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Langan has said he does not belong to any religious denomination, explaining that he "can't afford to let logical approach to theology be prejudiced by religious dogma."<ref name=ABC_Chat/> He calls himself "a respecter of all faiths, among peoples everywhere."<ref name=ABC_Chat/> Langan has said he does not belong to any religious denomination, explaining that he "can't afford to let logical approach to theology be prejudiced by religious dogma."<ref name=ABC_Chat/> He calls himself "a respecter of all faiths, among peoples everywhere."<ref name=ABC_Chat/>


==Mega Society lawsuit==


In 2002 the owners of the Mega Society, a ], filed suit against Langan and his wife, Gina LoSasso, for unauthorized use of the society's ]s and ]s.<ref name="sd_court"> Superior Court of California, County of San Diego.</ref><ref> Kevin Langdon. Mega Society, July 15 2001.</ref><ref> Kevin Langdon. Noesis, The Journal of the Mega Society, Number 153, July 2001.</ref> The Langans had been active members of the society but in October 1997 left the organization, and in 1999 formed their own competing organization, which they called the "Mega Foundation." The Mega Foundation was established as a non-profit corporation established to "create and implement programs that aid in the development of severely gifted individuals and their ideas,"<ref name=MSmission></ref> declaring itself to be ''the official Mega Society''. <ref name="MSHomepage"> from the ]</ref> Later they defined their group as a faction of the ''Mega Society'' under the names ''Mega Society-East'' and ''Mega Society-East Coast Faction''. They also named their group's journal ''Noesis-E'' (''E'' standing for ''electronic version'') to resemble ''Noesis'', the journal of the original ''Mega Society'' then published only in hard copy. Langan and LoSasso defended their actions in the original ''Noesis''.<ref name=noesis>. The Journal of the ''Mega Society'', Number 152,
July 2001.</ref> The owners of the ''Mega Society'' contended that the Langan's use of the name "Mega Society" for an organization with a journal, policies and purposes similar to that of their own constituted ],<ref name="arb_decision"> The ''Mega Society'' v. Dr. Gina Lynne LoSasso d/b/a Mega Foundation. Claim Number: FA0312000215404. National Arbitration Forum, January 2004</ref> and sought relief in the courts after negotiations with Langan proved fruitless.<ref name="court_judgment"> Superior Court for the State of California, County of San Diego, March 2003.</ref>

This litigation resulted in a ] ruling enjoining the Langans from any use of the Mega Society name and trademark.<ref name="court_judgment"/><ref name="sd_court"/> Also challenged was the Langans' use of the ]s "megasociety.net" and "megasociety.com" which had been registered by Langan's wife in her name. A National Arbitration Forum ruling then forced the Langans to release those domains to the ''Mega Society''.<ref name="arb_decision"/> After the California Superior Court ruling and release of domain names to the ''Mega Society'', the Langans retained the domains ''megafoundation.net'' and ''megafoundation.org'' and the Mega Foundation's journal ''Noeon''.<ref name="arb_decision"/>


==References== ==References==

Revision as of 02:40, 20 March 2007

Christopher Michael Langan (born c. 1957) is an American autodidact whose IQ was reported by 20/20 and other media sources to have been measured at 195. Billed as possibly "the smartest man in America", he rose to prominence in 1999 while working as a bouncer on Long Island. Langan is author of the Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe or CTMU (pronounced "cat-mew"), which he describes as "essentially a theory of the relationship between mind and reality".

Life

Langan was born in San Francisco but spent most of his early life in Montana. His mother was the daughter of a wealthy shipping executive but was cut off from her family; his father died or disappeared before he was born. Langan started talking at six months, taught himself to read before he was four, and was skipped ahead in school. But he grew up in poverty and says he was beaten by his stepfather from when he was almost six to when he was about fourteen. By the end of that time, Langan had begun weight training. He recounted the result to Cynthia McFadden of 20/20:

McFADDEN What happened then?

Mr. LANGAN Well, he came into the room one morning and hit me across the eyes with a garrison belt. So I beat the hell out of him and told him never to come back.

McFADDEN And he didn’t.

Mr. LANGAN He didn’t.

He earned a reputation as a tough guy, and closed out his high school years doing mostly independent study: "hey didn't know what to teach me anymore, but nobody was going to take me out and put me in college on the fast track, so I just did what they told me. I went to study hall and worked on my own, taught myself advanced math, physics, philosophy, Latin and Greek, all that." After earning a perfect score on the SAT, he tried college (Reed College and later Montana State University), but dropped out due to finance and transportation problems, as well as to intellectual discontent, explaining to Esquire: "There I was, paying my own money, taking classes from people who were obviously my intellectual inferiors. I just figured, Hey, I need this like a moose needs a hat rack!"

