Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!nrl-cmf!ames!ucsd!sdcsvax!ucsdhub!hp-sdd!hplabs!otter!gjh From: gjh@otter.hple.hp.com (Graham Higgins) Newsgroups: sci.psychology Subject: Re: Re: Society for extremely gifted people? Message-ID: <3660002@otter.hple.hp.com> Date: 15 Mar 88 12:16:58 GMT References: Organization: Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, Bristol, UK. Lines: 123 > The Cincinnatus Society is a high I.Q. club whose purpose is to > share speculative ideas among its members through a quarterly Journal > and monthly newsletter. A members' directory is also published semi- > annually and members have access to a computer bulletin board. For most > effective and economical presentation, all contributions are laser- > typeset and printed using the latest desktop publishing technologies. So far, so good. Nothing wrong with sharing speculative ideas and the technology is a relevant medium for their exchange ... BUT things get worse ... > It is not surprising therefore that extremely gifted people, with their > lighting grasp, subtle discrimination and intellectual craving, seem odd > to the person of ordinary perception, who may be color-blind to > extraordinary spectral visions. You forgot to mention modesty. I find this sort of arrogance rather offensive and distasteful. However, that's merely a personal view, there is something else worth noting. Observe the use of the extra-logical connective "therefore" in the above sentence. We see another use of this term in a later passage ... > Indeed, in one study, forty percent of urban junior high school children > with I.Q.'s above 140 failed to be promoted to the next grade. Many of our > members, therefore, are struggling with social or geographical isolation. Now our group has developed some spoof in-house jargon to describe such extra-logical connectives - we globally replace words like "therefore" and "thus" by "armadillo" and "antelope" because they give more descriptive flavour to these extra-logical connectives. An example will serve to illustrate ... "We have an extremely difficult computational problem, armadillo we need to develop an AI system in order to solve it." Why "armadillo" and "antelope"? Well, "armadillo" suggests the notion of scurrying from fact to unwarranted inference, keeping your head well down, hoping no-one will notice. "Antelope" suggests the notion of leaping blithely from fact to conclusion to other conclusions without there being anything substantial in between (like a logical argument). I am fairly certain that, this being "sci.psych", there will be a number of psychologists out there, reading Mr. Ward's note and smiling to themselves. Despite being a founder member of what purports to be a "gifted persons'" society, Mr. Ward has displayed obvious prejudice and sloppy reasoning of a classical type. Studies have shown that emotional topics can have deleterious effects on subjects' judgement of the "truth" of three-term logic problems, especially where the "truth" of the logic is at variance with what the subject believes is the "truth" in the real world. The unsupported conclusions which Mr.Ward draws (indicated by the "therefore"s) appear to be classical examples of non-rational belief affecting rational logic. (It may be that Mr.Ward does have strongly-supported cases for these conclusions, but if that is so, I feel he is insulting the intelligence of the readership of this notesgroup by not at least alluding to them. Why *should* we seriously consider his claims, especially when his reasoning is apparently baseless?) > we are trying to overcome some of worst biases of the standardized tests by > considering entrance by essay or other original work. > (Perhaps you could contribute to this investigation!) Close, but no cigar. Chris Long's suggestion seems sensible ... "If you don't want to be elitist, don't have any entrance requirements." Why should a society for "gifted people" have entrance requirements? To "weed out" the "non-gifted"? Mr.Ward admits that defining "giftedness" is difficult and also bemoans the possible tragedy of losing a potential Einstein, Curie or Voltaire to the sea of the "mundane". I would have thought that having entrance requirements exposes the society to exactly this tragedy - and moreover they are in fact exacerbating the situation. I think I will take a slightly stronger line. The notion of a high-I.Q. society (with or without entrance requirements) should be repellent to most "sci.psych" readers. It *is* elitist, virtually by definition. The proliferation of such societies runs counter to what seems to be required, which is some sort of forum for open and varied intellectual discussion. There are many, many people in the world who are not "gifted" and who would like some intellectual stimulation but are in a non-condusive environment. I know, I met a lot of them during my studies with the British Open University. What is needed is *not* (emphasis!) "entrance requirements" but encouragement and freedom to challenge "accepted wisdom". If the members of such a society really *were* gifted then they would recognise that one of the best uses of their talents is not in sterile intellectual masturbation but in the encouragement and active assistance of others (and in doing so, themselves) towards achieving their true potential. The last point is one of curiosity. Why do such societies protect themselves against the "hoi-polloi" by having entrance requirements? Surely peer group pressure is sufficient to maintain the "high standards", in fact, according to Mr.Ward's comments, it seems that many "high-I.Q." societies are split by internal fighting "by a few of their most gifted sophists". It seems to me that these members are the worst and that it's time for a change of tactics. Or is it just characteristic of those who join "high-I.Q." societies and seek eminent positions in them? I find some conflict between what Mr.Ward describes as the aims of the society (which are generally pretty laudable) and the way these aims are put into practice (which are generally pretty laughable). Nice idea, Mr.Ward, but it needs a lot more work before it deserves an airing on "sci.psych". In fact, "sci.psych" is probably one of the worst billboards that could have been chosen to post the original note. Cheers, Graham ====== P.S. I have a high I.Q. too, but then I'm tall as well, so that makes up for it. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Graham Higgins @ HP Labs | Phone: (0272) 799910 x 24060 Information Systems Centre | gray@hplb.lp.hp.co.uk Bristol | gray%hplb.uucp@ukc.ac.uk U.K. | gjh%otter@hplabs