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He also narrowly missed a diagnosis of autism as a child, because he didn't start talking to people until he was five. They knew he could talk when they heard him repeating conversations he heard around him at night. (Now, that's known as a classic symptom in verbal autistics -- echolalia. But back then, verbal kids were *rarely* diagnosed as being on the spectrum.)
He said he remembers his grandfather saying "We know you can talk, so stop pretending." He said to him it wasn't that he was pretending he couldn't talk -- just that no one was interesting enough to talk to, so he didn't bother. But he spoke his first words to an actual human being that day -- when he responded with "Yes, sir" to the gramps.
But yeah, when I asked him what his was, he didn't want to tell me. He was afraid I'd think he was lying or bragging. I'd already seen him breathing in books on quantum physics that blew my mind (I barely was able to wrap my head around "The Dancing Wu-Li Masters", which he recommended when I wanted to know about the books *he* was reading but the math made me cringe), though, so it was believable.
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Still didn't mean the man could find his way out of a wet paper bag, though. Went to help a friend with her car that had a dead battery, and when asked if he'd brought jumper cables, said "What for?" -- seriously. Could get lost in a town of 5000 people. Killed the Civic I let him keep within 3 months of us splitting up, despite me warning him it had an oil leak and if the oil light stayed on for more than a second when he started it to check and add oil, and to check the oil once a week anyway.
IQ doesn't mean all that much, except when it comes to actually being able to understand what the heck Stephen Hawking is talking about. 
I've just figured out your joke!
Math was never my strong point.
So, I more than met the 125 required for ASA.
Does that really say anything about 'being smart' or mentally balanced?
Just how smart was I or for that matter all my fellow lightning fast chickens (our shoulder patch was interpreted by many as the leg of a chicken running fast enough to catch lightening) who avoided being drafted into 2 years of active Vietnam era service by volunteering for 4 years active service?
Response to cali (Original post)
I wrote a random essay generator that is my life.
but it is far from "politically correct."
The fact is, the so called "fundamentalist" religions, be they Dixie Baptist, pro Ben-Ladin Islam, Hard-line Catholic or sadly any and all variants of Religion, all encourage numbers, regardless of the parent's ability to actually raise a child, or the lack thereof. This suits the churches, as they can take over a lot of the role, and they do NOT need nor WANT a bunch of intellectual children questioning them. They do not want the children for their heads, they need them for their hands, so that the churches can hand them farm tools and weapons, and so that they can grow up to hand the fruits of their work to the church.
Want an example?
http://www.thedailybeast.com/witw/articles/2013/04/11/homeschooled-kids-now-grown-blog-against-the-past.html
Here, these kids were raised out of school so that they could be good religious types. Now, I know some people have their reasons to homeschool, but the reason it is embraced by religion is because it keeps their kids away from things that will question the faith, which is a very nice way of saying they want to keep the kids as stupid as their parents. After all, if you train these kids to THINK, than they might not be what the church wants.
It is true that many times the process of deliberately "religious education" backfires: Madonna, Rosie O' Donell, and Fidel Castro are all famous example of Catholic Education 
However, that does not change the intent of Religious education, which is to keep the faith, even at the expense of one's mental development.
So, how does this rant tie back to American IQ scores? Because, even in Public education, there is an intense amount of pressure Religious Institutions can place. It is no accident that many Charter Schools end up being run by Religious educators of all stripes. In Florida, there was a scandal because the Scientologists were found to have been influencing the Charter schools, in particular making textbooks based on their ideas of learning, which in their case, were PART OF RELIGOUS DOCTRINE.
http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/editorials/charter-school-dangers-on-display-in-scientology-case/1218150
I picked this example because, while it is easy to pick on the more established "God of Abraham" faiths, it is indeed true that newcomers like the Scientologists can use the flaws of our education system to their advantage; our education system gave them a back door, and in the case of Charter schools, a front door, to make children led to their door. Of course, while the Scientologists brought about scrutiny on themselves, most people missed the point. They were only doing what the established religions were already doing, just that they were newcomers to the game.
until I realized I was too smart to hang out with those morons. 
(I actually was a MENSA member, so I suppose that puts me in the 98th or 99th percentile, whatever their metric is.)
You could have taken the stance I did when a member's wife told me she was not herself a member. "Come off it, Linda", I said. "Like attracts like."
How objective are those measures, and how free from bias are they?
IQ tests have a pretty shitty history in terms of how they've been exploited, politically or socially. So that needs to be kept in mind.
Highly educated, wealthy white men create a measure of intelligence in which highly educated, wealthy white men come out on top, where whites have higher IQs than blacks and most other minorities, where the upper classes have higher IQs than the lower classes, and where men have higher IQs than women. Yep, sounds totally objective and free of any cultural bias or social prejudice!
your IQ is in the top rank at DU or anywhere else.
(And I'm being entirely serious.)
People may not check on their IQ, but are often told it anyway - many schools test for it.
Thanks for the thread, Eva.
I have to limit my awareness somewhat because 'dah newz' does sometimes drag me down. Other days I am brilliant as I see everything clearly.