Langan took a string of labor-intensive jobs, and by his mid-40s had been a construction worker, cowboy, forest service firefighter, farmhand, and for over twenty years, a bouncer on Long Island. He developed a "double-life strategy": "On one side, you're a regular guy. You go to work, you do your job, you exchange pleasantries. On the other side, you come home and you begin doing equations in your head." In this way, working in isolation, he created the CTMU, his philosophical theory of the relationship between mind and reality.

Wider attention came in 1999, when Esquire magazine published a profile of Langan and other members of the high-IQ community. Billing Langan as "the smartest man in America", the article's account of the weight-lifting bouncer and his "Theory of Everything" sparked a flurry of media interest. Board-certified neuropsychologist Dr. Robert Novelly tested Langan's IQ for 20/20, which reported that Langan broke the ceiling of the test, scoring "off the charts". Novelly was said to be astounded, saying: "Chris is the highest individual that I have ever measured in 25 years of doing this."

Articles and interviews highlighting Langan appeared in Popular Science, The Times, Newsday, Muscle & Fitness (which reported that he could bench 500 pounds), and elsewhere. Langan was featured on 20/20 and interviewed on BBC Radio and on Errol Morris's First Person. He has written question-and-answer columns for New York Newsday, The Improper Hamptonian, and Men's Fitness.

Langan moved in 2004 with his wife Dr. Gina Langan (nee LoSasso), a clinical neuropsychologist, to northern Missouri, where he owns and operates a horse ranch.

Intelligent design movement

Langan and his wife are fellows of the International Society for Complexity, Information and Design (ISCID), an intelligent design society. The ISCID's journal Progress in Complexity, Information, and Design published a paper in 2002 in which Langan explained his "Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe". Later that year, Langan presented a lecture on Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe at the ISCID's Research And Progress in Intelligent Design (RAPID) conference. In 2004, Langan contributed a chapter to the book Uncommon Dissent, a collection of essays by fellow intelligent design proponents and ISCID fellows edited by William Dembski.

The CTMU says that reality evolves by self-replication and self-selection, undergoing a process which, according to Langan, bears description both as "a cosmic form of natural selection" and as "intelligent self-design". In Uncommon Dissent, Langan argues that neo-Darwinism and "intelligent design theory" are theories of biological causality which ultimately require a model accounting for the laws of nature and their role in natural processes. He contends that both neo-Darwinism and ID theory are currently deficient in this regard, and describes what he sees as a number of problems with the causality concept itself. As a solution to these problems and a model of nature and causality, he proposes the CTMU and its "Self-Configuring Self-Processing Language" (SCSPL). The CTMU, he says, synthesizes neo-Darwinism and ID theory within a reconciliatory framework, uniting teleology and evolution in an approach to biological origins and evolution he calls "Teleologic Evolution".

Asked about creationism, Langan has said:

Regarding evolution and creationism, the linkage is simple: since Biblical accounts of the genesis of our world and species are true but metaphorical, our task is to correctly decipher the metaphor in light of scientific evidence also given to us by God. Hence, the CTMU.

I believe in the theory of evolution, but I believe as well in the allegorical truth of creation theory. In other words, I believe that evolution, including the principle of natural selection, is one of the tools used by God to create mankind. Mankind is then a participant in the creation of the universe itself, so that we have a closed loop. I believe that there is a level on which science and religious metaphor are mutually compatible.

Langan has said he does not belong to any religious denomination, explaining that he "can't afford to let logical approach to theology be prejudiced by religious dogma." He calls himself "a respecter of all faiths, among peoples everywhere."

Mega Society lawsuit

In 2002 the owners of the Mega Society, a high IQ society, filed suit against Langan and his wife, Gina LoSasso, for unauthorized use of the society's trademarks and trade names. The Langans had been active members of the society but in October 1997 left the organization, and in 1999 formed their own competing organization, which they called the "Mega Foundation." The Mega Foundation was established as a non-profit corporation established to "create and implement programs that aid in the development of severely gifted individuals and their ideas," declaring itself to be the official Mega Society. Later they defined their group as a faction of the Mega Society under the names Mega Society-East and Mega Society-East Coast Faction. They also named their group's journal Noesis-E (E standing for electronic version) to resemble Noesis, the journal of the original Mega Society then published only in hard copy. Langan and LoSasso defended their actions in the original Noesis. The owners of the Mega Society contended that the Langan's use of the name "Mega Society" for an organization with a journal, policies and purposes similar to that of their own constituted bad faith, and sought relief in the courts after negotiations with Langan proved fruitless.

