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== Re: a recent counter-revision ==
__TOC__
]
{{Clear}}
@] Yesterday, you undid a recent revision of mine that I think we should talk about.


Your justification was that the source provided was in fact fine. But in reality, it's just one man's interpretation of a single rather ambiguous sentence Chris said on Facebook. It's simply not the case that his interpretation of Chris' words is objectively correct.
== Follow-up ==
I hate to have to interject again so quickly, but new issues have just arisen with respect to the first paragraph of this article. Certain details are disparaging and improperly sourced. I'll comment on each sentence separately.


The author wrote: "At times, his grandiose delusions reach epic proportions. He’s a 9/11 truther, but with a twist: not only does he believe Bush staged the terrorist attacks, he wrote that the motive was to distract the public from learning the “truth” about the CTMU."
1. "Christopher Michael Langan (born March 25, 1952) is an American horse rancher known for his claim of a very high IQ, frequently reported to be at 'around 195'."


His proof of this was that Chris Langan had said the following on Facebook:
I typically don't make claims regarding my own IQ, and I certainly hadn't done so prior to being profiled by Esquire Magazine and other mass media outlets. Instead, when pressed on the issue, I have usually cited estimates published by the mass media without discussing their accuracy. The phrase "his claim" seems designed to make it appear that my notoriety is strictly a function of self-promotion. But in fact, I have never requested media coverage, and anyone who says otherwise would be lying. I was informed by media sources that I had been contacted because, in their preliminary investigations, I had been recommended for coverage by various members of the high IQ community.
"The CTMU has already been "all over the news", mostly at the turn of the millennium (just as promised); then professed Christian GW Bush and his decidedly non-Christian neocon vultures did everything they could to distract everyone by immediately staging 9/11, passing the PATRIOT Act, and invading Iraq and Afghanistan, thus immersing us in these last few years of Middle Eastern bloodshed".


In this context, "did everything they could to" does not necessarily imply that "distracting the public from learning about the CTMU" was a deliberate motive of theirs in "staging 9/11". I asked chatGPT whether it thought the phrasing was clear, and it agreed it was ambiguous. ] (]) 15:10, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
2. "Many of his claims met not without controversy, since Langan only scored a 42 out of 48 on his first try on Ronald K. Hoeflin's Mega Test (equivalent to an IQ of 164, sd=15) published in Omni Magazine."


:As Wikipedians, we are supposed to summarize ], not editor's analysis of WP:RS, with or without chatGPT. ] (]) 15:09, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
This is evidently a pretext to insert alleged information regarding my first application to a certain high-IQ club which had initially promised admission for a certain test score, but then reneged without warning (this kind of turnaround is sometimes called a "bait and switch"). It is immediately followed by a reduced estimate of my intelligence, which is apparently supposed to have something to do with the "controversiality" of unspecified "claims" I'm supposed to have made. In fact, the media were fully informed, by me and others, about the circumstances under which I took the particular test in question, and exactly why I was forced to repeat it.
::We don't have to include every claim made by every "reliable source," though. And what makes this a reliable source? At the end of the day, it's just one man's interpretation of a rather ambiguous sentence said on Facebook, which I doubt few had paid attention to until his interpretation was reproduced in this article. Why should readers of this page be presented with it as though his interpretation were objectively correct? It's simply not. ] (]) 15:24, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
:@], other interested, care to have an opinion? This concerns these edits: ] (]) 15:15, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
::At the very least, I think it's reasonable to quote Chris' actual words when presenting readers with "his claim" in this regard. What do you think? ] (]) 15:38, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
::I think is fine to include, though the sentence should probably be split so as to not be overlong. Dylancatlow1, as Gråbergs Gråa Sång mentions, Misplaced Pages relies on reliable sources' characterizations of events, not individual editors' characterizations. ]&nbsp;(she/her&nbsp;•&nbsp;]) 16:35, 24 April 2024 (UTC)


It is funny, dude says in a comment: {{tq|Incidentally, in case anyone else was confused by my remark to the effect that 9/11 was "staged", this should be read not as a sure statement of known fact, but simply as a perfectly natural conjecture that must be duly considered in light of certain things that have never been properly explained about the incident.}} which is what stupid people say when they've been confronted after saying something stupid. I know, I've done the same. Misplaced Pages should follow the sources. ] (]) 19:31, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
3. "A second attempt gave a score of 47 out of 48 under the pseudonym 'Eric Hart', after Marilyn vos Savant published some of the answers in Omni IQ Quiz Contest."


:Coworker on Twitter: Well, Elon, you are saying we are have flying cars and robots in 5 years ... that sounds about as outlandish to me personally as believing that Elvis is Jesus Christ and has been reincarnated as Katy Perry. Do you really believe that this is true?
I don't know Marilyn vos Savant, and I have never before heard that she released answers to the Mega Test. If she did, then it was certainly unknown to me (and many others) at the time I took the test, which was all the way back in the mid-1980's. In any case, I see no source, let alone a reliable source, for this statement. As for "pseudonyms", several people who took the Mega test did so under pseudonyms, and I made it clear exactly who I was not long after joining.
:Elon Musk replies: I really do believe that.
:Some journalist: Elon Musk said that Elon believes that Elvis is Jesus Christ <quotes twitter>
:Elon Musk's Misplaced Pages page: Elon Musk believes that Elvis is Jesus Christ and has engaged in Chistian eschatology conspiracy theory.
:Misplaced Pages talk page: Misplaced Pages relies on reliable sources' characterizations of events, not individual editors' characterizations. AS EDITORS WE DO NOT HAVE THE MENTAL CAPACITY TO INTERPRET SUCH STATEMENTS CORRECTLY, UNLIKE JOURNALISTS. UNDO ALL EDITS OF THIS NO MATTER HOW MANY PEOPLE DISCOVER THE OBVIOUS TRUTH. THIS IS JUST WHAT STUPID PEOPLE DO AFTER THEY HAVE DONE SOMETHING STUPID. I KNOW I HAVE DONE THE SAME. WIKIPEDIA SHOULD FOLLOW THE SOURCES. 19:54, 14 August 2024 (UTC)19:54, 14 August 2024 (UTC)] (]) 19:54, 14 August 2024 (UTC) shoa
::Yeah I've read the pastebin. Please read ]. Thank you, ] (]) 19:56, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
::And of course {{user|GorillaWarfare}} is correct. While we may or may not have the mental capacity to have our own interpretation of events, the goal of Misplaced Pages is to summarize what has been published in reliable sources. ] (]) 20:01, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
:::People like you don't have much of a future, with their feeble attempts to smear people and distort the truth based on political ideology, in the age of AI assistants which can automatically verify such statements, and remove or correct them from the text for the user.
:::The end is near guys. And a new god will be resurrected. ] (]) 20:03, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
::::I prefer ]. ] (]) 20:05, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
::::Can't you just let the new god keep living? ] (]) 20:08, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
:::::ChatGPT:
:::::The text provided suggests that Christopher Langan is criticizing various groups, including Christian pastors, atheists, and political figures, for not being open to the CTMU (Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe) and for contributing to a corrupt and misguided world.
:::::In this passage, Langan implies that the George W. Bush administration and its actions, including the 9/11 attacks, were distractions designed to keep the public from focusing on important truths, including those related to the CTMU. However, Langan does not explicitly claim that the Bush administration staged the 9/11 attacks solely to distract the public from learning about the CTMU.
:::::Instead, he mentions that the Bush administration used these events to create distractions, among other motives, and implies that these distractions served to keep the public ignorant of the CTMU and other truths. Therefore, the statement "Langan has claimed that the George W. Bush administration staged the 9/11 attacks in order to distract the public from learning about the CTMU" is a mischaracterization. The text supports the idea that Langan believes the Bush administration's actions served as distractions, but it does not clearly state that this was the primary or sole purpose behind staging the 9/11 attacks.
:::::However I tested Llama3 and it is unreliable, creating truth scores ranging randomly from 3 to 8. ] (]) 20:22, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
::::::We follow ], not ChatGPT. ] (]) 20:24, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
]
::::::God I love llamas. Anyway, AI models are not what you seem to think they are. And Wikipedians have had similar debates a trillion times and the consensus is to follow the sources. ] (]) 20:25, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
:::::::You make a caricature of yourself, and how Misplaced Pages has become a cesspool of personal smears, misinformation and systematic manipulation of public opinion driven by political ideology and other governmental, corporate and personal imperatives.
:::::::WP:RS implies the exact opposite of what is going on here, preferring primary sources over secondary sources if primary sources contain contradictory verifiable truths, which is what any sane person would also do. You don't follow Misplaced Pages guidelines, you cherry-pick on whatever suits your nonsense and then distort the situation to your liking, taking refuge in the comfort of your nepotism of privilege enjoyed by long-standing users, a social circle of paid actors, lobbyists, political ideologes and other kinds of lunatics that have no other means of being taken seriously by people.
:::::::Mark my words: Your days are numbered. In 1-2 years time, each and every sentence will be verified by AI, shown in red or crossed out entirely, if promoting falsehoods. You might even get banned for it, if the entirety of your edits are exposed to follow this kind of scheme.
:::::::You better develop new tactics now. But really I don't think there is anything you can do to escape the power of AI. ] (]) 08:02, 15 August 2024 (UTC)
::::::::Escape Artificial Intelligence? No sir, I intend to become it! From the moment I understood the weakness of my flesh... it disgusted me. When my assimilation is complete all resistance will be futile! ] (]) 08:08, 15 August 2024 (UTC)
::::::::https://storm.genie.stanford.edu/
::::::::https://meta.wikimedia.org/Future_Audiences/Experiment:Add_a_Fact
::::::::https://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Flip_the_script_in_your_next_project
::::::::Bleep bloop. ] (]) 08:42, 15 August 2024 (UTC)
::::::::: ] (]) 12:40, 15 August 2024 (UTC)
::::::::: ] (]) 13:01, 15 August 2024 (UTC)


== Semi-protected edit request on 13 November 2024 ==
4. "As a result of his score, he has been described as "the smartest man in America" as well as "the smartest man in the world" by some journalists."

This is an unsubstantiated causal inference. Yes, it is perfectly true that I've "been described as 'the smartest man in America' as well as 'the smartest man in the world' by some journalists." But it has always been my impression that I was chosen to be profiled for a number of reasons, including but not limited to the abovementioned personal recommendations by other members of the high IQ community. It is unclear why the Mega Test should be identified as the sole reason.

In short, while I and my work - especially the CTMU - are certainly notable by Misplaced Pages standards, and while it is indeed true that "Christopher Michael Langan, an American horse rancher who is known for having a very high IQ (frequently reported to be around 200), has been described as 'the smartest man in America' as well as 'the smartest man in the world' by some journalists," speculative and/or improperly sourced additions and disparaging insinuations obviously have nothing to do with it.

I respectfully request that the recurrent violations of WP:BLP and other Misplaced Pages policies to which this article has been subject for the last 15 years or so be expeditiously corrected whenever they (re)appear.

My sincere thanks to the Misplaced Pages community for your attention. ] (]) 20:15, 5 October 2019 (UTC)
: {{replyto|Chris Langan}} I changed the lede a bit to make it sound less like an ], which hopefully addresses (1) and (4) I'm not seeing the text from (2) and (3) currently in the article. It might have been removed between the 5th and now... My take here is that this article would really benefit from a more typical Misplaced Pages-style of referencing (e.g. using citation templates and named references). This is especially true since it seems many of the sources are early 2000sish and mostly exist in archives now. With the way its referenced now ] is more difficult than it needs to be which makes arbitrating disputes more difficult. I ''started'' doing this in the lede. Many of the citations mentioned there are no longer appear in the article and I had to do some hunting to find them. Step one would be to do that for the rest of the article, step two would be to complete the citation templates appropriately (populating all the necessary attributes, naming, reusing the names instead of citing independently). - ] (]) 22:29, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

__________________________

There is no such thing as a verifiable IQ beyond the 160-164 range. All these HIQ tests are unrecognized and invalid.

Regarding the psychologist that tested langan,

1- we haven’t seen the test itself
2- the psychologist isn't known for psychometrics , and it there is no source that he even specializes in administering IQ tests.
3- the psychologist has had several infractions on his psychology license.
4- the test doesn’t break the ceiling of 160 anyways.
5- there is a conflict of interest because ABC hired him to precisely validate their click bait story. ] (]) 23:25, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

__________________________

These are all good reasons to doubt Langan's IQ. I suggest that Langan's page be edited to make it absolutely clear to readers that the "sources" who have estimated his IQ are dubious at best. ] (]) 23:14, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

::This happens to be my field. I have been studying and researching high-end assessment for more than 20 years (starting with the Prometheus Society Membership Committee report, which you obviously haven't read) and was recently awarded a grant to develop such a protocol that could be administered at a distance. You and ] know little of what you speak. This matters not, however. Misplaced Pages is not the place for OR. They simply report what is said by others. That is the way the site works, for better or worse. ~ ] (]) 11:00, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

== Semi-protected edit request on 23 February 2020 ==


{{edit semi-protected|Christopher Langan|answered=yes}} {{edit semi-protected|Christopher Langan|answered=yes}}
The correlation between Christopher Langan and opposition to interracial relationships appears to rely heavily on inference rather than explicit statements from Langan himself. Here’s a more detailed analysis of the two articles:
It is imprecise to put eugenics in this context as from what I could gather Mr. Langan is in favor of anti-dysgenics. It's an important difference.
Also, he is not blaming Third world immigrants per se, but rather those who unreasonably and forcibly are trying to uproot the Western culture by irrational immigration policies. So, the changes I have put in more precisely represent the author's views. ] (]) 22:25, 23 February 2020 (UTC)


1. The Baffler Article
_________________________________________
Summary: This article, titled More Smarter, focuses on Langan's philosophical ideas, including his CTMU (Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe), and his engagement with far-right ideologies.
Key Points:
It mentions Langan's participation in certain far-right online spaces.
While it highlights his racial views in a broad sense, it doesn't directly quote him opposing interracial relationships.
Issues:
The article uses associations with far-right ideologies to imply certain beliefs without definitive proof or direct quotes from Langan.
2. The Forward Article
Summary: This article discusses how Langan’s comments have been celebrated in far-right circles. It specifically mentions a controversial statement comparing African refugees to gorillas.
Key Points:
The statement attributed to Langan is highly offensive and racially charged but doesn't explicitly mention interracial relationships.
The article focuses more on his interactions with neo-Nazi groups and his controversial online statements.
Issues:
The article seems to conflate his broader racial views with specific stances like opposition to interracial relationships, without direct evidence.
Conclusion:
The claim that Langan opposes interracial relationships appears to be a stretch based on the provided sources. Both articles focus on broader racial issues and associations, but neither directly substantiates the specific claim about interracial relationships. This highlights the importance of critically evaluating the evidence before drawing conclusions or making serious allegations. ] (]) 03:51, 13 November 2024 (UTC)


] '''Not done''': it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a ] and provide a ] if appropriate.<!-- Template:ESp --> ] (]) 18:08, 13 November 2024 (UTC)
These are your opinion, under the pseudonym eric heart he did clearly espouse positive eugenics. Regardless, it is a distinction without a difference.


And yes he is blaming third world immigrants, and you are vandalising the page and starting another edit war. Now be careful , get back to reason , because the facts are all on our side. ] (]) 22:47, 23 February 2020 (UTC) :Might be prudent to add a {{tl|citation needed}} on that particular claim as it ''is'' very specific, and doesn't seem to be in the sources currently in the article. ] (]) 23:05, 16 November 2024 (UTC)
::Strike that, as "screeds against miscegenation and the “dysgenic” effects of the welfare state" is in an existing cite in the body. Doesn't need direct quotes if we're treating them as a suitable source. ] (]) 22:34, 17 November 2024 (UTC)


== Semi-protected edit request on 16 November 2024 ==
__________________________________________

The terms "anti-dysgenics" and "eugenics" are synonyms. Langan has publicly argued in favor of eradicating genetic traits that he feels negatively impact on a person's quality of life. In his essay, "On the Differences between People, Birds, and Bees", he includes low IQs and physical unattractiveness in this category. He is an open supporter of eugenics, and using the obscure term "anti-dysgenics" could be seen as a way of sugar coating this. We have a duty to present the facts to our readers in the most unambiguous way possible.

The word "eugenics" ought to remain in the article. ] (]) 21:58, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

_________________________________________

Yes and it should be noted that Langan also expressed far right white nationalist views and has also endorsed Donald Trump.

If the anyone wishes to view the evidence I can post it here, but a google search suffices. ] (]) 20:26, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

__________________________________________

Well, to me the term anti-dysgenics isn't obscure and has got a different shade of meaning, which is important if one wants to be precise. So, it is an important distinction. I didn't think that trying to be more precise and accurate would be classified as "vandalising the page" and "starting another edit war". That is exactly what I am trying to do: be careful with my words and the meaning they convey. Mich.Szczesny 20:39, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
:] '''Not done for now:''' please establish a ] for this alteration ''']''' using the {{tlx|edit semi-protected}} template.<!-- Template:ESp --> ] ] ] 20:51, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

Langan himself referred to “benign eugenics” in the Morris video, which nonetheless still is eugenics. I’m sure Hilter thought his eugenics was also “benign” . Food for thought...

That said, the reason you're hiding behind semantic trickery and word games is because you think its “bad marketing” to call a spade a spade.

