that it's like a game review score: it turns a complex object with multiple facets into a number. Three different people might have an IQ of 100, but they don't have equal intelligence. One might have more language skill than math ability, and another the opposite. The third might have average knowledge of both, but also have photographic memory, perfect pitch, and highly accurate spatial reasoning. Are these three of the same intelligence? What about a savant who can calculate the day of the week given any date in less than a second, yet struggles with basic skills?

tl;dr: IQ is like Metacritic. It has a correlation with what it intends to measure, but it isn't always accurate, and doesn't tell the whole picture.

yeah, considering the highest recorded IQ was like 180, so 200 IQ is like the top 0 percentile

"My Father and I qualify, but neither of us are willing to pay their yearly dues." - BananaBoat

It's not worth it. I tried it for a couple years but left because you're essentially just paying $50/yr for a couple monthly newsletters (one national, one local) that have nothing interesting in them, a bunch of *rah* *rah* Mensa self-promotion, and occasional gatherings with other Mensa members who you most likely have nothing in common with, and thus nothing to talk about.

And in my case, there was a large generation gap as well. I was around 25 at the time and the youngest person I ever met there was in their 40's. Instead of meeting peers and scientists, I met IT drones and soccer moms. So, yea, not really worth it. (At least not the Cleveland Area Mensa anyway (plus everyone way waaaay over in the yuppie western suburbs). For all I know, it might be better in other regions.)

The 90's called, they want that joke back.

(30 Rock called, they want THAT ^ joke back.)

.......still waiting......

...nope, still don't see any.

Presumptuous, much?

Joe Shmoe could be the most intelligent person in the world by every
definition of the word, and still make mistakes. People seem to
have this bizarre idea that high intelligence implies omniscience and
omnipotence.

Ninja's aren't all that exclusive anymore, thank you very much affirmative action! Now we got all these fat ninjas running around and not killing people.