In-Sight Publishing

Interviewer: Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Numbering: Issue 30.A, Idea: Outliers & Outsiders (25)

Place of Publication: Langley, British Columbia, Canada

Title: In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal

Web Domain: http://www.in-sightpublishing.com

Individual Publication Date: June 8, 2022

Issue Publication Date: September 1, 2022

Name of Publisher: In-Sight Publishing

Frequency: Three Times Per Year

Words: 27,179

ISSN 2369-6885

Abstract

Hindemburg Melão Jr. (January 15, 1972) was born in São Paulo, Brazil. He founded the most, or one of the most, selective high-I.Q. societies, the Sigma Society and is the Creator of the Sigma Test Extended. He is a philosopher, chess analyst, and an astrophotographer. He published hundreds of articles on chess, finance, philosophy, science, and more.  He discusses: an extensive preamble of gratitude and clarifications to the interview; growing up; extended self; family background; youth with friends; education; purpose of intelligence tests; high intelligence; extreme reactions to geniuses; greatest geniuses; genius and a profoundly gifted person; necessities for genius or the definition of genius; work experiences and jobs held; job path; myths of the gifted; God; science; tests taken and scores earned; range of the scores; ethical philosophy; political philosophy; metaphysics; worldview; meaning in life; source of meaning; afterlife; life; and love.

Keywords: Albert Frank, AlphaZero, American Biographical Institute, artificial intelligence, Bahá’í Faith, Baran Yonter, Catholic, Cattell, Chris Harding, Christopher Michael Langan, Deus VULT, Domagoj Kutle, Galois, Galton, Garth Zietsman, Gauss, George Zweig, Grady Towers, Guinness Book of World Records, Guilherme Marques dos Santos Silva, Hindemburg Melão Jr., hrIQt, intelligence, Intertel, Isaac Newton, ISIS Test, ISPE, Jimmy Rogers, Kardecism, Keith Raniere, Kevin Langdon, Kim Ung-Yong, Langdon Adult Intelligence Test, life, Marilyn vos Savant, Martial Arts, Mega Society, Mega Test, Murray Gell-Mann, MuZero, native Indian, Neumann, Nobel Prize, Pars Society, Pascal, Paul Cooijmans, Paulo Reginaldo Pascholati, Petri Widsten, pIQ, Prometheus Society, Richard Lynn, Rick Rosner, rIQ, Ronald Hoeflin, science, Sigma Society, Sigma Test Extended, Stanford-Binet, Titan Test, TNS, views, work.

Conversation with Hindemburg Melão Jr. on Gratitude and Clarifications, and Life, Views, and Work: Founder, Sigma Society (1)

*Please see the footnotes, bibliography, and citation style listing after the interview.*

*English version at the top. Portuguese version at the bottom.*

First of all, I want to thank my girlfriend Tamara, for her patience in reading this text and helping me to cut long unnecessary snippets, Tor for the kindness of referring me for this interview and you for accepting this nomination and for your kind help with the translation review.

As much as possible, I tried to synthesize and simplify, but whenever it was necessary to decide between the shortest and the most correct answer, I chose the one that seemed to me the most correct. As a result, I ended up going longer than I would have liked and branching out some answers for details that apparently lose link to the question, but are actually indirectly connected by two, three, or more nodes, so that if those snippets were removed , there would be gaps that would compromise coherence.

Before presenting the answers, it is necessary to make some important clarifications: when the question is simple, it is enough to give a short answer so that the interpretation is univocal, but for complex questions, before answering it is necessary to conceptualize some of the terms used, to minimize the differences. between the message to be transmitted and the interpretation that will be made of it. A question like “Why, in chess, aren’t all doubled pawns weaknesses?” There is no way to answer in a way that gives a correct idea in just 1 or 2 paragraphs, not even if the answer was simplified and summarized. To try to provide a reasonably correct and complete idea, at least 20 pages are needed, with several examples commented. In this interview, some questions involve similar situations.

This kind of difficulty is inherent in any question involving IQ, because the concept currently disseminated has some flaws that need to be properly revised, and some of these revisions are not trivial, requiring a considerable amount of preliminary clarification to ensure that the interpretation of the answer is sufficiently accurate and reliable.

Outside of high IQ societies, it is common for people to confuse scales with different standard deviations. James Woods’ SAT score 1579 is often converted to 180, while Bill Gates’ 1590 score is converted to 154 (sometimes 160), and both appear on the same list as if Woods’ IQ was higher than Gates’, although it is the opposite. This kind of primary error has all but been eradicated in high-IQ societies, but there are still systematic errors being ostensibly repeated, some of which are large and serious. These errors cause a lot of confusion and make it difficult to correctly interpret fundamental questions. I am not referring to individual mistakes, made by a few people, but to “institutionalized” mistakes, universally accepted as if they were right and made by practically everyone.

In 2000, I solved a central problem in Psychometrics that had been dragging on since the 1950s, when Thurstone and Gardner realized the importance of standardizing cognitive tests in order to produce proportion-scale scores. Bob Seitz of Mega Society referred to this problem as “The Holy Grail of Psychometry”. After investigating this issue and resolving it, I published an article describing my method and showing how tests should be standardized. I also reviewed the Mega Test and Titan Test standards using this method. In 2003, I applied the same method to Sigma Test and published another, more detailed article, describing the entire standardization process step-by-step and explaining the reasons why this procedure is superior to the methods used. Among the chronic problems that are solved naturally with the application of this method, one of the most important is the correction in the calculations of percentiles and rarity levels. This is a systematic error that has been made since 1905. I will comment on this question in a little more detail in answering questions dealing with this topic.

There are two other mistakes that are made systematically, although the solutions to them are already known but are not applied, in part because these problems are not well understood: the problem of construct validity and the problem of the adequacy of the level of difficulty of the questions. to the level of intelligence that is intended to be measured. In a way, these problems are connected, because tests generally have good construct validity for a given range of skill levels, but not for the entire range in which the test is intended to measure, so the results turn out to be reasonably accurate and reliable for people whose scores are within the validity range, but begin to show serious distortions outside this range. A classic example to illustrate this problem is the Stanford-Binet V. The cognitive processes required to solve the BLS questions may be appropriate for correctly measuring intelligence in the range of 60 to 140, but begin to be less appropriate between 140 and 150 , so scores above 150 are already predominantly representing a latent trait that is not what was intended to be measured. This completely compromises the validity of this type of instrument for measurement above 150, and puts in doubt the extent to which scores between 140 and 150 are actually reflecting the intellectual level.

To better organize the information, before proceeding I will mention 3 important mistakes that are systematically made by professional psychometrists and in high IQ societies:

1. The way in which tests are standardized, both clinical tests and high range IQ tests (hrIQts) – either through the use of Item Response Theory or Classical Test Theory – produces distortions in the scale, and the way in which the percentiles are calculated leads to results that are very far from reality. This distortion in the scale has already been pointed out since the 1950s, by Thurstone, and had already been noticed (although not described) by Binet himself in 1905. A good method for normalizing intelligence tests should produce scores on a scale of proportion, but IQ scores are presented on an ordinal scale ( https://www.questionpro.com/blog/nominal-ordinal-interval-ratio/ ). In addition, errors in the calculations of rarity levels present very large distortions in the highest scores, reaching more than 3 orders of magnitude. This is because the calculations start from the incorrect assumption that the distribution of IQs is Gaussian throughout. The morphology of the distribution is in fact very similar to that of a Gaussian in the range -2σ to +2σ, but it starts to break down outside this range. This fact cannot be overlooked when calculating percentiles. The way the calculations are currently done by psychometricians and in high-IQ communities, results are far from correct. Therefore, when talking about the 99.9999% percentile or IQ 176 (σ=16), the meanings are very different, although they are used as if they were the same thing. The correct rarity for IQ=176 is not 1 in 983,000, but 1 in 24,500. And this does not happen because the standard deviation is greater. The standard deviation is the same (16 in this example), but the right tail is denser than in a normal distribution, making higher scores more abundant than would be expected if the distribution were exactly Gaussian. This is a problem related to the morphology of the true distribution, which does not fit the theoretical model of normal distribution. In fact, it doesn’t fit any of the 100+ distributions tested well, including the more versatile ones like the 3-parameter Weibull distribution.
2. Another problem is that the difficulty level of the most difficult questions of each test is not compatible with the nominal ceiling of the test. As a consequence, such a test proves to be inappropriate for the range of IQs it should measure. The test works properly within a certain range, in which it contains questions of compatible difficulty, but fails to function outside that range. This is much more serious in clinical trials, where the ceiling of difficulty rarely exceeds 135 to 140, but the nominal ceiling can reach more than 200 (Stanford-Binet V, for example). Above 140, clinical tests measure how fast you can solve elementary problems, which is not necessarily an appropriate metric for representing intelligence at the highest levels. In hrIQt cases, in the “difficulty” question, questions are usually appropriate up to about 170 or 180, but not much higher. Here it would be necessary to open a long parenthesis to discuss the meaning of these scores, because up to 130 or a little above, the theoretical rarity is almost equal to the true rarity, but for 140, 150 and above, the theoretical rarity becomes more and more distant. of true rarity. So when we talk about 180 of IQ (σ=16), it is not enough to inform the standard deviation. In addition, it is necessary to inform if we are talking about the score measured in a test or if it is a true percentile converted into IQ. If the distribution of IQs were exactly Gaussian across their spectrum, then an IQ of 180 (σ=16) should correspond to a rarity level of 1 in 3,500,000, but the true rarity of 180 scores is around 1 in 48,000. Later I mention a link in which I describe how to get to that 1 in 48,000 rarity level.
3. Another problem is related to construct validity, that is, whether what the test is measuring is in fact what it is intended to measure. The best clinical tests (WAIS and SB) are very good at this criterion for the range of 70 to 130, because this topic has been widely debated among good psychometricians for decades and some good criteria have been established to assess (albeit subjectively) whether the items are measuring what they should be measuring (intelligence, in this case, or the g factor). However, outside this range of 70 to 130, the measured variable becomes increasingly different from what was intended to be measured. In hrIQts the range is a little longer, it reaches around 160, some tests reach 170 or even 180.

In addition to these 3 issues that are seen in virtually all clinical trials and all hrIQts, there are also some individual issues, which are more basic and only affect some specific tests, such as inflated norm, template errors, misstatements, etc. I will not deal with those, because they are already well known and easy to identify and correct.

It is important not to confuse construct validity with difficulty level adequacy. A very elementary issue, with a very short time frame to resolve, may have adequate difficulty to measure at the 1 in 10 million rarity level, because although it is inherently easy, as the time frame is reduced, it ends up being difficult to resolve within that time frame. In such cases, the difficulty may be appropriate for measuring something at very high levels of rarity, but this latent trait being measured is not what it should be measuring. Furthermore, the fact that a test has construct validity in a given interval does not imply that it will necessarily have validity at levels far above or far below that interval. This is one of the most common mistakes, because validating an intelligence test for 98% of the population does not guarantee that it will continue to correctly measure intelligence at the level of the highest 1% or 0.1% of scores. Validation needs to be careful at all intervals at which the test is intended to be able to measure correctly.

There are also some more subtle issues. The Raven Standard Progressive Matrices, for example, have been used by Mensa in several countries for decades, but are inadequate to correctly measure above 120, perhaps even above 115. The reason is that the test consists of 60 questions, but only 1 or 2 of these questions (the most difficult ones) are useful to discriminate at the level of 133, which is where Mensa intends to select. So it is as if only 2 of the 60 questions were used, and a sample with only 2 elements cannot be considered statistically valid. In fact, the cut-off at 133 is not exactly determined by 1 or 2 questions, but these 2 questions account for over 90% of the test’s discriminating power at this cut-off level.

For these reasons, if there is a sincere interest in IQ questions getting answers that are representative of reality, these three problems need to be fixed:

1. Unfounded extrapolation of construct validity;
2. Inadequacy of the difficulty of the items for the intellectual level that the test intends to measure;
3. Adoption of incorrect hypotheses about the shape of the distribution of scores at the highest levels, based on the shape in the region close to the central tendency.

In addition to these, there are other points that need to be clarified. There is a widespread myth that clinically applied tests are “better” (more reliable, more accurate, more reliable) than hrIQts. In some cases, they really are. But not at all. For scores below 130, supervised tests are standardized based on larger, unselected samples. This constitutes a real advantage of clinical trials compared to hrIQts. Another advantage is that good psychometricians know a greater number of statistical techniques, so in the range from 70 to 130, the best supervised tests usually produce more reliable scores. However, above 130, and especially above 140, supervised tests present several problems, starting with the inadequate ceiling of difficulty. The most difficult WAIS questions, for example, are too easy for them to measure intelligence above 135. Another problem is that the construct validity of supervised tests is designed for the range of 70 to 130, not applying as well outside of that range.

I made a simulated example to show what the construct variable problem consists of:

The blue line represents the latent trait ^[*] that we would like to measure (intelligence or g-factor or something). The red circles represent the scores obtained in the test converted into IQ. In the range between 0 and 120, the measured scores are very good representations of the latent trait, because the points are distributed closely close to the blue line, indicating a strong correlation between the variable we would like to measure and the variable we are actually measuring. [*https://dictionary.apa.org/latent-trait-theory, https://www.jstor.org/stable/1434009%5D

From 120 onwards, and especially from 130 onwards, the red circles begin to move further and further away from the blue line, indicating that the correlation between the variable we would like to measure and the variable that is actually being measured becomes more and more weak, so what we are measuring is becoming less and less representative of what we would like to measure. If you consider the entire range from 0 to 200, or even from 70 to 200, the correlation still looks strong, but that’s only because the range 70 to 120 is contained within the range 70 to 200, and as in the range 70 to 120 the correlation is strong, this improves the average correlation of the entire range from 70 to 200, but when considering exclusively the correlation between 130 and 200, it is noticed that the correlation is weak in this region and becomes weaker for the scores taller. Therefore, for scores above 130, what matters is not the global correlation, but the local correlation.

On IQ tests like the Stanford-Binet, for example, some very fast people with a true IQ of 150 can score 190 or more as a consequence of the problem described above. The opposite effect can also happen, and people with a true IQ of 190, if they are very slow, can score 150, 140 or even less. The size of errors can reach really high levels, both for more than correct and for less than correct, which is why construct validity ^[*] is an extremely important issue. [*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Construct_validity]

A test that has good construct validity should behave like the one shown in the graph below, in which the red circles remain close to the blue line throughout the entire spectrum within which it is intended to measure:

Of course, if the sample has a normal distribution, the data will be distributed approximately like an ellipse, not like a line that was represented above, but for didactic purposes this example needs to be like this to be visually clearer the increase in the amplitude of the dispersion of the measures in relative to the latent trait we would like to measure. It is also worth emphasizing that, in the real world, situations like the one in the graph above practically do not exist, because the alignment is too good. But it is desirable that the measured scores be able to provide good representations for the latent trait within as wide a range as possible.

In supervised IQ tests, used in clinics, disparities usually start to become serious from 130 and especially from 140, that is, what the test measures above 140 is no longer a good representation of Intelligence. In the cases of the best hrIQts, the scores remain reasonably good representations of the latent trait up to IQ 160 or so.

A test may have questions of an appropriate difficulty level, but what the questions are measuring may not be intelligence. Or it may happen that the measured variable is intelligence, but only within a specific range (as in the first graph). Some puzzles for children, for example, can be effective in correctly measuring the mental age range of 8 to 16 years, or 50 to 100 IQ on an adult scale, but if you use these same puzzles to try to measure the Adult IQs above 160 or 170, the result will be disastrous, because the ability to quickly solve these puzzles cannot be interpreted as a good representation of intelligence at this level. Therefore, the type of problem needs to be compatible with the intellectual level that is intended to be measured.

Generally, the smartest people are also quicker to solve basic questions, but the fact that they solve simple questions quickly does not offer a good guarantee that the person will also be able to solve more complex, deep questions that require creativity. In addition, the fact that a person is able to solve complex, deep questions that require creativity does not provide a good guarantee that he will be able to quickly solve basic questions. As the tests used in clinics exclusively include basic questions, the effect shown in Graph 1 ends up being very frequent.

