Ronald K. Hoeflin facts for kids

Ronald K. Hoeflin, born on February 23, 1944, is an American who has worked as a librarian and is also a philosopher. He is known for creating special tests like the Mega Test and Titan Test. He believes these tests can measure very high IQ scores.

Biography

Ronald Hoeflin was born in Ochlocknee, Georgia. He grew up in St. Louis, Missouri.

He once shared that his main goal was to publish journals for groups of people with very high IQs. He started working in this area in 1979 as an editor for the Triple Nine Society.

In 1987, he earned a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree from The New School. This is a very high university degree. His studies focused on different ideas about truth, beauty, and goodness.

In 1988, Hoeflin won an important award called the Rockefeller Prize. He received it for his article, Theories of Truth: A Comprehensive Synthesis. This article discussed how seven different ideas about truth are connected to each other.

For more than ten years, he worked on a huge thirteen-volume book series. It is called "The Encyclopedia of Categories." This work was published online in 2020 and can be downloaded for free.

Intelligence Tests and Societies

IQ stands for Intelligence Quotient. It is a score from a test that tries to measure how smart someone is. Ronald Hoeflin has been a member of several high IQ groups, such as Mensa and Intertel.

He helped start the Triple Nine Society in 1978. He also founded the Mega Society in 1982. He has said his own IQ score is around 164, but his scores have varied on different tests.

Hoeflin, along with Kevin Langdon, tried to create an IQ test that could measure very high adult IQs. They wanted to measure scores higher than 145. Hoeflin's Mega Test was a test you could take at home without a time limit. It had 48 questions, half about words and half about math.

The Mega Test was published in Omni magazine in April 1985. The results from people who took it were used to help understand the test scores. Hoeflin adjusted the test's scoring several times.

Some people have criticized the Mega Test and other IQ tests like it. They say these tests might mix up specific knowledge with general intelligence. However, many psychologists agree that these tests do measure something valuable.

For over sixty years, experts have suggested that people with extremely high IQs might be very different from most people. Finding such individuals would need IQ tests that are very reliable for these extreme scores.

The Mega Test was an interesting attempt to measure very high IQ. However, because it was taken at home without a time limit, it might have measured things like how resourceful someone is, rather than just general intelligence. The way the test was scored was also unusual.

In 1990, Hoeflin created another test called the Titan Test. This test was also published in Omni magazine.

Societies Founded by Ronald Hoeflin

Ronald Hoeflin believed that people with the highest IQs would easily understand each other. He thought they would have a lot in common. Because of this, he started several societies for people with very high scores.

Here are some of the societies he founded: