• UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    High IQ men

    Christopher Michael Langan (born March 25, 1952) is an American horse rancher and former bar bouncer, known for scoring highly on an IQ test that gained him entry to a high-IQ society and for being formerly listed in the Guinness Book of Records high IQ section under the pseudonym of Eric Hart, alongside Marilyn vos Savant and Keith Raniere. The record was discontinued in 1990, as high IQs are considered too unreliable to document as world records.

    Christopher Langan’s support of conspiracy theories, including the 9/11 Truther movement, as well as his opposition to interracial relationships, have contributed to his gaining a following among members of the alt-right and others on the far right. Langan has claimed that the George W. Bush administration staged the 9/11 attacks in order to distract the public from learning about the CTMU, and journalists have described some of Langan’s Internet posts as containing “thinly veiled” antisemitism, making antisemitic “dog whistles”, and being “incredibly racist”

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle

        “IQ” is a stale test meant to measure mental capacity but in fact mostly measures extreme unintelligence (learning difficulties), as well as, to a lesser extent (with a lot of noise), a form of intelligence, stripped of 2nd order effects — how good someone is at taking some type of exams designed by unsophisticated nerds. It is via negativa not via positiva. Designed for learning disabilities, and given that it is not too needed there (see argument further down), it ends up selecting for exam-takers, paper shufflers, obedient intellectuals, ill adapted for “real life”. (The fact that it correlates with general incompetence makes the overall correlation look high, even when it is random, see Figures 1 and 2.) The concept is poorly thought out mathematically by the field (commits a severe flaw in correlation under fat tails and asymmetries; fails to properly deal with dimensionality; treats the mind as an instrument not a complex system), and seems to be promoted by

        • Racists/eugenists

        and

        • Psychometrics peddlers looking for suckers
        • moncharleskey@lemmy.zip
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          4 days ago

          Okay? I mean, thanks for the information, but it doesn’t refute the headline. They didn’t say IQ tests were a good measure of intelligence.

    • idiomaddict@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      It later transpired that Langan, among others, had taken the Mega Test more than once by using a pseudonym. His first test score, under the name of Langan, was 42 out of 48 and his second attempt, as Hart, was 47.[12] The Mega Test was designed only to be taken once.[14][15] Membership of the Mega Society was meant to be for those with scores of 43 and upwards.

      He’s a con, in more ways than one

    • QueenHawlSera@sh.itjust.works
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      4 days ago

      He’s not really high IQ, he cheated and took the “Mega Test” multiple times.

      The more you look into him the more full of shit he is. Saw an interview the guy did for the Daily Wire which the Daily Wire wound up scrapping, so much pseudoscience it’d make Spirit Science happy.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        He’s not really high IQ

        Brother, it’s a metric intended to measure disability. Bragging about your high IQ is a bit like Trump claiming he aced his senility test