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Ronald K. Hoeflin

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Ronald K. Hoeflin
BornFebruary 23, 1944 (1944-02-23) (age 80)
Ochlocknee, Georgia, U.S.
Alma materThe New School
Parent(s)William Eugene Hoeflin
Mary Elizabeth Dell

Ronald K. Hoeflin (born February 23, 1944)[1] is an American librarian by profession, philosopher and amateur psychometrician.[2][3] He is the creator of the Mega[4][5][2] and Titan[6] intelligence tests.

Biography

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Hoeflin was born on February 23, 1944, in Ochlocknee, Georgia[7] to William Eugene Hoeflin and Mary Elizabeth Dell Hoeflin.[1] Hoeflin grew up in St Louis, Missouri.

Hoeflin stated in an interview that his goal was "to make a living publishing journals for high-IQ societies." He began his work in this field as editor for the Triple Nine Society in 1979.[8]

In 1987 he earned a doctor of philosophy (PhD) from the New School for Social Research, the graduate division of The New School, with a thesis titled "The Root-metaphor theory: A critical appraisal of Stephen C. Pepper's theory of metaphysics through an analysis of its interpretation of the concepts of truth, beauty, and goodness."[9]

In 1988, Hoeflin won the American Philosophical Association's Rockefeller Prize "for the best unpublished, article-length work in philosophy by a non-academically affiliated philosopher in a given year." This was awarded for his article, Theories of Truth: A Comprehensive Synthesis.[10] His article argues for the interrelated nature of seven leading theories of truth.[11]

For over a decade, he worked on a thirteen-volume treatise titled "The Encyclopedia of Categories", which was published in 2020 online and is available to download for free.[12][13][14]

Intelligence tests and societies

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Main article: Ceiling effect (statistics) § IQ testing

Ronald Hoeflin has been a member of various high IQ societies, including Mensa and Intertel. He cofounded the Triple Nine Society in 1978, and founded the Mega Society[15] in 1982.[16] He claims an IQ of 164, stating his scores have ranged from 125 to 175, depending upon the cognitive abilities tapped into.[17]

Hoeflin attempted, along with Kevin Langdon, to develop an IQ test that could measure adult IQs greater than three standard deviations from the population median, or IQ 145 (sd 15). Hoeflin's Mega Test was an unsupervised IQ test without time limit consisting of 48 questions, half verbal and half mathematical. It was published in Omni magazine, in April 1985, and the results were used to norm the test. Hoeflin standardized the test six times, using equipercentile equating with SAT and other scores, and some extrapolation at the highest level.[18]

The Mega Test, among other IQ tests, has been criticised for blurring specific domain knowledge with generalised intelligence, although "most psychologists can agree that they measure something valuable."[19] For over sixty years, psychologists such as Leta Stetter Hollingworth, author of the book Children Above 180 IQ, have suggested that people with extremely high IQs are radically different from the general population. Identifying such people would require IQ tests with reliability not currently available for extreme ranges of IQ.[20]

The test's attempt to measure high IQ at the tail of the normal distribution has been academically evaluated. Although it is an innovative attempt to create a test that would evaluate very high IQ, the nature of the test - self administered without time limit - which was chosen for pragmatic reasons, would not necessarily measure general intelligence, but could measure resourcefulness or some other factor. The frequent renorming of the test by its author was non standard but also innovative. Nevertheless it contained well known statistical flaws, such as sample self selection. The analysis could not therefore validate the conclusions. Attempts to eke out discrimination at the hundredth or thousandth percentile were clearly overwhelmed by the test's standard error, given that there were only 48 questions. The questions, too, were criticised for being structured with insufficient sensitivity to the detection of knowledge, because of the question format used. The test was thus described as not so much number crunching as "nothing short of number pulverisation".[2]

In 1990, Hoeflin created the Titan Test, also published in Omni.[6]

Societies Founded by Ronald Hoeflin

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Believing that people at the highest IQ levels would be able easily to communicate with each other and have much in common, Hoeflin founded several societies for those with the highest scores.[21] These societies are (along with year founded, percentile, and minimum IQ (sd 16)):

Society Year founded Acceptance Percentile Acceptance IQ (SD 16) Number of Members
Top One Percent Society[22] 1989 99 137
Triple Nine Society[22] 1978 99.9 149 1900[23]
One-in-a-Thousand Society[22] 1992 99.9 150
Prometheus Society[24] 1982 99.997 164 100[23]
Epimetheus Society[22] 2006 99.997 164 150[23]
Mega Society 1982 99.9999 176 26 (in 1985)[25]
Omega Society[22] 2006 99.9999 176

