Ronald K. Hoeflin facts for kids

Ronald K. Hoeflin was born on February 23, 1944. He is an American who works as a librarian. He is also a philosopher, which means he studies big ideas about life and knowledge. He is also an amateur psychometrician, someone who studies how to measure things like intelligence. He is famous for creating two special intelligence tests called the Mega Test and the Titan Test.

About Ronald Hoeflin

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

Hoeflin once said that his goal was to "make a living publishing journals for high-IQ societies." He started working in this area in 1979. He became an editor for the Triple Nine Society.

In 1987, he earned a special degree called a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) from The New School. His big project for this degree was about different ways people think about truth, beauty, and goodness.

In 1988, Hoeflin won the American Philosophical Association's Rockefeller Prize. This award was for his article, Theories of Truth: A Comprehensive Synthesis. His article explained how seven main ideas about truth are connected.

For over ten years, he worked on a huge 13-book series. It is called "The Encyclopedia of Categories." This series was published online in 2020 and you can download it for free.

Intelligence Tests and Societies

Ronald Hoeflin has been a member of many high IQ societies. IQ stands for Intelligence Quotient. It is a way to measure how well someone can think and solve problems. Some groups he joined include Mensa and Intertel.

He helped start the Triple Nine Society in 1978. In 1982, he started the Mega Society. Hoeflin says his own IQ is 164. He has scored between 125 and 175 on different tests.

Hoeflin worked with Kevin Langdon to create an IQ test. They wanted a test that could measure very high adult IQs. These would be scores higher than 145.

The Mega Test

Hoeflin's Mega Test was a special IQ test. People could take it at home without a time limit. It had 48 questions. Half of the questions were about words, and half were about math.

The Mega Test was published in Omni magazine in April 1985. The results from people who took the test helped set its scores. Hoeflin set the test's scores six times. He used scores from other tests like the SAT.

Some people have criticized the Mega Test. They say it might mix up specific knowledge with general intelligence. However, most experts agree that these tests measure something important. For over 60 years, psychologists have thought that people with extremely high IQs are very different. Finding these people needs very reliable IQ tests.

Experts have looked at the Mega Test's attempt to measure very high IQs. It was a new way to create a test for very high IQ. But because people took it at home, it might not have measured general intelligence. It might have measured how good people are at finding answers. The way the test was scored was also new. But it had some problems. For example, people chose to take the test themselves. This means the results might not have been accurate for everyone.

The test had only 48 questions. This made it hard to tell the difference between very high scores. The questions were also criticized. They were not always good at finding out what people knew.

The Titan Test

In 1990, Hoeflin created another test. It was 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 could easily talk to each other. He thought they would have a lot in common. So, he started several societies for people with very high scores.

Here are some of the societies he founded: