Talk:Adragon De Mello

This article was nominated for deletion on 29 July 2021. The result of the discussion was keep.

Biography Start‑class

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography articles Start This article has been rated as Start-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. An appropriate infobox may need to be added to this article. Please refer to the list of biography infoboxes for further information.

It is requested that an image or photograph of Adragon De Mello be included in this article to improve its quality. Please replace this template with a more specific media request template where possible. The Free Image Search Tool or Openverse Creative Commons Search may be able to locate suitable images on Flickr and other web sites.

Upload

Education Unassessed

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Education, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of education and education-related topics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.EducationWikipedia:WikiProject EducationTemplate:WikiProject Educationeducation articles ??? This article has not yet received a rating on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. ??? This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale.

SpuriousQ: I think this text fairly represents the published reports of Adragon's academic experience, without emphasizing the exploitation and emotional abuse he was subjected to:

Adragon's academic achievements were due to hard work.[1] Despite his father's desire to believe otherwise, Adragon's IQ is somewhat above average, at about the 85th percentile,[[2] ] which means that the celebrated "boy genius" is not actually a genius according to the most common definitions. Much of his childhood was spent with his father teaching him and pushing him through material, particularly in math and sciences.[3][4] At one point, Adragon was enrolled in an elementary school for highly gifted students, and he remembers the experience positively. However, his father continued to push him and the school for inappropriately impressive accomplishments, and when further testing revealed that he did not meet their entrance requirements, he was withdrawn.

I think you should read this article[5] before you decide that this text is inappropriately judgmental. If you still think so, then perhaps you'll note here exactly who you think is being unfairly judged and how. WhatamIdoing 17:29, 12 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You may find it helpful while reading or editing articles to look at a bibliography of Intelligence Citations, posted for the use of all Wikipedians who have occasion to edit articles on human intelligence and related issues. I happen to have circulating access to a huge academic research library at a university with an active research program in these issues (and to another library that is one of the ten largest public library systems in the United States) and have been researching these issues since 1989. You are welcome to use these citations for your own research. You can help other Wikipedians by suggesting new sources through comments on that page. It will be extremely helpful for articles on human intelligence to edit them according to the Wikipedia standards for reliable sources for medicine-related articles, as it is important to get these issues as well verified as possible. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 05:02, 11 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This article is supposedly about Adragon De Mello but is, in fact, mostly about his father, Agustin Eastwood De Mello. I think it should be retitled and the opening paragraph rewritten, or edited to actually talk about Adragon De Mello in more than a few brief sentences. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.190.74.7 (talk) 00:58, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Many publications say that Adragon De Mello has a projected IQ of 400. He graduated from Santa Cruz with a degree in computational mathematics at age 11. Sense most IQ's after about 160-180 or so are merely projections, I think this is something highly noteworthy to put in the article. As a matter of fact, I think it's the most noteworthy thing about Adragon De Mello. 71.9.141.71 (talk) 20:33, 16 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Sources now cited showing the 400 I.Q. (no scale indicated, as per usual) derives from his father's own assessment when his son was five years old. So not perhaps that reliable. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.109.207.33 (talk) 00:41, 17 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

When they're estimates about peoples IQ's beyond 160, none of them are reliable. Some IQ's projected at 190-220 and beyond are designed by professors others are derived from mathematical formulas. The latter was the case for Adragon De Mello. The WAIS-IV and the Stanford–Binet only go up to 160 if I recall correctly. 71.9.141.71 (talk) 19:15, 26 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

So... if you think that no IQ estimates beyond 160 is reliable, why do you keep trying to put the claim of 400 in this article? You've been citing a source titled "Inflated IQ", by the way, which should give us some reason to not present that estimate as a fact. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:13, 28 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Firstly, it wasn't his "Father's opinion" it was a metric that was used by his Father to determine a projected IQ based on educational attainment (going to college at say, 11 for example), a Projected IQ ≠ an Actual IQ. The Article you mentioned says no where that his IQ was 115 or that was an IQ test, most IQ tests need to be ministered by a Psychologist. If you look at the Stanford-Binet or the WAIS-IV nether go up beyond 160. The individuals with supposed IQ's above 160 either take proctored tests administered by fringe psychometricians or professors.(Christopher Langan comes to mind) or are using faulty or old metrics. Sense Adragon De Melo's notoriety was based primarily on being a young prodigy and having a projected, inflated, or faulty IQ of 400 (preferably neutral wording is best).

I think that's more appropriate than making an assumption that his IQ is 115, sense no where does the article mentioned he took an IQ test that showed him to have IQ of 115. Also, it would be unlikely with his attainment that his IQ is just 115. Saying his dad just "claimed it" is dishonest sense credible sources have picked it up as well. Ainan Cawley is an example as well, based what his achieve at his age (a Chemistry exam) sources claim (on his Father's calculation) him to have a projected IQ of 263 or more. Also with Christopher Langan, he had to have special exams in order to get his widely reported projected IQ of 190-210. Again, in most circles these are not accurate because of how rare they are, but they are notable. Anyone can claim having an excessively high IQ but if it's not sourced and reported it need not mentioned.

