Tim Chambers/Intellectual Elitism

Today I ran across a group called Colloquy, "the first high-IQ society based entirely on the Internet. It is created as a forum for the collegial sharing of thoughts, experiences, and creative expression among people of superior intelligence." [1]

That reminded me of my disastrous interactions with rude, arrogant atheists in Mensa several years ago. (Maybe I'll write about it in more detail sometime.)

I'm ambivalent about such groups. I delight in the company of intelligent people, but how can they avoid elitism? In fact, I was reading just today: "Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position." [Rom 12:16]. On the other hand, I completely sympathize with a yearning to find a community where one can belong and be oneself. Therein lies my ambivalence.

21Jul00

A comprehensive list of societies using intelligence criteria for membership is at [2].

The criteria for the Prometheus Society, for instance, is the 99.997 percentile (1-in-30,000) [3]. That is, by the way, evidence that one can be in the 99.997 percentile of intelligence and still be an incompetent Web designer, IMHO.