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Mensans v Non-Mensans
Jill, at Feministe, makes a blog post ridiculing a comment that uses Mensa membership to validate a fondness for the Cathy comic strip.

The first comment starts off with a defense of Mensa and an earnest explanation of what it means to be a genius. But soon comments erupt criticizing all standard tests, defending standardized tests and Mensa, along with accusations of ableism, lamenting the loneliness and social ostracization that is the lot of smart people and horror at Jill's very appalling anti-intellectualism.

SweetMachine nicely rounds up the kerfuffle: Way to fight the good fight, Mensa lovers! Put that genius to work!

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	mmanurere 2010-08-18 09:58 pm UTC (link)
	But I always insisted that the thing about IQ is that it is only a measurement of CAPACITY. It's not a "measurement" of anything -- it's a class of standardized tests designed to produce a particular statistical spread in the population. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

ecchaniz0r
2010-08-18 10:47 pm UTC (link)

If it were a measurement of something at all, it'd be one hell of an arbitrary one. F'r example: The guidance counselors at my elementary school used to run those dang mini tests on the enrichment kids every so often (lord only knows WHY) and if they caught you on a bad day your IQ would 'drop' a few points for your the remembering how to divide fractions on account of because your stomach was tying itself in a knot.

("Ecchan, why is your math score down to a fourth-grade level?" "*nrmgrhnghgn.*" "I...see...?" "I got scared and forgot where the numerator goes um miss can I please get a drink because I think my pancreas wants to jump out of my navel now.")

So yeah, arbitrary and not real accurate as a measurement of intelligence - which has an arbitrary definition half of the time anyhow. They're starting to try to divide it up now into spatial and so forth in effort to get "more accurate tests" (it's said), but it's still very much a word that means whatever the test wants it to mean, and besides which means something different to almost everyone.

The word 'arbitrary' has now lost all meaning but I can't think of another that works as well :B And this is a buttload of tl;dr I've gotten up to just to say 'IAWTC'.

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	windex_junkie 2010-08-21 08:51 am UTC (link)
	Holy fuck, that's vile. DDD: In my school, they didn't bother screening a kid for the gifted/talented program unless they kept finishing an hour's worth of work in 5-15 minutes. And also, we were not treated like Hitler Youth and nobody insulted us if we did not remember all 25 items in the memory box. D: (Reply to this)(Parent)

	kylenne 2010-08-19 02:36 am UTC (link)
	And a class of Eurocentric and racist standardized tests at that. I'd rant for days on that but there's enough unfunny in this. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	windex_junkie 2010-08-21 08:55 am UTC (link)
	What do you mean?! Everyone knows who Sue, Mary, Bob, and Jack are, so if an ESL kid fails a reading comprehension test that depends on correctly identifying the gender of antiquated Western names, it means they're just a lazy foreigner who isn't capable of assimilating. (Or, in other words: There's gender fail, too.) (Reply to this)(Parent)

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