I've taken the GRE a few times at least. I've never not scored in the top 1%. So tell me (as the old American Express commercial asked boob-land): Do you know me? (The GRE stands for the Graduate Record Exam: an advanced version of the SATs ,which is in a sense an advanced version of the IQ test.)
My church told me as a child that humans exhibited something called Original Sin; but my school told me that intelligence was rewarded, that the educated got a more generous share of the society's resources, and that good work got the most. So tell me: would those latter suppositions stand up to scientific falsification?
Well, the scientists wouldn't have to go any further than me to find counter-examples: evidence that disproves the contention.
I'll develop all that further in a moment, but first: know the target point: Not only has top-1%er pk not shared the society's resources, I accuse my society of making a pattern of excluding the top percent — of anything — from the banquet. Note further that I don't blame the society in particular, we're no worse than others: and we're exhibiting a behavior "explained" by the scientists' principle of homeostasis: as I've been arguing for half a century (no one hearing the argument! least of all my universities! not so far as I can tell.) (See my Knatz.com/Society module on the subject.)
Let's review vocabulary:
GRE is a conventional acronym for the Graduate Record Examination, administered by ETS (Educational Testing Service, Princeton NJ).
SAT is another ETS product and a better known one. IQ tests are still better known. (SAT is the acronym for Scholastic Aptitude Test. IQ abbreviates Intelligence Quotient.
IQ tests have been given to an awful lot of grammar school children over the decades. Only the supposedly college-bound take the SATs. The GRE is the "SAT" for graduate students: that is, for pre-professionals: law students, medical students, PhD candidates in whatever: science, arts ...
Know that pk has little respect for the IQ test, less for its administrators, none at all for those who impose it, and absolutely none for those who kiss and tell: school boards, universities, corporations ... How is it the state's business to look into your personal laundry and pipe the details to IBM? pk does however believe that SATs are a better measure of intelligence than the old standard IQ test, and that the English SAT is a better measure of intelligence than the math part, and that the GRE is better yet. (The best measure will be 1) how we survive as a culture, as a civilization, as a species; and 2) how we fare at Judgment (where survival may get trumped).
In other words: Look up my IQ, look up my SATs, look up my GREs ... and know that I trust the GRE results far more than I trust the other two. (Know also that in no way do I think that "top 1%" does adequate justice to my uniqueness: I bet I'm in the top 1% of the top 1% of the top 1%: not so easily proved, or disproved,) (though to try to prove it, rationally, someone (actually, more than one) would have to understand what I've been writing and saying: It does no good to dismiss the writing on the wall without knowing what the writing says.)
pk suggests a little research: You may be able to look up pk's GRE claims: at ETS, at NYU ... You may be able to look up pk's SAT scores. If not, be satisfied that they got me into Columbia, and NYU. You may be able to look up pk's IQ scores: maybe even scores since taken by this or that supposedly independent psychologist. Now: how many devisers of the IQ test scored in the top 1% of the GRE? how many devisers of the SAT test scored in the top 1% of the GRE? How many devisers of the GRE scored in the top 1% of the GRE?
Now I ask a different question: how many top 1%ers in the GRE fared well at their universities? How many are with me on the welfare roles?
How many have pursued careers unmolested by bureaucrats no where near the top !%: of anything!?
How many of my professors at NYU who graded my papers without understanding them, or who interrupted me when I tried to introduce my thesis topic, were in the top 1%? The top half: I bet half of them were. The top 10%: I bet one or two were. But the top 1%?
Show me.
I'll post lots more on the subject at IonaArc (a less personal blog) scrapbook style, getting points made first, worrying about efficiency second. Eventually edited results may work themselves back here. Understand all along how my points all fit into my workings of the theory of homeostasis: any system, certainly any living system, structures itself to preserve what's preserved, and to make slick paths of change. Averages claim to value excellence but what they really value are averages. Thus an individual of "IQ" 200 will barely be able to communicate with an individual of IQ 180, while neither will be understood by the staff at the NYT, The Smithsonian, Harvard ... Though in time, without credit, filter inward to the mean.
God didn't tell me to get credit for offering a cheap internet in 1970, he just told me to offer it: the way he told Jesus to offer salvation. Only enough of what Jesus said penetrated to assure damnation; only enough of my cybernetic public records keeping penetrated to shore up kleptocracy. Still: it's all only temporary.
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