Frank Report needs help.
We need data to prove Keith Raniere is as smart as he claims.
Keith Raniere gained recognition for taking a self-administered, take-home IQ test, the results of which he later claimed proved he was one of the top three problem solvers in the world.
The take home IQ test is called The Mega Test.
His test results appeared in the 1989 Australian edition of the Guinness Book of Records under the category “Highest IQ”. He tied with Marilyn los Savant for top score.
Her name appeared in several editions of Guinness for Highest IQ.
Mr. Raniere’s name appeared only in the Australian edition.
Unlike Ms. Savant, Mr. Raniere’s name never appeared in U.S. edition of Guinness, where Mr. Raniere resides.
The “Highest IQ” category was retired by Guinness in 1989 immediately after Mr. Raniere’s name appeared in print in the Australian edition.
Mr. Raniere was quoted in a 1988 interview with the Albany Times Union that his take home IQ test should be considered valid since no one else would be smart enough to help him cheat on the test.
Mr. Raniere has claimed his IQ is 240.
Some criticize unmonitored IQ testing.
Consider, for instance, if the Bar Exam to become an attorney was unmonitored.
Any first year law student could take it home and pass it – just by looking up answers in law books or consulting with lawyers. Instead, the Bar Exam is monitored by proctors to ensure there is no cheating.
The Mega Society was founded in 1982 [www.megasociety.org] by Ronald K. Hoeflin. It claims to be open only to people who score at a one-in-a-million level of intelligence on other IQ tests.
Mr. Raniere did a study [with someone named Dean Inada] that determined that Mr. Raniere score on his take home IQ test was so rare it made him one of the top three problem solvers in the world.
Somewhere along the way, Mr. Raniere’s claim morphed from “one of the top three problem solvers in the world” to “the smartest man in the world”. It is not known if Mr. Raniere took another take-home test – or if he did some more analyses with Dean Inanda – to warrant this promotion. Nor is it known if there’s a woman that Mr. Ramiere recognizes as being smarter than him.
So, here is what we know:
Mr. Raniere took an unsupervised, take-home IQ test nearly 30 years ago.
Mr. Raniere’s IQ is based on a take-home test
The rarity of his score on that take-home IQ test was determined by a study he [and Dean Inada] performed.
Guinness initially accepted his data and published his name in the category of Highest IQ.
This was followed by their canceling the Highest IQ category in all future editions of their books.
And now Frank Report needs your help because we want to prove that Keith Raniere really is, as he now claims. “the smartest man in the world”. So, readers, what do YOU think is the best way for us to do that?
There is no valid IQ test for the upper levels of intelligence. Stanford-Binet is competent to 1/30,000 level. Which means it can theoretically identify the top 250,000 or so people in the world but it cannot distinguish between them.
The Mega test lacks validity. It has not been tested to show it can measure the highest levels of intelligence; it has only the claims of its creator that it does. Thus, Ripley’s did not want part of the charade and declined to go forward with the intelligence category. Rainiere’s claim is meaningless.
Most of all, intelligence cannot just be measured abstractly via any test; functional measures based on what one does and creates in one’s life are much more effective means. As a side note: Rainiere’s 2.26 GPA at RPI is not in accordance with his own claim of being the world’s smartest man.