IntroductionMembership of The Giga Society is ideally open to anyone outscoring .999999999 of the adult population on at least one of the accepted tests. This means that in theory one in a billion individuals can qualify. Please do not confuse this criterion with popularly published scores on childhood tests (which are mental/biological age ratio I.Q.s that are not comparable with deviation I.Q.s and tend to be much higher), estimated I.Q.s of famous people, or self-claimed I.Q.s of megalomaniacs. You can not join by simply listing your real-life achievements, diplomas and the like, even though you are of course of greater value to society because of those than you would be because of a high test score. Main goal of The Giga Society is to enable the standardization of intelligence test norms in the very high range. This is done by rewarding high-scoring candidates for their effort in taking the tests (Giga Society membership being one of the incentives to encourage test-taking). The society was founded in 1996 by Paul Cooijmans (not a member), who has served as its Psychometitor since, and has a journal named Nemesis which appears after every enrollment.  A few misconceptions cleared upMany think the Giga Society can only have six members as a result of its admission level and the size of the world population. This is false. The top six are not the same individuals at each moment but are being replaced constantly. And because existing members are not expelled, any number of members is possible over time. Some think the Giga Society's members must be proportionally divided over the continents. This fallacy results from the prejudice that average and spread of intelligence are identical everywhere in the world. But the Giga Society has no prejudice, goes exclusively by test scores, and is blind to the candidate's continent of origin. As an aside, the member list is not public, so those speaking about the origin of the members may be misinformed to begin with. Latest insightsStudy of statistics regarding intelligence in the world and of received test submissions has led the Psychometitor to conclude that the actual level of one in a billion of the world population occurs between I.Q. 180 and 185 (on the commonly used I.Q. scale with 15 points per standard deviation), rather than at the theoretical 190 where it lies according to the "normal distribution". This is so because the world average I.Q., expressed on this scale, is not 100 but somewhat below 90, probably between 85 and 90. The crux is that the I.Q. scale we use in actuality refers to populations of Western countries such as those in Europe and North America, and is not correct for the rest of humanity. For consistency though the Psychometitor has decided to keep the pass level at its original height rather than lowering it to its proper value. This means the admission requirement is more stringent than originally claimed by the society, and the current members have met this more stringent requirement. In fact, this admission level lies well outside the range of scores that can be statistically expected given the world intelligence distribution (The world's highest I.Q. is probably somewhat under 185). But since the norms at this very top of the range are tentative - sometimes too high, sometimes too low, searching for their true value - it can be expected every now and then a candidate will qualify. To date (August 2008), 7 have qualified out of approximately 2300 who in total took about 3100 tests designed and scored by Paul Cooijmans, and 0 have qualified on an unknown number of tests designed and scored by others. For information, the tests that to date have produced qualifying scores for The Giga Society are: Numbers, Daedalus Test, Qoymans Multiple-Choice #3, Association subtest of Long Test For Genius, and Problems In Gentle Slopes of the first degree. The uncertainty in the norms at this range means that the world's most intelligent persons are not necessarily found in The Giga Society; For data about the truly most intelligent - that is, the highest scorers based on the best norms and best tests according to the most recent insights - see the report Statistics of the top scorers. Materials by Giga Society members or relating to The Giga Society
Accepted TestsThese are ALL of the accepted tests, so please do not send messages asking "Is the ... test accepted too?". Most of the tests can be found on or through High-Range Intelligence Tests. Required is a score at or above .999999999 of the adult population. Retest scores are not accepted. Please realize that the qualification information provided on this page is clear and complete, and that not understanding it - that is, applying without a qualifying score - is not compatible with the intelligence level claimed by applying, and naturally disqualifies the applicant.
|
 |