References

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  1. ^ a b Hoeflin, Ronald. "About the Author." Noesis, Issue #176 February 2005.
  2. ^ a b c Carlson, Roger D. (1991). "The Mega Test". In Keyser, Daniel; Sweetland, Richard (eds.). Test Critiques. Vol. VIII. Kansas City (MO): Test Corporation of America. pp. 431–435. ISBN 0-89079-254-2. ISSN 1553-9121. Although the approach that Hoeflin takes is interesting, inventive, intellectually stimulating, and internally consistent, it violates many good psychometric principles by overinterpreting the weak data of a self-selected sample.
  3. ^ Hoeflin, Ronald K. (February 2021). "Author's Autobiography" (PDF). Noesis: The Journal of the Mega Society (207): 118–163. Retrieved 23 November 2024.
  4. ^ Morris, Scot. "The one-in-a-million I.Q. test". Omni magazine, April 1985, pp 128-132.
  5. ^ Republic Magazine, November 1985, "Beyond Mensa," by Catherine Seipp
  6. ^ a b "Mind Games: the hardest IQ test you'll ever love suffering through", Omni magazine, pp 90 ff, April 1990
  7. ^ "Ronald K. Hoeflin". geni_family_tree. 2023-03-27. Retrieved 2024-08-14.
  8. ^ "An Interview with Dr. Ronald K. Hoeflin on High-IQ Societies' Titles, Rarities, and Purposes, and Personal Judgment and Evaluations of Them (Part Two) by Scott Jacobsen". In-Sight Publishing. 2022-02-28. Retrieved 2024-12-01.
  9. ^ "The Root-Metaphor Theory: A Critical Appraisal of Stephen C. Pepper's Theory of Metaphysics Through an Analysis of its Interpretation of the Concepts of Truth, Beauty, and Goodness". www.proquest.com. Retrieved 2024-11-19.
  10. ^ Prizes and Awards (American Philosophical Association
  11. ^ Proceedings, "News from the National Office". Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association, Vol. 62, No. 4. (Mar., 1989), pp. 691.
  12. ^ "Encyclopedia of Categories [Volume 1-13]". USIA: United Sigma Intelligence Association. 2020-11-17. Retrieved 2021-05-09.[permanent dead link‍]
  13. ^ Aviv, Rachel (2006-08-02). "The Intelligencer". Village Voice. Archived from the original on 2007-02-11. Retrieved 2006-08-02. This article is primarily a biography of and interview with Dr Hoeflin
  14. ^ Knight, Sam (2009-04-10). "Is a high IQ a burden as much as a blessing?". Financial Times (London). Retrieved 2006-04-20. This article has a section which contains a biography of and interview with Dr Hoeflin
  15. ^ Hoeflin, Ronald (July 1987). "About the Editor" (PDF). Noesis, the Journal of the Noetic Society. 16: 11. I have been a member of all six high-IQ societies listed in the Encyclopedia of Associations: Mensa, Intertel, the International Society for Philosophical Enquiry, the Triple Nine Society, the Prometheus Society, and the Mega Society — but I currently belong to only three of these: Mensa, Triple Nine, and Prometheus. I am the founder of Prometheus and of the Noetic Society (formerly called the Titan Society). I consider myself the founder of the Mega Society, although some argue that Chris Harding has at least equal claim to that status. I am also a co-founder of the Triple Nine Society. Thus, I have been at least partly responsible for the establishment of four of the seven currently active high-IQ societies.
  16. ^ "About the Mega Society". megasociety.org. Retrieved 2024-12-01.
  17. ^ Sager, Mike (November 1999). "The Smartest Man in America". Esquire. Archived from the original on 2009-05-02. Retrieved 2011-01-07.
  18. ^ "1998/99 Membership Committee Report". Prometheus Society. 1999. Archived from the original on 2006-07-17. Retrieved 2006-07-26.
  19. ^ Aviv, Rachel (25 July 2006). "The Intelligencer". The Village Voice. Retrieved 18 November 2024.
  20. ^ Perleth, Christoph; Schatz, Tanja; Mönks, Franz J. (2000). "Early Identification of High Ability". In Heller, Kurt A.; Mönks, Franz J.; Sternberg, Robert J.; et al. (eds.). International Handbook of Giftedness and Talent (2nd ed.). Amsterdam: Pergamon. p. 301. ISBN 978-0-08-043796-5. norm tables that provide you with such extreme values are constructed on the basis of random extrapolation and smoothing but not on the basis of empirical data of representative samples.
  21. ^ A Short (and Bloody) History of the High I.Q. Societies Archived 2013-09-22 at the Wayback Machine
  22. ^ a b c d e "An Interview with Dr. Ronald K. Hoeflin on High-IQ Societies' Titles, Rarities, and Purposes, and Personal Judgment and Evaluations of Them (Part Two) by Scott Jacobsen". In-Sight Publishing. 2022-02-28. Retrieved 2024-12-01.
  23. ^ a b c Kadet, Anne (2024-03-04). "Too Smart for Mensa!". CAFÉ ANNE. Retrieved 2024-12-02.
  24. ^ "The Prometheus Society – The worldwide 99.997th-percentile high-IQ society". Retrieved 2024-12-01.
  25. ^ "William Flew Omni Magazine SF Short Stories April 1985". www.williamflew.com. Retrieved 2024-12-02.
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