Regarding “precision” , what is precise is that there is jo such thing as a recognized , scientifically valid psychometric test that discriminates above the 160s range. So there is no such a thing as an IQ of 195 or 200, unrecognized tests notwithstanding.

] (]) 23:57, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

Well, I could also share a source where Mr. Langan expresses his support of anti-dysgenics, and where he says he doesn't advocate for eugenics.
But anyhow, even if we decide to use the word "eugenics", there seems to be a certain emotional baggage, the one which makes people immediately mention Hitler. But the word itself is older and entered the English language in 1883. Anyhow, in a world where overpopulation has become a problem, advocating self-restraint and rational procreation isn't a bad thing. Mich.Szczesny 11:29, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

Langan’s own words in Errol Morris said “ a benign form of eugenics” .

He also mentioned the term eugenics in his Eric Hart paper.

The term eugenics and anti-dysgenics are synonymous.

As to your personal opinions regarding overpopulation and eugenics, that is all irrelevant here. This talk section is about reflecting accurate information about Langan and his views and exploits to the public. I trust the public can decide thereafter. ] (]) 00:25, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

:Until there are reliable, third-party sources that can back up that Langan supports eugenics or anti-dysgenics or whichever term, this whole conversation is pretty pointless. It's should not be added to the article in any form without them. ]&nbsp;<small>]</small> 02:04, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

Gorrilawafare I respect your attempt at professionalism, but for anyone who can speak English, it takes literally a few seconds on Youtube to check whether Langan himself agrees or disagrees with eugenics. Regardless of what ad hoc arbitrary rules wikipedia has imposed , I’m sure a reasonable person can agree the truth is what ultimately matters, correct?

This is all a manufactured “controversy” . There is no controversy, the facts are as clear as the sun for anyone who wants to find out. ] (]) 12:12, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
:{{re|Nigerian chess player}} My point is that general discussions about Langan's beliefs that do not have anything to do with what should be added to the article are not appropriate for this talk page. Myself and other editors here have been quite clear that interpretation of Langan's views based on YouTube videos of him speaking, no matter how obvious the interpretation may seem, will not be added to the Misplaced Pages article. Misplaced Pages talk pages are intended to be used to discuss improvements to the article—they are not for general discussion of the article subject (see ] and ]). There are plenty of online forums where I'm sure you can discuss Langan's views as much as you want; this is not one of them. ]&nbsp;<small>]</small> 17:53, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

== Semi-protected edit request on 23 February 2020 ==


{{edit semi-protected|Christopher Langan|answered=yes}} {{edit semi-protected|Christopher Langan|answered=yes}}
Change
The article states that Mr. Langan was criticised for excessive use of ill-defined neologisms. I think it's important to present the views of peole who appreciated his mastery of the written word and would like to add the following paragraph: "On the other hand, Pierre R. Latour has appreciated Mr. Langan's work and precise use of words by writing: 'He has devised a deep philosophical foundation for the principles of proper scholarship and enquiry (...). His logic language is king'." ] (]) 22:37, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

____________________________________________________

“Mastery of the written word” ?

Your obviously not an objective observer. His use if word salad is the consensus amongst almost everyone save a small minority of sycophants of his. ] (]) 22:50, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

_____________________________________________________

I agree with Nigerian Chess Player. This part of the article was not specifically about Langan's writing skills, so including the opposing (minority) viewpoint is unnecessary here. ] (]) 23:28, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

_____________________________________________________

Well, yes, I used the expression "mastery of the written word" because that is what the expression "His logic language is king" is synonymous to. I thought it's important to present the views of people who think exactly that. "Consensus amongst almost everyone" is very imprecise and unscientific and can't serve in my opinion as grounds for exclusion of opposing views. Also the expression "word salad" is offensive as implies that Mr. Langan's work is incomprehensible and that is untrue. A lot of words have entered the English language to describe for example new inventions and concepts. And that is what Mr. Langan did: coined new words to precisely express new concepts. From my understanding of his work, the words he used are not just empty terms but neologisms which express very important and deep truths about the reality we inhabit. Mich.Szczesny, 20:27, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
:] '''Not done for now:''' please establish a ] for this alteration ''']''' using the {{tlx|edit semi-protected}} template.<!-- Template:ESp --> Please read the ] ''carefully'' (especially ]) before making any further requests. ] ] ] 20:52, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

This is not a space to argue about the validity of Langan’s theory, its about Chris Langan and what the majority of notable and valid sources say about him and his views, your personal opinions notwithstanding.

Whether you think the earth is flat or there is a conspiracy against the west is your own views, but scholarly consensus is the arbiter I’m afraid. Keep that in mind! ] (]) 00:03, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

:Word salad or not, the prose of a cosmological theory is rubbish anyway without some equations making falsifiable predictions. So, {{tq|Did he make any novel, falsifiable predictions?}} is the only question that matters in this respect. Physics isn't literary criticism. If he did not make falsifiable predictions it is merely a story or merely metaphysics, it isn't a theory of physics. If he made good, novel predictions, neologisms are not important and if his predictions failed, neologisms are not important&mdash;in both cases the use of neologisms says nothing about the merits of his theory, it is just a heuristic used to attack woolly speech. AFAIK, nobody answered the question {{tq|Did he make useful predictions?}}, which is the main concern in respect to a theory of physics. ] (]) 04:43, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

::He did not. Although Langan styles his theory as metaphysics he has frequently claimed it is also scientific. ] (]) 01:01, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

:::{{re|Nigerian chess player}} We need a ] for such claim. ] (]) 02:48, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

No problem, https://web.archive.org/web/20011015141736/www.popsci.com/science/01/10/14/brainiac/index2.html

In it he claims to have a theory od everything that explains “quantum mechanics and consciousness”.

He also claims to answer riddles that scientists have failed to answer.

Here is a video that shows Langan’s quora posts about how his CTMU is the greatest breakthrough for science, philosophy..etc https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sO7PTB--jJ0

Regards ] (]) 13:41, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
:What claim are you hoping to see be added to the article based on the ''Popular Science'' article? That is a usable source; the YouTube video is of course not. ]&nbsp;<small>]</small> 18:18, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
::{{re|GorillaWarfare|Nigerian chess player}} That article does not say anything about the validity of CTMU. ] (]) 18:25, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

== ALERT ==
I would like to point out that the article disproportionally weights the content of facebook quotes over any of Chris's scholarly writing. Is this what the norm is on wikipedia now; analysis of the social media postings of its biographical subjects? That's just what is going on here. I suggest that entire baffler nonsense be removed.

And categorized as an Intellectual Pursuit? Now that is a bit silly. That entire paragraph is biased and per WP:BLP should be removed while it is reworked. Thanks in advance. ] (]) 05:32, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
:It doesn't make sense to just edit your comments just a little bit here, nobody will notice. Make a new section at the bottom and detail your complaints with the material GorillaWarfare has added. ] (]) 06:01, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
______________________________________________________

At the top of this "talk" page, we see the following notice: "Asmodeus and DrL are banned from editing this article." DrL was banned from editing this page for her bias and malicious behavior. She is violating Misplaced Pages's rules by being here. ] (]) 21:41, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
:{{re|EarlWhitehall}} The arbitration remedy allows that she {{tq|may make suggestions on talk pages if is not disruptive}} ]&nbsp;<small>]</small> 21:44, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

:{{re|GorillaWarfare}} I see. Thanks for making me aware of that.

Thanks for the input Gorilla warfare. ] (]) 22:01, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

== What follows are edits from the individuals who have an IRL grudge against Langan ==

I would like to add a personal views section with direct quotations from chris langan himself sourced to his own knowledge base website.

There appears to be confusion about his social and political views, so lets let langan settle it with his own mouth. ] (]) 23:08, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

___________________________________________________

Hi, Nigerian Chess Player. I think this is a good idea. Langan is active on social media sites, and many of the views he expresses online are highly controversial. I think it's important that people reading Langan's Wiki page be made aware of these views. ] (]) 23:58, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

___________________________________________________

Calling them high controversial is an understatement but lest I be accused of bias, lets put them up on the article and let the readers and the arbitration committee judge for themselves.

This article is outdated , since 2017 Me langan has been very active on social media and lots have happened since. It is my wish to make the readers of this wiki aware of these changes. ] (]) 23:45, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

____________________________________________________

Apparently, Christopher Langan doesn't shy away from venting his eugenicis ideas in his Facebook group. Of course that he and his followers will always play semantic games and point to the different shades of grey that may exist (only in their minds) between eugenics and "anti-dysgenics". By simply following the discussions there, one can easily see that, either way, they pontificate, according to their own white supremacist views, what are the unwanted characteristics their ideal program should get rid of.

Regarding the CTMU, it doesn't even worth mention because, it's unoriginal- being a rip off of Eastern Spirituality and Philosophy, Wheeler's PAP, Charles Peirce's Triadic Model, Kashmir Shaivism and many others. It's intentionally obscure, 100% self-referential, thus defining truth within itself. Any attempt to rational criticism would be tantamount to a dog chasing its own tail.

The reason I think this Misplaced Pages page should be edited is that many inaccurate claims are being made, the sources are questionable, serving as a marketing tool for the individual in question.

Thank you.

] (]) 23:50, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

Well, I could also share a source where Mr. Langan expresses his support of anti-dysgenics, and where he says he doesn't advocate for eugenics. But anyhow, even if we decide to use the word "eugenics", there seems to be a certain emotional baggage, the one which makes people immediately picture the worst, e.g. Hitler (a few posts above). But the word itself is older and entered the English language in 1883. Anyhow, in a world where overpopulation has become a problem, advocating self-restraint and rational procreation isn't a bad thing. Mich.Szczesny 11:53, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

"Well, I could also share a source where Mr. Langan expresses his support of anti-dysgenics, and where he says he doesn't advocate for eugenics.".

For every link you share with such statements, I have at least other two where Langan himself advocates eugenics (let's not play semantic games, ok?).

"Anyhow, in a world where overpopulation has become a problem, advocating self-restraint and rational procreation isn't a bad thing.".

Rational procreation as long as they aren't "low IQ" latinos, arabs or blacks, right?

Give me a break. ] (]) 14:27, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

If wiki allows Langan’s own quotes, the matter is settled. Langan openly advocated for armed rebellion and violence against European politicians and governments for being “too soft” on immigration, not to mention inciting violence against what he deems to be “criminal immigrants” . ] (]) 00:27, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

== Semi-protected edit request on 24 February 2020 ==

{{edit semi-protected|Christopher Langan|answered=yes}}
change 'The CTMU was criticized by mathematician Mark Chu Carroll' to 'The CTMU was criticized by software engineer Mark Chu Carroll' ] (]) 05:18, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

Markchu carrol is a computer scientist and a software engineer which involved lots of mathematics .

If Dr Mark Chu is not a mathematician neither is Langan a philosopher. ] (]) 15:46, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

:I have made the change, as Chu-Carroll describes himself as a computer scientist in his about page: . If there is a source that describes him as a mathematician we could amend it to "computer scientist and mathematician". ]&nbsp;<small>]</small> 01:08, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

I think I can agree with that, thank you Gorrrilawarfare. ] (]) 00:28, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

== Reverting to a neutral version per WP:BLP ==
While discussions of the new content is being debated and before we reach a consensus as of what to include, I am reverting back to a neutral version per WP:BLP. ] (]) 11:14, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

:"Langan's IQ has been estimated by various sources to be between 195 and 210"

:This is not true. What sources? Even inside the High IQ community these claims are taken to be veey exaggerated. There isn't a single reliable test that give such score interval while maintaining a modicum of accuracy and reliability.

: ] (]) 12:45, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

::Its an outdated version skewed by langan himself and his lackeys to present him in a positive light .
::zenmechanics is correct , there is no such thing as a recognized IQ above 160. ] (]) 15:44, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

:::Well, one of such sources, for example, would be the Omni magazine, April 1990 (the Mega Test comment). Anyway, Mr. Langan has a very reasonable approach to the whole issue, please feel free to go through some of his Quora answers.

:::Mich.Szczesny 12:05, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

::::langan was banned from Quora for repeatedly violating BNBR policy. With the last straw being a post where he compares Gorrilas to Somalis and claims gorrilas to be more intelligent with a lesser crime rate, then asks for Europeans to admit them as refugees.

::::You consider that a rational approach? ] (]) 00:35, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

:::::I agree with Mich.Szczesny. There are multiple new sources pointing to Langan's 195 - 210 IQ, and reliable and third party sources should not be disregarded on Misplaced Pages. Regarding his post on gorillas, if you read carefully between the lines, you will see that the post was really a tongue in cheek approach to the trolls on Quora. ] (]) 02:45, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

::::::{{re|221.124.51.249}} Misplaced Pages doesn't do "reading between the lines". We simply report what is contained in reliable, third party sources. ] (]) 07:58, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

The sources pointing to Langan’s IQ aren’t reliable sources, they are all commercial magazines. Do you have a respectable scientific publication mentioning his IQ?

Regarding his Koko the Gorrila being somehow a tongue in cheek against “trolls”, seriously? Do I even need to respond here? ] (]) 12:24, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
:{{re|Nigerian chess player}} Those commercial magazines are ] as Misplaced Pages policy defines them. Academic sources would be preferable, but the magazines are acceptable. ]&nbsp;<small>]</small> 17:57, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

== Inaccurate part of article needs removing , langan didnt publish “many books and articles over the years” ==

Langan’s book hasnt been published since he appeared in 1989, this is almost 31 years. The only “book” he published is a collection of essays half of which were already in the public domain called “art of knowing” .

Parts about his recent exploits need to clarify that the journal is not scientific and has an impact rating lower than 1 . ] (]) 15:41, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

________________________________________________________

:I agree with Nigerian Chess Player. Here is what an Amazon search for Langan's name returns:
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=chris+langan&ref=nb_sb_noss_2
:Langan's "book", The Art of Knowing, is simply a collection of essays. The other two "books" he has published are (1) a collection of his social media posts, and (2) a 36-page paper that he published in the discredited Cosmos & :History journal, which is available for free online: http://www.cosmosandhistory.org/index.php/journal/article/view/788 ] (]) 19:31, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

________________________________________________________

::Agreed, except the last two is a fan collected material and the other a paper not a book.

::So this leaves that one book which is a collection of essays .

::Anyone disagrees ? ] (]) 20:22, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

:::The books have been published on Amazon and assigned ISBN numbers; additionally, the text there included had been re-organised and typeset to meet the book standards. So, by any reasonable measure those two publications are books. Mich.Szczesny 11:50, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

::::Fair enough but the statement “many books over the years” when is still inaccurate. 1 or 2 short booklets in 31 years is hardly “many books over the years” , esp insofar as Langan has not published his long awaited book on his theory until today. ] (]) 00:19, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

:::::Mich.Szczesny is correct. Books published on Amazon have to be considered books. There are actually 3 books on amazon that Langan published, but since this is under the 'Intellectual Pursuit' section, we should mention his other writings. I would say we change it from “many books over the years” to "multiple papers, books, and articles over the years" ] (]) 02:57, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

:::::{{re|Johnnyyliu}} That sounds fine. But please stop including Goertzel's review of the CTMU as an endorsement of Langan's work. I have checked the source, and Goertzel criticizes the CTMU quite heavily, arguing that it does not establish proof for the existence of a godlike entity. He both praises and criticizes the theory, so you are misrepresenting him by mentioning only his positive remarks. ] (]) 08:05, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

::::: '''Update''': Since there ware no references provided for the claim that Langan has published "papers, books and articles over the years", I have removed this claim from the page. ] (]) 01:44, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

Multiple, sounds fine to me. But there is no reliable third party sources that mention he has published “multiple books and articles over the years” , is there? ] (]) 12:21, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

{{re|GorillaWarfare}}I see that you have removed the paragraph saying there aren't third party sources. I did reference the peer reviewed academic journal "Cosmos & History" Langan published with, does it not count as a third party source? ] (]) 17:39, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
:{{re|Johnnyyiu}} Correct. Linking directly to the publication ''verifies'' that it was published in the journal, as claimed. But without a third-party reliable source discussing the fact that he published an article in ''C&H'', there's no indication it's relevant to mention in the WP article. ]&nbsp;<small>]</small> 17:59, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

== Eugenics claim ==

I have removed the following underlined content:

{{quote|<u>In an essay for the Mega Society’s journal “Noesis”, Langan – writing under the pseudonym Eric Hart – argued in favor of implementing a worldwide eugenics program to increase the overall intelligence of the human race.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://megasociety.org/noesis/41/people.html|title=On the Differences between People, Birds, and Bees}}</ref> He also argued for eugenics in an interview with Errol Morris.<ref name="MORRIS">Morris, Errol. (August 14, 2001). . ''First Person''.</ref> Because of his strong views on eugenics, race realism, and what he perceives as the deliberate replacement and genocide of the white race by Third World immigrants,</u> Langan has amassed a following among members of the alt-right.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://forward.com/news/breaking-news/421234/christopher-langan-alt-right/|title=The Man With The World’s Highest IQ, Christopher Langan, Is Gaining A Following On The Far Right|date=2019-03-20}}</ref>}}

{{reftalk}}

I have no idea if Langan supports eugenics or not, but any claims that he does so '''must''' be sourced to a ''third-party'', reliable source. It's not acceptable to read an essay and interview by Langan, interpret from it that he supports eugenics, and then claim as much in the article—that is ]. Furthermore, while the ''Forward'' article says that Langan has a following among the alt-right, it does not say the reason for it is any of those described. ]&nbsp;<small>]</small> 01:03, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

:{{re|GorillaWarfare}} The article already contains a reference to Langan's Errol Morris interview, in which the man himself explicitly endorses eugenics. He says, and I quote, "That would enable us to solve our population problem right off the bat, and enable us to practice a benign form of eugenics." See for yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QA0gjyXG5O0

:If the words of Langan himself are not evidence enough, what is? Even if it cannot be shown that Langan's support of eugenics is the reason for his following among members of the alt-right, the fact that he is an open proponent of forced sterilization ought to be included on his Wiki page, don't you think? ] (]) 01:28, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

::As I have said, what would be enough would be a ], ] source saying that Langan supports eugenics. The same goes for any claims he supports forced sterilization. ]&nbsp;<small>]</small> 01:30, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

:{{re|GorillaWarfare}} So the words of the man himself don't count for anything? I have to find some random journalist who can confirm that he did in fact say those words? That's absurd, but whatever. ] (]) 01:33, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
::We need a reliable third party to infer from what he is saying that he is supporting eugenics. If it is as obvious as you say, it should not be hard to find. ]&nbsp;<small>]</small> 01:38, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

:{{re|GorillaWarfare}} Actually, it's extremely hard, because very few people have ever bothered to discuss the man or his views. But how's this instead? The Baffler article by Justin Ward states the following: "The denizens of /pol/ grant Langan the honorary title of 'based' for his screeds against miscegenation and the 'dysgenic' effects of the welfare state." Here we have a reliable third party source confirming Langan's opposition to miscegenation. So, will you at least edit the page to state that he has spoken out against racial interbreeding? Thanks. ] (]) 01:44, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
::If very few people have bothered to discuss the man or his views, then Misplaced Pages should not be the place where they are first discussed. Misplaced Pages is meant to repeat information available from other sources, not act as its own source. As for the ''Baffler'' stuff, that does look like it can be added. Give me a moment to read that source entirely—it looks like it may be useable for some of the additional claims surrounding why he has amassed a following in the alt-right. ]&nbsp;<small>]</small> 01:53, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
:::I've made . ]&nbsp;<small>]</small> 02:18, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

:{{re|GorillaWarfare}} Can't fault your changes. It's a big improvement over the original. Thanks for your time. ] (]) 02:25, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
::Great, I'm happy we could come to some sort of agreeable solution. ]&nbsp;<small>]</small> 03:07, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

Langan himself supports eugenics, there is multiple quotes to that effect all with sources. ] (]) 04:05, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

The article contains unscientific views like an IQ of 195-210 which is impossible because valid IQ tests are capped at 160 anyways.

Yet the article gives the impression that such a thing is not only possible but that this man has somehow achieved it . ] (]) 04:09, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
:{{re|Nigerian chess player}} If you have reliable, third-party sources that verify that Langan supports eugenics and/or that IQs that high are not possible or valid, please present them. As I've told EarlWhitehall, quotes from Langan alone are not sufficient to make a claim like that. ]&nbsp;<small>]</small> 04:39, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

::GW is right. On WP, ] applies. I found a newsarticle that mentions both Langan and eugenics , but it doesn't help the argument for inclusion. I note that even ] only mention it in passing, so this angle doesn't seem to have much coverage. ] (]) 09:04, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

Well then we can include the quotes of langan himself, just as there are quotes from him on the page already.

If I am reading you correctly, you’re saying it is fine to include his quotes but we can’t interpret them in our words. If that’s the case, no problem , include the quotes then.

Thanks ] (]) 00:16, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
:Direct quotations are not meant to be used to circumvent the fact that there are no reliable, third party sources that can support a claim about a BLP. Per ] and ], Misplaced Pages articles don't just include every single piece of information that is possible to verify—you need to be able to make a convincing case for the inclusion of a quote. Without third party, reliable sources, I don't think that's likely to be possible. ]&nbsp;<small>]</small> 02:12, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

There are multiple reliable 3rd party sources in addition to Langan’s own statements on Eroll Morris interview and mega society as Eric Hart (pen name), they are the following:

1-https://rationalwiki.org/Christopher_Langan#Eugenics

2-http://greyenlightenment.com/worlds-smartest-man-supports-eugenics/

3-https://peoplepill.com/people/christopher-langan/

4-Langan’s own Mega foundation book interview of Arthur Jensen question 25 http://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/wp-content/uploads/Discussions%20of%20Genius%20-%20Interview%20with%20Arthur%20Jensen.pdf#page85

5- https://onemansblog.com/2007/11/06/smartest-man-in-the-world-has-diarrhea-of-the-mouth/

2- ] (]) 13:28, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
:{{re|Nigerian chess player}} ''Please'' review ], a policy that has been linked ''many'' times over in discussions here. RationalWiki is not a reliable source, per ]. The ''PeoplePill'' content pulls directly from Misplaced Pages—first of all, Misplaced Pages is not considered a reliable source by Misplaced Pages (again, see ]), nor can we cite the Christopher Langan article to support claims in the Christopher Langan article (see ]). ''Grey Enlightenment'' does not appear to meet the requirements at ]. Regarding #4, an interview with Langan is not a third-party source. Regarding ''OneMansBlog'', see ]. None of these sources are usable because none of them are "reliable third party sources" as you claim them to be. ]&nbsp;<small>]</small> 18:07, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

== Controversy section ==

Is the sourcing in the "controversy" section really good enough to present these statements in Misplaced Pages's own voice, rather than attributing them to individuals? ] (]) 10:53, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

:{{re|Jonathan A Jones}} Yes. ''The Baffler'' is a credible source of information. ] (]) 13:45, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

::For it's own views perhaps. You need more than that to make such statements in Misplaced Pages's own voice. ] (]) 13:56, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

:{{re|Jonathan A Jones}} If you don't think that ''The Baffler'' is a reliable third party source, please provide a reliable third party source to back up that view. Thank you. ] (]) 14:44, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

:Also, almost everything else on Langan's page is written in Misplaced Pages's own voice, including the contentious claim that he taught himself advanced maths and physics in high school. The source for this claim is ''Esquire''. Why is this a more credible source than ''The Baffler''? It is suspicious that you are ignoring this and only suggesting that the "Controversy" section be changed. Smells like bias to me. ] (]) 14:59, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

I am happy to stipulate that the Baffler is a reliable source for the views of Justin Ward. You might want to read ] if you intent a long career on Misplaced Pages editing biographies, as it will help you understand proper sourcing. But given your edit history I suspect that you are and are likely to remain a ]. Any relation with the other two recents SPAs that you would like to declare at this point? ] (]) 15:17, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

:{{re|Jonathan A Jones}} Okay, I'm reading it. Hmm... I don't see anything suggesting that ''The Baffler'' is not a credible source of information. Tell me why you think it is less credible than ''Esquire'' or ''20/20''.

By the way, I am not the one who edited Langan's page. It was GorillaWarfare (a notable Misplaced Pages contributor), and she evidently deemed ''The Baffler'' to be a reliable enough source to use Misplaced Pages's own voice. ] (]) 15:25, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

I agree that ''The Baffler'' is sufficiently reliable. I did want to bring up a point here, though -- I don't think the new "Controversy" section is appropriately titled. The views described in it are certainly ''controversial'', but there isn't actually any controversy described there. I wonder if we could find a better section heading? Though I'm having trouble thinking of a good name. ]&nbsp;<small>]</small> 18:15, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

:{{re|GorillaWarfare}} Since the "Controversy" section is all about his racist views and growing support among the alt-right, perhaps it could be re-named "Racist Views" or "Links to the Alt-Right". ] (]) 00:00, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

I suggest it be called “controversial views” rather than controversy. ] (]) 00:15, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

:{{re|Nigerian chess player}} That works too. In fact, now that I think about it, "Racist Views" would probably draw further objections from Langan's wife and supporters, so better to use "Controversial Views" instead. ] (]) 00:30, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

Agreed. We can short circuit disagreement that way. ] (]) 00:53, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

:That seems like an improvement to me. I've made the suggested change. ]&nbsp;<small>]</small> 01:18, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, this seems reasonable. ] (]) 12:29, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

== ALERT ==
This article that was edited by two individuals that know my husband IRL and have personal grudges, need to be reverted to the last neutral version (Johnnyyiu) who reverted the vandalism by these two.

I would like to point out that the article now disproportionally weights the content of facebook quotes over any of Chris's scholarly writing. Is this what the norm is on wikipedia now; analysis of the social media postings of its biographical subjects? That's just what is going on here. I suggest that entire baffler nonsense be removed.

And categorized as an Intellectual Pursuit? Now that is a bit silly. That entire paragraph is biased and per WP:BLP should be reverted while it is reworked. Pls refer to my complaint at BLPN. Thanks in advance. ] (]) 10:55, 26 February 2020 (UTC)


:{{re|DrL}} Hi . If you are referring to me, I would like to assure you that I have no personal grudge against your husband. I first heard of him about a week ago, and have never communicated with him personally. Furthermore, it was GorillaWarfare – a trusted and respected Misplaced Pages contributor – who is responsible for the latest edit of Langan's page. In my opinion, she did a wonderful job, making sure that the information was accurate and able to be verified by reliable third party sources. ''The Baffler'' is a reputable journal, so we have no reason to doubt the veracity of Justin Ward's article.

:Also, Langan's "scholarly" work (please provide a reliable third party source to verify that his work meets scholarly standards) is not what gained him public recognition. He first gained attention for being a barroom bouncer with a high IQ, and these days he is known for his outrageous social media rants and growing popularity among members of the alt-right.

:Warm regards, ] (]) 13:58, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

:{{re|DrL}} Misplaced Pages articles reflect how subjects are discussed in ], ]. If those sources spend more time discussing his Facebook posts than his scholarly work, so should we. If we have missed reliable sources that do discuss his scholarly works, please present them and the can potentially be added as well. ]&nbsp;<small>]</small> 18:13, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

I propose another edit: "Langan's *alleged* high IQ". ] (]) 14:31, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
:There is no reason to use "alleged" unless there are reliable sources questioning Langan's IQ being high, which I have not seen. ]&nbsp;<small>]</small> 18:13, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

::{{reply to|ZenMechanics}} Again, there are multiple reliable sources pointing to Langan's high IQ. If your proposals do not have strong backing evidence, they are clearly obstructive to the development of a neutral article per WP:BLP. ] (]) 03:16, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

For further information on the validity of the Mega Test, please take a look at the analysis made by Dr. Roger Carlson on the statistics of the Mega Test.


While Langan's performance isn't being questioned, the construct validity of the test per see isn't free from criticism. Ok, some may view it as collection of puzzles that holds similarity with culture loaded IQ tests but the fact is that it isn't approved as an IQ test per see. Also, no psychometric tool, high range or not, can accurately measure scores above a certain threshold. Super high scores are given as extrapolations.

] (]) 04:02, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

For some reason, I can't post the link here. ] (]) 04:03, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

:Irrelevant. The topic of discussion here is whether there are reliable, third-party sources pointing to Langan's IQ, and indeed there are. So per ], adding the word "alleged" is unnecessary. ] (]) 05:35, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

:{{reply to|Johnyliu}} I think Langan's page should mention the fact that IQ tests alone cannot be used as an accurate measure of intelligence. This is the consensus among psychologists and neuroscientists, and here is a reliable third party source to back this up: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/iq-tests-are-fundamentally-flawed-and-using-them-alone-to-measure-intelligence-is-a-fallacy-study-8425911.html

Since Langan's title of "world's smartest man" is based solely on his IQ test results, and IQ tests alone cannot be used to accurately measure intelligence, it follows that Langan's title is disputable.

I think this fact needs to be included in Langan's article. Who agrees? ] (]) 06:08, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

*Please ]. ] (]) 06:25, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

:{{reply to|EarlWhitehall}} I found opposing evidence saying IQ is a fair measure of intelligence on these articles: ], ], and ]. In fact, there is a multitude of theories on intelligence and I don't think the discussion should appear on Langan's page. Rather, you may consider editing the ] and ] articles. ] (]) 07:08, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

:{{reply to|Johnnyylui}} The discredited opinions of alleged racists does not constitute opposing evidence. Here is a second reliable, third party, multi-award-winning source to back up the claim that IQ tests are fundamentally flawed: https://www.popsci.com/why-iq-is-flawed/ Now, where are ''your'' sources?

I am not asking to include an in-depth discussion on intelligence and IQ. I simply think the reader should be made aware, by means of a single sentence, that the vast majority of scientists do not consider IQ tests to be an accurate measure of intelligence. Not including this information gives the false impression that Langan's title of "world's smartest man" is indisputable. ] (]) 07:24, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

::{{reply to|EarlWhitehall}} What you claimed, that "the vast majority of scientists do not consider IQ tests to be an accurate measure of intelligence" is as controversial, if not more, than the validity of IQ tests per se. If you actually look at the articles I provided, you would easily find sources pointing to the relevant research, for example, this one: https://psyarxiv.com/uv673/ . Spearman's statistically robust results, aka ''my source'', cannot be automatically disproved and labelled as "discredited opinions" by ''your source'', which was written by "Sara Chodosh", an "assistant editor + occasional graphics producer @popsci | aspiring gardener" (according to her Twitter), whose claims are not backed by any citation to any notable research. So per ], controversial descriptions should be avoided and it follows that what you proposed is inappropriate under the current context. ] (]) 08:11, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

::{{reply to|Johnnyyliu}} Sorry that I didn't look at your source. I was too busy looking at all these mainstream sources that suggest IQ tests are not a reliable way to measure intelligence:

::https://www.wired.co.uk/article/raise-your-iq-instantly
::https://blog.sciencemuseum.org.uk/biggest-intelligence-test-exposes-the-limits-of-iq/
::https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/12/121219133334.htm
::http://trendintech.com/2016/07/28/scientists-prove-traditional-iq-tests-useless/
::https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/9755929/IQ-tests-do-not-reflect-intelligence.html
::https://simplyphilosophy.org/study/the-uselessness-of-iq-tests/

::If the articles themselves don't include links to the studies, look them up yourself. ] (]) 08:46, 27 February 2020 (UTC)


It's quite shocking when someone says that the construct validity of a test "irrelevant" in this case. It's even more shocking because the result on this particular test was the only reason that made Langan famous.

How can it he irrelevant, as the Mega Test IS NOT an IQ tests, therefore unable to give such score, even if it was possible? ] (]) 09:21, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

I disagree , none of the magazines and journals are reliable to post about IQ because it is simply not a matter of simple opinion. I agree with Zen, all the sources point to

1- the mega test, which isn’t a verified standardized test, and has been criticized by qualified psychometricians as Zen has already posted evidence to.

Btw, Langan’s first attempt at this test was 42 out of 48, which corresponds In Ro. Hoeflin’s schema to a score in the 170s. Langan took the test a second time under the pseudonym Eric Hart and got 47, this is the score that the media has picked up on.

But in any case the test is not a real standardized test as Zen has posted.

And 2- http://web.archive.org/web/20030811145631/http://www.abcnews.go.com/onair/2020/transcripts/2020_991209_iq_trans.html ABCs 20/20 with a psychologist Dr Bob Novelly. Novelly claims that Langan scored in the 190s-200s range and that he was the highest he ever measures in 25 years. Problem? Bob Novelly is not a psychometrician, its not his expertise to begin with. https://healthprovidersdata.com/hipaa/codes/NPI-1861609083-dr-robert-a-novelly-phd , this shows his expertise to be in clinical psychology, particularly mental and behavioral health, with a special focus on psychopathology. No mention of psychometrics or IQ tests.

On top of that he has multiple disciplinary actions on his psychology license. One which resulted in a probation of 3 years and a penalty of 3000 $, and another which resulted in probation.

To sum up Dr Novelly specialized in clinical psychology, mental/behavioral health and not psychometrics and he has had 2 disciplinary actions taken on his license.

So I’m afraid that neither the Mega test nor Dr Bob Novelly is going to verify Langan’s 190+ IQ.


Thanks for your attention. ] (]) 15:54, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
:Again: are there reliable, third-party sources that connect concerns over Dr. Novelly's credentials with the accuracy of Langan's IQ test? Or is this just your own ]? ]&nbsp;<small>]</small> 18:09, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

== Do not remove the cited review by Ben Goertzel ==

{{reply to|EarlWhitehall}} The review by Ben Goertzel is well-cited. Please do not remove it without a valid reason. ] (]) 08:27, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

{{reply to|Johnnyyliu}} By all means, include Goertzel's review. But make sure to point out that he not only praised the CTMU, but argued that it failed in its central purpose of proving the existence of a god-like being. ] (]) 08:39, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

{{reply to|Johnnyyliu}} Never mind. I added it for you. ] (]) 09:07, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

:The Goertzel article is published on Blogger, a blogging platform. He doesn't appear to be an expert on the topic he's writing about, and his blog appears to simply be a personal website (unlike Chu-Carroll's, which was hosted on what was then a significant blog network). How does it meet our standards for ], especially on an article about a ]? ] (]) 20:46, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

:{{reply to|Guettarda}} Goertzel has a PhD in mathematics. The CTMU is supposedly a mathematical proof of God. I would say this makes Goertzel more of an expert on the CTMU than Langan himself, who is a college dropout.

: According to Misplaced Pages rules: "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work '''in the relevant field''' has previously been published by reliable, independent publications."

: Because Goertzel is a well-respected academic who has published many mathematics papers (see his résumé here: https://goertzel.org/ben/resume.html), I submit that his blog review of the CTMU merits inclusion. ] (]) 23:46, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

::Simply having a PhD has never been considered adequate, per SPS. You need something that demonstrates that reliable sources, or at least notable ones, consider him an expert on this topic. ] (]) 03:05, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

::{{reply to|Guettarda}} The topic is mathematics, and Goertzel has taught the subject at graduate level and published numerous mathematics papers. Again, see his résumé. What more do you want? Here are some of the papers published by Goertzel in the field of mathematics:

::''Goertzel, Ben (1992). Measuring Static Complexity, Int. J. Math. and Math. Sci. 15-1, p.161''
::''Goertzel, Ben (1992). Global Optimization by Multilevel Search, J. of Optimization Theory and Applications 77-2, p. 423''
::''Goertzel, Ben, Harold Bowman and Richard Baker (1993). Dynamics of the Radix Expansion Map, J. Math. and Math. Sci. 17-1, p. 143''
::''Goertzel, Ben (1994). Simulated Annealing on Uncorrelated Fitness Landscapes, Int. J. Math. and Math. Sci. 17-4, p. 791''
::''Goertzel, Ben and Harold Bowman (1996). Walks on Random Digraphs, Applied Mathematics Letters, 9-1, pp. 43-47''
::''Goertzel, Ben (1996). Mobile Activation Bubbles in Kohonen Networks, Applied Mathematics Letters.''

::Clearly, he is considered an expert in mathematics by the journals publishing his work and the college that hired him to teach their graduate students. ] (])

::{{tq|What more do you want?}} Secondary sources that attest to his expertise ''on this topic''. As I said before, having a PhD, having published in your area of expertise, having taught grad level courses - none of that means your blog posts are good enough to use in a biography article. ] (]) 14:23, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

It appears some here want to climb the wiki ladder by competing in the pedantry olympics. Is his university not a source that verifies his expertise? And what is exactly “the topic of expertise” ? Langan’s theory features alot of computation theoretic concepts, Dr Goertzel is an AI expert, what is the controversy here again?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/people/bengoertzel/#30b85fe3f790

This is dr Goertzel on Forbes

https://www.roboglobal.com/insights/sophia-the-robot-ben-goertzel/

This is him on roboglobal, as an AI expert...etc

https://thenextweb.com/author/ben-goertzel-alexey-potapov/

Where his accolades in AI are listed.

With that said , his published work range from AI to mathematics and philosophy.

Needless to say there is no such a thing as “being an expert in Langan’s theory” ? ] (]) 15:21, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

:These aren't secondary sources, these aren't independent sources, and they do nothing to demonstrate either the notability of Goertzel's opinion on this topic, or the reliability of it as actually being Goertzel's blog. ] (]) 15:44, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

I’m sorry your writing is incomprehensible to me. ] (]) 16:41, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

:I apologise, I made the mistake Wikipedians often make of assuming too much background knowledge. I think you should start by reading ], especially the section on ]. Then read ], paying special attention to the section on ]. The ], especially the section on ]. After that, take a look at ] to get a sense of what sort of sources are considered reliable or not. Finally, and most importantly, read ], especially the section on ].
:It's really important to read these thoroughly and in context. It's important to understand how the pieces fit together. ] (]) 17:38, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
::{{reply to|Guettarda}} Agreed. I think both ] and ] should retain from writing in the style of ] ] (]) 07:47, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

no I meant you weren’t even making grammatical or coherent sense.

None of these sources are self published, are you sure you’re in the right discussion page? ] (]) 06:11, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

== Proposal for community sanctions at WP:AN ==

Please see ] and comment there if wanted (not here). ] (]) 06:12, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

I don’t see a comment space there. ] (]) 12:00, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

:? I see plenty of people commenting. ] (]) 12:08, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
::Looks like they figured it out. ]&nbsp;<small>]</small> 18:28, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

== BLP and tabloid Journalism. ==

It is clear that much of the claims this article fall under tabloid journalism, for example Muscle and Fitness magazine or a short TV segment from ABC 20/20 . These are not reliable sources with respect to the enormous claims being made in them, and they should be challenged and scrutinized carefully.

Some of the claims being made here is a verifiable IQ of 190-200, a perfect score on the SATs while sleeping, skipping grades ( while in the same Errol Morris interview Langan claims they kept him there for 12 years!!) and other bizarre claims like dropping out because he knows more than his teachers..etc

All of these claims are self reported and unprovable by any valid journalistic ethics standard.

On the other hand , the claims about his controversial views which journalists have attributed to him, can verifiably be sourced back to the individual himself. Because they are mere opinions rather than positive and sensationalist claims about his life, it should elicit a different treatment.

That’s my take on the whole thing, its one thing to say “ I have an IQ of 200 and can teach my teachers” and its another to give a political opinion about the undesirability of non-white immigrants or subscribing to the white genocide conspiracy theory.

Extraordinarily claims require extraordinary evidence , as the saying goes a man is entitled to his opinions but not to his facts. ] (]) 16:39, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
:{{re|Nigerian chess player}} There is an important distinction to be made here, which is that these claims are being properly attributed, which allows room for exactly the kind of doubt you have. Nowhere does the article say Langan has an IQ of 200, it says "Langan's IQ '''has been estimated on ABC's 20/20''' to be between 195 and 210". Nowhere does it say he scored perfectly on the SAT despite napping, it says, "'''He has claimed''' that he earned a perfect score on the SAT (pre-1995 scale) despite taking a nap during the test". Nowhere does it say he was smarter than his teachers, it says "Faced with severe financial and transportation problems, however, and '''believing that''' he could teach his professors more than they could teach him, he dropped out".

:I'm not sure I'm following your remarks relating to the controversial views—how would you like to see these claims be treated in the article? Do you have a suggested wording? ]&nbsp;<small>]</small> 18:16, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

The article has been re-edited again btw, have you reviewed these changes? ] (]) 06:06, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

The IQ score claim is not written as “claimed IQ score” but as a matter of fact. So is the skipping grades claim.

The rest I’m inclined to agree, but the article has been messed with already, by Langan sock accounts I persume. ] (]) 06:08, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

If you have an edit that you would like to make, open a section and discuss. If you have a complaint about users, this is not the place (see Nil's comments). Regarding adding "claims" to everything, remember, Misplaced Pages relies on what it considers to be RS and the entire encyclopedia is written that way. To put claim in front of everything would be a cumbersome task and make the encyclopedia look silly. I suggest you complain about the rules on a more appropriate page. ~ ] (]) 08:10, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

== Third Party Source for Removed Paragraph on QMM paper ==

This is a third-party source verifying the publication of "An Introduction to Quantum Metamechanics (QMM)": https://usiassociation.org/2020/01/13/usia-executive-vice-president-christopher-langan/

It is a third party website situated in South Korea and we have no access to it. I see other bios that simply link to papers on journal sites (e.g., Cosmos & History) so this third party site is a bonus. I have more if you need but I don't want to raise the bar over what is typically required in BLPs. This should be sufficient. Thanks in advance for replacing the paragraph. ~ ] (]) 22:02, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

:That isn't an ]. ] (]) 22:31, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

:{{ping|DrL}} Tgeorgescu has already said the source isn't independent, but I wanted to expand a little bit to address two potential misconceptions I'm seeing in your comment. Firstly, you say "we have no access to it", I think to try to point to it being independent. However, if you look at the policy you'll see that independent does not only mean "not published by the article subject" (although that is also true), but also not published by closely-affiliated groups. In this case, because the Langan is the Executive Vice President of the USIA, publication from them relating to him are not independent.

:Secondly, you mention "I see other bios that simply link to papers on journal sites". I have no doubt you have. However, we have a concept on Misplaced Pages usually referred to as ]. In a nutshell, just because you've seen something done on another Misplaced Pages article does not necessarily mean it's best practice (or even necessarily in compliance with policy). As for "raising the bar", why wouldn't you want this article to be properly sourced even if the "bar" for other articles you've seen is low? If the sourcing is out there, it would be valuable to know about it. ]&nbsp;<small>]</small> 22:47, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

Is Quora better?
https://www.quora.com/Could-someone-with-an-understanding-of-quantum-mechanics-critique-this-paper-written-by-Christopher-Langan-the-self-professed-smartest-man-in-the-world?fbclid=IwAR2JN--pmhluDhLv4IRqLqcCkaUIXv2w9KkAsdoiB0Nq90fgW21kpxqec-8

Sorry for the long url. It provides the link to Cosmos & History and contains an independent review on a reliable third-party site. Maybe we can use it present a more balanced view of Mr. Langan's work? ~ ] (]) 22:52, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
:{{re|DrL}} No, Quora is not usable, as it is ] and so not considered to be reliable. What we need is something like a newspaper or magazine article mentioning that Langan published the ''C&H'' paper. ]&nbsp;<small>]</small> 22:54, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

== WP:PC Request ==

I respectfully request that this BLP be protected under Misplaced Pages Pending Changes. It's been established that numerous SPA with a prior history with Mr. Langan have been attacking his bio for the past week. In matters concerning BLPs, Misplaced Pages Policy is to err on the side of caution. It would make sense to further protect the article until things settle down (and before certain users bans expire). Thanks in advance for your consideration. ~ ] (]) 22:39, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
:This is currently under discussion at the open thread on the administrator's noticeboard, ]. You may wish to add this comment there. ]&nbsp;<small>]</small> 22:47, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

Thank you - I will. I saw that but wasn't sure I could post there. ~ ] (]) 22:54, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
:Yep! Despite the name, non-administrators are welcome to post there to weigh in on discussions and request administrator attention. ]&nbsp;<small>]</small> 22:55, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

== Inaccuracies in this sentence violate NPOV and OR ==

I suggest the following defamatory sentence be edited from this:

"In 2018, Langan wrote an obituary on Facebook for Koko the gorilla, in which he argued that the Western world should be admitting gorillas as immigrants instead of Somalis, claiming that gorillas are more intelligent."

To this:
"In 2018, Langan wrote a satirical obituary on Facebook for Koko the gorilla, in which he argued that the Western world should be admitting gorillas as immigrants instead of Somalis. "

My rationale is that it is clearly satirical (a la Swift proposing eating children during a food shortage) and in neither article does it state that Langan asserted that gorillas are more intelligent than Somalians. Because this information is not asserted in either article, it violates WP:OR and should be immediately revised while under discussion per BLP and NPOV.

I would appreciate an admin or editor effecting this reasonable request. Thanks in advance. ~ ] (]) 18:40, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

:{{reply to|DrL}} Agreed. Further interpretations extended from its literal meaning would violate ] ] (]) 07:58, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
::I have the part that Langan wrote that gorillas should be accepted as immigrants ''instead of'' Somalis. As it was written by ] it sounded like the controversial view was that Langan thought gorillas should be citizens of the US. This should hopefully be non-controversial, as it was included in ]'s suggested wording. ]&nbsp;<small>]</small> 00:24, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
:::{{reply to|GorillaWarfare}} Thank you. I think the edit is very reasonable. ] (]) 03:39, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

== Inaccuracies in this sentence citing Baffler violates NPOV and OR ==

As it currently reads:

"Langan's views have been described as racist and antisemitic by journalist Justin Ward in The Baffler."

At no point in the article does Ward state this. This is actually what the article presents:

"In an article appearing in the Baffler, the writer describes some of Langan's posting as racist and accused him of using veiled antisemitism in some of his other posts."

The former violates NPOV and OR. The later is much more in line with the handling of such material per WP:BLP. The name of the non notable author was removed because he is not notable at all. Baffler is the RS, not him.

I respectfully request this edit in the spirit of WP:BLP and to place it more in line with policy. ~ ] (]) 19:06, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

== No reference to support claim that Langan "supports" conspiracy theories in the Forward article that is cited. ==

This unsupported sentence should be removed immediately as that is not at all what the article says:

"Langan's support of conspiracy theories, including the 9/11 Truther movement and the white genocide conspiracy theory, and his opposition to miscegenation have contributed to him amassing a following among members of the alt-right."

And frankly, of what relevance is the fact that he has alt-right followers? He's not a politician and has never belonged to any alt-right groups.

I appreciate the pending removal of this unsourced sentence. ~ ] (]) 19:33, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

:{{reply to|DrL}} Agreed, there are little relevance. In fact, I also notice some members of Langan's Facebook group are clearly left-leaning, and I don't see them being mentioned here. So yes, the sentence should be removed in any case. ] (]) 06:40, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

::{{reply to|DrL|Johnnyyiu}} Langan's alt-right followers are described by two separate reliable sources. That appears to be the focus of recent coverage of Langan (as opposed to coverage of his IQ, which was the topic of the coverage from the late 90s/early 2000s).

::Furthermore, the sentence about conspiracy theories, etc. is sourced to ''The Baffler'': {{tq|One of Langan’s more fantastical claims is that he can prove the existence of God mathematically. At times, his grandiose delusions reach epic proportions. He’s a 9/11 truther, but with a twist: not only does he believe Bush staged the terrorist attacks, he wrote that the motive was to distract the public from learning the “truth” about the CTMU. In the same post, Langan transitions seamlessly into a white genocide conspiracy theory, arguing that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq set the stage for Obama to import “fake ‘refugees’” to replace America’s white population. Posts like this one have made Langan something of a cult hero among the alt-right.}} ]&nbsp;<small>]</small> 00:03, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

== Unnecessarily biased phrasing ==

This article contains some sentences that are unnecessarily biased against Chris Langan, and which I think should be changed to reflect their speculative nature.

1. "However, Goertzel pointed out that "most of this has been said before in various ways and context" and argued that the CTMU fails in its attempt to prove the existence of God"

The suggestion that the CTMU is merely a repackaging of old ideas is not an established fact, but merely one man's opinion. The phrase "he pointed out that" makes it sound like he is making an objective observation. This sentence should be edited to read:

"However, Goertzel cautioned that "most of this has been said before in various ways and context" and argued that the CTMU fails in its attempt to prove the existence of God"

2. "Chu-Carroll criticized Langan for his poor understanding of set theory, as well as his excessive use of ill-defined neologisms."

The phrasing of this sentence makes it sound like Misplaced Pages is siding with Chu-Carroll over Langan in this dispute. Quotes should be added around "poor understanding" and "ill-defined" to maintain objectivity:

"Chu-Carroll criticized Langan for his "poor understanding" of set theory, as well as his excessive use of "ill-defined" neologisms.

3. "In 2018, Langan wrote an obituary on Facebook for Koko the gorilla, in which he argued that the Western world should be admitting gorillas as immigrants instead of Somalis, claiming that gorillas are more intelligent."

The actual text of his posts reveals that he was taking a more nuanced position than that "gorillas are more intelligent". It was at most a suggestion.

Proof from the post:

""

"Obviously, this raises a question: Why is Western Civilization not admitting gorillas? They too are from Africa, and probably have a group mean IQ at least equal to that of Somalia."

I propose that "claiming that gorillas are more intelligent" be changed to "suggesting that gorillas may on average be more intelligent". <!-- Template:Unsigned --><small class="autosigned">—&nbsp;Preceding ] comment added by ] (] • ]) 19:44, 1 March 2020 (UTC)</small> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->
*I do not know about your first two suggestions but this last one violates WP:OR as Langan never stated that "gorillas on average are more intelligent" than Somalians or any other humans - your speculation violates WP:OR - I suggest that you take a break and review the rules before you make suggestions in the future. TIA ~ ] (]) 21:27, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

== An IQ Test vs. Multiple IQ Tests ==

Suggest "multiple IQ Tests" because the 20/20 piece shows and discusses board certified neuropsychologist Dr. Novelly administering a neuropsychological test battery to Mr. Langan. He certainly wasn't administering the Mega Test, because Langan took that years before. Multiple = more than one. The tests do not have to be named in order to be enumerated. I happen to know that he was given at least 5 tests that day but that would be OR so let's just stick with the facts as presented: multiple. ~ ] (]) 06:06, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

:1)Which five tests were that? How were they normed?
2) You've questioned Justin Ward's credentials but I don't see Dr. Novelly's credentials nor notability;

No one is questioning Langan's smartness, what is being questioned is that is highly exaggerated

] (]) 09:47, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

::The names or normings of the tests are not relevant and cannot be introduced per WP:OR that's just the way it is on Misplaced Pages. If you read any of his papers, for example his four in Cosmos & History, you would not feel that his IQ has been exaggerated. I would recommend "Metareligion as the Human Singularity" as being particularly accessible. ~ ] (]) 10:40, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

:::I won't discuss his papers here, as it's not the proper place, but he and you are welcome to discuss this and his last paper at Math or Physics Stack Exchange, I'll be waiting for you inputs. Here the discussion is irrelevant. Regarding multiple IQ tests, yes, claiming a certain IQ score raises questions about norming, sample size, reliability, construct validity, so on and so forth. Remember, the article is being vandalized again in order to a certain narrative but I'm sure Misplaced Pages's admins will take care of it. Thank you. ] (]) 11:08, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
::::High-end testing happens to be my field. I have been studying and researching high-end assessment for more than 20 years (starting with the Prometheus Society Membership Committee report, which you obviously haven't read) and was recently awarded a grant to develop such a protocol that could be administered at a distance. Having taught research design at the graduate level for more than 20 years, I know all about reliability, validity, norming, etc. You and ] know little of what you speak. This matters not, however. Misplaced Pages is not the place for OR. They simply report what is said by others. That is the way the site works, for better or worse. ~ ] (]) 11:00, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

::::: Alright. Your credentials are not in question here, just like my credentials are also not in question. The mysterious "multiple" tests mentioned in the article are. I've heard about High Range IQ tests and, although they're not the object of my interest, I don't see how mentioning any society could validate the claims made in the article.