This issue is discussed in more detail in the introductory text of Sigma Test Extended.

It is also necessary to standardize the meanings of some terms that I will use in the answers:

rIQ = rarity IQ, or IQ (σ=16 G), or rIQ (σ=16 G)

pIQ = Potential IQ, or IQ (σ=16 T), or pIQ (σ=16 T)

Detailed explanations can be found at https://www.sigmasociety.net/escalasqi . Here I will give a brief explanation: rIQ is the value that the IQ would have converted from the true rarity. This is not IQ measured on IQ tests or hrIQts. The measured IQ is the pIQ, whose distribution is non-Gaussian, the distribution has a dense tail, so the pIQ scores are more abundant than predicted based on the normality assumption of the distribution. This has nothing to do with the standard deviation being larger. The standard deviation is the same. The shape of the distribution is different, concentrating more cases in the right tail and less in the central region. In regions close to the central tendency, pIQ is almost equal to rIQ and remains so until about 130. From then on, pIQ becomes greater than rIQ. Some examples:

rIQ 100 is equivalent to pIQ 100.00

rIQ 130 is equivalent to pIQ 130.87

rIQ 150 is equivalent to pIQ 156.59

rIQ 180 is equivalent to pIQ 204.93

(A complete table is available on the Sigma Test Extended page)

The difference between pIQ and rIQ increases as rIQ increases, because the proportion at which the actual tail density becomes greater than the theoretical density increases as the IQ moves away from the mean.

When comparing estimated IQs based on rarity with IQs measured in tests, it is critical to put both on the same scale. For example, let’s say Newton is considered the smartest person in history and let’s say the number of people ever born is 100 billion. Then Newton’s IQ estimated based on rarity and based on the assumption that the distribution of scores is normal would be rIQ=207.3 (σ=16, G). But the actual distribution of scores is not normal, so you cannot compare that 207.3 with a score of 207 measured in a test, because they are on different scales. Both may have the same standard deviation (16 in this case), but the shape of the distribution is different and this cannot be neglected because the distortion produced is gigantic.

Newton’s rIQ would be 207.3 but his pIQ would be 261.8. To repeat: both scores have a standard deviation of 16, both rIQ and pIQ. This process should not be confused with changing scales with different standard deviations. The standard deviations are the same, but the shape of the curve is different. I’m repeating this several times because I’ve seen people confuse this just a paragraph after it’s been cleared up.

This adjustment is necessary to correct the distortions of the norms and to allow the correct calculation of rarities from the scores measured in the tests, or the inverse process of calculating the IQ from the rarity level.

Thus, the person with the highest rIQ (σ=16 G) in a population of 7.9 billion has rIQ 201.2, which is equivalent to pIQ (σ=16 T) 247.8. The scores 201.2 (σ=16 G) and 247.8 (σ=16 T) are equivalent, as 0 ^o C and 32 ^o F. The use of the term rIQ is equivalent to the use of the term IQ (σ=16 G), while the use of the term pIQ is equivalent to the use of the term (σ=16 T). I can also eventually use rIQ (σ=16 G) or pIQ (σ=16 T).

So tests can (and do) produce scores above 200 with a standard deviation of 15 or 16, but the correct calculation of rarity levels or percentiles should not be performed the way it has been done for decades. The percentile and rarity calculations are wrong, as I’ve demonstrated since my 2000 papers on this. I’m not referring to tests with inflated standards. Of course, this problem becomes more serious when the norms are inflated, but even when the norms have been calculated properly, as in the cases of the Mega Test or Titan Test norm, both the Hoeflin version and the Grady Towers version both provide incorrect values for the percentiles. The IQ scores are very close to the “correct” values, which would be the values adjusted to a well-standardized range scale. The problem is not with the measured IQs, but with the percentiles calculated based on the incorrect assumption that these scores are normally distributed. This topic will be analyzed again at other times, in more detail, when the topics covered require it. For now, this introduction should be enough to clear up much of the confusion that occurs with the indiscriminate use of the term “IQ”, without making the correct distinction between pIQ and rIQ.

When Chris Harding was registered in the 1966 Guinness Book with an IQ of 197, based on his Stanford-Binet results, this was a relatively primary and serious error because it incurs all 3 problematic items I cited above: SB does not include questions difficult enough to correctly measure above 135; the cognitive processes required in the solutions are not appropriate for IQs above 150; the calculated rarity level is incorrect.

In 1966, the world population was 3.41 billion people, and the theoretical level of rarity for scores 197, assuming the distribution of scores was a Gaussian with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 16, was 1 in 1.49 billion. So it seemed plausible that a person with that score could be proclaimed the smartest person in the world, or at least the person with the highest IQ in the world. However, a correct analysis of the situation reveals that the SB score of 197 does not indicate a rarity level of 1 in 1,490,000,000, but 1 in 870,000 (about 2000 times more abundant). Also, the variable measured at the rarity level of 1 in 870,000 is not intelligence. At this juncture, the most that could be said on the basis of a SB score of 197 is that the person showed consistent evidence of having an intellectual level above 135 IQ, and as their nominal score was well above 135, there is a good chance that their The correct IQ is greater than 150, perhaps greater than 160, but it would be necessary to prescribe a complementary exam, with more difficult questions and with appropriate construct validity, to investigate the real intellectual level of this person, since scores above 135 are outside the range at which the test is able to measure correctly.

In the following years, several other people began to emerge claiming the same record, with scores of 196-197. This continued until 1978, when the situation worsened, first with Kim Ung-Yong scoring 210, then Marilyn vos Savant scoring 230, corrected to 228, then corrected to 218, and finally Keith Raniere , in 1989, scoring 242. All based on clinical tests that are not suitable for correctly measuring above 135.

A similar problem happened to Langan in the Mega Test. The difficulty level of the Mega Test questions is suitable for correctly measuring up to about pIQ 194, equivalent to about rIQ 177, which corresponds to a rarity level of 1 in 1,340,000. This is the realistic rarity level corresponding to the Mega Test ceiling. In 2000 I had calculated a ceiling of pIQ 186 for the Mega Test, equivalent to rIQ 169, hence a rarity level of 1 in 124,000, but I was basing it on the sample of 520 tests available on Miyaguchi’s website. However, this sample is not representative of the set of more than 4,000 people examined with the Mega Test. This sample is stratified by 10 out of 10 (10 people with each IQ when possible). That is why there is a concentration of high scores above the “correct”, causing the difficulty of the items, especially the most difficult items (which is determined by the proportion between errors and hits) to end up being lower than the correct one, since there are more people with higher scores, there will be a higher percentage of hits than if the entire sample had been considered. Another factor is that even considering all the more than 4,000 people evaluated by the Mega Test, there is a self-selection that produces a higher concentration of people with high scores than that observed among the general population. With these two complementary adjustments, I redid my calculations for this standard and arrived at the numbers I cited above.

Therefore, with a raw score of 47/48, obtained by Langan on his second attempt, the corresponding rIQ is 176, equivalent to pIQ 192, that is, a rarity level of approximately 1 in 983,000. The actual rarity level of Mega Society is around 1 in 62,000 and Prometheus 1 in 8,000. In the cases of ISPE, TNS, etc., as they are in a range where the distortions are smaller, the true rarity is also closer to the theoretical rarity. 1 in 600. And in the case of Intertel and Mensa, they are practically unaffected. The theoretical percentile 98.04% for pIQ 133 score is equivalent to rIQ 131.8, therefore percentile 97.66%.

There are two other points I would like to comment on in this introductory text, before proceeding: on the meaning of “intelligence” and on the meaning of “certificate”, but the text has become too long and it is perhaps better to remove it, as well as other parts of some answers. Anyway, I’ve saved the full text in a separate file, in case it has any additional use or to be used on another occasion.

Having made these clarifications, we can now begin the answers.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: When you were growing up, what were some of the prominent family stories being told over time?

Hindemburg Melão Jr.: I’m not very interested in stories.

Jacobsen: Did these stories help give a sense of an extended self or a sense of family legacy?

Melão Jr.: My grandparents were very poor, my father only studied until the second year of elementary school (2nd year). He was exceptionally intelligent, creative, had hypermnesia and a wide range of intellectual and kinesthetic talents. This allowed him to lift himself out of extreme poverty and provide a satisfying environment for his children, but not much else. My parents’ legacy is almost exclusively genetic.

Jacobsen: What was the family background, eg geography, culture, language and religion or lack thereof?

Melão Jr.: My maternal great-grandfather was a native Indian of Brazil, my paternal great-grandfather was Portuguese. My family was Catholic at the time I was born, but later they converted to Kardecism, preserving some Catholic habits. I became an atheist at approximately 11 years old, then an agnostic at 17 and a deist at 27. I was interested in the Bahá’í Faith for some time, but did not participate in any activities. I am writing a book dealing with Science and Religion, in which I cover some of these topics in more detail.

Jacobsen: How was the experience with peers and schoolmates as a child and teenager?

Melão Jr.: It was reasonably quiet, I had no problems with bullying that could be associated with discrimination on cognitive grounds. I was bullied for other reasons, because I had my eyebrows together, but nothing that caused me great embarrassment, even because I had been practicing martial arts since I was 7 years old, so if I thought they were crossing the line, I reacted in a different way. energetically and that kept them from bothering me again

My problems were with some teachers more than colleagues, because I had the incorrect view that teachers couldn’t make mistakes in their discipline, but in the real world it’s very different from that. Virtually every teacher made several mistakes every day, and I used to point out the most serious mistakes. Most of them reacted positively to it, some were grateful for the corrections and revised it immediately, but others did not accept this type of correction, especially when it came from a 7 or 8 year old. A remarkable episode occurred in a Geography class, when I was 9 years old, and the teacher asked the students to calculate the size of the Brazilian coast. When I started to perform the task, I realized that it didn’t make sense, because the measurement would depend on the level of detail of the map, so there was no possible answer. So I explained the problem to her, but she didn’t understand my explanation. She thought I was referring to the map being on a different scale than its actual size. So I explained again, but it didn’t help, she still didn’t understand, got angry and ended up acting oppressive, ordering me to shut up, and continued to “teach” incorrectly. It was a very unpleasant episode. Usually the errors that I identified were errors of the professors, but in this case it was much more serious, because it was an institutionalized error and accepted as if it was correct by the “authorities” in that discipline, it was wrong in the book and probably in all other books, being incorrectly taught to all students. In fact, this remains wrong to this day, 40 years later, in virtually every source on the subject, including Wikipedia, Encyclopedia Britannica, IBGE, Cia World Factbook, US Bureau of Labor Statistics, etc. The problem is not that the measurement number is wrong. The problem is that the question does not make sense because there is no “length” of the coastline, there is no possible answer with dimension 1, because the perimeter has a dimension greater than 1 and less than 2. Although it was unpleasant, it was also a problem. event that I remember with pride, for having deduced one of the fundamentals of Fractal Geometry, impromptu, at the age of 9.

Jacobsen: What are some of the certifications, qualifications and professional training you have obtained?

Melão Jr.: The primary purpose of certifications should be to certify that a certain person or entity fulfills requirements that would not be easily verifiable by a person from the general population. For example, an uneducated person would find it difficult to correctly assess whether a doctor is capable of treating their health, or to decide whether it would be better to receive treatment from an allopathic method or from a healer. That is why there are regulatory bodies, made up of experienced and supposedly competent specialists, which establish norms that theoretically should be necessary and sufficient to distinguish between qualified and unqualified professionals, protecting the less educated population against the provision of unsatisfactory or even unsatisfactory services and products. harmful. This is nice in theory, but in practice it doesn’t work so well, and the certification industry ends up serving other purposes, including market reserve, nepotism, the cult of vanity and egolatry.

Certificates often do not fulfill the function for which they were created, either approving insufficiently skilled people/entities , or failing to approve overqualified people. For this reason, it would be more important and fairer to examine actual achievements, competences and merits, rather than examining certifications that would recognize these merits, because merits have intrinsic value, while certifications are mere appearances that they sometimes try to represent. the merits, but they don’t always get it right.

There is even a large industry for trading fraudulent certificates, and little enforcement over it. The American Biographical Institute (ABI) is famous for selling worthless certifications, and has been operating since 1967. There are many similar bodies that specialize in printing beautiful certificates, promoting certification ceremonies, and so on. Usually people who consume these products are naive victims, but it is also possible that some people buy these certificates knowing what they mean (or don’t mean).

Wikipedia has the following description for the ABI:

“The American Biographical Institute (ABI) was a paid-inclusion vanity biographical reference directory publisher based in Raleigh, North Carolina which had been publishing biographies since 1967. It generated revenue from sales of fraudulent certificates and books. Each year the company awarded hundreds of “Man of the Year” or “Woman of the Year” awards at between $195 and $295 each.”

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Biographical_Institute

There are currently several PO Box universities handing out Ph.D. Like water. I watched some statements from people who bought these titles, the vast majority of these people really believed they had some value and were excited, happy and proud to receive the title. But maybe not everyone is naive and some understand that these titles don’t represent something real, but use it for obscure purposes. There is a member of mensa brasil who has more than 50 academic titles from a PO Box university, founded in 2021, but on the “institution” website he claims to have been founded in 2006. I find it funny, and at the same time sad, that journalists who publish the articles about this do not suspect that a 40-year-old person, who only had 1 B.Sc. by 2020, it suddenly had more than 50 academic degrees in 2022, including several Ph.Ds. and postdocs. In addition to the certificates purchased, this person also claims that TNS is the most exclusive high-IQ society in the world, he uses his IQ with a standard deviation of 24 to compare with a fictitious “IQ” of 160 attributed to Einstein, among other things, and journalists publish everything without checking.

There are also people who buy these certificates, knowing they are worthless, with no intention of making dishonest use, perhaps as a table decoration or something. For example, Chris Harding is a customer of ABI, he has acquired several titles from that company, as he declares in his profile on the OlympIQ Society. Harding has some real merits, because even though the SB doesn’t correctly rate above 140, it is recognized that this test assesses some sort of skill mixed with intelligence, and few people achieve Harding’s score on this exam. So while some certificates are purchased from him, others are based on real merit and issued by serious institutions, such as those related to his IQ records and his affiliations to high-IQ societies. However, even reputable certificates, which try to represent true merits, often attest to something that is not a good representation of reality. As I mentioned at the beginning, the SB score of 197 or 196 could not be interpreted the way it was, and the official reports and certificates issued are saying something that represents a collective belief, but very different from concrete reality.

Harding is very smart, but not based on the score he got in the SB, but based on his various opinions on different subjects. His real merits are in his essence, in his actions, in his thoughts, not in pieces of paper.

From the moment a person channels his thoughts and actions to produce something concrete, he begins to share his essence with the world, disseminating knowledge and wisdom, or disseminating futility and misinformation, depending on the quality of what he shares. And the perception that other people have of what she shared will depend not only on the quality of what she externalized, but also on the sensitivity and insight of the person receiving the information. If a brilliant person disseminates knowledge of a very high level among a very futile audience, the value of that knowledge will not be recognized and he will have no certifications, no awards, nor any recognition, while other people who are disseminating vulgar and shallow knowledge, compatible with the public that receives it and issues the certifications, that person will be acclaimed and glorified.

People are not rewarded or certified because their achievements are great, but because their achievements are perceived as great by the members of the committees responsible for the approval of awards and certifications. In addition, there are a number of other political, social, racial, etc. biases that interfere with the decisions of committee members, making certifications and awards even more inconsistent with the objective they should have.

This effect occurs, for example, in some Cooijmans tests, where the test does not measure IQ, but rather how similar the person’s IQ is compared to the Cooijmans IQ. If the person has the same IQ as Cooijmans, he will have a maximum score. If she has an IQ much higher or much lower than Cooijmans’ IQ, her score will be low. In the question about IQ tests, I comment in more detail on this problem.

