The World's Brightest

Some 2,000 of the planets best & brightest minds met in Denver, Colorado recently for the annual gathering of Mensa, the international high IQ society. Lesley Stahl reports.

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[buhramyou]

MENSA IN SPANISH ACTUALLY SAYS DUMMY TO A GIRLS AND MENSO FORA BOY

[Haseeb2]

I knew a woman who was a member of Mesa years ago, I will never forget that argument we had. In a conversation we were having about languages, she told me that Arabic was a Slavic language and Czech was a "Cryllic" language. I respectfully corrected her and told her that Arabic was a Semitic language and Czech is a Slavic language. She was furious and so sure of herself that she almost came to the point of calling me names. She was also very fat. Physical health doesn't seem important.

[DraginGaming]

@mujotomi Spelling most definitely has an influence on IQ. To what extent of an influence is the question. I've met a lot of people who were bad spellers but good critical thinkers and fairly intelligent. This argument could be used for anything. A lot of math geniuses are very poor in language and the more social aspects of education like history or philosophy etc. But they're amazing when it comes to numbers. I guess i'm proving you right on a lot of this lol

[mujotomi]

@DraginGaming Yes, you brought up important problem. One that doesn't mind spelling and sentence structure can on the other hand possibly comprehand clumsy statements, which can be problematic for "spelling able". Maybe I'm wrong, but I might even argue that spelling can have an influence at least a bit on IQ score, by training concentration, visualization, immediate attention span, and maybe processing speed.

[mujotomi]

@DraginGaming I agree it's unfair. I think it's practically impossible to construct knowledge (and other "irrelevant" factors)-free IQ test, that is the test that would put all testees in "equal position". It looks like test authors are deciding what is common knowledge, and maybe even think that very intelligent people should know some odd words too. Also sometimes you can't grab info you can at other times. I believe IQ testing is unnecessary, profitable and a manipulation tool.

[DraginGaming]

@mujotomi And i would never be able to spell Sequoia, it's worthless knowledge to me, especially growing up in the tech age where my phone has a spell check and a dictionary. That's probably a problem with our generation(90's baby), but spelling has little to do with IQ.

[DraginGaming]

@mujotomi I agree it requires strong processing and thinking skills. When it came to puzzles I was always faster than my classmates too, but it was public school for me, so thats not even slightly impressive considering the competition. But judging someones IQ partly off of knowledge is unfair. I took the Mensa quiz thing online, one of the ones i missed was an unscramble the letters question. When i saw the answer at the end i had never seen the word before. I wasnt stupid, i was ignorant.

[TheFlanker35]

@2:30,

That should be illegal for old fat women to do in public.

It sounds like these people are a degenerate waste of talent. That kid didn't even know too many digits of pi.

Anyone who insists that Arabic is a Cyrillic language isn't worth giving the time of day.

[mujotomi]

@mujotomi Of course one can argue if knowing what somebody wants to say after few words spoken is a sign of intelligence or not. Without perception of "facts" and formation of "knowledge", the memory function that is, certain mental manipulations, it's useless to talk about intelligence in the first place.

[mujotomi]

@mujotomi else also knew how they looked like. Or when I won Wheel of Fortune. In 2nd round I guessed motto consisted of 3 longer words in which only 3 insignificant letters were turned. In main prize round I guessed motto before TV camera started (just by knowing a clue)-the host asked me if I have a clue what the motto could be, and I told him-he just laughed.When I took official IQ test, I had a similar feeling at least at some items-feeling that only right idea has to be generated.

[mujotomi]

@DraginGaming SEQUOIA! Have you heard about it? It took me 30 seconds, without dictionary, and my mother's tongue isn't even close to English. In my opinion it's a kind of subconscious processing that's involved, with minimum general knowledge required (but, I agree, nevertheless knowledge). Not to brag, but in school I used to solve problems that required min. or general knowledge faster than my schoolmates. Fe. I recognized Arnold and Lincoln in 2 mosaics instantly, and everybody

[DraginGaming]

Name of a tree that contains all 5 vowels. I bet i've never even heard of that tree. That question has almost nothing to do with intelligence and everything to do with knowledge and memory.

That's not IQ...