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Status Reports
Status: HiQ (2025 - September)
(Text as at 30/10/2025 18:31:41)
Rationale for this Project
- I was very active in Mensa and ISPE in the years prior to taking up formal study of philosophy at Birkbeck in 2000. Thereafter I was too busy, and no longer felt the need to contribute, so I let my memberships lapse.
- When I retired from HSBC at the end of 2010, and given that I was no longer involved in formal academic study, I re-joined both societies for a year to see how things were going, but then let my memberships lapse again.
- ISPE seemed no better than when I was involved last time. The Mensa SIGs seem active enough, but I didn’t have the time to contribute.
- I re-joined ISPE1 yet again for the calendar year 2017, to see what was going on, and renewed for 2018. Membership is cheaper – at $40 / year – now Telicom is electronic, so I’ve let my membership continue.
- Society Details:-
- Mensa: In 2010 I joined, or re-joined, a bundle of societies, but did nothing.
- ISPE: Since re-joining I have done nothing other than pay my dues and exchange friendly emails with a couple of old contacts.
- IQ Test Sites:-
- For a site2 giving details of the various tests, and other Hi-Q information, see Uncommonly Difficult IQ Tests. The site doesn’t seem to have been updated since 2006.
- See High-IQ Societies and their Tests for a site that gives the names of the admission tests used for entry to various Hi-Q societies. It used to include ISPE but since 2023 (or maybe earlier) it doesn’t (though it includes Mensa and TNS).
- For ‘The World’s Most Difficult IQ Test’ see Haselbauer-Dickheiser Test.
- Between 1997 and 2001 I edited a newsletter (Commensal - Past Issues) in my capacity as secretary of the Philosophical Discussion Group of British Mensa.
- I also edited Under the Sycamore Tree3: Correspondence Folder for the UK Members and Associates of ISPE for a year around about the same time.
- My intention has been to participate in these societies just so far as doing so would support my other projects by way of stimulation and the opportunity for interaction. As such, most of the time recorded against this project could equally be recorded against others.
Summary of Progress during 24Q4 - 25Q3
- I have spent 3.5 hours YTD on this Project, or related work, where for "YTD" - Year to Date - I mean the (academic) year that commenced in October 2024). That's 26.8% of the planned effort. Overall, 0.1% of my Project effort YTD has been directed towards this project.
- As can be seen below, I did nothing on this project in the last quarter. This project is effectively moth-balled.
- Further details follow for the most recently completed quarter (25Q3):-
HiQ
- Progress (if any) in the current quarter can be obtained from the HiQ section of my Summary Task List4, and YTD in the YTD Summary Task List5 report.
Summary of Progress during 24Q4-25Q3 (YTD Activity6)
- HiQ (Total Hours = 3.5)
- As can be seen above, nothing much in the last year.
Plans for the Near Future:
- Because of the need to focus on higher-priority projects, it is not realistically possible to schedule much time on this project for the coming academic year. As is my usual practice, I’ve scheduled 1 hour / week for the first Quarter of the academic year. We’ll see how this goes.
- I don’t intend to produce this report again until the end of the Academic year. Anything undertake YTD can be found from the HiQ section of the relevant YTD Summary Task List7 report.
- I don’t really have time seriously to engage with ISPE at the moment, so my intentions are to continue looking into IQ and accounts of prodigies in odd moments.
- Having said that, there’s a weekly Sunday combined ISPE / TNS / Prometheus Zoom meeting organised by Tim Ryan. I’d really like to give this a go, but would need to prepare first.
- So, if I do find the time, I’ll be looking into:-
- ISPE
- Investigate & take part in ISPE Ning.
- Investigate & take part in Tim Ryan's Sunday ISPE / TNS / Prometheus Zoom meeting.
- Read "ISPE - The Thousander",
- Read "ISPE - Telicom",
- Consider submitting articles on my research to Telicom as a way of getting feedback.
Mensa
Nothing planned.
General IQ Investigation
Review biography of William James Sidis and related topics:-
→ "YouTube - Video - The Sad Story of the Smartest Man Who Ever Lived",
→ "Wallace (Amy) - The Prodigy: A Biography of William James Sidis", and
→ "Towers (Grady M.) - The Outsiders"
Read the autobiography of Norbert Wiener:-
→ "Wiener (Norbert) - Ex-Prodigy: My Childhood and Youth", and
→ "Wiener (Norbert) - I am a Mathematician: The Later Life of a Prodigy"
Investigate the work in the IQ area of Devin Sanchez Curry (see web references in "Curry (Devin Sanchez) - Why academia should embrace ‘Grandma’s metaphysics’").
Investigate the controversies over IQ-testing, in particular read and review:-
→ "Gould (Stephen Jay) - The Mismeasure of Man",
→ "Herrnstein (Richard J.) & Murray (Charles) - The Bell Curve - Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life", and
→ "Devlin (Bernie), Fienberg (Stephen E.), Resnick (Daniel P.) & Roeder (Kathryn) - Intelligence, Genes & Success - Scientists Respond to The Bell Curve"
"Grove (Greg A.) - Dicey 1, Dicey 2, and Dicey 3 — Verbal Analogies IQ Tests": Do quiz
In-Page Footnotes:
Footnote 1:
- All that ought to have been required was that I pay my dues, but because of a mix-up I was asked to sit the latest version of their test, which I did.
- I didn’t initially hear back – though I was re-instated OK. On chasing them up for the results I eventually got the response that “I’d passed with flying colours”, but no further details could be elicited.
- My rationale for the enquiry was set out in an email: “On the test itself – it’s similar to, though not the same as – the first one I took, and leaves me feeling similarly uncomfortable. Theory is massively underdetermined by data, so – in a sense – “it depends what you want”. It’d be possible – no doubt – to think more and more deeply and come up with more and more Byzantine reasons for excluding particular items. But how would I know this is what is wanted? It wasn’t until I got the same percentile on the (much more satisfying but now sadly compromised) Mega Test that I trusted the ISPE test at all (actually, I was surprised that I didn’t do better on the Mega Test, and an inquest revealed I’d made at least 3 howlers that more care would have avoided).”
Footnote 2:
- The reference given in previous reports is defunct.
- I think this is the same basic site.
Footnote 3: Footnote 6:
- As this project is substantially inactive, I don’t usually update the text quarterly as for the active projects, but only at the end of the academic year.
- YTD figures and tasks are somewhat redundant at the end of the first Quarter, but it saves remembering to update the report in future quarters.
- However, while the Quarterly figures appear against that plan and are “as at” the end of the last Quarter, the YTD figures and tasks are as at the date of production of the report.
- The YTD Activity-list is to make the end-year task easier, and to give a clearer idea of what – if anything – has been going on in the interim.
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- Blue: Text by me; © Theo Todman, 2025