I will cite a few striking examples, some quite well known, but they are worth recalling. I believe that one of the most tragic and striking is that of Galileo, who instead of being rewarded for his remarkable contributions to the understanding of the Universe, he was severely punished. In fact, his daughter Celeste ended up being punished in his place. In more recent times, one of the cases that I find very sad is that of George Zweig, who developed his Theory of Aces at the same time that Murray Gell-Mann developed the Theory of Quarks. Both were essentially the same, however the journal to which Zweig submitted his paper refused to publish it, while Gell-Mann’s paper won him the Nobel Prize in Physics. There are at least 45 known cases of controversial Nobel prizes, of people who received undeserving or deserved it but did not. The world’s most respected award is desecrated by dozens of injustices, perhaps hundreds if you consider the ones that have not been discovered. Even Einstein is one of the biggest victims, since he deserved to have received 5 Nobel prizes, however he received only 1, for racial, xenophobic, Nazi reasons etc.

I believe that now I can answer this question by dividing it into two parts:

1. Awards and certifications.
2. Merits so far not recognized.

I have few certificates. When I was young, I was in the habit of putting trophies and medals in Chess, Martial Arts, Arts Education, etc. on a shelf, but during one of the changes of address, one of my trophies broke. Initially I was sad, because they were important to me. But as I thought more about the “disaster,” I realized that they really didn’t matter. What really mattered were the merits that led me to win those awards, as well as some merits that were not awarded. There were also cases in which I had no merit, but had been awarded due to some fateful fate. That doesn’t mean I’m not a vain person. I am, but I’ve learned that most of the time you get nothing or almost nothing for something valuable, while other times you get more than what’s fair for something of little or even worthless. Unfortunately, the world rewards appearances much more than essence.

One of my few certificates is the world record holder for longest announced mate in simultaneous blind chess, recorded in the 1998 Guinness Book. Perhaps some people are not familiar with the meaning of “blind chess” and “announced mate ”. This video helps to understand the dynamics of a blind simultaneous: https://youtu.be/LUo89Cl9FPY . It’s an old, low quality video, but to exemplify the mechanism of the event, I think it’s appropriate:

I will give a brief description: in a simultaneous, one person (simultanist) plays at the same time against several opponents (simultaneously), each of which has its own board. It is different from a consultation game, where several players can consult each other on a single board and decide on the best move by voting. In a simulcast, each simulcast has its own board and each game follows its own course.

In this case, as it is a blind simultaneous, the simultanist does not have visual access to any of the boards, nor to the pieces, nor to the summaries, nor to any type of record of moves or positions. At no time may the simultanist look at any of the boards, nor request any information that helps him to remember the positions of the pieces, nor any specific piece, nor that helps him to remember the order of the moves, nor any other type of information that can in some way help with the matches. The position of each of the pieces on each of the boards is registered exclusively in the simultanist’s memory and these positions are mentally updated with each move. In addition, at each move the simultanist needs to make the calculations of the variants and sub-variants necessary to make his decisions about the move to be executed, taking care not to confuse the memories of the calculated variants with the memories of the variants actually played, among others. care.

The game develops as follows: the simultanist stands with his back to the boards and communicates his moves to an assistant (speaker), who executes each simultanist move on the respective board. Then, the simultaneous player on that board executes his answer on the board and the speaker verbally communicates to the simultaneous player which move was executed by that simultaneous player. Then the speaker moves to the next board, where again the simultaneous player declares his move and this is executed on that board by the speaker, etc.

There are easier (or less difficult) versions, in which the player can blindly access a list with all the moves noted, as in Melody Amber’s tournaments, in which, in addition to being individual games, instead of simultaneous , competitors can also see an empty board, which facilitates calculations and reduces the risk of forgetting the position of a piece. But under the strictest rules, as in my 1997 Guinness record, it was not allowed to have access to the move history, nor to see an empty board, nor any other similar kind of aid. It is equivalent to being blindfolded all the time, from start to finish of the event.

That record set in 1997 was a blind simultaneous to 9 boards, in one of which I announced mate in 12 moves. The average rating of my opponents was estimated at around 1400. I got 7 wins, 1 draw and 1 loss.

Previous record holders were: Joseph Henry Blackburne (mate in 8 moves in a 10-board blind match in the year 1877), Samuel Rosenthal (mate in 8 moves in a 4-board blind match in the year 1885) and Garry Kasparov (mate in 8 moves in a blind simultaneous to 8 boards, in the year 1985). There was also an event in 1899, in which Harry Nelson Pillsbury announced mate at 8 in a 10-board blind simultaneous, but there was a miscount. Following the sequence dictated by Pillsbury, mate took place in 7 moves.

In the case of Kasparov, there are some details that need to be clarified: he played a blind simul against the 8 best computers of the time, including the world champion Mephisto Amsterdam 68000 RISC 12MHz. The average rating of these machines was about 1500 and the best reached 1800. The best computer in the world in 1985 was precisely the Mephisto Amsterdam, whose rating published by the manufacturer was 2265, but later measured by SSDF in 1827 (based on 1020 matches). In the match against Mephisto Amsterdam, Kasparov played a beautiful combination with an 8-moves mate streak, but there is no record of him having announced the mate. In any case, as he sacrificed a Rook and two pieces at the start of the combination, it is clear that he correctly calculated the entire sequence.

In 2005, Rede Globo did a report for the program “Fantástico” celebrating 100 years of IQ tests, and I was nominated as the person with the highest IQ in Brazil, at the level of 1 in 200 million. This is an example of “recognition” that I’m not sure was correctly assigned. In the question about IQ, I discuss this subject in more detail.

Recently, my friend Domagoj Kutle honored me with a kind invitation to publish in his excellent magazine Deus VULT, and requested that I also send a short biography. My girlfriend Tamara kindly helped me craft this material, including some of my accomplishments. I think this would fit here, so I’ll paste the text:

Melao mini-bio, by Tamara Rodrigues:

Hindemburg Melao Jr. was born in Brazil, in a family with few resources, and only attended school until the 11th grade, having learned almost completely as self-taught.

In 1998 he was registered in the Guinness Book as the holder of the world record for longest announced checkmate in blindfold simultaneous chess games.

Between 2006 and 2010 he developed an artificial intelligence system to trade in the Financial Market; in 2015, his friend and partner Joao A.L.J. incorporated a hedge fund to use this system and started to be registered in fund rankings (BarclayHedge, IASG and Preqin), winning 21 international high performance awards.

In 2007, Melao solved a problem that had been unsatisfactorily solved for 22 years, by creating an index to measure performance adjusted at risk that was more accurate, more predictive and conceptually better founded than the traditional indexes of William Sharpe (Nobel prize 1990) and Franco Modigliani (Nobel 1985).

In 2003 he solved a 160+ year old problem by proposing a new formula for calculating BMI, superior to the traditional one and superior to the formula proposed in 2013 by Nick Trefethen, Chief of the Dept. of Numerical Analysis at the University of Oxford, Leslie Fox Prize(1985), FRS prize, (2005), IMA Gold Medal (2010). Trefethen’s 2013 formula is an incomplete version of Melao’s 2003 formula.

In 2000 Melao developed the first method for standardization of intelligence tests that produces scores in scale of ratio and in 2003 he applied this method in the Sigma Test norm (he also calculated new norms for Mega and Titan tests using the same method), thereby solving a problem of Psychometry that exists more than 90 years ago and was pointed by Thurstone and Gardner as a central question of Psychometry more than 45 years ago.

In 2002 Melao found the best solution to a problem that has existed for more than 520 years and had been attacked for more than 65 years, the Shannon Number, which was only matched in 2014 by Stefan Steinerberger, professor of mathematics at Yale University.

In 2015 Melao showed that the method recommended by the Nobel Prize in Economics Harry Markowitz, for portfolio optimization, has some flaws, and proposed some improvements that make this method more efficient and safer.

In 2021 Melao pointed out flaws in the recommendation of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Economics, Clive Granger, regarding the use of the concept of cointegration, and presented a more adequate solution to the same problem.

In 2022, Melao solved a problem that had been open for 16 years, in which he established a method for calculating chess ratings based on the quality of the moves. Also presented an improved version of the Elo system, applying both methods to calculate the ratings of more than 100,000 players between years 1475 and 2021, the results were published in a book, along with the description of the two methods.

At 9 years old Melao deduced one of the fundamentals of Fractal Geometry and at 13 he developed a method to calculate logarithms. At age 19 he developed a method for calculating factorials of decimal numbers without using Calculus.

Also at the age of 19 (1991) he developed an invisibility machine project, which in 1993 he inscribe in a contest of ficction Literature (although the project is consistent with Scientific Method), but did not win. In 2003 Susumu Tachi, Emeritus Professor at the University of Tokyo and guest Professor at MIT, created (independently) a simplified version of this project and built a prototype.

In 2020 Hindemburg presented a study showing that Jupiter’s Great Red Spot cannot be 350+ years old, as was believed. The correct age is around 144 years old.

In 2000 Melao had a chess theoretical novelty elected one of the 10 most important in the world by the Sahovski Informator jury, the world champion Anand was one of the judges and Anand’s vote was that this novelty should be the 8th most important.

In 2004 Baran Yonter, founder of Pars Society (IQ>180, σ=16), estimated that Melao IQ should be above 200 (σ=16).

In 2005 the production of the program “Fantástico”, from Globo (second-largest commercial TV network in the world), made a special report on intelligence, celebrating the centenary of the creation of IQ tests, and Melao was nominated as the person with the highest IQ in Brazil, with a rarity level of 1 in 200 million.

In 2009 Melao was nominated by Albert Frank to participate in a John Hallenborg project with people whose IQ is at the rarity level above 1 in 1 million.

In 2000 Melao updated and extended his “Alpha Tests” that he had created in 1991, added new questions, and created the Sigma Test.

In 2022 he extended the Sigma Test by creating the extended version.

Melao is author of more than 1700 articles on Science, Statistics, Psychometrics, Econometrics, Chess, Mathematics, Astronomy, Physics, Cognitive Science, Ethics, Philosophy of Science, History of Science, Education etc.

Detailed bio of Melao (documents, videos, interviews, articles, reports etc.) at: https://www.sigmasociety.net/hm

Although I practiced Martial Arts for several years (maybe ~11 years if you add up all active periods), I didn’t get any certification, because the time was distributed among many different disciplines and I didn’t reach black belt in any of them. But I reached a reasonable technical level. For handguns, maybe I’m in the 99.9% percentile and in the specific case of nunchaku, maybe 99.999%. This is a video from 2016, I was already kind of old and rusty https://youtu.be/jCw–5H34x4 . On the same channel there are also videos with other weapons (sword, tonfa, kama, sam-tien-kuan, etc.).

In 2020 I was invited to a group of the 26 best planetary astrophotographers in Brazil. Although there is no certificate for it, I was very happy because it is one of my favorite hobbies. I would like to take this opportunity to thank my friend Vinícius Martins, who taught me almost everything I know about planetary image processing, I believe that in a short time he will be one of the 5 best astrophotographers in the world, he combines 3 fundamental extraordinary talent, an immense love for this activity and a deep knowledge that is constantly expanded and updated.

Among the certifications that I do not have, one of the most interesting is the CFA, granted to investment managers. It is interesting because between 2006 and 2010 I developed an artificial intelligence system to operate in the Financial Market that between 2015 and 2020, when it was used by a European fund, won 21 international high performance awards in the Barclay’s Hedge, Preqin and IASG rankings, being also the second best investment system in the world between 2011 and 2016. However, I was banned by the CVM from providing management services because I do not have the CFA certificate. In 2014, a petition was made to request that the CVM (Brazilian Capital Markets Regulator) issue me a certificate on an extraordinary basis. The claim was based on the wording of CVM Instruction 306 and on the fact that my system had accumulated more than double the profit of the fund that occupied the first place (ahead of 282 other funds, all managed by certified managers) in the ranking of the InfoMoney, the largest ranking of funds in Brazil. Among the people who signed the petition on my behalf were several university professors, several professional managers, and several members of high-IQ societies, including Dany Provost of Giga Society. However, the claim was not accepted and I still do not have this certificate. By the way, the two most famous managers in the world, Warren Buffett and George Soros, also don’t have a manager certificate, so I’m in good company. Buffett solved this problem by incorporating a company that buys other companies, rather than running a fund. Soros solved the problem by putting his friend Jimmy Rogers as gestures (Jimmy had the necessary certification), I solved the problem by trading licenses to use my system, with a volume limit of application for each license and a renewal period.

Among the certifications I don’t have, I can also include CNH, although I drive outside the law (I’m practically a gangster). I stopped going to school in the 5th grade, then I went back a few times, due to pressure from my parents. I would come back, I would continue enrolled for a few months, I would run out of patience, I would stop again, my parents would pressure me to come back, I would come back again, etc. I finished high school (11th grade) and entered the Physics faculty, but I didn’t like the course and I stopped for good after 2 months. In the first week of class, I reviewed the Physics I textbook and pointed out over 200 errors, sent my comments to the author, with an introductory note trying to be tactful so he wouldn’t be offended, but he never responded. I also pointed out two serious conceptual errors in the methods used in the Physics laboratory, which should impact the results of the experiments; one of them, on the crumpled paper balls, is the same “experiment” carried out in the Mathematics Department at Yale University, where they also make the same mistake. In that case, Prof. Dr. Paulo Reginaldo Pascholati had an honorable conduct, he received my criticisms with humility, he did some experiments to investigate whether the error I indicated was justified, he found that I was right and, in the next class, he publicly admitted the error. I found his conduct exemplary in this regard, however the handout was not corrected and they continued to do the experiment incorrectly.

Anyway, I decided that university was a waste of time and it would be more productive to study on my own, but it’s not that simple, and this decision proved questionable on some occasions. The distance from the academic career has some positive aspects, some negative ones. One of the positive aspects is that I can select my own curriculum, go at my own pace, and delve as deep into each topic as I want. One of the negative aspects is that it becomes more difficult to have access to satisfactory bibliography and even more difficult to publish in indexed journals. In doing so, I practically ostracized myself.

Therefore, certificates are useful, but it is important to understand the limitations and distortions they may present, so as not to run the risk of dealing with them in a bureaucratic way, to the point of being placed above the real capacity verified empirically on a continuous basis. Certificates reflect the opinions of people or institutions that are often not qualified enough to make correct assessments on the merits and to decide impartially. In the example of the CFA, certifications are literally distributed based on excessively condescending criteria, which are far from sufficient to select qualified people to exercise the role of manager, which is why more than 95% of certified managers generate losses for their clients. Perhaps this effect is more noticeable in the Capital Markets than in any other activity, but it also frequently occurs in Journalism, Advertising, Administration, etc., where some people without training in these disciplines may eventually be more qualified than certified people, but for protect the less competent, laws are created that prevent companies from hiring the most competent, using certificates as an instrument of discrimination and apology for mediocrity.

I wrote an extended version of this answer, in which I discuss some failures in the education system in Brazil and in the world, justifying why I moved away from academic life. I also point out and analyze the mistakes made by Richard Lynn in his study of IQs in different countries and explain why it would not be correct to try to justify the educational problem in Brazil based on the supposedly low average IQ of the population, as well as revise the estimate for the IQ average for some countries, including Equatorial Guinea, Israel and Brazil. The text was 10 A4 pages, so I thought it best to put it as an appendix.

Jacobsen: What is the purpose of intelligence tests for you?

Melão Jr.: the most important attribute of living beings is intelligence. Without intelligence there would be no Ethics, Laws, Science or Art. In order to correctly delegate the most important tasks to the most qualified people, it is necessary to correctly identify and rank people according to their abilities. That is why correctly measuring intelligence and using the results as a criterion for assigning positions and tasks, according to the level of competence, is extremely important, but unfortunately this is not what happens. There are two big problems:

1. The first is that the world is dominated by nepotism;
2. The second is that there are no appropriate intelligence tests to correctly measure at the highest levels.

In the late 19th century, the first tests by Galton and Cattell failed to satisfactorily measure intelligence, but it was an interesting attempt. The hypothesis that the speed of reflexes, visual acuity, auditory acuity, etc. could be relevant indicative of the intellectual level proved to be inadequate. In 1904, Binet and Otis managed to solve this problem by using questions that required the combined use of various cognitive skills – rather than trying to measure primary aptitudes, as Galton did – but Binet’s tests only measured correctly up to about 140. Terman’s attempts in 1921 to use Binet’s tests to select future geniuses failed. Among the 1528 children selected with an IQ above 135 (more than 70 with an IQ above 177), none won a Nobel or any similar prize, while two of the unselected children won Nobel prizes. The test worked very well until about 130, the selected children published more books, more articles, had a higher average income than the children in the other group, but at the higher levels, the test failed and missed some of the brightest children. The results of this study had an extremely deleterious effect, undermining the credibility of IQ tests in the eyes of the general public and in the eyes of many intellectual exponents from scientific, technological, cultural and educational fields, so it would be important to clarify the limits of until point these tests can measure correctly, so that unrealistic expectations are not created and so that they are not applied incorrectly outside these limits.

In 1973, Kevin Langdon created the LAIT (Langdon Adult Intelligence Test) and with that he managed to raise the difficulty level to close to 170 and the construct validity to 150; In 1985, Ronald Hoeflin took another important step forward with the Mega Test, raising the difficulty level to about pIQ 190 and construct validity to 170, and these contributions broadened the horizons of application of intelligence tests, which previously worked well until the approximate level of 1 in 100, while the new tests started working up to 1 in 100,000. On the other hand, from the 1990s onwards, some fantasy tests began to appear with nominal ceilings that reached 250, although the real ceiling of difficulty did not reach 180 and the ceiling of construct validity was around 150, as the ISIS Test by Paul Cooijmans. Some of these fantasy tests keep popping up to this day, and this exacerbates the prejudice many people have against IQ tests, because if a person has refined critical thinking and a skeptical attitude, he realizes that there are inconsistencies in results like Feynman’s ( 123) and Rosner (193, 196, 198 etc.). Both are very intelligent, and the problems that Feynman solved are more difficult than the problems that Rosner solved, which could be interpreted as indicating that Feynman was more intelligent, so how is it possible for a serious standardized system of evaluation to assign 190+ to Rosner and 123 for Feynman? Something is obviously not right about this, and people often don’t identify exactly where the error is, so they generally conclude that all IQ tests don’t work, or they don’t even know that there is more than one type of IQ test. IQ That’s why clarifying the range in which each type of test works contributes to combating this type of prejudice. If Feynman’s true IQ, based on the difficulty, complexity, and depth of the problems he solved on quantum electrodynamics, superfluids, etc. were put on the same scale that Rosner’s IQ is represented, Feynman’s correct IQ would be close to 235. And to explain this number above 200, I would first have to show that the distribution of scores is not Gaussian, etc. etc. Then that apparent initial inconsistency would disappear and everything would become clearer and more logical. The same is true for Einstein’s fictitious IQ of 160, whose correct value, if placed on the same scale as the scores measured by the tests, would be close to 250.

In 2000, the Sigma Test brought solutions to the 3 problems cited in the introductory text, with the main focus on construct validity, using questions based on real-world problems that require a combination of convergent and divergent thinking at different levels of difficulty, complexity and depth, consistent with the IQ levels to be measured. More recently, the Sigma Test Extended raised the ceiling on difficulty to about pIQ 225 and construct validity to about 210. However, in a population of 7.9 billion, the smartest adult person in the world must have an rIQ of around 210. 201, equivalent to about pIQ 245, thus far outside the limits that STE can measure. Nevertheless, for some of the smartest 100 or 200 people alive, STE could provide reliable measures of real intelligence, with good construct validity at this level, in addition to offering a stimulating intellectual challenge. This would fix some urban legends disseminated in various sources, such as that the average IQ of Nobel laureates in Science is “only” 154. With the use of a properly standardized test, with an appropriate difficulty level and good construct validity, the The average IQ of Nobel Prize winners in Science should be between 170 and 190. With the use of appropriate tests it is possible to correctly reposition the scores, both up and down. This would also overcome some prejudices against IQ tests, because one of the reasons for rejection is precisely due to the bizarre results for Feynman (123), Fischer (123*), Kasparov (123, 135), Shockley (<135), Alvarez ( <135), Feynman’s sister (124), etc., because that takes away the credibility of the tests, as these scores are far more likely to be wrong than these people having IQs below the 1 in a thousand level, when in fact they should be above 1 in 1 million (and Feynman close to 1 in 1 billion). When we can show that tests are able to measure correctly even at very high levels and provide realistic results, consistent with the achievements of these people in real-world problems, we can restore credibility to intelligence tests as serious and reliable instruments capable of to perform one of the most important functions, which is precisely to make early predictions of genius. [*Although many sources mention an IQ of 187, 181, or 180 for Fischer, his 1958 reports show a score of 123]

So while there are no tests capable of correctly measuring at the level needed to pinpoint the smartest person alive, or rank the 10 smartest, there has been substantial progress since Binet’s first tests, and if Terman were alive today and developing the same study from 1921, but starting in 2000, and if he used the STE instead of the SB, most likely the smartest children would all (or almost all) be selected in his group, and the subsequent results would have been confirmatory even at the highest levels, corroborating the thesis he defended, that it is possible to predict genius early, but not with the tests that existed at that time. The thesis itself was correct, as was Leonardo Da Vinci’s helicopter, but the technology still needed to advance a little further for the thesis to have the necessary subsidies to be tested properly.

Jacobsen: When was high intelligence discovered for you?

Melão Jr.: I find it difficult to determine this precisely. The first time I was examined in a clinic, I was 3 years old, but at 6 months of age I was able to speak reasonably fluently, so there was some earlier evidence.

Jacobsen: When you think about the ways in which the geniuses of the past were mocked, vilified and condemned, if not killed, or praised, flattered, plagiarized and revered, what seems to be the reason for the extreme reactions and treatment of geniuses? Many alive today seem camera-shy – many, not all.

Melão Jr.: I don’t think it’s a problem of the past. It is still present in many primitive cultures, such as in Brazil and in several African countries. The vast majority of the population adopts a posture of hostility, envy and boycott not only against geniuses, but against anyone who may be having any kind of success. Recently my girlfriend showed me a video of Ozires Silva, who was Minister of Infrastructure and president of Petrobras. He comments that during a dinner attended by some members of the Nobel committee (link to the video: https://youtu.be/m3u-E5XdzZ4 ) he asked why they thought Brazil had no Nobel laureates, since several Latin American countries with lower population and lower GDP even had more than one Nobel Prize. One of the committee members commented “you Brazilians are hero destroyers”. Unfortunately, this is a fact that is still present in our daily lives.

At the time I got to know high IQ communities, 1999, some famous names were William James Sidis, Marilyn vos Savant, Chris Langan, Rick Rosner, Grady Towers etc. Langan was a security guard at a nightclub, Rosner was a nudist model and also worked for a time as a security guard, Grady Towers was a security guard at a park and died a tragic and untimely death in 2000. Sidis spent the last decades of his life in underemployment and collecting license plates. Marilyn was a columnist for a magazine and got a reasonable standard of living out of it, as well as good prestige and recognition outside of high-IQ communities, as well as a lot of hateful envious. With the exception of Marilyn, the other people I mentioned earned minimum wage and still spent part of their time without a job, while many people are hired to fill positions that they are not even qualified, earning small fortunes as well as prestige and recognition.

This situation is very sad. Although Langan was not the smartest man in the Americas, as he claimed in 2000, or in world history, as he began to claim some time later, he is arguably a much smarter and more competent person than 99% of Ph. Ds. in any area and more than 99.9% of the CEOs of companies. He may not have had such a vast culture and expertise needed to solve major scientific problems, but he certainly would have given better administrative and political solutions than any president the US has ever had. I don’t know if he would be the best president, because being a great president isn’t just about solving problems. He would also need to have sensitivity, empathy, kindness, honesty and other attributes. But generally many people have these attributes at the required level. What they usually lack is precisely intelligence. I’m not saying that Langan or Rosner should be presidents. But, pondering the positives and negatives, I would bet on them as better presidents than the average of recent presidents.

Persecution and oppression can sometimes happen silently, and this is often even worse because it is harder to detect and combat. How is it possible that a person with Langan’s intellectual potential was not discovered by a large company that hired him for a millionaire salary so that he would solve internal problems in a way that generates more profit for the company than other less competent people working in the same role? There are grotesque errors in this. The vast majority of companies are contaminated by mobs of incompetents and cheats, who instead of hiring and promoting based on merit, do almost exactly the opposite, because they feel threatened by those who are more competent than themselves. This is a complete disaster not only for the companies they work for, but for the entire harmony of civilization. In Norway, Sweden, Holland, Finland, Switzerland, Denmark, etc. these problems are very rare, but in brazil this is a constant that sinks the country. In the USA, the problem may not be as serious as it is in Brazil, but when we look at the cases of Langan and Rosner, it is clear that there are serious flaws in the performance of the headhunters, failing to hire some of the most qualified people in the country, who started to most of their lives in sub-professional activities. I have cited the examples of Langan and Rosner, but the same is true of a large number of people with far above average IQs, who are working in incompatible activities, with incomes far below what they deserve, producing less than they should, while people very less capable are in high positions, making absurd mistakes and sinking companies or even sinking entire nations. My girlfriend is an environmental engineer and exceptionally smart, she worked at a large company where she solved problems that saved tens of thousands of dollars monthly by cutting waste, as well as contributing to reducing pollution. One of the solutions involving the replacement of a pipeline generated savings of a few million. If she were placed in a higher position, where her performance had greater reach, it could save the company tens or hundreds of millions. However, she was invited to participate in a corruption scheme, she refused, the person who made the invitation was afraid that she would denounce them and fired her.

In “The Republic”, Plato commented on the importance of kings being philosophers and philosophers being kings. This seems to me the most natural, substituting “philosophers” for “competent” which is usually almost synonymous with “intelligent”. And replacing “kings” with an equivalent modern meaning, which can be CEOs of big companies, mayors, governors and presidents. In the US there are several mechanisms to discover and mentor talented children and young people, there are several specialized programs. According to Eunice Maria Lima Soriano de Alencar, in the 1970s there were over 1200 educational programs for gifted children in the US. How is it possible that these programs “missed” Langan and Rosner? How could a respected entity like Hollingworth Institute not discover them? It’s not possible that they didn’t excel at school. In Brazil I would think this is normal, Brazil lets almost all the great talents go down the drain. But in the US I find it surprising that this has happened. There are records that Langan scored perfect on the SAT and received scholarships at two universities, but it appears that he lost his scholarship because he was late one day because his car broke down. This is pretty ridiculous. Even if he missed every class, he would probably learn more and better than 99% of his classmates who were present in every class. The universities did not award scholarships in recognition of his genius, but as a “handout”, with restrictive conditions to withdraw the handout if he did not meet certain criteria.

This waste of great talent is one of the main reasons that leads a country to ruin. China is catching up and surpassing the US in large part because China has invested more seriously and more heavily in special education for gifted children, while the US is making gross mistakes like this, letting great minds like Langan, Rosner, Towers are wasted on jobs like nightclub or park security, while less-skilled people lead big companies, govern cities and states.

Nepotism is not an exclusively family phenomenon. It is much broader, leading to the placement of underqualified people in positions that should be filled by others with more merit. There is no optimization in the delegation of positions, responsibilities, tasks, incentives, awards, etc. And this lack of optimization is obviously penalized. Competitors who optimize this best take the lead.

In Brazil the situation is much more serious, because there are no such programs. There were a few isolated initiatives, which reached a few dozen children, but they did not last long.

Intelligence tests are extremely important to be used in these talent discovery processes. Although the tests have several flaws, it is better that they are applied as far as possible, with errors and patches, than if they were not applied and this calamity was perpetuated. Some of the tech giants create their own tests to select their collaborators, usually these tests are not as good as the hrIQts, but at least they demonstrate that they understand the need for it. Although they are patching up the problem badly, at least they are trying to do something to identify young talents and engage them in relevant projects, in which they can contribute to the development of Science, Technology and the common good, so these companies do better than the government in this regard.

Jacobsen: Who seems like the greatest geniuses in history to you?

Melão Jr.: Leonardo, Newton, Aristotle, Gauss, Ramanujan, Archimedes, Euler and Einstein.

It is difficult to judge the cases of Hawking, Galois, Faraday, Al-Hazen and others, because Hawking had to face extreme hardships, it is difficult to know what the magnitude of his legacy would have been had he not fallen ill . It is possible that Hawking is one of the 5 or 10 smartest people in history, although his effective work is not one of the 100 most expressive, as it is not a fair representation of his potential, as he unfortunately did not have the opportunity to “compete” in equal conditions with other great geniuses. Galois was born in a very privileged situation culturally, intellectually and economically, but unfortunately he died very young. This does not mean that he would have produced much more if he had lived to be 90 or 100, because looking at the lives of other great mathematicians and scientists, most of the most important work they did was before the age of 25, eventually between 25 and 30. In addition, there are many cases of people who produced almost everything they could before the age of 20, then showed no advance or accumulation of production (Paul Morphy, for example, or Arthur Rubin). So Galois’ remarkable precocity does not necessarily indicate that he would have produced more than Gauss or Euler had he lived much longer. But even if he had not reached Euler’s level, it is likely that he would have left a monumental legacy. Faraday – like Edison, Leonardo and me – did not receive a formal education, which could be interpreted as a disadvantage, although perhaps it is not. Academic life can get in the way, in many cases, it is difficult to judge with certainty. To find out whether people with IQs above a certain level would have an advantage or a disadvantage studying as self-taught, it would be necessary to carry out experiments with several pairs of twins with an IQ in the desired range, in which one of each pair of twins would be forced to pursue a career in academia and education. another forced not to follow. There would be several problems in running such an experiment, because twins are rare and twins with IQs above a certain level may simply not be an example case, and the study would require a sample of at least a few dozen. Another problem is the ethical issue, of forcing a person to attend the unit and forcing another not to attend. This is especially serious in the case of monozygotic twins, because both would likely have similar preferences, and one of them would have to be “sacrificed” in this situation, forced to do something different than they would like.

At the time I got to know the high-IQ communities, there was a lot of talk about Sidis as the greatest genius in history, a genius wronged and misunderstood. There’s some truth to that, but there’s also a lot of exaggeration and distortion. Sidis is an unusual case and very difficult to judge, because his story is mixed with legends and fantasies. My first contact with Sidis’ “story” was through an article by Grady Towers in 1999, which he later modified in 2000. I now know that there was a lot of incorrect information in that text, but at the time I believed what was there, and I even considered the possibility that Sidis really was the smartest person in history. I now see Sidis as a victim of his parents, a forced prodigy with maybe 180 to 200 IQ, who could have been a good researcher and led a pleasant, productive life, but has been turned into a circus attraction. The 250-300 IQ that for years has been attributed to him appears to have been his sister’s invention, the 54 languages he was claimed to speak have been reduced to 52, then 40, then 26, and currently it appears he is considered to have perhaps spoken of fact 15 to 20 languages. The legend about him being able to learn 1 language in 1 day seems to be simply false. He didn’t get a Ph.D. Cum Laude at Harvard at 16, but rather a B.Sc., which is still an impressive accomplishment, but not quite. About 12% of Yale students graduate Cum Laude, Magna Cum Laude or Summa Cum Laude. In some years (like 1988) these percentages can increase quite a lot, reaching more than 30%. I don’t know the percentages at Harvard, but I suppose it’s not that different. So it is indeed expressive, but not as impressive as would be expected by someone with a supposed 250-300 IQ.

His sister’s tendency to exaggerate just about everything ends up increasing skepticism about which claims about him are true. The fact is that he did not leave a scientific or mathematical legacy that justifies the overestimation that is usually made of him. His ideas about black holes were preceded by more than 100 years by Laplace and Michell, his ideas about Evolution had already been better developed by Darwin and Wallace, in fact, Sidis’ approach is much more superficial than Darwin and Wallace’s. , being more similar to that of Anaximander and Aristotle. However, the question remains about the level of intellectual production that he could have reached if he had not withdrawn from academic life, or even withdrawn from academic life, but producing Science and Mathematics outside the university.