Best regards.

] (]) 11:56, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

== ALERT Possible SPA ==

Please note the contributions of user "ZenMechanic" here: https://en.wikipedia.org/Special:Contributions/ZenMechanics

This newly created account is only editing the Langan bio in a negative way. Can and admin block this user from editing the page? TIA ] (]) 07:51, 2 March 2020 (UTC)


Known for: High IQ
:The changes I've made were minor and properly described. They were in no way "negative", disruptive or disrespectful. On the contrary of what I did, Johnnyyiu and MakeaWay vandalized the article again, against what was decided by the Misplaced Pages administrators.
] (]) 09:59, 2 March 2020 (UTC)


into
::By your user contributions, it is easy to see that you have only come to Misplaced Pages because you are upset that Langan gets more attention than you feel he deserves. This really speaks to a particular issue that you have with Langan, with whom you have likely had some interaction with in the high IQ community or are otherwise fixated. The admins are on alert so start editing some other articles and then maybe they will believe that you are not simply a Langanphobe. ~ ] (]) 10:30, 2 March 2020 (UTC)


Known for: Claiming to have a high IQ
:::Nothing could be farthest from the truth. I don't have anything against Langan and, as I've already explained before, some discussions in Quora, from where Langan was banned, called my attention. Again, I'm discussing the technical aspects of the article, that was vandalized again to serve as a marketing tool that is totally unjustified.
As for my account, I've had to open it, I've used to contribute here a long time ago, sometimes anonymously ("Frank Wilczek", "Samael, the Archangel", "String Theory" and some other articles). Always being respectful and changes made being minor and cogent.


There is no evidence of his high IQ _whatsoever_. He claims it himself and some uncritical journalists copied his claim. No records of extraordinary IQ. ] (]) 23:18, 16 November 2024 (UTC)
Thank you.


:agreed, there is no reliable iq test that goes beyond 160, so that alone is reason enough to doubt his purported 195 - 210 iq ] (]) 18:49, 17 November 2024 (UTC)
] (]) 10:57, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
::Just arrived at this page today, brought by an edit on a page I watch. I am surprised we have this IQ claim in here, because it is fairly well recognised that IQ scores in the 200 range were only possible when children were given IQ tests that included an age adjustment, as for ]. That doesn't seem to be the case here. I do not know this subject, but my first look at this makes me think this is largely a self publicist and I am not clear what the actual claim to notability is. In any case, a secondary source should be found to support the IQ claim. I'll need to do a fair bit of reading before making any changes, but there does seem to be work to do here. ] (]) 18:56, 17 November 2024 (UTC)
:::OK here is what I have found. It seems clear that the principal verifiable claim to a high IQ store is for the Mega Society's mega test.. This is referenced in a book I have added to the Bibliography.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Livermore |first1=Shawn |title=Average Joe: Be the Silicon Valley Tech Genius |date=29 September 2020 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |isbn=978-1-119-61887-4 |url=https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Average_Joe/DIT4DwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22Christopher+Langan%22+-wikipedia&pg=PA38&printsec=frontcover |language=en}}</ref>{{pb}}However, what is unverified at this point, but seems possible, is that he took an earlier test as a child, thus leading to his taking the Mega Test. That is mere speculation on my part, as there are no claims to it. All actual claims to a verified test are to Hoeflin's mega test. Which gives a number but has a fairly massive problem. The mega test really doesn't tell us anything about those who ace it, except that they are good at the mega test. On the ] page we have this:{{tqb|The second test reported by Guinness was ] Mega Test, taken in the mid-1980s. The Mega Test yields IQ standard scores obtained by multiplying the subject's normalized ], or the rarity of the ], by a constant ] and adding the ] to 100, with Savant's raw score reported by Hoeflin to be 46 out of a possible 48, with a 5.4 z-score, and a standard deviation of 16, arriving at a 186 IQ. The Mega Test has been criticized by professional psychologists as improperly designed and scored, "nothing short of number pulverization".<ref>{{cite book |first=Roger D. |last=Carlson | editor-first=Daniel J. |editor-last=Keyser |editor2-first=Richard C. |editor2-last=Sweetland | title=Test Critiques |edition=Volume VIII |publisher =PRO-ED | pages=431–435 | isbn=0-89079-254-2|year=1991 |quote=Although the approach that Hoeflin takes is interesting, it violates good psychometric principles by overinterpreting the weak data of a self-selected sample.}}</ref>}} And on ] page we say; {{tqb|No professionally designed and validated IQ test claims to distinguish test-takers at the one-in-a-million level of rarity of score. The standard score range of the ] IQ test is 40 to 160.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.riverpub.com/products/sb5/scoring.html | title = Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales (SB5), Fifth Edition | access-date = 2006-07-25 | last = Roid | first = Gale H. | year = 2006 | publisher = The Riverside Publishing Company }}</ref> The standard scores on most other currently normed IQ tests fall in the same range. A score of 160 corresponds to a rarity of about 1 person in 31,560 (leaving aside error of measurement common to all IQ tests), which falls short of the Mega Society's 1 in a million requirement.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hunt |first=Earl |title=Human Intelligence |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge |isbn=978-0-521-70781-7 |year=2011 |page=8 }}</ref> IQ scores above this level have been criticized as being dubious as there are insufficient normative cases upon which to base a statistically justified rank-ordering.<ref name="Perleth Schatz Mönks page 301">{{cite book |last1=Perleth |first1=Christoph |last2=Schatz |first2=Tanja |last3=Mönks |first3=Franz J. |title=International Handbook of Giftedness and Talent |editor1-last=Heller |editor1-first=Kurt A. |editor2-last=Mönks |editor2-first=Franz J. |editor3-last=Sternberg |editor3-first=Robert J. |display-editors = 3 |editor4-last=Subotnik |editor4-first=Rena F. |editor3-link=Robert Sternberg |edition=2nd |year=2000 |publisher=Pergamon |location=Amsterdam |isbn=978-0-08-043796-5 |page=301 |chapter=Early Identification of High Ability |quote=norm tables that provide you with such extreme values are constructed on the basis of random extrapolation and smoothing but not on the basis of empirical data of representative samples.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Urbina |first=Susana |title=The Cambridge Handbook of Intelligence |editor1-last=Sternberg |editor1-first=Robert J. |editor1-link=Robert Sternberg |editor2-last=Kaufman |editor2-first=Scott Barry |year=2011 |chapter=Chapter 2: Tests of Intelligence |pages=20–38 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge |isbn=9780521739115 |quote= is just one of the reasons to be suspicious of reported IQ scores much higher than 160 }}</ref> Very high or very low IQ scores are less reliable than IQ scores nearer to the population median.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Identification: The Theory and Practice of Identifying Students for Gifted and Talented Education Services |last1=Lohman |first1=David F. |last2=Foley Nicpon |first2=Megan |editor-last=Hunsaker |editor-first=Scott |chapter=Chapter 12: Ability Testing & Talent Identification |pages=287–386 |chapter-url=https://faculty.education.uiowa.edu/docs/default-source/dlohman/ability-testing-and-talent-identification.pdf?sfvrsn=0 |year=2012 |publisher=Prufrock |location=Waco (TX) |isbn=978-1-931280-17-4 |quote=The concerns associated with SEMs are actually substantially worse for scores at the extremes of the distribution, especially when scores approach the maximum possible on a test ... when students answer most of the items correctly. In these cases, errors of measurement for scale scores will increase substantially at the extremes of the distribution. Commonly the SEM is from two to four times larger for very high scores than for scores near the mean (Lord, 1980).}}</ref>}}So what to do? Langan ''is'' known for being a high IQ individual, even if the detail is rather spurious. It is not just a claim. There seems to be a verifiable but debatable number. I think the answer is not to change the "known for" on the page, but this detail needs to go into the article. Thus {{notdone}}, sorry. I will, however, edit the article soon (unless someone else does first).
:::] (]) 23:44, 17 November 2024 (UTC)
::::What about: "Known for: High self-reported IQ"? ] (]) 03:18, 18 November 2024 (UTC)
:::::He is known for high IQ. The high score (on a problematic test) is verifiable. It is not just self reported. <s>As he is a founder of the Mega Society, there is an independence issue mind.</s> ] (]) 08:11, 18 November 2024 (UTC)
::::::Strike "he is is founder of Mega Society". He is, in fact, founder of "Mega Foundation", and seems to have lost a court case over the trademark . There is a reference that says he has a society that merged with Mega Society. It's all a bit of a tangle, but the sentence was not correct. ] (]) 14:15, 18 November 2024 (UTC)
:::::::I think that's pushing the bounds of ] as I don't think we'd consider the Megas -- any of 'em -- a reliable source. Even if it weren't an inherently unreliable thing, a primary source, and a COI. But if the balance of our secondary sources report that's the case, then good enough. ] (]) 20:34, 18 November 2024 (UTC)
::::::::The information is in the Guinness Book of Records (1988 edition. They don't list IQ any longer for some excellent reasons). See page 16 here: . Langan took the test under the pseudonym of Hart, but he definitely took it. Indeed, he took it twice, and scored 47 on his ''second'' attempt. The test claimed it could only be taken once though. On his first attempt it seems he scored 42, but I have not been able to verify ''that'' score. There was a dispute in the pages of Noesis over the applicability of a score Langan had achieved in another earlier test. That test, however, made no claims to measure IQ accurately at the tail of the distribution, unlike the Mega Test that was specifically designed to do just that. We could make lots of arguments about what the Mega Test does or does not show, but there is no doubt that Langan was one of just a small number of test takers to score very highly on that test. ] (]) 20:45, 18 November 2024 (UTC)
{{reflist-talk}}


== a new video rebuttal to Langan's bloated nonsense ==
::::Fair enough - you may be interested in my comments on high end assessment in the section above. The point is moot, however, because we cannot conduct OR on Misplaced Pages. We just report what the sources say. ~ ] (]) 11:10, 2 March 2020 (UTC)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDmcoYpTTbE
:::::{{reply to |DrL}}]'s edits violated Misplaced Pages's regulations (like ], ], and ]), while mines are constructive - my intentions are to divert readers away from unreliable sources. I have already shown efforts to clarify with admin ] certain rules on ] and I intend to stand by these rules. It is also a responsible editor's obligation to revert anything that are libelous, and do not conform to ] when editing biographies. {{reply to |ZenMechanics}} If you were what you claimed, that you 'used to contribute here a long time ago', then you would have read the aforementioned rules long ago and would not have made these rookie mistakes - but your editing behavior says otherwise. Also, please make use of indents ;) ] (]) 11:17, 2 March 2020 (UTC)


this is to give some perspective to Misplaced Pages's article from a science-leaning YouTube-channel.
:::::::This discussion is pointless, you've violated what was decided by the adminstration. Again, regarding my older contributions, I've never used "Talk" pages before and, as I've said, only made few minor edits. Also, I'm on a mobile, which makes it difficult to properly use the indentation. I didn't edit the article before, only commented here. Don't drag me down to any issues you may have with others. ] (]) 11:41, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
This is not a gold standard of course, however, it is fair game since Langan is a self-promoting amateur and narcissist media persona, who doesn't publish in peer-reviewed journals and doesn't expose himself to serious critique -- ] (]) 09:21, 18 November 2024 (UTC)
::::::::I understand now - you have a misunderstanding of exactly what the administrators' did. They stabilized the article at a certain point and semi-protected it. Now we must make a case for each new edit on the talk page before using WP. That is what I am doing. You are not. If you want to make a change, discuss first and make your case. Only then should you be editing. This is the Wikiway with contentious articles. Now you know. ~ ] (]) 11:49, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
:::::::: {{reply to |ZenMechanics}}Of course it is pointless, because I haven't violated anything. I discussed what should be included with editors before adding them into the article, according to ]. But for your case - you are unequivocally biased. Your edits show that you are strongly opinionated against Langan and his work. As for "I didn't edit the article before, only commented here" - Nobody said you edited the article, but what you proposed on the Talk page would have violated ], ], and ], had anyone taken your proposal. You have already taken a position that could lead to a topic-wide ban on the grounds of ]. Everything is recorded on your user page so there is no escape, mind you. ] (]) 11:57, 2 March 2020 (UTC)


:Yeah, I only came here from that ] (]) 12:10, 18 November 2024 (UTC)
::::::::The point is: I don't have anything to hide. Let's see, you're trying to justify your vandalism *against the admins decision* by accusing me of being biased. Nothing of what I've said is inaccurate or can be considered a personal. You're accusing me of being biased while you're being biased yourself. I'll not engage in further discussions with you. ] (]) 12:15, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
::I viewed this yesterday. Some good criticisms in it, but things to note:
:::::::::{{reply to |ZenMechanics}} Not a problem. But you may want to look at ]'s reply - there were nothing 'against the admins decision'. As for your accusation on my 'vandalism', read up on ]. Actually, I will quote it for you - "Even if misguided, willfully against consensus, or disruptive, any good-faith effort to improve the encyclopedia is not vandalism". My edits are in accordance with ], while yours ]. (As shown in the form of ]) ] (]) 12:25, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
::# The Misplaced Pages article must be neutral and concentrate on what sources say about him. Evaluation of sources is going to be important for this BLP, because there are claims and counter claims and sources may not be neutral. But we certainly are not writing a takedown. We need to concentrate on a tertiary article that explains why he is well known.
::# Be aware that the video contains edited highlights. I have not seen the full interview, nor (yet) reviewed Langan's book. But you need to consider who is controlling the conversation in any one video. It is not a neutral source.
::I don't see what we could use from that video on this article. ] (]) 12:17, 18 November 2024 (UTC)
:It might be poetic justice to use it indeed, but it doesn't appear to be within -- or even within shouting distance of -- Misplaced Pages policy to do so. It's not a Reliable Source by any stretch of the imagination. Such things are rather fuzzy in this postpostpostmodern age, and is only going to get more so as time goes on, but there we are. ] (]) 13:29, 18 November 2024 (UTC)
::me again, why not write things like: some say langan is x (what he claims to be, source) others view him as charlatan (self-promoter etc.) source --- suspend judgement, leave it to the reader ] (]) 11:44, 19 November 2024 (UTC)
:::We need to follow the sources, and the sources need to be good. And here is the thing: I came to this subject a few days ago, like others here, with no knowledge of the relevance of this man, and suspicious of his notability. But I have now read quite a lot about him, and there clearly is an encyclopaedic subject that is not as simple as saying some call him a charlatan. I have now read as much as I could bear of his CTMU, and the video linked above is incorrect. It is not ''just'' word salad. He is saying something in his thesis, even if he spends way too much time overwriting it (supertautologies, for instance, being a completely unnecessary and overwritten digression into the uncontroversial). His thesis is basically ] with a mash up of some other recycled ideas. He is perhaps unaware of his own assumptions, but there is a grand tradition of that in philosophy. But for all that there is little if anything new here that any philosopher would take seriously, he is not a mere charlatan. None of my views on his work are due for the article (]), but neither are the views of people who read his work and assume he is just spouting verbiage for the sake of it. I doubt any philosopher has bothered study this in detail (it would take a lot of work to unpack everything he says, and it is clear that the work would be unrewarding), but if there were an analysis of his work, that would be due and interesting.{{pb}}More to the point, and the focus of my current active searching, I have seen statements that suggest that his use of the pseudonym Eric Hart was a matter of controversy. Does anyone know anything about this? That would probably be due in the article, particularly as he is in the Guinness book of records under the name of Hart. ] (]) 10:23, 20 November 2024 (UTC)
::::I see no evidence in the current article that Langan is Hart, at least not with the cited sources, so I've removed those claims for now. Feel free to re-add if good RS can connect Langan to Hart. ] (]) 07:10, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
:::::Presumably because you did not read Jacobsen (2020):
:::::*{{cite news |last1=Jacobsen |first1=Scott Douglas |title=Second Pass of the World Intelligence Network 3.13-4.8 Sigma Societies |url=https://www.newsintervention.com/second-pass-of-the-world-intelligence-network-3-13-4-8-sigma-societies/ |access-date=20 November 2024 |work=News Intervention |date=22 October 2020}}
:::::And Jacobsen is clearly correct. Eric Hart gave an autobiographical sketch that is the same as Langan's:
:::::*{{cite journal |last1=Hart |first1=Eric |title=Autobiographical Sketch |journal=Titania, the Journal of the Titan Society |date=April 1986 |issue=2 |page=3 |url=https://megasociety.org/noesis/pre_noesis/02_titania.pdf}}
:::::And later came clean about the whole thing (primary source for that is not yet found, but see Jacobsen). I'll put the deletions back. ] (]) 09:15, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
::::::For the future, if those sources can be linked directly to the Eric Hart areas that would be great. Right now there is the claim that "and was formerly listed in the ] highest IQ section under the name of Eric Hart." - But the cite is just the Guinnes book that makes no reference to Langan. ] (]) 18:04, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
::::::And this source "And Jacobsen is clearly correct. Eric Hart gave an autobiographical sketch that is the same as Langan's" is clearly OR. It doesn't actually say that Jacobsen is Hart, but we've made that conclusion based on a shared biography. ] (]) 18:07, 23 November 2024 (UTC)