This litigation resulted in a California Superior Court ruling enjoining the Langans from any use of the Mega Society name and trademark. Also challenged was the Langans' use of the domain names "megasociety.net" and "megasociety.com" which had been registered by Langan's wife in her name. A National Arbitration Forum ruling then forced the Langans to release those domains to the Mega Society. After the California Superior Court ruling and release of domain names to the Mega Society, the Langans retained the domains megafoundation.net and megafoundation.org and the Mega Foundation's journal Noeon.

References

  1. Sager 1999, McFadden 1999, Fowler 2000, Wigmore 2000, O'Connell 2001, Brabham 2001, Quain 2001. In Morris 2001, Langan gives his IQ as "somewhere between 190 and 210."
  2. Sager 1999, Fowler 2000, Wigmore 2000, Brabham 2001.
  3. CTMU Q & A - What is the CTMU?
  4. ^ Brabham, Dennis. (August 21, 2001). "The Smart Guy". Newsday.
  5. ^ McFadden, Cynthia. (December 9, 1999). "The Smart Guy". 20/20.
  6. ^ Sager, Mike. (November 1999). "The Smartest Man in America". Esquire.
  7. Quain, John R. (October 14, 2001). "Wise Guy" (Interview with Christopher Langan and About Christopher Langan). Popular Science.
  8. Wigmore, Barry. (February 7, 2000). "Einstein's brain, King Kong's body". The Times.
  9. O'Connell, Jeff. (May 2001). "Mister Universe". Muscle & Fitness.
  10. Fowler, Damien. (January 2000). Interview with Mega Foundation members. Outlook. BBC Radio.
  11. Morris, Errol. (August 14, 2001). "The Smartest Man in the World". First Person.
  12. Langan, Christopher M. (September 2001). Chris Langan answers your questions. New York Newsday. Melville, NY.
  13. Langan, Christopher M. (2000-2001). HiQ. The Improper Hamptonian. Westhampton Beach, NY.
  14. O'Connell, Jeff, Ed. (2004). World of knowledge: we harness the expertise of the brawny, the brainy, and the bearded to solve your most pressing dilemmas. Men's Fitness.
  15. ISCID fellows
  16. Is It Science Yet?: Intelligent Design Creationsim and the Constitution. Washington University Law Quarterly
  17. Langan, Christopher M. (2002). The Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe: A New Kind of Reality Theory. Progress in Complexity, Information, and Design 1.2-1.3
  18. RAPID conference schedule
  19. Langan, Christopher M. (2004). Cheating the Millennium: The Mounting Explanatory Debts of Scientific Naturalism. In Uncommon Dissent: Intellectuals Who Find Darwinism Unconvincing, Wm. Dembski, Ed., Intercollegiate Studies Institute.
  20. Langan 2002, p. 50.
  21. Langan 2004, p. 236.
  22. Langan 2004, p. 246.
  23. Langan 2004, pp. 243–258.
  24. Langan 2004, pp. 259–262.
  25. Langan 2004, pp. 261–262.
  26. From "Cheating the Millennium: The Mounting Explanatory Debts of Scientific Naturalism", Christopher Langan, 2003 (accessed 9 March 2007) :

    The concept of teleology remains alive nonetheless, having recently been granted a scientific reprieve in the form of Intelligent Design theory. "ID theory" holds that the complexity of biological systems implies the involvement of empirically detectable intelligent causes in nature. Although the roots of ID theory can be traced back to theological arguments from design, Langan holds that it is explicitly scientific rather than theological in character, and has thus been presented on the same basis as any other scientific hypothesis awaiting scientific confirmation.
    Rather than confining itself to theological or teleological causation, Langan's interpretation of ID theory allows for any kind of intelligent designer – a human being, an artificial intelligence, even sentient aliens. This reflects the idea that intelligence is a generic quality which leaves a signature identifiable by techniques already heavily employed in such fields as cryptography, anthropology, forensics and computer science.

  27. CTMU Q & A - More on God
  28. ^ ABCNEWS.com Chat Transcript
  29. ^ View Case Detail - MEGA SOCIETY vs LANGAN Superior Court of California, County of San Diego.
  30. Reply to Gina LoSasso Kevin Langdon. Mega Society, July 15 2001.
  31. Special Issue: Kevin Langdon Replies to Chris Langan and Gina LoSasso Kevin Langdon. Noesis, The Journal of the Mega Society, Number 153, July 2001.
  32. Mega Foundation Mission page
  33. "The Official Mega Society Home Page" from the Internet Archive
  34. Noesis. The Journal of the Mega Society, Number 152, July 2001.
  35. ^ Decision The Mega Society v. Dr. Gina Lynne LoSasso d/b/a Mega Foundation. Claim Number: FA0312000215404. National Arbitration Forum, January 2004
  36. ^ Judgment Superior Court for the State of California, County of San Diego, March 2003.

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