In terms of precocity, Gauss, Galois, Neumann and Pascal seem to me more remarkable than Sidis, not least because Gauss was a natural prodigy, while Sidis was a mixture of natural prodigy and forced prodigy. Galois, Pascal, Neumann were also natural and forced prodigies, but not as forced as Sidis. This pressure to which Sidis was subjected may have harmed him and provoked the outcome that this telenovela ended up having. I find it difficult to assess.

So if I had been asked this question in 2000, maybe I would have done a less critical and more superficial analysis and singled out Sidis as the greatest genius. Currently I would have doubts even if he would have a very high score in the hrIQts, maybe he would reach 190 in some tests, but in others he would not exceed 180. As far as intellectual production is concerned, the records do not show anything so extraordinary.

Jacobsen: What differentiates a genius from a deeply intelligent person?

Melão Jr.: The concept of “genius” is usually used to indicate exceptional ability in different scientific, artistic, sports, cultural areas, etc. In this context, one of the main differences would be the level of specificity, as the genius could indicate a remarkable talent in any area of activity (Music, Football, Ballet, etc.), including activities in which high-level intelligence is not required. In contrast to this, the profoundly intelligent person would have his talent exclusively linked to activities in which notability requires a very high intellectual level (physics, mathematics, literature, chess, etc.).

But this concept is inappropriate, in my opinion, because with the development of machines that outperform the best humans in different modalities, it becomes important not to mix “smart” machines with other machines. It might seem acceptable to say that Usain Bolt is a track and field genius, but it would be strange to say that a Bugatti Chiron is a genius, even though what the Chiron does exceptionally is the same as Usain Bolt does. It is therefore necessary to determine objective classification criteria that are equally applicable to all organic and inorganic entities, without discrimination, a criterion that works well and does not produce bizarre classifications. It would be unreasonable to say “ah, Chiron is a car, so criteria don’t apply to it”. That would be shallow and incorrect discrimination, because in a few decades there will be cars capable of talking about philosophy and demonstrating mathematical theorems, including hybrids that are part human and part cars, and if one of the criteria for being considered genius is “it can’t be a car”, there would be a serious inconsistency. A serious and fair criterion needs to be well planned, it cannot be a naive guess that does not contemplate possible exceptions.

Talents for intellectual modalities, when they reach a certain level of excellence (something like 5 standard deviations above average) can be considered “geniuses”, but for activities in which the intellectual level does not play an important role (Boxing, Football, Athletics etc. ), I believe that the correct term should be chosen more carefully, to avoid that non-intellectual machines are incorrectly classified as “geniuses” (a fast car being classified as a “genius” because it is fast seems to me to be an etymological error, but if this car is could perform intellectual tasks, the situation would change). In some circumstances, machines need to be recognized as geniuses, otherwise there will be serious inconsistencies in the syntax of the language, based solely on prejudice against machines. AlphaZero or MuZero, for example, in my opinion they (especially MuZero) are in a “grey zone” that is difficult to assess. MuZero can learn by himself to play Chess, Go, Shogui, Atari games, and reach very high level, superior to the best humans in the world in some of these games, which are recognized as intellectual games. So an attempt to adjust the criteria post facto, with the sole purpose of disqualifying MuZero as a genius, would seem to me to be a sign of unfair discrimination. Even because, the next generations of MuZero tend to present better and better what we understand as “general intelligence”, and at some point there will be no way to avoid recognizing that some machines also need to be classified as “intelligent”.

The question is whether MuZero would be better classified as “idiot savant” or “genius”. In my opinion, “genius” would be better, because idiot savants are usually not very creative and don’t excel in activities that require deep, sophisticated problem solving. They are very good at memorizing and repeating, whether mental calculations or playing songs, but I don’t know of any idiot savant who has excelled as a chess player or as a scientist. Perhaps it would be possible to reformulate the meanings of genius and idiot savant so that MuZero would be better classified as a savant, without compromising the essence of these meanings. A proper classification could not “push” Bobby Fischer or Kasparov into the savants group, for example. The classification would need to be careful, so as not to create inconsistencies with the sole objective of removing MuZero from the group of geniuses, nor presenting other types of arbitrariness.

In some other pursuits where there is no need for exceptional intellect, with an IQ of close to 120 being sufficient together with exceptional talent in a particular area, I believe the term “genius” should not be applicable. Mike Tyson or Usain Bolt don’t need much more than 120 IQ, and some vehicles without any trace of intelligence, who don’t think, can beat Bolt in the sport he excelled in, so excellence in that sport perhaps shouldn’t be seen as ” genius”.

In some cases it is more difficult to assess whether or not the term “genius” is applicable. Artificial Intelligence Systems like AIWA, which specializes in composing music, and does it at a very high level, in my view, shouldn’t be classified as “genius” either, in which case great human composers shouldn’t be classified as ” geniuses” based solely on their talent for songwriting. If this talent for songwriting was accompanied by an intellectual level commensurate with the intellectual criterion of genius, then the classification as “genius” would apply on that basis. The same would be true for boxers, farmers or professionals in any field, who would not be classified as “geniuses” based on their talents for their most prominent activities, but on their intelligence.

In this sense, there could be latent geniuses and effective geniuses. The latent genius would be in the intellectual potential to produce relevant contributions to expand the horizons of knowledge, revolutionize scientific paradigms, etc. While the effective genius would be the one who concretely does these things. A profoundly intelligent person, who has not made outstanding contributions, could be a latent genius, having the constant opportunity to become an effective genius, from the moment he uses his potential for scientific development, or for innovations in mathematics or science. in some important field of knowledge.

Some people consider the fundamental difference between a genius and a profoundly intelligent person to be creativity, but creativity is one of the components of intelligence. People often confuse logical reasoning (which is also one of the components of intelligence) with intelligence itself. But intelligent behavior is a broad combination of many cognitive processes, including memory and creativity.

The difference between “genius” and “deeply intelligent” is more quantitative and is associated with the proportions in which certain attributes are present. Creativity appears in the genius as a fundamental element, but not because the genius is creative and the profoundly intelligent person is not (both are), or even because the genius is always more creative (although he usually is). In the set of attributes, considering logical reasoning, creativity, working memory, long-term memory, etc., the genius has and uses this set of latent traits in solving novel problems with greater efficiency. As creativity is usually one of the most important requirements for this, it ends up being natural to associate genius with creativity.

Jacobsen: Is deep intelligence necessary for genius?

Melão Jr.: For the concept of genius I described, yes. In the previous answer I ended up answering this one.

Jacobsen: What were some work experiences and jobs you’ve had?

Melão Jr.: Since 2006 I have been working on the development of artificial intelligence systems to operate in the Financial Market. I am currently interested in solving the problem of prolonging life indefinitely, preserving memory and identity in inorganic devices that have a proper communication interface with the brain, resuscitating people, restoring severely damaged bodies, and other minor problems that are subsets of these and pre -requirements for these.

Jacobsen: Why pursue this particular work path?

Melão Jr.: The development of automatic systems to operate in the Financial Market is an intellectually challenging activity and offers a reasonably fair monetary reward, although the absence of a business network imposes many obstacles. The level of difficulty, complexity and depth of the problems that need to be solved to make consistent long-term profits from long-short trading is extremely high. There are some easy ways to earn 3% a year or a little more by practicing Index Buy & Hold or Blue Chips, where the gain is small but very easy. But if one wants to strive to earn profits close to 30% a year or above, the challenge is extraordinarily difficult and few people in the world actually manage to do so. As part of that work, I’ve made some interesting advances in Econometrics and Risk Management. In 2007, I solved a problem that had been unsatisfactorily resolved for 22 years by creating an index to measure risk-adjusted performance that was more accurate, more predictive, and conceptually better informed than traditional William Sharpe Nobel 1990) and Franco Modigliani (Nobel 1985). In 2015 I showed that the method recommended by the Nobel Prize in Economics Harry Markowitz, for portfolio optimization, has some flaws, and I proposed some improvements that make this method more efficient and safe. In 2021, I pointed out flaws in the recommendation of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Economics, Clive Granger, regarding the use of the concept of cointegration, and presented a more adequate solution for the same problem. Among other contributions in processes of optimization of genetic algorithms, ranking and selection of genotypes, pattern recognition, etc.

Jacobsen: What are some of the most important aspects of the gifted and genius idea? These myths that permeate the cultures of the world. What are these myths? What truths dispel them?

Melão Jr.: There seem to be different myths among different intellectual strata. For the majority of the population, with an IQ below 130, it seems that they think of the genius as a crazy, reclusive, antisocial, physically fragile person, and every physical and psychological flaw they can imagine, as a morbid need to push down. the person for not tolerating the fact that he excels at something and has little advantage in almost everything. Many movies, books and magazines try to reinforce this stereotype. But there are other incorrect ideas that are pervasive in other IQ bands. At the 130 to 180 level, for example, there seems to be an overestimation of results on IQ tests, without a correct understanding of the limits of the extent to which these tests produce accurate and reliable scores.

Another myth is related to the rarity level. People who have no concept of Psychometrics (almost all outside of high IQ societies) think that gifted people are very rare, something like 1 in a million or even rarer. They are also generally unaware of the difference between “gifted” and “genius”, including some who think gifted is smarter than genius.

Jacobsen: Any thoughts on the concept of God or the idea of gods and philosophy, theology and religion?

Melão Jr.: My family was Catholic. I became an atheist at age 11 after studying some religions. In a transition process that lasted a few years between the ages of 17 and 25, I ended up becoming agnostic. I became interested in the Bahá’í Faith at the age of 27 and at 28 I became a deist and wrote an article in which I present serious scientific arguments for the existence of God. I say “serious arguments” because all the pseudoscientific arguments I know of on the subject are desperate attempts to “prove” an a priori belief. It is different from an impartial analysis that leads to a conclusion that had not served as an initial motivation. I’m still a deist, I even founded my own religion, and I’m writing a book on the subject.

Jacobsen: How much does science influence your worldview?

Melão Jr.: Science is the only way we know of through which adequate models can be developed to represent sentient reality, functional models, capable of making generalizations and predictions, in which the results obtained are reasonably in accordance with the predictions, without predictions depend on luck for chance hits. Science is essential in the process of acquiring knowledge and technological development. On the other hand, it is important to understand the limitations of Science, as a body of disciplines that offers us a valuable method, but that is not immune to failures. The great differential of Science is not in the knowledge it produces, but in the method that allows it to correct itself and to do this constantly, updating itself, refining itself, expanding itself, etc., so that all the Scientific knowledge, even if it is fundamentally incorrect, has some practical use and works reasonably well within the limits set by Measurement Theory. Ptolemy’s cosmological model, for example, even though it was fundamentally wrong, allowed for very accurate predictions. Sometimes scientific theories may not structurally accurately represent natural phenomena, but even if the theoretical explanations are not the most correct, they work. Knowledge obtained through other means, such as philosophy, religion or popular culture, is generally less likely to “work”, and even when they do work, it is difficult to regulate the parameters that determine their functioning, due to the absence of an underlying theory that be organized by a mathematical model.

Jacobsen: What were some of the tests performed and scores obtained (with standard deviations) for you?

Melão Jr.: There is no simple answer to this question. In fact, among all the questions in this interview, this is perhaps the most difficult, because in addition to giving a correct answer, I need to try to be diplomatic so I don’t seem too arrogant. My girlfriend has asked me dozens of times what my IQ is, Tor has asked me this at least 5 times, and I usually shy away from the subject because it takes time to explain everything. But I’ll answer it here and when other people ask me again, I’ll provide the link to that answer, including because in previous questions and in the introductory text I commented a little about clinical trials, hrIQts, estimates and comparisons. With that, I believe it will be possible to express my opinion on this topic in a reasonably complete and accurate way in less than 50 pages, taking advantage of the previous answers as prerequisites.

I was examined for the first time at 3 years of age, and I even got to the tests for 9 years, because they were not above 9 years old for children who could not read. I don’t know what the tests are called, but the standard deviation was probably 24. There are several complex points that need to be examined about this, because the evolution of intelligence as a function of age is not linear, as in Stern’s simplified formula, the deviation default is not 24 in all age groups under 16, most very young children examined are forced prodigies that parents tried to teach a lot since they were born but it was not like that in my case, my father went out to work before When I woke up and came back after I was asleep, my mom worked most of the day, so none of them even had time to spend much time with me, let alone train me like a forced prodigy. Other points to consider are that intellectual development does not end at age 16 (nor 17 or 18 or 19), nor does it reach the limit at a fixed age for all people, nor does it remain stable when reaching a certain age. Therefore the interpretation that the mental age of 9 years to 3 years corresponds to an IQ ratio of 300 is grossly incorrect and naive. Even after converting the scale with standard deviation from 24 to 16, reaching 233, it is still incorrect. The evolution curve of intelligence as a function of age also varies from one person to another. Therefore, it is not reasonable to use tests applied in childhood as a basis to try to estimate what the adult IQ will be. There are several cases of IQs measured in childhood that prove to be very far from correct in adulthood, although some may “get it right”, as in the case of Terrence Tao, who had an IQ measured at 230 and, luckily, really had an IQ. his is close to it. In my case, it is also possible that the measured IQ came close to the correct value “luckily”, but the tests used, the method used, etc. are not appropriate.

Another detail is that I don’t know if I would continue to solve typical tasks for children over 10 years old, but it is possible that I would, but the precocity in solving typical tasks for older children says almost nothing, or says very little, about the intellectual level that will be reached in adulthood, because the skills measured do not provide useful information for this type of prognosis. The type of skill that would indicate a very high intellectual level (200+) in adulthood is not related to the same type of task that an 8, 9 or 10 year old, or even 20 year old child could perform, but with the problem solving that indicated traits of creativity and deep thinking for that age. The event in Geography class at age 9, for example, was a much more relevant indicator than the test result at age 3, not only because at age 9 he had already reached greater maturity and was closer to the potential he would have as an adult. , but also, and mainly, because the type of problem involved was more closely related to the cognitive processes needed by genius adults.

As I mentioned in the introductory text, in other answers, in some articles and in some forums, IQ tests and hrIQts have problems in construct validity, errors in the calculation of the norm, and inadequacy of the level of difficulty. I already had a very bad experience with Paul Cooijmans in 2001 and I don’t plan on wasting time on it again. Cooijmans’ Space, Time & Hyperspace (STH) proposed measuring IQ up to 207 (σ=16), although the real difficulty of the hardest questions on this test is not much higher than 170. But that’s not the main problem. STH contains several primary errors that completely invalidate the test and the norm, although many people consider it to be one of the “best” hrIQts. In 2001 I wrote to Cooijmans about this and pointed out one such mistake to him, but he refused to talk about it and did not admit his mistake. I don’t have the patience to deal with people who act like him. I’ll describe exactly what the problem is using an example:

The general wording for all STH questions was as follows:

a : b :: c : d

Meaning: “a” is to “b” as “c” is to “d”.

Given “a, b, c” determine “d”.

The statement, along with the test, can be accessed at https://web.archive.org/web/20040812113534/http://www.gliasociety.org/

Here’s a print of what’s in the link above:

Question 10 is:

The general statement says that there is a relationship from the 1st figure to the 2nd figure that must be discovered and then that same relationship must be applied to the 3rd figure to produce the 4th figure. This is the only general statement for all questions in this test, presented at the beginning of the test, and it works like this in questions 1 through 9, but not so in question 10 or 16 other questions out of the 28 that make up this test.

He wanted question 10 to discover the relationship of the 1st figure to the 3rd figure and then that same relationship to be applied to the 2nd figure to produce the 4th figure! But at no time did he ask for this in the statement. What the statement asks for is exactly what I described above. If the person answers exactly what the utterance is asking for, the person loses 1 point!

There are several other issues in STH with this same basic logic error. In this surreal situation, if the person hits all 28 questions exactly in accordance with what the test statement asks for, the person will receive only 11 correct answers and score 135 instead of 205 by the current norm, or 140 instead of 207 by the norm. old.

As Cooijmans did not agree to talk about it, I talked (at the time) with 3 other people able to give an opinion: Petri Widsten, Albert Frank and Guilherme Marques dos Santos Silva.