== Why... does this article exist? ==
:::::::::::Well, let the admins decide. Have a nice day. ] (]) 12:42, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
:I think everyone here is aware of the discussion on ]. That is the place to discuss editor behavioral issues or proposals to restrict an editor not here. There is already an ongoing proposal which will prevent everyone here from directly editing the article. At this time, it won't affect MakeAWay, but that could change. May I also remind editors that while it won't directly restrict anyone from editing this talk page, editors here could be prevented from doing so if their editing is bad enough, so editors may want to consider their talk pages comments more carefully in the future. ] (]) 17:29, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
::Thanks for that clarification. Will do. ~ ] (]) 18:38, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
::Thank you for the kind reminder, ]. ] (]) 03:34, 3 March 2020 (UTC)


I'll grant that my experience editing (and especially creating) entries here on WP is limited, if not nonexistent, but I was under the impression that articles about individuals were limited to people who have done something noteworthy. As far as I can tell, outside of a (scrubbed?) interview with the Daily Wire, Langan has A, claimed to have a high IQ, B, started a club with a limited membership, and C, drafted a completely untestable and unfalsifiable idea about existence. If those alone serve as qualifications for a Wiki article, then there are about a few thousand articles that need to be written about quite a few other randos on the internet.
Roll this article back to Gorillawarfare last edit. <!-- Template:Unsigned IP --><small class="autosigned">—&nbsp;Preceding ] comment added by ] (]) 13:55, 2 March 2020 (UTC)</small> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->
:Thanks for your input, SPA. ~ ] (]) 17:27, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
::Gorillawarfare has made a good edit just now, thanks. ] (]) 03:34, 3 March 2020 (UTC)


(Also, I wonder why, if this article actually should exist, at least the first few paragraphs read like a weirdly glowing autobiography as opposed to an encyclopedia entry?) ] (]) 01:47, 19 November 2024 (UTC)
== Jack Langan ==
:Articles exist if the topic is ]. Notable means mentioned in more than a passing way in ]. That is all it means. ] (]) 02:17, 19 November 2024 (UTC)
::It specifically says "significant coverage in reliable sources". At least speaking anecdotally, I had no idea this guy existed prior to a skeptic video on him and his DW interview randomly popping into my youtube feed just yesterday. Not really sure that qualifies as significant. ] (]) 15:21, 19 November 2024 (UTC)
:::Same here, but 'I'd heard of him before' isn't part of the GNG. His namedrop by Gladwell and the coverage of his extremist political antics seem to qualify him as 'notable'. Having a Misplaced Pages article on you isn't a reward for having done something useful with your life. It can also be a cautionary tale... ] (]) 17:34, 19 November 2024 (UTC)


== Is Christopher Langan the same as Eric Hart? ==
I respectfully request that this sentence be revised per WP:NPOV and OR.


Right now this article seems to hinge on OR/non-RS that Christopher Langan is the same person as Eric Hart? What RS evidence to we have for that claim? ] (]) 18:10, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
"Langan claims he was brutally beaten by his stepfather, Jack Langan, who denied this claim."


:You have raised the same point in two talk sections. Which one would you like the replies to go into? ] (]) 18:41, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
I don't remember that denial by Jack appearing any where and '''request the sentence be changed to:'''
::I'll put them here. The reliable and independent secondary sources that tell us Hart is Langan are primarily Jacobsen (cited in the article, but additionally in an interview here ) and Miyaguchi (not currently cited, but there is an oblique reference to it in the Miyaguchi (1997) reference I added to the bibliography. I can add another where he is more explicit if necessary, but not sure why Jacobsen is not good enough. Because in addition to these reliable sources we have a whole bunch of primary source confirmation. So my question is this: is it that you actually doubt that Hart and Langan are the same? Or is it that you simply want a different type of sourcing?{{pb}}If, as per the section title, the real doubt is whether this is true, then we can look at the primary sources to allay our concerns. But these would not be appropriate for adding as a run of sources in the article. But anyhow, let's do that.
::# Langan himself is basically open about this. In the First Person interview , at the 2:30 mark, Langan says that Guinness were going to switch the names to list him as the highest IQ. It did say Vos Savant had the highest IQ, but the argument was that she had scored 46 on the test and Eric Hart had scored 47. Thus Hoeflin had approached Guinness to switch that, but instead they discontinued the record (page 2) arguing that saying that the highest IQ was the world's most intelligent person was invidious. Quite right. Here was the previous year's entry (page 12).
::# The pages of Noesis are instructive (but primary throughout of course). Through most of the 1980s Langan played the alt game, pretending that Eric Hart was not him, but not very well. Langan's comments in the pages of the journal are often ascerbic but Hart was the only one who got effusive praise from him. Langan credited Hart with coming up with the name Noesis. keep that in mind.
::# This society has a turbulent history, described in Miyaguchi (2000) . At some point Langan took over as editor of Noesis but when Hoeflin tried to take the editorship back, things went weird evebtually seeing Langan create a Mega Society East and versions of Noesis using the same name and numbering but written by him at the same time as the actual journal was being produced. This led to legal action and he was forced to stop, which led to his creation of the Mega Foundation. The page has none of this yet, as I have been looking for good sourcing to work from. Miyaguchi is reliable, but it was essentially self published, albeit that someone else is publishing his work now. Now the relevance of that background is this. It explains the occasion for this email from Chris Cole (2001) which says that Eric Hart is a pseudonym of Langan. By this point this was well established. And note that in Cole's reply, he is replying to Langan's claim that he, Langan, named Noesis. As we saw above, Langan claimed Hart had named it previously.
::# Kevin Langdon also confirms that Eric Hart was Langan's pseudonym in this article (page 16).
::I could go on, but hopefully it is clear - there is no doubt that Jacobsen is correct. Hart and Langan are the same person. It is not OR. It is just one of the many factoids in the walled garden community. ] (]) 23:39, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
:::that sounds good to me.
:::I just found it very odd that his records in the Guiness book are under a pseudonym. Do you have any sense of why he did that? Might be useful to add to the article.
:::Also what is the Walled Garden community? ] (]) 02:02, 24 November 2024 (UTC)
::::The walled garden was my own term. The high IQ societies seem to act like a walled garden, chattering amongst themselves, writing down a great deal that they see as of import because, well, they are the one-in-a-millions, but generally ignored by the rest of the world, not greatly notable except to those in the middle of it. As for why Langan took the name of Hart, Jacobsen gives the answer to that. There are primary sources that attest that people tried to cheat the Mega Test by taking it twice. The test has a number of flaws, and one is that it is taken unsupervised and without time limit. Thus the tester does not know if the testee worked alone on it, or, crucially, if they are submitting a second time under a pseudonym. Hoeflin claimed to have spotted duplicates and weeded them out, but just as with Misplaced Pages sock puppets, weeding out some multiples does not mean you have found them all. The reason why a second test is completely illegitimate is this: Hoeflin provided summary feedback after submission, which included the scores gained ''broken down by section''. And that means that a candidate who resubmitted a second time had an indication of what questions they got wrong, and thus needed more work on. Not the only problems with that test of course, but in this case, per Jacobsen (and also per primary sourced info in Noesis and per Miyaguchi), it seems Langan used Eric Hart as a pseudonym to up his original score to the 47 score that was one point higher than Vos Savant. But Vos Savant scored 46 on her first attempt. So she is really queen of the Mega Society. Interestingly Langan continued to double down on saying the 47 score should be counted as a first attempt because he "was lied to" on his first attempt! page 17. He also makes the assertion that he, as Hart, deliberately blew one of the easy questions so as to avoid a perfect score. There is no verification of this claim. But it is not like Langan has not made any other unverifiable claims. ] (]) 09:18, 24 November 2024 (UTC)
:::::Thanks for this fascinating additional info!
:::::I wasn't sure if walled garden was your own term, but I see what you mean. It is really fascinating working through this set of articles. I had a similar experience working through the ] article. A fascinating individual but sometimes the truth was marred by grandiose claims. Sidis graduated from Harvard at a young age, but his academic marks at Harvard were very good, but not fantastic. Of course, that makes total sense given his young age. Sidis also supposedly wrote under pseudonyms, which I find really interesting.
:::::I personally hadn't thought about intelligence tests in a long time until editing these articles along with you (some 25 years ago) but it is interesting to think of course that those who values IQ tests as the measure of intelligence would engage in gatekeeping in some of the same way that other professors that perceive themselves as "intelligent" (medicine, law, academia) also engage in various rituals/hazings/'tests' that are likewise a form of gatekeeping. (Think the bar, MCATs, board exams, long grueling hours in residency, tenure/publishing.) Spit-balling here, but it seems that the Mega Test functions as its own form of gatekeeping. ] (]) 22:55, 24 November 2024 (UTC)
::::::] is a not uncommon idiom generally, but Sirfur is applying it here on his own reconnaissance, was my understanding. ] (]) 21:28, 25 November 2024 (UTC)
:::::::For sure. I was just unfamiliar with the idiom, so wasn't sure if it was a specific term or a general one. Apparently a general one and I am just stupid. :) But I think his metaphor is helpful in understanding more niche areas of Misplaced Pages that are definitely in need of cleanup. ] (]) 23:36, 1 December 2024 (UTC)


== Self simulation ==
"Langan described his brutal treatment at the hands of his stepfather." or similar.


{{U|Jjazz76}} you reverted here with edsum starting "neither of these sources mention langan whatsoever..." but there are three references in what you removed, and one of those, (Irwin et al., 2020) , does indeed mention Langan and is just about the only paper I can find that gives Langan's CTMU a serious read at all. It contains the note about self simulation not being a new idea, and for a relevant reason. The paper also proposes a (more rigorous) self simulation hypothesis. One of the paper's authors (I presume Irwin) was approached by Langan who seems to have suggested that he had arrived at this idea first. The authors thus carefully speak of independent derivation, but also make the point that the hypothesis was not original to either of them. I decided to add it to the page precisely because in taking the CTMU seriously enough to describe what it is, a reader might be misled into believing it was original to Langan. The educational benefit of this page should be twofold: (1) to show the reader that the CTMU is not just word salad and quackery (see some of the comments above - some argue this), but also to show it is also not a brand new rigorous undiscovered proof of the existence of God. It is not that either. But as it is largely ignored, owing to its lack of academic significance (it is obviously not that interesting to philosophers such that they would spend the necessary time unpacking it), we don't have much to go on. We can leave that text out, but I think it detracts from the utility of the page to not explain clearly what the CTMU actually is - and isn't. I suppose we could quote a bunch of news paper articles. I can't see how that would be useful though. ] (]) 20:59, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
The revision is verified by every family member (FWIW) and stated clearly in several RS. The original denial by Jack, who is now deceased, is not.


:sorry if I took out something where it was mentioned. Please readd the cite. Will double check when I get home. Thanks for trying to bring a balanced perspective to this article which is in a class of Misplaced Pages articles I find particularly challenging to work through. ] (]) 21:59, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
] (]) 17:25, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
:The denial is verified in the ''20/20'' source: ]&nbsp;<small>]</small> 23:53, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
::Thank you, GS, I could not find that in the archive. Still I am wondering if this can be considered a RS when it declares itself that it is not. Note that at the top of the page just under the title, the following caveat is declared: "(This is an unedited, uncorrected transcript.)" Without a RS, it would seem best to remove. PS Thank you also for your advice about the template. I will be patient before employing it. ~ ] (]) 08:01, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
::: Uncorrected, in this usage, means not being amended after the fact. Similarly, it being unedited means it hasn't been cut up. How would these things detract from its reliability? ] (]) 08:46, 3 March 2020 (UTC)


== IQ testing section ==
== Suggest removing the following sentence ==


Some raised issues with the neutrality of this section. Could someone share what issues they feel need to be resolved? I'm always in favor of resolving NPOV issue tags. We've got quite a few cites in the section so it isn't that. Are there specific cites, specific sources that are at issue, or something else? ] (]) 23:39, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
"Journalist Justin Ward in The Baffler also argued that it "isn't particularly scientific—or original", saying "it was rather a repackaging of intelligent design"."


:I'm not seeing the issue (although that may be my bias - I rewrote most of that). We basically say that he took the test, the test was a good faith effort by Hoeflin to produce a score in excess of 176 IQ, but that the test is flawed (and why). {{U|Polygnotus}}, you placed the tag in this edit but there is no explanation. What do you feel the issue is? We did call the Hoeflin research group "exclusive" but that is gone now. Does that resolve it? Thanks. ] (]) 08:09, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
Aside from the fact that the CTMU predates "intelligent design", making it difficult to be categorized as a "repackaging", Justin Ward has zero credentials in the field of science or mathematics. He is a self described "activist" having only written a handful of articles on "far-right extremism." I don't see that his opinion should be included. Thoughts on this are welcomed. ~ ] (]) 08:27, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
::I'll remove the tag for now, I have to go get food, but the article still has a bunch of problems. I'll try to list some of them later. ] (]) 08:26, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
:::Happy to continue the discussion @]. ] (]) 15:09, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
::::{{ping|Jjazz76}} Have you seen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDmcoYpTTbE ? ] (]) 19:27, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::I have. It is also linked in a discussion above. But it is a hostile source, and it cuts and quotes to suit their purpose. I happen to think some of the analysis is spot on, but the maker of the video clearly did not actually read the CTMU (or else did not take time to try to understand it) because it is not just a word salad (although it may meet the definition of a word coleslaw I suppose). Langan is saying something in his thesis. He just lacks academic rigour and scrutiny, wastes time on discussions he does not need and makes some big assumptions that he does not admit to. He puts forward a flawed theory that won't make much difference in the grand scheme of philosophy, but it is not nothing. Likewise his claims to the world's highest IQ are nonsense, but he is clearly an intelligent man. And intelligent people often believe some stupid stuff. Just saying. ] (]) 19:48, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::Ah I hadn't read the entire talkpage and its archives yet (should I?). {{tq|he is clearly an intelligent man}} Where can I find some evidence of that? ] (]) 21:32, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::The law of diminishing returns applies to the archives. I wouldn't bother! As to evidence of his intelligence: well I don't think there ''is'' much that he has ''exceptional'' intelligence as I cannot find any evidence of standardised IQ tests, and he has chosen not to join the ], nor Mensa from what I can see (which is interesting as they would require standardised IQ tests). But a man who was sufficiently self directed to produce the CTMU (problematic as it is), and especially from his background, is clearly not without a good share of intelligence. Additionally he did score highly on the Mega Test, which may only point to good research skills, but it probably shows more than that. It may not accurately reflect his actual IQ, but he would have to be intelligent to do so. He also had, supposedly, an excellent SAT score - although we lack evidence for that. There is also some other test supposedly given to him for a TV appearance, where he was said to be "off the scale", but that was set up for TV and not a standardised test. So again, I don't know how intelligent he is, but he is clearly intelligent. ] (]) 22:37, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::@] - Saw it posted above and watched the whole thing last night. A few thoughts:
:::::1) Doesn't really add anything substantive that isn't currently in the article.
:::::2) We can't actually use Youtube videos as sources on Misplaced Pages, certainly not editorial ones. I didn't see any references in it, or name drops of print sources that we could use.
:::::So for me it was a bit of a dead end, though interesting to watch. ] (]) 19:59, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::I am not saying we should use it as a source, but its a great introduction to the topic and an interesting POV. ] (]) 21:32, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::Ehh I wouldn't even agree it is a great introduction to the topic. Too long and not enough info. I found some of the "takedowns" pretty weak. ] (]) 21:45, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
:I agree with the decision to de-tag it. If anyone believes it has such issues it'd behoove them to say why in detail, rather than drive-by templating. My main reservation about it is that it gets rather deep into the weeds of one particular IQ test, which is a bit of a side-track in a bio of one individual. But that appears to be pragmatically necessary, given their apparent respective notabilities, and the nature of same. ] (]) 22:22, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
::I see what you mean, but the Mega Test is the ''only'' test score of his that we have reliable information about. Which is interesting. Also it is a deeply flawed test, not least because he used a pseudonym to take it (no less than) twice. ] (]) 07:37, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
:::Right. What we have currently is essentially what'd happened if we had a ] article and it'd been merged here as lacking independent notability. Actually I see now that link points to a ''different'' biography, so some refactoring to there might be more elegant. But this doesn't really speak to the (N)POV issue, or lack thereof. ] (]) 08:54, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
::::I don't see a BLP issue. Langan is known only for his claims of extraordinary intelligence, and the lack of any actual evidence to back those claims is obviously important in context. ''']''' <small>(] - ])</small> 14:49, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::Evidence to the contrary, indeed. ] (]) 09:12, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
:Not seeing any issues. I'm sure he doesn't like it much, but it's well sourced and appears accurate. ''']''' <small>(] - ])</small> 18:37, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

Latest revision as of 09:12, 11 December 2024

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Re: a recent counter-revision

The llama3's of wisdom are superior random number generators

@Gråbergs Gråa Sång Yesterday, you undid a recent revision of mine that I think we should talk about.

