Editorial
Kevin Langdon
kevin.langdon@polymath-systems.com
The present set of three issues is devoted almost entirely to organizational
matters. This has been made necessary by the refusal of Chris Langan to refrain
from infringing the intellectual property rights of the Mega Society and his
belligerent stance with regard to the society.
A proposal was made by Chris Cole, Ronald K. Hoeflin, Kevin Langdon, and
Jeff Ward, in Noesis #151, to take legal steps to enforce our rights:
Leighton M. Anderson, Esq. is appointed counsel for the Society, for the
purpose of issueing the attached Cease-and-Desist Letter, and if necessary, for
pursuing other legal remedies to protect the name of the Mega Society and its
journal Noesis, as recommended in the attached letter from Mr.
Anderson. The fees for Mr. Anderson's services will be paid by the Publisher,
aided by other members' voluntary contributions.
The Cease-and-Desist Letter and the letter from Mr. Anderson appear on pp.
5-9 of Noesis #151 <../noesis/151/cease&de.html>.
All comments received on this proposal are included in Noesis
##152-154.
This issue includes Richard May's interesting article on his family
background, a dialog between Jeffrey R. Fisher and Karen Ferrara on
"Government Creep," two chess problems by Jeff Ward, and comments
from a number of people on the issues at hand. #153 consists of detailed
replies by Kevin Langdon to Chris Langan's remarks about Mega on his Web site
and on the Prometheus Society's fire list and #154 consists of exchanges
between Chris Langan and Chris Cole and two responses to Langan by Kevin
Langdon.
In addition to these issues of Noesis, I have prepared a transcript
of relevant e-mail from the Mega and Prometheus e-mail lists, which can be
found at http://www.polymath-systems.com/intel/hiqsocs/hiqarch/langlang/index.html.
Chris Langan has made many statements which are clearly refuted by this
material. All the material taken together gives a clear picture of the
disruptive effects which
Mr. Langan has produced on the Mega Society and the Prometheus Society and sets
the record straight on a number of disputed matters. This material is password
protected. The login and password for Prometheus members are the same as those
for the members-only portion of the Prometheus site. Printed copies of this
issue of Noesis contain the login and password for Mega members.
Jeff Ward, a man of few words, sent the following statement on this matter:
"I agree that we should initiate legal action against Langan at the
earliest possible moment." And I strongly urge a "yes" vote.
Otherwise, Langan will get away with pushing all other members of the real Mega
Society out of the way and taking over our market niche.
Members, please indicate your votes on this proposal on the enclosed ballot
(a facsimile of the
ballot is item 12 in this issue). Ballots must be received by August 15.
Speaking of that niche, I have spoken with Nik Lygeros about the possibility
of merging the Mega Society and the Pi Society <http://www.desargues.univ-lyon1.fr/home/lygeros/Mensa/PI.html>.
A listing of the very interesting contents of Pi's journal, Perfection,
was included in Noesis #151. According to Nik, this possibility has
been discussed with the members of Pi also. The Pi Society has accepted more
recent Mega and Titan scores than the December 31, 1994 cutoff date specified in the
proposal recently approved by the Mega membership, and one or two members have
been accepted on the basis of tests not on our list. I think no great harm
would be done by grandfathering in these people, but I'd like to see these
discrepancies in admission criteria eliminated. To that end, I now offer the
following proposal to the Mega membership:
Members of the Pi Society as of July 1, 2001 shall be accepted into the Mega
Society without proof of further testing.
Mega has greater name recognition, a larger membership, more objective
psychometric standards (see Noesis ##140 <../noesis/140/index.html> and 141 [with an analogous URL]), and a hard-won
Constitutional framework based on democracy and member rights; I believe that
this framework should be made use of by the combined organization if there is a
merger. Pi has a lot of energy and a more active publishing program. We have a
number of members in common. Please send your comments on this proposal.
The symbol on the front cover of each of these three issues of Noesis
is a proposed logo for the Mega Society, designed by member Benoit Desjardins.
If anyone has other suggestions for a logo, please submit them. When we've seen
all the candidate logos and everyone's comments on them, we'll take a vote on
this. ("No logo" will be one of the choices.) Web readers: For
black-and-white versions of the covers of these issues, click #152, #153, or #154
(links are disabled on these pages).
We'd like to get a sense of how many of you have Internet access, as the Net
has come to play a greater part in the affairs of the higher-IQ-societies
community recently. Please write to Jeff Ward at megadmin@polymath-systems.com
or 13155 Wimberly Square #284,
San Diego CA 94128, indicating whether you have:
1. e-mail; 2. web browsing; 3. your own Web site (please include the URL). You
may mail your response (on a separate sheet of paper, please) along with your
ballot.
Mega members who have not already done so are invited to join the mega
e-mail list at Yahoogroups. Write to me and I'll add you to the list. (There's
only occasional traffic presently.)
Note the system used in the Table of Contents: Items are listed
sequentially. The second number for each item is number of pages. In the
printed version, pages are numbered by item and page, e.g., 3-5.
Chris Cole and I are planning a new publication on the Web, the Journal
of Right Tail Psychometrics, which will be devoted to the sudy of the
highest ranges of human intelligence. The deadline for our first issue, Fall
2001, is September 15. Please send submissions to me at the above address.
Ron Hoeflin will publish the next issue of Noesis. Send submissions
to him at P.O. Box 539,
New York, NY 10101.