Petri Widsten scored highest on the Sigma Test, STH and was champion in several logic and IQ contests, including http://www.worldiqchallenge.com/rankings.html , where Petri scored nearly twice the raw score of Rick Rosner. Petri quickly agreed with me on this, even to the detriment of his own answers, because he had answered what he thought Cooijmans would like to receive as an answer, not what would be the most correct answer. Every time I think about this subject, I get stressed, because Cooijmans is a very stubborn person. I don’t think Cooijmans is stupid or dishonest; I think he’s smart and he tries to do what he believes is right, but his stubbornness is greater than his intelligence.

Albert Frank was a professor of logic and mathematics at the University of Brussels, a veteran champion of chess in Belgium. Albert also agreed with me and made some comments on Formal Logic that categorize the type of mistake made by Cooijmans.

Guilherme Marques dos Santos Silva is a member of Sigma V and was champion in the IQ contest “Ludomind International Contest IV”, he also agreed with me and “gave up” to finish doing the STH after he saw this absurd error. He said there were few questions left to finish, but due to the serious bias in the correction, he had no interest in proceeding.

In addition to the people I talked to back then, I also recently talked to Tianxi Yu about this kind of issue. Yu scores 196, σ=15 on Death Numbers, which is considered a serious test with a deflated norm. He commented that he has already found bugs in several tests, and he has posted an extensive and detailed public critique of this in a group, citing the various types of bugs that bother him. There are several points where I disagree with Yu’s opinions, but in terms of testing, our opinions are very similar.

As soon as I had my first contact with high IQ societies and discovered Miyaguchi’s website (1999), I became interested in taking the Power Test, which I consider one of the best in terms of construct validity and with an adequate level of difficulty. At the time I was 27 years old and with a different opinion than I do now, I had three goals with the Power Test: one was fun, another was to beat Rick Rosner’s IQ~193 record, and the third was to get into Mega Society. At that time, the standard calculated by Garth Zietsman for the Power Test was used, with a ceiling of 197, but before I finished solving all the questions, the Power Test was no longer accepted in Mega Society and the ceiling was “revised” to 180. So I completely lost interest.

Garth Zietsman is a competent statistician and the norm he calculated , probably using Item Response Theory, is consistent and very well grounded. If the same items used in Mega, Titan, and Ultra were in Power, then the individual difficulties of those items were maintained and determined the norm for Power. So when the Power Test ceiling was changed to 180, it was a mistake. The more than 4,000 applications of Meta, Titan and Ultra, which served as the basis for the norm calculated by Zietsman, were simply disregarded, and a new norm was calculated based on a few dozen people. The correct procedure would be to add the new data (about the results of each item answered by the people examined with the Power) to the item bank that contained the Mega, Titan and Ultra questions, recalibrate the parameters of difficulty, discriminating power and casual accuracy (if applicable) of each item, then review the norms of the 4 Hoeflin tests that shared those items. Thus, the difficulty levels would be preserved equally in all tests, maintaining a unified scale.

But the way it was done, the Power norm was skewed downwards relative to the other three Hoeflin tests. To better clarify the problem, I will cite an example: in the Power Test the question about the Moebius tape is being treated statistically as if it had parameter b = +2.81, that is, 50% of people with IQ 145 (σ=16) should get this issue right. However, the same question about the Moebius tape, when applied in another of the Hoeflin tests, is being treated statistically as if it had a parameter b = 3.88, that is, 50% of people with IQ 162 (σ=16) must get this right. question. This is a serious inconsistency, because either the question has a difficulty of 2.81 on all tests in which it is used, or 3.88 on all tests. The question cannot have difficulty 3.88 on some tests and 2.81 on others. Zietsman’s norming is consistent in this regard, so the Power roof produces a norm on the same scale as the Mega, Titan, and Ultra norms.

One of the reasons that caused this reduction in the Power ceiling is because some people had already taken one or more of the other Hoeflin tests in which the Power items were present, so the probability of hitting those items on the second try was higher, increasing even more on the third and fourth attempts. But the correct way to deal with this would be to adjust all the norms of all the tests that contained those items, depending on the number of times those items had already been solved by the person examined, with norms customized for each person, or based on how many and which of the three other tests the person had already solved (an equation for this could easily be determined using cluster analysis, for example).

It could also simply look at the scores of people who had taken more than one test (or the same test more than once) and the effect that had on the probability of getting each repeated item right on the second, third, or fourth test that contained the same item. While this global adjustment to the itemset was not as accurate and refined as analyzing this effect on each individual item, as I suggested above, this would already help to improve the norms across all 4 tests, rather than distorting the Power norm in relative to everyone else.

Anyway, there is a worrying amount of errors in the hrIQts, both in the calculations of the norms and in the answers accepted as correct, among other problems. That’s why Sigma Test has always adopted a policy of transparency, being open to debates, if the person had a score above 180 in any test and they believed that some of their answers were right and they thought they received an incorrect evaluation, they could contest the correction of a question she chose. If she was right, she could challenge the correction of one more question, and so on, until her challenge was unfounded. The Moon Test and Sigma Test Extended have a similar transparency policy, but the minimum score on other tests to have this right to challenge is 190 on both the Moon Test and Sigma Test Extended. This allows reviewing any errors, as well as allowing the person being examined the opportunity to defend what they believe is right, in the event that they feel they deserved more points than they received. In my opinion, all tests should adopt a similar policy.

If there were any tests with appropriate characteristics, I would consider doing another test, even though I am older and dumber. Basically it should be a test with good construct validity at the highest levels, appropriate ceiling, and appropriate difficulty. In addition, it should have a formal “grievance” system that allows contesting the result. Without that, I see no reason to waste time on these things. An hrIQt can easily take up to 50 hours and if it’s a really hard test, with the right level of difficulty, it can take over 500 hours. It is time that could be spent on more interesting and productive activities. So unless the test brings together a number of notable virtues that justify the effort, I wouldn’t be interested. In fact, there is a test that, in my opinion, meets these requirements, but I cannot solve it because I am the author. This reminds me of a topic that was discussed a few weeks ago in a group:

In fact, some problems I’ve already solved are more difficult than the more difficult problems in Sigma Test Extended. So there are some useful clues in that.

Some people have already estimated my IQ and made some comparisons. In 2004, Pars Society founder (IQ>180), Baran Yonter, estimated my IQ to be over 200 (σ=16, G), this is equivalent to over 240 pIQ (σ=16, T). I thought he was being nice, but in 2005, when I was nominated for the production of the Globo TV show “Fantástico” as the smartest person in Brazil, I discovered that other people had similar opinions to Baran about me. I was flattered by the nominations, but I don’t know if I’m really the smartest person in Brazil and I told the journalist that, but he insisted, and as I had been the most nominated, and also for the sake of vanity, I ended up accepting to do the article, whose video is available on my page and my channel.

It is necessary to make an important caveat regarding the correct determination of the most intelligent person in Brazil, because there is a Brazilian who won a Fields medal (Artur Ávila) and there is a Brazilian who made fundamental contributions to the development of paraconsistent logics (Newton da Costa), both are very smart people, but with different profiles than mine, so it would be difficult to make a proper comparison to know for sure who is the smartest in Brazil, because each of them is deeply specialized in a very specific area, while my talents and achievements span a wide variety of different areas. As a result of greater specialization, the level of depth they have reached is greater, but this greater depth does not reflect greater depth of reasoning, but greater depth of knowledge. Also, I only studied until the 11th grade, while they did PhDs and postdocs with excellent advisors, which puts me in a “running with legs tied” situation compared to people who run on horseback. The people who worked on the same problems I worked on were equipped with more sophisticated mathematical tools, access to much more powerful computers, access to a vast, high-quality bibliography, received much more prolonged, intensive formal training under the guidance of experienced scientists, while all my “training” was self-administered, with virtually no bibliographic resources and modest computational resources. I often had to create my own statistical tools before using them to solve problems, and later I found that there were ready-made tools for the same purposes. During the development of my system to operate in the Financial Market, situations like this were repeated many times.

A detail that is important to clarify: I commented (in the appendix) that the average quality of education in Brazil is terrible, so what would be my disadvantage for not having attended this terrible environment? And the answer is simple: many of the best Brazilian academics will study at the best research centers and universities in Europe, the USA, Canada, Australia, Japan, etc. Also, there are a few really good researchers in Brazil, and when a young talent receives guidance from a first-rate researcher, it makes a huge difference. So there is a substantial advantage in Artur and Newton da Costa’s opportunities compared to my situation, because they had access to many more resources, in addition to the advantages in mentoring and training.

As for other people who have worked on the same problems as me, and I solved those problems before them or better than them or both, almost all of them are from other countries: Nick Trefethen is Head of Dep. in Numerical Calculus at Oxford University and collects some international Mathematics prizes (Leslie Fox Prize 1985, FRS Prize 2005, IMA Gold Medal 2010), Susumu Tachi is Professor Emeritus at the University of Tokyo and Guest Professor at MIT, Stefan Steinerberger is Professor of Mathematics at Yale, William Sharpe is a professor at the University of California and a Nobel Prize in Economics in 1990, Franco Modigliani is a Professor at the University of Rome and a Nobel Prize in Economics in 1985, Clive Granger was a professor at the University of Nottingham and a Nobel Prize in Economics in 2003, among others. So the people who worked on some of the problems that I solved constitute a “heavy competition”, in addition to having access to more resources, more advisors, etc. relevant before them, perhaps represents some merit to me, I have no false modesty in admitting it.

The fact is that the correct determination of the smartest person in a country is not something so simple, it is not a game of egos and vanities. There needs to be a real basis for this. For example, I think Petri Widsten has excellent chances of being the smartest person in Finland, not only because of his excellent result in the Sigma Test, but also because his doctoral thesis, besides being very innovative, was awarded as the best thesis. of the country in the 2002-2003 biennium and he won several logic contests. The aggregate of these results, and other minor details such as him being fluent in more than 10 languages, suggest a real intellectual level with rarity above 1 in 5 million, which is the population of Finland. However, there are other very smart people in Finland, like Rauno Lindström or Bengt Holmström. Although Finland is a culturally more homogeneous country, so that there is not as great a difference in opportunities as in my case, even so, the comparison is still difficult, so it would not be wise to categorically state that a certain person (Petri or Rauno or another) is the smartest in Finland. The most appropriate would be to assign a probability to each one. Petri would have around a 95% probability of being the smartest person in Finland, Maybe Rauno 2%, Bengt 1% and someone among other people 5 million people 2%. In the case of Brazil, my advantage would be much smaller than Petri’s in relation to the other strong candidates.

In 2005, friend Alexandre Prata Maluf, a member of Sigma V, Pars Society and OlympIQ Society, estimated that my IQ should be similar or slightly above that of Marilyn Vos Savant. I think he meant it as a compliment, because Marilyn is an icon in high-IQ societies, but I didn’t like the comparison, because it’s not a fair comparison. The real-world problems I’ve solved are much more difficult than the problems she’s solved. I don’t exclude the possibility that she might have an IQ similar to mine, but she would need to prove it with concrete results, solving problems with a compatible degree of difficulty.

I recently learned that in 2018, in a private group, my name had been mentioned in a post titled “Name the top 5 people (alive) with the highest measured IQs in the world today! Name, IQ and Test.” I found it surprising that I was quoted, because since 2006 I had been away from high IQ societies and only returned a few months ago, in February 2022, yet Rasmus Waldna from Sweden very kindly remembered me and suggested my name, and his nomination received more likes than the names of Terence Tao, Chris Hirata, Rick Rosner, Marilyn and Langan. The names of friends Tor and Iakovos were also indicated. I understand that it was an informal topic, and people’s positive reactions may have been influenced by factors extrinsic to intellectual capacity, some people may have liked it out of sympathy, for example, or because they like my hair, but I was still happy with the memory and recognition, and also happy to see some friends on this list.

In 2001, David Spencer compared me to Leonardo Da Vinci and Pascal. In 2016 my friend Joao Antonio LJ compared me to Newton and Galileo, and the way he wrote and the context in which it was said, I found it a touching and sincere compliment. In 2017, I was again compared to Leonardo (by Aurius). In 2020, Empiricus magazine published an article by Bruno Mérola on risk management, in which the author compared my Melao Index with the Sharpe index (1990 Nobel), and in the analysis he did, he presented facts and arguments demonstrating that my index is higher than the Sharpe index. In fact, my index is also superior to that of Modigliani (Nobel 1985), Sortino and all the others, but in the article he only mentioned the Sharpe index because it is the most used in the world, because it is more traditional and better known, and cited mine for being the most efficient. In 2021 I was compared to Feynman and again to Leonardo, in an interesting situation, where the person (Francisco) did a reasonably detailed analysis of the comparison to justify his opinion. In 2021, I was again cited as possibly the smartest person in Brazil by Luca Fujii, one of the greatest precocious talents in Brazilian Mathematics, but as he is still very young, he has not yet manifested all his intellectual brilliance and that is why he is not yet so famous, but it will be soon. Luca is a person with many moral virtues, as well as intellectual ones, just like Joao Antonio LJ, so I feel really honored that these people have high opinions about me, and also because I know they don’t say that just to please me, but based on deep criteria, very well-founded and well-considered criteria. Joao has read over 1000 of my articles, Luca has read my two books and has surely read hundreds of my articles. So, in addition to being exceptionally skilled, they were also knowledgeable about what they were talking about.

Anyway, I think the real world problems I’ve solved, the people who have tried to solve the same problems and the awards these people have won and other problems they’ve solved, the opinions of some exponents of high IQ societies about me maybe answer a little about my IQ, certainly more and better than a standardized test could tell.

Jacobsen: What ethical philosophy makes any sense, even the most viable sense to you?

Melão Jr.: I know of no author who represents my views on any subject sufficiently accurately and completely. There are always details where disagreements occur. In my book on the existence of God, one of the chapters deals with Ethics, in which I set out my views on this. There are some articles in which I discuss issues related to Ethics, this is one of them: https://www.saturnov.org/liberdadeedireitos

Jacobsen: What political philosophy makes any sense, even the most viable sense to you?

Melão Jr.: There is a Polish proverb that says “In capitalism, man betrays man. In socialism, the opposite occurs. In theory, almost all political systems try to be reasonably good, with different priorities, but each aiming, in its own way, at noble and lofty goals, although utopian and superficial in basic points, so when they are implemented in practice, it becomes clear that human vicissitudes corrupt any system, because theoretical systems do not make adequate predictions about how to deal with real humans. I believe that in the not too distant future, if we do not destroy each other by war, the political leadership of the planet will be “in the hands” of intelligent machines, and there will be a system much more logical and fair than any system that currently exists. It will be far from a perfect system, but it will be vastly superior to anything we know of, as these systems will be able to analyze much more complex and profound interactions of human relationships between large groups and how those relationships evolve over the long term in much the same way. that the best chess programs far surpass the quality of analysis of humans, “seeing” much more accurately and deeper and making more accurate predictions than any human. The problem is that there is a high risk that we will be enslaved by machines, or something, or there will be a symbiotic union between humans and machines, or parasitic, it is difficult to predict, it will depend on some decisions we make in the coming years and decades.

Jacobsen: What metaphysics makes any sense to you, even the most viable sense to you?

Melão Jr.: The theory of the multiverse is on the threshold between Physics and Metaphysics. The word “multiverse” is an inadequate construction, but the meaning is plausible and even probable.

Jacobsen: What comprehensive philosophical system of worldview makes any sense, even the most viable sense to you?

Melão Jr.: What I describe in the book I cited above, in which I present arguments that seem conclusive about the existence of God, and I address other philosophical and scientific topics.

Jacobsen: What gives you meaning in life?