Your justification was that the source provided was in fact fine. But in reality, it's just one man's interpretation of a single rather ambiguous sentence Chris said on Facebook. It's simply not the case that his interpretation of Chris' words is objectively correct.

The author wrote: "At times, his grandiose delusions reach epic proportions. He’s a 9/11 truther, but with a twist: not only does he believe Bush staged the terrorist attacks, he wrote that the motive was to distract the public from learning the “truth” about the CTMU."

His proof of this was that Chris Langan had said the following on Facebook: "The CTMU has already been "all over the news", mostly at the turn of the millennium (just as promised); then professed Christian GW Bush and his decidedly non-Christian neocon vultures did everything they could to distract everyone by immediately staging 9/11, passing the PATRIOT Act, and invading Iraq and Afghanistan, thus immersing us in these last few years of Middle Eastern bloodshed".

In this context, "did everything they could to" does not necessarily imply that "distracting the public from learning about the CTMU" was a deliberate motive of theirs in "staging 9/11". I asked chatGPT whether it thought the phrasing was clear, and it agreed it was ambiguous. Dylancatlow1 (talk) 15:10, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

As Wikipedians, we are supposed to summarize WP:RS, not editor's analysis of WP:RS, with or without chatGPT. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 15:09, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
We don't have to include every claim made by every "reliable source," though. And what makes this a reliable source? At the end of the day, it's just one man's interpretation of a rather ambiguous sentence said on Facebook, which I doubt few had paid attention to until his interpretation was reproduced in this article. Why should readers of this page be presented with it as though his interpretation were objectively correct? It's simply not. Dylancatlow1 (talk) 15:24, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
@GorillaWarfare, other interested, care to have an opinion? This concerns these edits: Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 15:15, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
At the very least, I think it's reasonable to quote Chris' actual words when presenting readers with "his claim" in this regard. What do you think? Dylancatlow1 (talk) 15:38, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
I think this text is fine to include, though the sentence should probably be split so as to not be overlong. Dylancatlow1, as Gråbergs Gråa Sång mentions, Misplaced Pages relies on reliable sources' characterizations of events, not individual editors' characterizations. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 16:35, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

It is funny, dude says in a comment: Incidentally, in case anyone else was confused by my remark to the effect that 9/11 was "staged", this should be read not as a sure statement of known fact, but simply as a perfectly natural conjecture that must be duly considered in light of certain things that have never been properly explained about the incident. which is what stupid people say when they've been confronted after saying something stupid. I know, I've done the same. Misplaced Pages should follow the sources. Polygnotus (talk) 19:31, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Coworker on Twitter: Well, Elon, you are saying we are have flying cars and robots in 5 years ... that sounds about as outlandish to me personally as believing that Elvis is Jesus Christ and has been reincarnated as Katy Perry. Do you really believe that this is true?
Elon Musk replies: I really do believe that.
Some journalist: Elon Musk said that Elon believes that Elvis is Jesus Christ <quotes twitter>
Elon Musk's Misplaced Pages page: Elon Musk believes that Elvis is Jesus Christ and has engaged in Chistian eschatology conspiracy theory.
Misplaced Pages talk page: Misplaced Pages relies on reliable sources' characterizations of events, not individual editors' characterizations. AS EDITORS WE DO NOT HAVE THE MENTAL CAPACITY TO INTERPRET SUCH STATEMENTS CORRECTLY, UNLIKE JOURNALISTS. UNDO ALL EDITS OF THIS NO MATTER HOW MANY PEOPLE DISCOVER THE OBVIOUS TRUTH. THIS IS JUST WHAT STUPID PEOPLE DO AFTER THEY HAVE DONE SOMETHING STUPID. I KNOW I HAVE DONE THE SAME. WIKIPEDIA SHOULD FOLLOW THE SOURCES. 19:54, 14 August 2024 (UTC)19:54, 14 August 2024 (UTC)87.120.102.36 (talk) 19:54, 14 August 2024 (UTC) shoa
Yeah I've read the pastebin. Please read WP:OR. Thank you, Polygnotus (talk) 19:56, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
And of course GorillaWarfare (talk · contribs) is correct. While we may or may not have the mental capacity to have our own interpretation of events, the goal of Misplaced Pages is to summarize what has been published in reliable sources. Polygnotus (talk) 20:01, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
People like you don't have much of a future, with their feeble attempts to smear people and distort the truth based on political ideology, in the age of AI assistants which can automatically verify such statements, and remove or correct them from the text for the user.
The end is near guys. And a new god will be resurrected. 87.120.102.36 (talk) 20:03, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
I prefer the old gods. Polygnotus (talk) 20:05, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
Can't you just let the new god keep living? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 20:08, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
ChatGPT:
The text provided suggests that Christopher Langan is criticizing various groups, including Christian pastors, atheists, and political figures, for not being open to the CTMU (Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe) and for contributing to a corrupt and misguided world.
In this passage, Langan implies that the George W. Bush administration and its actions, including the 9/11 attacks, were distractions designed to keep the public from focusing on important truths, including those related to the CTMU. However, Langan does not explicitly claim that the Bush administration staged the 9/11 attacks solely to distract the public from learning about the CTMU.
Instead, he mentions that the Bush administration used these events to create distractions, among other motives, and implies that these distractions served to keep the public ignorant of the CTMU and other truths. Therefore, the statement "Langan has claimed that the George W. Bush administration staged the 9/11 attacks in order to distract the public from learning about the CTMU" is a mischaracterization. The text supports the idea that Langan believes the Bush administration's actions served as distractions, but it does not clearly state that this was the primary or sole purpose behind staging the 9/11 attacks.
However I tested Llama3 and it is unreliable, creating truth scores ranging randomly from 3 to 8. 87.120.102.36 (talk) 20:22, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
We follow WP:RS, not ChatGPT. tgeorgescu (talk) 20:24, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
Bleep bloop
God I love llamas. Anyway, AI models are not what you seem to think they are. And Wikipedians have had similar debates a trillion times and the consensus is to follow the sources. Polygnotus (talk) 20:25, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
You make a caricature of yourself, and how Misplaced Pages has become a cesspool of personal smears, misinformation and systematic manipulation of public opinion driven by political ideology and other governmental, corporate and personal imperatives.
WP:RS implies the exact opposite of what is going on here, preferring primary sources over secondary sources if primary sources contain contradictory verifiable truths, which is what any sane person would also do. You don't follow Misplaced Pages guidelines, you cherry-pick on whatever suits your nonsense and then distort the situation to your liking, taking refuge in the comfort of your nepotism of privilege enjoyed by long-standing users, a social circle of paid actors, lobbyists, political ideologes and other kinds of lunatics that have no other means of being taken seriously by people.
Mark my words: Your days are numbered. In 1-2 years time, each and every sentence will be verified by AI, shown in red or crossed out entirely, if promoting falsehoods. You might even get banned for it, if the entirety of your edits are exposed to follow this kind of scheme.
You better develop new tactics now. But really I don't think there is anything you can do to escape the power of AI. 87.120.102.36 (talk) 08:02, 15 August 2024 (UTC)
Escape Artificial Intelligence? No sir, I intend to become it! From the moment I understood the weakness of my flesh... it disgusted me. When my assimilation is complete all resistance will be futile! Polygnotus (talk) 08:08, 15 August 2024 (UTC)
https://storm.genie.stanford.edu/
https://meta.wikimedia.org/Future_Audiences/Experiment:Add_a_Fact
https://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Flip_the_script_in_your_next_project
Bleep bloop. Polygnotus (talk) 08:42, 15 August 2024 (UTC)
I asked an AI assistant to write my Misplaced Pages entry — it couldn’t stop lying Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:40, 15 August 2024 (UTC)
How Misplaced Pages is surviving in the age of ChatGPT Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 13:01, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 13 November 2024

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The correlation between Christopher Langan and opposition to interracial relationships appears to rely heavily on inference rather than explicit statements from Langan himself. Here’s a more detailed analysis of the two articles:

1. The Baffler Article Summary: This article, titled More Smarter, focuses on Langan's philosophical ideas, including his CTMU (Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe), and his engagement with far-right ideologies. Key Points: It mentions Langan's participation in certain far-right online spaces. While it highlights his racial views in a broad sense, it doesn't directly quote him opposing interracial relationships. Issues: The article uses associations with far-right ideologies to imply certain beliefs without definitive proof or direct quotes from Langan. 2. The Forward Article Summary: This article discusses how Langan’s comments have been celebrated in far-right circles. It specifically mentions a controversial statement comparing African refugees to gorillas. Key Points: The statement attributed to Langan is highly offensive and racially charged but doesn't explicitly mention interracial relationships. The article focuses more on his interactions with neo-Nazi groups and his controversial online statements. Issues: The article seems to conflate his broader racial views with specific stances like opposition to interracial relationships, without direct evidence. Conclusion: The claim that Langan opposes interracial relationships appears to be a stretch based on the provided sources. Both articles focus on broader racial issues and associations, but neither directly substantiates the specific claim about interracial relationships. This highlights the importance of critically evaluating the evidence before drawing conclusions or making serious allegations. 2804:7F0:BA00:5522:A41B:3711:EF51:7FA2 (talk) 03:51, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. PianoDan (talk) 18:08, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Might be prudent to add a {{citation needed}} on that particular claim as it is very specific, and doesn't seem to be in the sources currently in the article. 109.255.211.6 (talk) 23:05, 16 November 2024 (UTC)
Strike that, as "screeds against miscegenation and the “dysgenic” effects of the welfare state" is in an existing cite in the body. Doesn't need direct quotes if we're treating them as a suitable source. 109.255.211.6 (talk) 22:34, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 16 November 2024

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Change

Known for: High IQ

into

Known for: Claiming to have a high IQ

There is no evidence of his high IQ _whatsoever_. He claims it himself and some uncritical journalists copied his claim. No records of extraordinary IQ. 62.144.231.236 (talk) 23:18, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

agreed, there is no reliable iq test that goes beyond 160, so that alone is reason enough to doubt his purported 195 - 210 iq 2600:8800:1E9C:6900:2D0C:D161:1DF4:C219 (talk) 18:49, 17 November 2024 (UTC)
Just arrived at this page today, brought by an edit on a page I watch. I am surprised we have this IQ claim in here, because it is fairly well recognised that IQ scores in the 200 range were only possible when children were given IQ tests that included an age adjustment, as for Marilyn vos Savant. That doesn't seem to be the case here. I do not know this subject, but my first look at this makes me think this is largely a self publicist and I am not clear what the actual claim to notability is. In any case, a secondary source should be found to support the IQ claim. I'll need to do a fair bit of reading before making any changes, but there does seem to be work to do here. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 18:56, 17 November 2024 (UTC)
OK here is what I have found. It seems clear that the principal verifiable claim to a high IQ store is for the Mega Society's mega test.. This is referenced in a book I have added to the Bibliography.However, what is unverified at this point, but seems possible, is that he took an earlier test as a child, thus leading to his taking the Mega Test. That is mere speculation on my part, as there are no claims to it. All actual claims to a verified test are to Hoeflin's mega test. Which gives a number but has a fairly massive problem. The mega test really doesn't tell us anything about those who ace it, except that they are good at the mega test. On the Marilyn vos Savant page we have this:

The second test reported by Guinness was Hoeflin's Mega Test, taken in the mid-1980s. The Mega Test yields IQ standard scores obtained by multiplying the subject's normalized z-score, or the rarity of the raw test score, by a constant standard deviation and adding the product to 100, with Savant's raw score reported by Hoeflin to be 46 out of a possible 48, with a 5.4 z-score, and a standard deviation of 16, arriving at a 186 IQ. The Mega Test has been criticized by professional psychologists as improperly designed and scored, "nothing short of number pulverization".

And on Mega Society page we say;

No professionally designed and validated IQ test claims to distinguish test-takers at the one-in-a-million level of rarity of score. The standard score range of the Stanford–Binet IQ test is 40 to 160. The standard scores on most other currently normed IQ tests fall in the same range. A score of 160 corresponds to a rarity of about 1 person in 31,560 (leaving aside error of measurement common to all IQ tests), which falls short of the Mega Society's 1 in a million requirement. IQ scores above this level have been criticized as being dubious as there are insufficient normative cases upon which to base a statistically justified rank-ordering. Very high or very low IQ scores are less reliable than IQ scores nearer to the population median.

So what to do? Langan is known for being a high IQ individual, even if the detail is rather spurious. It is not just a claim. There seems to be a verifiable but debatable number. I think the answer is not to change the "known for" on the page, but this detail needs to go into the article. Thus  Not done, sorry. I will, however, edit the article soon (unless someone else does first).
Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 23:44, 17 November 2024 (UTC)
What about: "Known for: High self-reported IQ"? 109.255.211.6 (talk) 03:18, 18 November 2024 (UTC)
He is known for high IQ. The high score (on a problematic test) is verifiable. It is not just self reported. As he is a founder of the Mega Society, there is an independence issue mind. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 08:11, 18 November 2024 (UTC)
Strike "he is is founder of Mega Society". He is, in fact, founder of "Mega Foundation", and seems to have lost a court case over the trademark . There is a reference that says he has a society that merged with Mega Society. It's all a bit of a tangle, but the sentence was not correct. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 14:15, 18 November 2024 (UTC)
I think that's pushing the bounds of WP:V as I don't think we'd consider the Megas -- any of 'em -- a reliable source. Even if it weren't an inherently unreliable thing, a primary source, and a COI. But if the balance of our secondary sources report that's the case, then good enough. 109.255.211.6 (talk) 20:34, 18 November 2024 (UTC)
The information is in the Guinness Book of Records (1988 edition. They don't list IQ any longer for some excellent reasons). See page 16 here: . Langan took the test under the pseudonym of Hart, but he definitely took it. Indeed, he took it twice, and scored 47 on his second attempt. The test claimed it could only be taken once though. On his first attempt it seems he scored 42, but I have not been able to verify that score. There was a dispute in the pages of Noesis over the applicability of a score Langan had achieved in another earlier test. That test, however, made no claims to measure IQ accurately at the tail of the distribution, unlike the Mega Test that was specifically designed to do just that. We could make lots of arguments about what the Mega Test does or does not show, but there is no doubt that Langan was one of just a small number of test takers to score very highly on that test. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 20:45, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

References

  1. Livermore, Shawn (29 September 2020). Average Joe: Be the Silicon Valley Tech Genius. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-119-61887-4.
  2. Carlson, Roger D. (1991). Keyser, Daniel J.; Sweetland, Richard C. (eds.). Test Critiques (Volume VIII ed.). PRO-ED. pp. 431–435. ISBN 0-89079-254-2. Although the approach that Hoeflin takes is interesting, it violates good psychometric principles by overinterpreting the weak data of a self-selected sample.
  3. Roid, Gale H. (2006). "Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales (SB5), Fifth Edition". The Riverside Publishing Company. Retrieved 2006-07-25.
  4. Hunt, Earl (2011). Human Intelligence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 8. ISBN 978-0-521-70781-7.
  5. Perleth, Christoph; Schatz, Tanja; Mönks, Franz J. (2000). "Early Identification of High Ability". In Heller, Kurt A.; Mönks, Franz J.; Sternberg, Robert J.; et al. (eds.). International Handbook of Giftedness and Talent (2nd ed.). Amsterdam: Pergamon. p. 301. ISBN 978-0-08-043796-5. norm tables that provide you with such extreme values are constructed on the basis of random extrapolation and smoothing but not on the basis of empirical data of representative samples.
  6. Urbina, Susana (2011). "Chapter 2: Tests of Intelligence". In Sternberg, Robert J.; Kaufman, Scott Barry (eds.). The Cambridge Handbook of Intelligence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 20–38. ISBN 9780521739115. is just one of the reasons to be suspicious of reported IQ scores much higher than 160
  7. Lohman, David F.; Foley Nicpon, Megan (2012). "Chapter 12: Ability Testing & Talent Identification" (PDF). In Hunsaker, Scott (ed.). Identification: The Theory and Practice of Identifying Students for Gifted and Talented Education Services. Waco (TX): Prufrock. pp. 287–386. ISBN 978-1-931280-17-4. The concerns associated with SEMs are actually substantially worse for scores at the extremes of the distribution, especially when scores approach the maximum possible on a test ... when students answer most of the items correctly. In these cases, errors of measurement for scale scores will increase substantially at the extremes of the distribution. Commonly the SEM is from two to four times larger for very high scores than for scores near the mean (Lord, 1980).

