The Mensa Fallacy

> It's a textbook example of sampling bias.

> The samples rely on Mensa samples.

> For this study to work, Mensans have to be representative of smart people in general, or at least, not be a biased sample for the things examined.

> But everybody knows Mensans are dorks and this is a club for underachievers.

Preach.

> Mensans are below average achievers for their intelligence level, and this has a lot to do with their other traits.

Meh. The study under critique may well be flawed, but "everybody knows Mensans are losers" isn't really a convincing argument against

I'm not a fan of Mensa (I have issues with the general ethos of the organization), but this article smells a bit like a hit piece.

It's quite insulting (I am not qualified to say whether or not it's accurate. You can still insult people by making factual statements).

I'd like to see some data to support their claim about Mensans, but it doesn't surprise me either. I have been invited to join in the past and I declined because when I interacted with the people involved they were dreary souls with large egos, not exactly the sort of people you want to spend considerable time with. You get much more intellectual engagement making friends through work and hobbies, many of whom maybe wouldn't qualify for Mensa, but are much better to be around and perhaps more intelligent in their own ways. I've certainly had more fun covered in grease at 2AM in a race track parking lot with a few blue collar dudes wrenching over beers than I ever had sitting around with a bunch of people who think being smart for smarts sake is the highest pursuit one can have in life.

All that said, the analysis in this article seems very hand-wavey and doesn't really seem to be supported. And at least for myself, I know that many of the people I've had as coworkers over the years, including myself, who are on the higher ends of intelligence have some sort of mental health issue, many of us are also on the autism spectrum (including myself). Certainly it would make sense that if someone is a genetic outlier in one respect they would likely be a genetic outlier in other respects, and not all of them positive traits. To claim otherwise requires stronger evidence which isn't really provided to counter-act the studies that uses Mensa samples.

Several decades ago (last time I took an IQ test), I had an IQ at the lower end discussed here. I am not in Mensa. I am of the opinion that I do not have any mental illnesses. And yet, I am of the opinion that statements like "everybody knows Mensans are dorks and this is a club for underachievers", subtract considerably from the persuasiveness of the article. Not that I doubt it's basic thesis that Mensa is not a random or unbiased sample of the population in question, but these are after all people who went out and joined a social club. Not necessarily the worst signifier of mental illness.

While that organization has never had any appeal, I always thought it was valuable to have around, because when they eventually came for us, they would probably start there. Half-kidding aside, I've come to believe that valuing intelligence is what we value when we need something unfalsifiable to support an unstable identity. Be competent, masterful, successful, compassionate, magnanimous, creative, and if you're really special, apply it to those things. Learning to cope and manage the fact that you're always going to be an idiot to someone is more useful than an extra sigma will ever be.

> Now, low achievement for one's intelligence can be explained by only a few things: bad work ethic, physical disability, and mental illness. These often go together (genetic fitness factor).

Wellll..... perhaps not the most defensible pair of statements.

>> Thus, one has to either claim a very strong non-monotonic relationship for intelligence and these outcomes, such that 130+ Mensans can be at elevated risk, OR one has to conclude there is a strong sampling bias.

Clearly an example of black and white thinking. Perhaps the author has Borderline Personality Disorder. ;-) ;-)

On the one hand: article agrees with my vague impression of Mensa from a distance.

On the other hand: the study's conclusion that very intelligent people have elevated rates of autism spectrum disorders, depression, and generalized anxiety agrees very well with my up close and personal observations of very intelligent people.

This and other threads on Mensa brings out the worst display of cognitive biases in the comments.

Most people have no lived experience with (or even much exposure to) Mensa yet they have this unexamined notion that it is must be necessarily bad because its basic premise is flawed.

Then there are those who generalize from very small sample sizes and exaggerate. These are the most cringey commenters.

The basic premise is flawed. Yet there are lots of things in life that seem like fundamentally bad ideas but are actually ok in reality — it is from reality that we must learn from, not the mental model.

I was part of Mensa in my youth because I was developmentally gifted and it gave a community of peers older than me that made feel less alone. There were very few settings at the time where a younger person could interact with older people who were smart and generally successful in life. The tribe of nerdy recluses with no social skills is definitely represented but they were not the majority — again people with small and biased samples would not know this.

The small sample size problem is at the root of many cognitive biases but most people lack the discipline to withhold judgment and look for disconfirming evidence.

Mensa has been great for me, even met my wife there. OF course if we were simply successful and felt we fit in we wouldn't have sought out such an organization.

Is this the same Emil Kirkegaard who holds controversial views on child porn? https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Emil_O._W._Kirkegaard

This analysis is laughable. On what metric are Mensa member underachievers? Waving your hand saying "everybody knows" is not science. It's just an opinion.

I will grant you that Mensa did absolutely nothing for me, and I stopped renewing years ago. I had no desire to participate in their various groups. I have friends and a wife and children and grand-children. I don't need a social club. But I'm sure some people find value in it.

> For some amusing quantitative evidence, check out the Reddit subreddit overlap tool.

It seems that anyone can join the r/Mensa subreddit, so it's not really evidence at all.

You know, I gave this whole article the benefit of the doubt because it got to the front page of HN, but I feel like I've been talking to someone for awhile before realizing that he stinks like piss. How did this happen? Why am I sticking around?

Anything Emil Kirkegaard writes should be taken with a pinch of salt.

He's a proven liar and vexatious litigant in contempt of court and is currently being sued for over £40,000.

https://oliveratlantis.com/emil-kirkegaard/

I've always had an uncanny feeling around Mensa, if you're so smart, why do you need to preach to everyone how smart you are? There's a certain argument to be made in regards to children for adults the whole thing just seems cringe.

A bit of context for anyone who doesn't follow this topic closely: Emil Kierkegaard is an infamous scientific racist.

It doesn't instantly invalidate any particular bit of work or argument he makes, but it's important to keep in mind.

I'm picturing this being read by Ogre from Revenge of the Nerds

The subreddit overlap, oh my.