Melão Jr.: I don’t think there needs to be something that gives meaning to life beyond itself. Life has an intrinsic meaning. But I can say that protecting my mother and providing the best possible for her was something that gave me joy. She passed away in 2016. I didn’t eat properly and didn’t sleep properly for a few months. I had already researched cryogenics and knew that this technology does not offer realistic prospects of bringing a person back to life, because the membranes of trillions of cells are ruptured in heat shock, leaving the cytoplasm to leak out, a process that is unlikely to be reversed. I started to think of a way to resuscitate her, but I find it very difficult that the resurrected person could have restored the exact same personality and memories, so it wouldn’t be the same person. If her memories and personality had been stored entirely on an HDD or SSD, or some device with similar properties, then perhaps it would be possible to restore the same person, in a genuine process of resuscitation. The joy of living was gone with her death. In 2018 I met my girlfriend Tamara who has been living with me ever since and I can say she has been my joy of living, my life would be very small and discolored if it wasn’t for her. It is an honor for the human species that there are people deeply committed to doing what is right and fair, like her, who elevate human dignity to a level close to perfection.

Jacobsen: Is meaning externally derived, internally generated, both, or something else?

Melão Jr.: In deduction the meaning is attributed, ultimately, arbitrarily. One determines what a triangle is and that will be a triangle. In finite induction, meaning is inferred from the analysis of the amplitude of variation of properties observed in entities of the same class compared to the dispersion of the same properties observed in entities of different classes.

The evolution of the concept of “planet”, for example, illustrates well how this happens. The Greeks classified the Moon, Sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn as planets. Not all Greeks, actually. Aristarchus, Seleucus, Ecphantus (assuming that Ecphantus actually existed) and Philolaus did not adopt the same criteria. With Copernicus, the Sun was no longer considered a planet, while the Earth was classified as a planet, because the criterion of the Greeks was that the planets moved. When Uranus was discovered in 1781, it also came to be classified as a planet, because its general properties fit this class of objects better, and the same happened when Ceres was discovered in 1801. However, shortly afterward, Pallas was discovered, Vesta, Juno and other objects with orbits very similar to those of Ceres, all much smaller than the other planets and sharing almost the same orbit. Within a few years there were more than 10 objects with these characteristics , which led to reconsidering whether the criteria used to classify planets were appropriate. Then came the concept of “planetoid” later modified to “asteroid” to include this class of objects. At the time Pluto (1930) was discovered, as it was far outside the asteroid zone and its size was originally estimated to be similar to that of Earth, it was classified as a planet. In a few years it was found to be much smaller than previously thought. The first estimates from 1931 assigned Pluto 13,100 km in diameter, then 6084.8 km, then 5760 km, then 3000 km, 2700 km, 2548 km, 2300 km, 2390 km and the latest data indicate about 2376.6 km . So, at the time it was discovered, it was plausible that it was classified as a “planet”, but when it was found that it was much smaller and less massive, the situation changed. This issue is discussed in more detail in my book on the subject. When other trans-Neptunian objects were discovered, it started to be considered that perhaps Pluto would be better classified as one of those objects, rather than being considered a planet. The terrestrial planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars) had a rocky surface, average density approximately between 4 and 5.5 times that of water, diameter approximately between 5,000 and 13,000 km, while Jovian planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune) they had a fluid “surface”, average density approximately between 0.7 and 1.7 times that of water, diameter approximately between 50,000 and 140,000 km. But Pluto was far outside these two groups, its density 1.9 was similar to that of the Jovians, but its size was smaller than that of the tellurics. It was not known if the surface was rocky, but in principle it was believed that it was. When Eris was discovered – whose mass is similar to Pluto and maybe a little larger – they finally decided to promote a debate about it and reconsider the criteria for classifying planets. In 2006, the IAU decided to create a new class of objects, the “dwarf planets”, and Pluto entered that category.

I skipped some important events, such as Galileo and Simons’ discovery of the 4 large satellites of Jupiter, which were initially considered “planets” because the concept of a “satellite” didn’t exist until Kepler suggested it. Galileo sometimes referred to these objects as “small stars”, as it was not really known what stars were, although Giordano Bruno already had a promising hunch.

The meaning of “planet” was and continues to be determined by comparison with other objects that show different levels of similarity. In cases where there are large numbers of objects to compare, such as the taxonomy of animals, classifications can be made at many hierarchical levels, with different levels of similarity, and meanings are assigned according to properties common to all elements. of the same class, while trying to select criteria that allow distinguishing from elements of other classes. In classifications of dogs and cats, for example, it is not useful to consider the fact that they have 2 eyes, a tail and a snout, because this does not help to distinguish one species from the other. Average size would help if the size spread were narrower, but as different dog breeds vary over a very wide range, this criterion wouldn’t help much either. In these cases, more subtle and specific criteria, such as facial morphology, tooth morphology and number of teeth, turn out to be more useful. The size of the snout can help, but the number of teeth has a similar meaning, as it is related to the size of the snout, with the advantage of being more objective and quantitative.

Anyway, these are the two main ways of determining meanings. One is arbitrary, it allows one to impose what characteristics the entity must have. The other tries to discover which characteristics are common to all entities of the same class and, at the same time, are different from the characteristics of entities of similar classes, in order to make it possible to distinguish between entities of one class or another. These meanings are often incomplete, uncertain and subject to revision as new discoveries are made about other entities whose characteristics are borderline in a given class, leading to broadening, narrowing or reconfiguring the criteria to include or exclude the new entity in one of the classes. known, or, more rarely, create a new class inaugurated by that entity.

Jacobsen: Do you believe in life after death? If yes, why and in what way? If not, why not?

Melão Jr.: The concept of “death” is a disconnection, which for now we don’t know how to reconnect, but soon it will be possible in different ways. This is one of the topics analyzed in more detail in my book. The concept of “soul” also needs to be examined in detail to answer this, and the size of the answer would be immense.

Jacobsen: What do you think of the mystery and transience of life?

Melão Jr.: I don’t think it’s transitory. It has been for now, but that should soon change.

Jacobsen: What is love to you?

Melão Jr.: It is a desperate attempt to invent a word to represent an indescribable feeling.

Appendix: Educational System in Brazil and Richard Lynn’s study on IQs in different countries

The education system is usually bad all over the world, but in Brazil it is much worse than the average of countries with similar GDPs. I estimate that Brazilian education is one of the worst in the world. University of Ulster Professor Emeritus Richard Lynn offers a simplistic explanation for this in his article “IQ and Wealth of Nations”. It does not deal with Education. It deals with Economics, but the argument he uses to justify differences in income would be equally (and better) applied to Education, as long as the argument is valid. But the argument starts from a false premise. There are many errors in Lynn’s work. The central idea he defends is right, but quantitatively he forces exaggerated results. The thesis he defends – that there are ethnic and regional differences – is correct, but the differences are not as big as he wants to make it out to be. According to Lynn, the average IQ in Equatorial Guinea is 56. If this were right, the country would be expected to be a large tribe of nomads, they would not have mastered the technique of producing fire, they would not have built plows, spears, etc. But there is an urban civilization there. In addition, people with an IQ below 60 have a hard time learning to read and write, even though they live in countries with extensive infrastructure and literacy incentives. If more than 91% of the population of Equatorial Guinea can read (assuming this information is not made up), even in an environment with less incentive to learn, it would be very difficult to explain how this population with an average IQ of 56 is predominantly literate. Lynn tries to spread his neo-Nazi beliefs and uses this scientific research to try to gain credibility for his views. The average IQ of Ashkenazi Jews is around 114, the highest average in the world, but Lynn was able to manipulate the data from her meta-analysis so that the average IQ for the state of Israel was 94.

In the case of Brazil, Lynn’s results indicated an average IQ of 87 and, in a more recent review, they indicate 83.38. If this were correct, it would be a good explanation for the low quality of Brazilian scientific production and the terrible quality of teaching. But the real problems that predominate in Brazil are a combination of student laziness, teacher laziness, low leveling in classes and bad “pedagogical” methodology.

A more serious analysis of the situation shows that the average Brazilian’s real IQ is not as low as Lynn’s studies suggest. Many people turn in IQ quizzes without answering, or they “guess” all the alternatives, or they answer some and “kick” the others.

In a post of mine on the profile of our friend Iakovos Koukas, I made a reasonably detailed comment about this, which I also reproduced in the IQ Olympiad group and reproduced here again:

There are indeed cognitive differences based on ethnicity, just as there are in relation to average height, average penis size, average concentration of melanin under the skin, etc., but the cognitive differences are much smaller than what he tries to “sell”.

On the one hand, there is the problem of naive egalism, defended by some pseudo-ideological groups, and this finds no support in the facts. At the opposite extreme, there are groups of people like Richard Lynn, Tatu Vanhanen and Charles Murray who try to exacerbate racial differences and use them to justify the misery of some peoples. Both the radical eugenicists and the radical egalitarians are wrong, but between one extreme and the other there are some truths.

Just as there are marked cognitive differences between species, there are differences between ethnicities, but less marked because the range of genetic variation within the same species is smaller. Pretending that these differences do not exist is a mistake, because the correct knowledge about the particularities of each ethnicity helps to make more accurate diagnoses of several diseases whose symptoms are not the same in all ethnic groups, the adequate time of exposure to the Sun for the synthesis of vitamin D is not the same, and many characteristics that would be interpreted as “healthy” in some ethnicities are not in others, so the correct use of this information helps to more effectively interpret the results of blood counts, analyze bone, dermatological and other anomalies. muscle. Knowing the physiological, cognitive and behavioral differences of each ethnicity is important; the problem is to use these differences for the purpose of tyrannizing, oppressing or diminishing the merits of a people, this is unethical and unscientific, and Lynn ostensibly tries to do this.

In the case of Brazil, there seems to be a distortion close to 10 to 15 points in the numbers presented by Lynn, so the correct average Brazilian IQ should be around 95, a little below average, but not so much as to justify the bad results. of Brazil in Science. The real problems seem to be laziness and other items I mentioned above. There are recent studies that question whether apparently lazy behavior should be classified exactly as “laziness” or not, but I won’t go into that discussion either so as not to make this text even longer.

In the 1950s and 1960s, Richard Feynman was in Brazil a few times and made severe criticisms of the Brazilian education system, he did some impromptu social experiments and showed that Brazilian doctoral students often did not understand the basics of what they were doing, they acted mechanically , without the slightest idea about the fundamentals. Brazilians wrote some nice words in relation to Feynman’s criticism, saying that they intended to improve something, but the current situation is perhaps even worse than it was when Feynman was in our country. In addition to the shameful situation of education in Brazil, there are still other problems in this episode, because Brazilian “educators” showed surprise and perplexity with the problems pointed out by Feynman, as if they were in a house on fire, but they were not seeing that the fire was devouring. everything, until a neighbor comes in and shows them the fire. So they thank you, look shocked, make a speech of mea culpa, but do nothing concrete about the fire, which is still devastating … It ‘s unbelievable that they weren’t seeing the fire before the neighbor pointed it out to them and unbelievable that they continue without taking any action after the problem was pointed out.

Although scientists and educators have not mobilized to try to solve the problem, some Brazilian exponents of Mathematics, who had some experiences in Europe and the United States, decided to try to reproduce a small oasis, bringing to Brazil some of what they had experienced in developed countries. In 1952, IMPA (Institute of Pure and Applied Mathematics) was founded. At that time, Brazil was in Group I of the IMU (International Mathematical Union), the lowest level. For 70 years, IMPA has been the only place in Brazil where there has been a sincere attempt to identify and support some outstanding talent, trying to escape the bureaucracy and inefficiency of the Educational System. But IMPA is only 1 institution located in Rio de Janeiro. Brazil is a large country, with 8,500,000 km^2, so people who live far from RJ are often unable to enjoy what IMPA offers. Therefore, IMPA’s reach is still small. With the popularization of the Internet, this has improved, but the number of beneficiaries is still very limited, including because there is relatively little publicity about IMPA events, most schools do not enroll their students in OBM (Brazilian Mathematics Olympiad), most of the students do not even know that OBM exists. There are some professors spread across Brazil linked to IMPA, who try to contribute to the identification of talents, but it is a difficult process, they do not receive incentives from the government or companies. Even with these obstacles, between 1952 and 2015 IMPA raised Brazil from Group 1 to Group 5 (the highest), which only 11 countries are part of: Germany, Brazil, Canada, China, USA, France, Israel, Italy , Japan, UK and Russia.

I don’t know what the criteria for being included in Group 5 of the UMC are, but I suppose it’s a combination of merit and politics, perhaps more merit than politics. I say that there is a bit of politics because there are countries with two Fields medals or two Abel awards, but they are not part of this group, such as Australia, Belgium, Iran and Sweden, while Brazil has only 1 Fields medal. Of course, these awards should not be the only criterion, but they are very reasonable indications of the cream of mathematics produced in each country. There are also several countries with 1 Fields medal and a longer mathematical tradition, which are also not in Group 5. Perhaps the criterion takes into account the pace of growth, and in this regard Brazil is perhaps, along with China and India, one of the fastest growing in the production of high-level Mathematics.

The fact is that if the average Brazilian IQ were really as low as Richard Lynn claims, and the main problem in Brazil was really the low average IQ of the population, then IMPA actions would not have been able to substantially modify the quality and quantity. of high-level mathematical production. If the problem were low IQ, the solution would come from other actions, such as nutritional improvements, for example. IMPA actions did not change the average IQ of the population; they only changed the efficiency in the identification of talents that already existed in the country, and after the identification, opportunities and incentives began to be offered to these talents.

The numbers pointed out by Lynn, that the average Brazilian IQ would be 87, are inconsistent with the results achieved by IMPA. Even with a population of 213 million, it would be difficult for some of these people to reach the world top with rarity close to 1 in 300 million if Brazil was 1 standard deviation below the average, even because IMPA cannot extend its benefits to more than 1% to 5% of the most talented population. Of course, other hypotheses would apply, such as a higher standard deviation in the IQ distribution among the Brazilian population or a more platykurtic distribution. But generally what you see in groups with a smaller mean height is a narrower rather than a wider standard deviation. This happens with virtually all variables. The standard deviation in diameter for larger screws is wider than for smaller screws. In other words, the percentage standard deviation is usually maintained, so it would be strange for a population with a lower IQ to have a higher standard deviation. Furthermore, it would be an ad hoc adjustment to try to salvage a theory that has other problems, making it more plausible to pass Occam’s razor and accept that Lynn is wrong about this. The average Brazilian’s correct IQ is substantially higher than he says, just like the IQs of most other non-Aryan peoples he tries to push down are also higher than the numbers he presents.

Examining the facts objectively, what the data suggests is that the average Brazilian IQ is probably much closer to 95 than to 87. A little below average, but not as low as Lynn suggests.

The IMPA results also show that perhaps laziness is a reflection of the poor education system. If laziness were a widespread problem in the country, the solutions implemented by IMPA would not have been enough to solve it either; other complementary measures would be necessary. Perhaps laziness is a striking problem that affects more than 99% of the population, but about 1% could not be labeled as “lazy”, but as a victim of a very bad education system. As more than 99% of intellectual production comes from that 1%, we have a huge problem there, and a complete lack of attention to this problem, because politicians are not very concerned about making great efforts to win 1% of votes, since with less effort they can get more votes by pretending to please a less demanding, easier to deceive and much more numerous audience.

One of the big problems is that the 99% of the population are also harmed, but they don’t see this themselves and don’t demand from the government measures that can contribute to long-term improvements, measures that are good and fair for all. Each just wants the government to adopt measures with immediate results that benefit their own navels. In this way, the problem tends to perpetuate itself, as it has for decades.

Many Brazilian academics often complain about the lack of funds and attribute the low scientific production to this. Others do worse, pretending that there is good quality scientific production in Brazil, despite the lack of funds. But what the concrete facts show is that really very poor countries, in which most of the population lives in poverty, such as Ethiopia, Nigeria, Congo, Kenya, Ghana, etc. had citizens Nobel laureates, while in Brazil there has never been a Nobel laureate. Furthermore, when Einstein developed his major works, for which he deserved 3 Nobel prizes (and 2 more for later works), he was not receiving any funding for his research, not even in previous years. Therefore, although the lack of resources imposes severe limitations, it cannot be considered an absolute impediment, much less be used as a pretext in a situation like this. Great works were carried out practically without money, as was much of Newton’s work during 1665.