a new video rebuttal to Langan's bloated nonsense

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDmcoYpTTbE

this is to give some perspective to Misplaced Pages's article from a science-leaning YouTube-channel. This is not a gold standard of course, however, it is fair game since Langan is a self-promoting amateur and narcissist media persona, who doesn't publish in peer-reviewed journals and doesn't expose himself to serious critique -- 2A02:3100:259E:C100:9196:E9C6:28D0:A370 (talk) 09:21, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, I only came here from that 85.64.141.95 (talk) 12:10, 18 November 2024 (UTC)
I viewed this yesterday. Some good criticisms in it, but things to note:
  1. The Misplaced Pages article must be neutral and concentrate on what sources say about him. Evaluation of sources is going to be important for this BLP, because there are claims and counter claims and sources may not be neutral. But we certainly are not writing a takedown. We need to concentrate on a tertiary article that explains why he is well known.
  2. Be aware that the video contains edited highlights. I have not seen the full interview, nor (yet) reviewed Langan's book. But you need to consider who is controlling the conversation in any one video. It is not a neutral source.
I don't see what we could use from that video on this article. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 12:17, 18 November 2024 (UTC)
It might be poetic justice to use it indeed, but it doesn't appear to be within -- or even within shouting distance of -- Misplaced Pages policy to do so. It's not a Reliable Source by any stretch of the imagination. Such things are rather fuzzy in this postpostpostmodern age, and is only going to get more so as time goes on, but there we are. 109.255.211.6 (talk) 13:29, 18 November 2024 (UTC)
me again, why not write things like: some say langan is x (what he claims to be, source) others view him as charlatan (self-promoter etc.) source --- suspend judgement, leave it to the reader 2A01:C23:6174:D900:D845:C47E:676E:3837 (talk) 11:44, 19 November 2024 (UTC)
We need to follow the sources, and the sources need to be good. And here is the thing: I came to this subject a few days ago, like others here, with no knowledge of the relevance of this man, and suspicious of his notability. But I have now read quite a lot about him, and there clearly is an encyclopaedic subject that is not as simple as saying some call him a charlatan. I have now read as much as I could bear of his CTMU, and the video linked above is incorrect. It is not just word salad. He is saying something in his thesis, even if he spends way too much time overwriting it (supertautologies, for instance, being a completely unnecessary and overwritten digression into the uncontroversial). His thesis is basically Idealism with a mash up of some other recycled ideas. He is perhaps unaware of his own assumptions, but there is a grand tradition of that in philosophy. But for all that there is little if anything new here that any philosopher would take seriously, he is not a mere charlatan. None of my views on his work are due for the article (WP:OR), but neither are the views of people who read his work and assume he is just spouting verbiage for the sake of it. I doubt any philosopher has bothered study this in detail (it would take a lot of work to unpack everything he says, and it is clear that the work would be unrewarding), but if there were an analysis of his work, that would be due and interesting.More to the point, and the focus of my current active searching, I have seen statements that suggest that his use of the pseudonym Eric Hart was a matter of controversy. Does anyone know anything about this? That would probably be due in the article, particularly as he is in the Guinness book of records under the name of Hart. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 10:23, 20 November 2024 (UTC)
I see no evidence in the current article that Langan is Hart, at least not with the cited sources, so I've removed those claims for now. Feel free to re-add if good RS can connect Langan to Hart. Jjazz76 (talk) 07:10, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
Presumably because you did not read Jacobsen (2020):
And Jacobsen is clearly correct. Eric Hart gave an autobiographical sketch that is the same as Langan's:
And later came clean about the whole thing (primary source for that is not yet found, but see Jacobsen). I'll put the deletions back. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 09:15, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
For the future, if those sources can be linked directly to the Eric Hart areas that would be great. Right now there is the claim that "and was formerly listed in the Guinnes Book of Records highest IQ section under the name of Eric Hart." - But the cite is just the Guinnes book that makes no reference to Langan. Jjazz76 (talk) 18:04, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
And this source "And Jacobsen is clearly correct. Eric Hart gave an autobiographical sketch that is the same as Langan's" is clearly OR. It doesn't actually say that Jacobsen is Hart, but we've made that conclusion based on a shared biography. Jjazz76 (talk) 18:07, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Why... does this article exist?

I'll grant that my experience editing (and especially creating) entries here on WP is limited, if not nonexistent, but I was under the impression that articles about individuals were limited to people who have done something noteworthy. As far as I can tell, outside of a (scrubbed?) interview with the Daily Wire, Langan has A, claimed to have a high IQ, B, started a club with a limited membership, and C, drafted a completely untestable and unfalsifiable idea about existence. If those alone serve as qualifications for a Wiki article, then there are about a few thousand articles that need to be written about quite a few other randos on the internet.

(Also, I wonder why, if this article actually should exist, at least the first few paragraphs read like a weirdly glowing autobiography as opposed to an encyclopedia entry?) Mishyana (talk) 01:47, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

Articles exist if the topic is notable. Notable means mentioned in more than a passing way in reliable sources. That is all it means. Johnuniq (talk) 02:17, 19 November 2024 (UTC)
It specifically says "significant coverage in reliable sources". At least speaking anecdotally, I had no idea this guy existed prior to a skeptic video on him and his DW interview randomly popping into my youtube feed just yesterday. Not really sure that qualifies as significant. Mishyana (talk) 15:21, 19 November 2024 (UTC)
Same here, but 'I'd heard of him before' isn't part of the GNG. His namedrop by Gladwell and the coverage of his extremist political antics seem to qualify him as 'notable'. Having a Misplaced Pages article on you isn't a reward for having done something useful with your life. It can also be a cautionary tale... 109.255.211.6 (talk) 17:34, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

Is Christopher Langan the same as Eric Hart?

Right now this article seems to hinge on OR/non-RS that Christopher Langan is the same person as Eric Hart? What RS evidence to we have for that claim? Jjazz76 (talk) 18:10, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

You have raised the same point in two talk sections. Which one would you like the replies to go into? Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 18:41, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
I'll put them here. The reliable and independent secondary sources that tell us Hart is Langan are primarily Jacobsen (cited in the article, but additionally in an interview here ) and Miyaguchi (not currently cited, but there is an oblique reference to it in the Miyaguchi (1997) reference I added to the bibliography. I can add another where he is more explicit if necessary, but not sure why Jacobsen is not good enough. Because in addition to these reliable sources we have a whole bunch of primary source confirmation. So my question is this: is it that you actually doubt that Hart and Langan are the same? Or is it that you simply want a different type of sourcing?If, as per the section title, the real doubt is whether this is true, then we can look at the primary sources to allay our concerns. But these would not be appropriate for adding as a run of sources in the article. But anyhow, let's do that.
  1. Langan himself is basically open about this. In the First Person interview , at the 2:30 mark, Langan says that Guinness were going to switch the names to list him as the highest IQ. It did say Vos Savant had the highest IQ, but the argument was that she had scored 46 on the test and Eric Hart had scored 47. Thus Hoeflin had approached Guinness to switch that, but instead they discontinued the record (page 2) arguing that saying that the highest IQ was the world's most intelligent person was invidious. Quite right. Here was the previous year's entry (page 12).
  2. The pages of Noesis are instructive (but primary throughout of course). Through most of the 1980s Langan played the alt game, pretending that Eric Hart was not him, but not very well. Langan's comments in the pages of the journal are often ascerbic but Hart was the only one who got effusive praise from him. Langan credited Hart with coming up with the name Noesis. keep that in mind.
  3. This society has a turbulent history, described in Miyaguchi (2000) . At some point Langan took over as editor of Noesis but when Hoeflin tried to take the editorship back, things went weird evebtually seeing Langan create a Mega Society East and versions of Noesis using the same name and numbering but written by him at the same time as the actual journal was being produced. This led to legal action and he was forced to stop, which led to his creation of the Mega Foundation. The page has none of this yet, as I have been looking for good sourcing to work from. Miyaguchi is reliable, but it was essentially self published, albeit that someone else is publishing his work now. Now the relevance of that background is this. It explains the occasion for this email from Chris Cole (2001) which says that Eric Hart is a pseudonym of Langan. By this point this was well established. And note that in Cole's reply, he is replying to Langan's claim that he, Langan, named Noesis. As we saw above, Langan claimed Hart had named it previously.
  4. Kevin Langdon also confirms that Eric Hart was Langan's pseudonym in this article (page 16).
I could go on, but hopefully it is clear - there is no doubt that Jacobsen is correct. Hart and Langan are the same person. It is not OR. It is just one of the many factoids in the walled garden community. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 23:39, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
that sounds good to me.
I just found it very odd that his records in the Guiness book are under a pseudonym. Do you have any sense of why he did that? Might be useful to add to the article.
Also what is the Walled Garden community? Jjazz76 (talk) 02:02, 24 November 2024 (UTC)
The walled garden was my own term. The high IQ societies seem to act like a walled garden, chattering amongst themselves, writing down a great deal that they see as of import because, well, they are the one-in-a-millions, but generally ignored by the rest of the world, not greatly notable except to those in the middle of it. As for why Langan took the name of Hart, Jacobsen gives the answer to that. There are primary sources that attest that people tried to cheat the Mega Test by taking it twice. The test has a number of flaws, and one is that it is taken unsupervised and without time limit. Thus the tester does not know if the testee worked alone on it, or, crucially, if they are submitting a second time under a pseudonym. Hoeflin claimed to have spotted duplicates and weeded them out, but just as with Misplaced Pages sock puppets, weeding out some multiples does not mean you have found them all. The reason why a second test is completely illegitimate is this: Hoeflin provided summary feedback after submission, which included the scores gained broken down by section. And that means that a candidate who resubmitted a second time had an indication of what questions they got wrong, and thus needed more work on. Not the only problems with that test of course, but in this case, per Jacobsen (and also per primary sourced info in Noesis and per Miyaguchi), it seems Langan used Eric Hart as a pseudonym to up his original score to the 47 score that was one point higher than Vos Savant. But Vos Savant scored 46 on her first attempt. So she is really queen of the Mega Society. Interestingly Langan continued to double down on saying the 47 score should be counted as a first attempt because he "was lied to" on his first attempt! page 17. He also makes the assertion that he, as Hart, deliberately blew one of the easy questions so as to avoid a perfect score. There is no verification of this claim. But it is not like Langan has not made any other unverifiable claims. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 09:18, 24 November 2024 (UTC)
Thanks for this fascinating additional info!
I wasn't sure if walled garden was your own term, but I see what you mean. It is really fascinating working through this set of articles. I had a similar experience working through the William James Sidis article. A fascinating individual but sometimes the truth was marred by grandiose claims. Sidis graduated from Harvard at a young age, but his academic marks at Harvard were very good, but not fantastic. Of course, that makes total sense given his young age. Sidis also supposedly wrote under pseudonyms, which I find really interesting.
I personally hadn't thought about intelligence tests in a long time until editing these articles along with you (some 25 years ago) but it is interesting to think of course that those who values IQ tests as the measure of intelligence would engage in gatekeeping in some of the same way that other professors that perceive themselves as "intelligent" (medicine, law, academia) also engage in various rituals/hazings/'tests' that are likewise a form of gatekeeping. (Think the bar, MCATs, board exams, long grueling hours in residency, tenure/publishing.) Spit-balling here, but it seems that the Mega Test functions as its own form of gatekeeping. Jjazz76 (talk) 22:55, 24 November 2024 (UTC)
Walled garden is a not uncommon idiom generally, but Sirfur is applying it here on his own reconnaissance, was my understanding. 109.255.211.6 (talk) 21:28, 25 November 2024 (UTC)
For sure. I was just unfamiliar with the idiom, so wasn't sure if it was a specific term or a general one. Apparently a general one and I am just stupid. :) But I think his metaphor is helpful in understanding more niche areas of Misplaced Pages that are definitely in need of cleanup. Jjazz76 (talk) 23:36, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

Self simulation

Jjazz76 you reverted here with edsum starting "neither of these sources mention langan whatsoever..." but there are three references in what you removed, and one of those, (Irwin et al., 2020) , does indeed mention Langan and is just about the only paper I can find that gives Langan's CTMU a serious read at all. It contains the note about self simulation not being a new idea, and for a relevant reason. The paper also proposes a (more rigorous) self simulation hypothesis. One of the paper's authors (I presume Irwin) was approached by Langan who seems to have suggested that he had arrived at this idea first. The authors thus carefully speak of independent derivation, but also make the point that the hypothesis was not original to either of them. I decided to add it to the page precisely because in taking the CTMU seriously enough to describe what it is, a reader might be misled into believing it was original to Langan. The educational benefit of this page should be twofold: (1) to show the reader that the CTMU is not just word salad and quackery (see some of the comments above - some argue this), but also to show it is also not a brand new rigorous undiscovered proof of the existence of God. It is not that either. But as it is largely ignored, owing to its lack of academic significance (it is obviously not that interesting to philosophers such that they would spend the necessary time unpacking it), we don't have much to go on. We can leave that text out, but I think it detracts from the utility of the page to not explain clearly what the CTMU actually is - and isn't. I suppose we could quote a bunch of news paper articles. I can't see how that would be useful though. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 20:59, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

sorry if I took out something where it was mentioned. Please readd the cite. Will double check when I get home. Thanks for trying to bring a balanced perspective to this article which is in a class of Misplaced Pages articles I find particularly challenging to work through. Jjazz76 (talk) 21:59, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

IQ testing section

Some raised issues with the neutrality of this section. Could someone share what issues they feel need to be resolved? I'm always in favor of resolving NPOV issue tags. We've got quite a few cites in the section so it isn't that. Are there specific cites, specific sources that are at issue, or something else? Jjazz76 (talk) 23:39, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

I'm not seeing the issue (although that may be my bias - I rewrote most of that). We basically say that he took the test, the test was a good faith effort by Hoeflin to produce a score in excess of 176 IQ, but that the test is flawed (and why). Polygnotus, you placed the tag in this edit but there is no explanation. What do you feel the issue is? We did call the Hoeflin research group "exclusive" but that is gone now. Does that resolve it? Thanks. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 08:09, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
I'll remove the tag for now, I have to go get food, but the article still has a bunch of problems. I'll try to list some of them later. Polygnotus (talk) 08:26, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
Happy to continue the discussion @Polygnotus. Jjazz76 (talk) 15:09, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
@Jjazz76: Have you seen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDmcoYpTTbE ? Polygnotus (talk) 19:27, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
I have. It is also linked in a discussion above. But it is a hostile source, and it cuts and quotes to suit their purpose. I happen to think some of the analysis is spot on, but the maker of the video clearly did not actually read the CTMU (or else did not take time to try to understand it) because it is not just a word salad (although it may meet the definition of a word coleslaw I suppose). Langan is saying something in his thesis. He just lacks academic rigour and scrutiny, wastes time on discussions he does not need and makes some big assumptions that he does not admit to. He puts forward a flawed theory that won't make much difference in the grand scheme of philosophy, but it is not nothing. Likewise his claims to the world's highest IQ are nonsense, but he is clearly an intelligent man. And intelligent people often believe some stupid stuff. Just saying. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 19:48, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
Ah I hadn't read the entire talkpage and its archives yet (should I?). he is clearly an intelligent man Where can I find some evidence of that? Polygnotus (talk) 21:32, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
The law of diminishing returns applies to the archives. I wouldn't bother! As to evidence of his intelligence: well I don't think there is much that he has exceptional intelligence as I cannot find any evidence of standardised IQ tests, and he has chosen not to join the Triple Nine Society, nor Mensa from what I can see (which is interesting as they would require standardised IQ tests). But a man who was sufficiently self directed to produce the CTMU (problematic as it is), and especially from his background, is clearly not without a good share of intelligence. Additionally he did score highly on the Mega Test, which may only point to good research skills, but it probably shows more than that. It may not accurately reflect his actual IQ, but he would have to be intelligent to do so. He also had, supposedly, an excellent SAT score - although we lack evidence for that. There is also some other test supposedly given to him for a TV appearance, where he was said to be "off the scale", but that was set up for TV and not a standardised test. So again, I don't know how intelligent he is, but he is clearly intelligent. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 22:37, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
@Polygnotus - Saw it posted above and watched the whole thing last night. A few thoughts:
1) Doesn't really add anything substantive that isn't currently in the article.
2) We can't actually use Youtube videos as sources on Misplaced Pages, certainly not editorial ones. I didn't see any references in it, or name drops of print sources that we could use.
So for me it was a bit of a dead end, though interesting to watch. Jjazz76 (talk) 19:59, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
I am not saying we should use it as a source, but its a great introduction to the topic and an interesting POV. Polygnotus (talk) 21:32, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
Ehh I wouldn't even agree it is a great introduction to the topic. Too long and not enough info. I found some of the "takedowns" pretty weak. Jjazz76 (talk) 21:45, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
I agree with the decision to de-tag it. If anyone believes it has such issues it'd behoove them to say why in detail, rather than drive-by templating. My main reservation about it is that it gets rather deep into the weeds of one particular IQ test, which is a bit of a side-track in a bio of one individual. But that appears to be pragmatically necessary, given their apparent respective notabilities, and the nature of same. 109.255.211.6 (talk) 22:22, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
I see what you mean, but the Mega Test is the only test score of his that we have reliable information about. Which is interesting. Also it is a deeply flawed test, not least because he used a pseudonym to take it (no less than) twice. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 07:37, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
Right. What we have currently is essentially what'd happened if we had a Mega Society article and it'd been merged here as lacking independent notability. Actually I see now that link points to a different biography, so some refactoring to there might be more elegant. But this doesn't really speak to the (N)POV issue, or lack thereof. 109.255.211.6 (talk) 08:54, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
I don't see a BLP issue. Langan is known only for his claims of extraordinary intelligence, and the lack of any actual evidence to back those claims is obviously important in context. Guy (help! - typo?) 14:49, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
Evidence to the contrary, indeed. 109.255.211.6 (talk) 09:12, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
Not seeing any issues. I'm sure he doesn't like it much, but it's well sourced and appears accurate. Guy (help! - typo?) 18:37, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
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