[Here, perhaps, a small caveat fits, because as I mentioned in the part about awards and merits, it is possible that some Brazilians have performed works with merit to receive a Nobel, but were not laureates for political, bureaucratic reasons, etc. My work on Econometrics and Risk Management, for example, is more expressive than most of the work of Nobel laureates in Economics in recent decades. The discovery of the π meson, although predominantly an operational work, had a Brazilian as the protagonist (César Lattes), but as the team leader was Celil Powell, Lattes only had a B.Sc. and at the time (1950) the award was only given to the head of the team, Lattes ended up not receiving the award, although he was perhaps primarily responsible for this work and was the main author of the article. After the detection of π mesons in cosmic rays (1947), Lattes was one of the few in the world with the necessary knowledge to identify the signatures left by these particles on the emulsion plates, so he was invited to collaborate at CERN (1948) and verify if they were also able to produce π mesons, as the energy needed for this was easily exceeded by the particle accelerator used, so they were probably already producing pions for a long time (since 1946), but they didn’t know exactly what to look for in the chambers bubble as being signatures of the π mesons. Lattes went to CERN and made the identifications. Again the work was distinguished with the Nobel and again Lattes was excluded from the award. In all, Lattes was nominated 7 times for the Nobel, but was never awarded. Oswaldo Cruz was also nominated for the Nobel Prize in Medicine, but was not awarded. Perhaps Machado de Assis would also have merit for a Nobel Prize in Literature. So, although there are 0 Brazilian Nobel laureates, maybe some have merit for that. There is a detailed text in which I analyze the case of Lattes, without the usual exaggerations and nationalist distortions of most articles about him, but at the same time acknowledging the merits he had that were not properly recognized.]

On the one hand, the low scientific production reflects the lack of funds, on the other hand, the lack of funds reflects the low scientific production, because if there really was scientific and technological production of good quality, large national and international companies would be interested in funding this research. , as they would profit from it. If private companies do not invest in Brazilian science, it is because such “investment” does not generate an expectation of profit, because the level of production is below what could justify some serious interest from entrepreneurs. I usually use the term “donation” for Brazilian science instead of “Investment”, because the meaning of “investment” is different. What Brazilian researchers demand is basically this: donation.

It is important to make it clear that I am not against funding Brazilian science, whether in the form of investment or donation. If I were against it, it would be stupid. I am against the bad management of the budget allocated to Science, combined with the terrible educational system and the complete lack of incentive for intellectual production. Intellectual production is not writing 50,000 useless papers to pretend that it is being produced and continue “sucking” on the grants of “research” funding agencies. Real intellectual production is serious effort to solve real and important problems. Therefore, instead of whining about lack of funds, the correct procedure would be a complete reformulation of the clowning that takes place in Brazilian Education and in Brazilian “scientific” research, they would need to start producing real, with high quality, as happens at IMPA , and then present substantial facts and consistent arguments to claim investments. Without it, the tearful speech to ask for donation is fragile. Certainly a crowd of unproductive researchers will stone me for this comment, but the few serious researchers will agree with me, although they may not have the courage to publicly acknowledge the position they defend, lest they be lynched by their colleagues.

Perhaps there are less than 1% of serious researchers in Brazil, among which I had the opportunity to meet some, such as Renato P. dos Santos, Roberto Venegeroles, André Gambaro, José Paulo Dieguez, Luis Anunciação, Antonio Piza, André Asevedo Nepomuceno, Herbert Kimura, Cristóvão Jacques, George Matsas, Doris Fontes among others. But unfortunately they represent a small fraction, and they do not always openly admit the disastrous situation in which Brazilian science finds itself, because the pressure is great for them to pretend to believe in the staging of which most of the others are part. When the person takes a fair position on this and tells forbidden truths, he begins to be cowardly boycotted on all sides, so it is understandable that many prefer to remain silent, avoiding manifesting, or simply pretending to agree with the fantasy. that try to propagate the situation of Science and Education in Brazil. Many criticized Copernicus because of the preface to his book Revolutionibus, for not having faced the dominant beliefs openly, but when analyzing the problems faced by Galileo, it is clear that the defense of the truth that goes against the interests of certain groups can be very onerous . And it would be naive to believe that the entities that dominate the world today (media, companies, universities, politicians, etc.) are more scrupulous than the medieval ecclesiastics were. There are certainly some entities that are more reputable and more sincerely committed to defending what is right and fair, but they are exceptions, unfortunately. “Ironically” the same people who are outraged by the persecution of Galileo are the people who today practice the same type of abuse, injustice and persecution.

This is a delicate situation, because if the immense majority builds a hoax and pretends that it is real, it becomes difficult for a small minority to restore the truth. For example: Roberto de Andrade Martins is a serious researcher, with post-docs in Cambridge and Oxford, with good knowledge and good understanding of Physics, Logic and Epistemology. He is completely rejected by his colleagues and by those who call themselves “scientific” disseminators, because Roberto tells undesirable truths. Roberto has never been invited to the major channels of scientific dissemination in Brazil, although he is by far more qualified than the overwhelming majority of those invited to these channels. This happens because in these channels, the most “commercial”, more “charismatic” figures are preferred in the eyes of those who pretend to be interested in Science, instead of serious scientists who tell forbidden truths about the tragic reality of science in the country and education in the country. country. YouTubers who call themselves “scientific promoters” in Brazil have to choose between truth and popularity, and almost always prefer the second option. In this way, they are dragging a farce that at some point will cause the country’s collapse, as happened with the former USSR in 1991, or with the Lehman Brothers bank in 2008. They were sweeping the dirt under the rug, until a point where the situation became untenable and the shack collapsed. There are a few serious scientific disseminators in Brazil, but these generally reach a much smaller, more enlightened audience that already sees the problem without it being necessary for someone to show them. The public that would really need to be informed remains “armored”, to serve no one’s interests, since no one will profit from the sinking of the nation. Chomsky once declared that “the purpose of the media is not to report what happens, but to shape public opinion in accordance with the will of the dominant corporate power.” In this case it is worse, because they are not shaping public opinion according to anyone’s will. They are just acting stupidly for everyone’s harm.

Hypocrisy is another terrible problem that affects a large number of Brazilian academics and pseudo science disseminators. When a foreigner comes to Brazil and says that Brazilian science is a joke, as Feynman did, he stomps and spits on Brazilian science, Brazilian academics certainly don’t like it, they are embarrassed, but even so they applaud the alpha male, like sycophantic primates. But when another Brazilian points out the same problem, they growl and rant at the heretic and try to keep him from talking about it.

There are a few more complications that cannot be overlooked: most cutting-edge science has no immediate application and can take decades or centuries to produce any return for the investor. The director of the Department of Mathematical Physics at USP, Ph.D. from MIT and Post Doctoral from MIT, Antonio Fernando Ribeiro de Toledo Piza, who in 1994 wanted to meet me in order to talk to me about a work I developed at age 19, about a method for calculating fractional factorials, in the middle of the conversation he mentioned an occasion in which Faraday was asked what the discoveries he had made about electricity and magnetism were for. Faraday responded with another question: “What good is a child who has just been born?” This phrase expresses a complex problem in the treatment of science as an “investment”, because the current human life expectancy is too short for some investments in science to be seen as attractive to private investors. These are investments that will only bring a return in 50 years, 100 years or more, for the following generations, for our children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, it is a tree that we will have the cost and work of planting, fertilizing, cultivating, protecting, but they are our grandchildren who will reap the rewards. For this reason, even in countries where science is prolific, it may not be attractive to private investors, whose time horizon for which they are willing to wait for results is usually shorter.

Having made this important caveat, it is necessary to emphasize that this discourse would be fallacious if used to try to save the terrible reputation of Brazilian science. What is produced in Brazil can rarely even be called “Science”. Data tabulation and descriptive reports are made about the task. To use Faraday’s argument I cited her above, in defense of investment in Science, it would first be necessary for Brazil to start producing real Science.

Real science involves innovation, paradigm shift, real improvement, critical, in-depth analysis that goes beyond the obvious and adds some new and useful knowledge to the legacy of humanity. In Brazil this is rarely done. In fact, this is rarely done in the world, but the level of scarcity of innovations is worse in Brazil than in other countries with a similar economic situation or with a similar HDI.

When I say “paradigm break” it doesn’t have to be something as grandiose as a new cosmological system or a unification theory. It could be something basic, like adding a little boron to photographic emulsion plates to preserve the records of π mesons all the way down from the mountains, as César Lattes did, or solving a homomorphic encryption problem that was open for 15 years, as he did Joao Antonio LJ, or develop a new educational system that allows teaching 1-year content in 40 days to a child who had below-average grades and after those 40 days the child starts to have the best grades in school, as Tamara PC did Rodrigues, or revise the BMI formula, as I did. They are small contributions, but they reveal scientific facts still unknown, or correct knowledge that has been incorrectly repeated for a long time, or in some way contribute to broadening the horizons of knowledge or to redirecting knowledge to a path closer to the truth. It is not a complete deconstruction and reconstruction of knowledge, as Newton did, but it is a brick added to the right place, or removed from the wrong place and repositioned in the right place. This is the minimum that would be expected of a scientist, but most of the time this minimum is not met, and Ph.D. they are distributed almost like a ritual, in which the candidate only has to show that he knows how to write and knows how to interpret a little of what is on some graphs – with several misinterpretations, by the way. Depending on the discipline, it is enough to show that you can write, you don’t even need to know how to read a chart. After performing the ritual, the person receives the Ph.D. label. and begins to receive money to continue with this nonsense, pretending to be producing Science.

The vast majority of doctoral theses and scientific articles do not present anything innovative. These titles are awarded to inflate egos and satisfy people’s vanity, but they are not associated with any intellectual merit or original scientific production. A person does elementary research, purely mechanical, to corroborate some results on which there are already hundreds of other similar studies, and receives a Ph.D. therefore, and the State pays these people to pretend that they are producing something relevant and they call it “Brazilian science”, but the correct name, at best, would be “data tabulation” and “descriptive reports”. I say “at best” because there are usually several blunders in these procedures, which makes the situation even more vexing.

The central problem is that there is no culture of producing innovations. It just repeats itself endlessly. There is no incentive for innovation, there is no charge for innovation, no reward for innovation and, worst of all, there are even penalties for innovation. In 1998, a friend (Patrícia EC), who was completing her doctorate at USP, found that some experimental data on dwarf galaxy morphology was inconsistent with expectations. Instead of her advisor helping her try to understand what could be causing it, he told her to redo the measurements because she must have made a mistake in the measurements or calculations. Up to this point, I agree with him, because these mistakes are often the most common. She redid and obtained results statistically equivalent to the first measurements. At this point the yellow alert turns red and her advisor should have paid more attention to the case. However, he told her to redo it again! This is complete nonsense. It’s unscientific. It is to destroy “evidence” that could contribute to expanding, revising, improving what was known until then. This is the level at which the so-called “Brazilian science” sect finds itself. If any discovery is contrary to established dogmas, it needs to be adjusted in some way until it conforms to the dogmas. In addition to the fact that there are no incentives for discoveries, when there is any indication that something new may be ahead, we try to erase the traces of the possible discovery! People are trained not to produce, not to innovate, not to discover!

Part of the education problem in the country is not the fault of teachers, students and researchers. They just dance to the music. But a big part of the problem is their fault, because they determine the music that should play. In addition, they can refuse to dance to the music, they can put on headphones with better music, and they can create their own center of excellence, as in the case of IMPA.

The academic community’s resistance to admitting these facts exacerbates the situation, because instead of trying to fix the problems, they pretend the problems don’t exist, sweep the dirt under the rug, and move on as if everything is fine. Recently, the president of Brazil made a brutal cut in funds destined for “science”. It is a delicate situation, because the problem of scientific unproductivity is not resolved in this way. The budget cut only exacerbates the situation. It is bad to allocate money to a sector that does not generate satisfactory results, but being a fundamental sector, the correct procedure is to restore that sector and ensure that it works as it should, instead of killing it, taking away its bread and water. It would need to exchange bread and water for a richer diet, increase investment in science and simultaneously reformulate the criteria for granting scholarships, granting funds, reducing the bureaucracy of importing books and scientific and technological products, promoting exchanges with qualified researchers, creating prizes for real merit related to excellence in the original production of relevant works, rather than the political front awards, among many other changes from basic education to the titles of professors emeritus.

In the 1970s, China, India and Thailand were much poorer and less developed countries than Brazil, but they made massive investments in identifying talented children and offered differentiated conditions to encourage these children. Thailand stopped the project. China and India did. In less than two decades, they began to reap the rewards, after one generation, these children became highly skilled teachers, who provided the next generation with an even more exquisite education, and today China is on its way to becoming the greatest economic power, cultural, scientific and technological world, and India follows closely. There was a serious and profound overhaul of the education system so that they could get to where they are now. Instead of pretending they were doing science, they admitted the unproductiveness and low quality of what they produced, and started to fix what was wrong. One of the great problems in Brazil is precisely this inability to admit mistakes.

Portuguese Version

Footnotes

[1] Founder, Sigma Society; Creator, Sigma Test Extended.

[2] Individual Publication Date: June 8, 2022: https://in-sightjournal.com/melao-1; Full Issue Publication Date: September 1, 2022: https://in-sightjournal.com/insight-issues/.

*High range testing (HRT) should be taken with honest skepticism grounded in the limited empirical development of the field at present, even in spite of honest and sincere efforts. If a higher general intelligence score, then the greater the variability in, and margin of error in, the general intelligence scores because of the greater rarity in the population.

Citations

American Medical Association (AMA): Jacobsen S. Conversation with Hindemburg Melão Jr. on Gratitude and Clarifications, and Life, Views, and Work: Founder, Sigma Society (1)[Online]. June 2022; 30(A). Available from: https://in-sightjournal.com/melao-1.

American Psychological Association (APA, 6th Edition, 2010): Jacobsen, S.D. (2022, June 8). Conversation with Hindemburg Melão Jr. on Gratitude and Clarifications, and Life, Views, and Work: Founder, Sigma Society (1). Retrieved from https://in-sightjournal.com/melao-1.

Brazilian National Standards (ABNT): JACOBSEN, S. Conversation with Hindemburg Melão Jr. on Gratitude and Clarifications, and Life, Views, and Work: Founder, Sigma Society (1). In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal. 30.A. June. 2022. <https://in-sightjournal.com/melao-1>.

Chicago/Turabian, Author-Date (16th Edition): Jacobsen, Scott. 2022. “Conversation with Hindemburg Melão Jr. on Gratitude and Clarifications, and Life, Views, and Work: Founder, Sigma Society (1).” In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal. 30.A. https://in-sightjournal.com/melao-1.

Chicago/Turabian, Humanities (16th Edition): Jacobsen, Scott “Conversation with Hindemburg Melão Jr. on Gratitude and Clarifications, and Life, Views, and Work: Founder, Sigma Society (1).” In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal. 30.A (June 2022). https://in-sightjournal.com/melao-1.

Harvard: Jacobsen, S. 2022, ‘Conversation with Hindemburg Melão Jr. on Gratitude and Clarifications, and Life, Views, and Work: Founder, Sigma Society (1)’, In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal, vol. 30.A. Available from: <https://in-sightjournal.com/melao-1>.

Harvard, Australian: Jacobsen, S. 2022, ‘Conversation with Hindemburg Melão Jr. on Gratitude and Clarifications, and Life, Views, and Work: Founder, Sigma Society (1)’, In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal, vol. 30.A., https://in-sightjournal.com/melao-1.

Modern Language Association (MLA, 7th Edition, 2009): Scott D. Jacobsen. “Conversation with Hindemburg Melão Jr. on Gratitude and Clarifications, and Life, Views, and Work: Founder, Sigma Society (1).” In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal 30.A (2022): June. 2022. Web. <https://in-sightjournal.com/melao-1>.

Vancouver/ICMJE: Jacobsen S. Conversation with Hindemburg Melão Jr. on Gratitude and Clarifications, and Life, Views, and Work: Founder, Sigma Society (1)[Internet]. (2022, June 30(A). Available from: https://in-sightjournal.com/melao-1.

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