I'm in favor of keeping the first sentence but striking this out However, standardized tests done by one of his schools suggested an IQ around the 85th percentile (approximately an IQ of 115), which would indicate an above-average IQ, but not close to his father's claims. Because it's not sourced at all and it's relying on conjecture and it's WP:OR

I think this would be more netural, Adragon's father claimed that Adragon had a "projected" IQ of 400, based on a test he performed on Adragon when he was young. Or something of that nature.

71.9.141.71 (talk) 06:15, 29 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The cited source says "Standardized tests placed AD just below the eighty-fifth percentile of students his age". The 85th percentile is approximately an IQ of 115.

I really don't think that his father's claim should be presented as anything other than a number determined by a highly partisan relative with zero professional qualifications. His father gave him a test when he was four or five years old. His father interpreted the test as meaning an IQ of 400. The fact that low-quality sources are credulous is not evidence that reliable sources agree with this. WhatamIdoing (talk) 13:54, 29 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"Standardized tests placed AD just below the eighty-fifth percentile of students his age". Again standardized tests ≠ IQ tests. If you get 100% on the PSAT it doesn't mean you have an IQ of 160. These are two different things that are sometimes correlated but need not be conflated. You could be a Ph.D in chemical engineering but have an IQ of 100. It reminds me of the presidential IQ hoax ^[1]. Again most credible IQ tests are administered by psychologists, did the source say that he took an IQ test at Popper-Keizer? If it does not say it, it's WP:OR.

Readers Digest, USA Today, and Business Insider (India) are low quality sources? I believe even the 60 Minutes mentions that claim. If you have better sources stating his IQ is 115, then go ahead and reference them. As a matter of fact I think it would better if there was an article in Wikipedia elucidating what inflated or projected IQ's are so people don't get the wrong impression, if that's your angle.

As far as questioning Agustin De Mello's claim, you'd have to actually find the test that Adragon took at a young age, and a source of someone reputable in that field to refute that claim. I know the test he took is mentioned somewhere online.

As far as I know his actual IQ is unknown, but this also the case for historical figures whom many try to ascribe certain IQ's too, da Vinci and Issac Newton come to mind.

71.9.141.71 (talk): 71.9.141.71 (talk) 05:12, 30 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, so let's straighten out our terminology: All valid IQ tests are standardized tests. Otherwise, their results are meaningless. Second, some education-focused standardized tests, including the PSAT before 1993, correlate strongly with IQ. Before they re-wrote the test in 1993, if you got the top score on the PSAT, you likely did have an IQ around 160. The test you're talking about would have been taken in the 1980s (early or mid), since it would have been done after he was old enough to attend school at all (~1980) but before he enrolled at the university in 1987.

Yes, Reader's Digest and Business Insider are low-quality sources. See WP:BUSINESSINSIDER. AFAICT you haven't cited USA Today. But the bigger problem isn't them "mentioning" it; it's how we present it. IMO it's fine to say that Daddy believed his baby boy was the most important super genius to ever walk the face of the Earth. But it should be presented as Daddy's personal, biased, uncorroborated belief, on par with every grandparent declaring their grandbaby the most beautiful, and not as if it were a fact, or even as a true "projected" IQ (a subtlety that will be lost on nearly every reader). WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:55, 30 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

IQ tests are standardized tests, Adragon took a standardized test, therefore, he took an IQ test.

See something wrong there?

Just because a high PSAT score corelates strongly with a higher IQ doesn't give us any reason to infer a persons IQ. There are individuals who score very low on the PSAT who have very high IQ's and I'm sure the reverse (although probably much rarer) is also true (GPA could also be a much more tentative example). What also correlates strongly with high IQ is profession and line of work. But even here we need to be careful as there is also cases of lawyers with very average IQ's and say, elementary school teachers with very high IQs.

It's also interesting to note that many high IQ individuals lead unremarkable lives, and many average or slightly above average IQ individuals have made extraordinary achievements. Chris Langan was a bar bouncer, Rick Rosner was a television writer, Michael Kearney works in an Improvisational Theater, et-cetera.

Business Insider is listed as reliable when it comes to culture, but no consensus has been reached when it comes it's syndicated content. I'm not sure if I'd call it low-quality, but that's neither here nor there. I didn't cite USA Today (which is a high-quality source, according to your metric) but it does exist ^[2], the point being there are many websites which all state the same thing, Adragon De Mello has or had a projected IQ of 400.

Daddy believed his baby boy was the most important super genius to ever walk the face of the Earth. You see the problem here, journalists are not going cover a story of any father claiming their son to be a genius because they passed an Algebra exam. According to the sources here he was accepted into Mensa and also was a member of Internel, he also graduated at 11 with a degree in computational mathematics, and at the time was the youngest college graduate in U.S history, which strongly suggests it's unlikely his IQ is 115. What his actual IQ is I have no idea, but at the very least I don't think it's charitable to say his IQ is 115.

If you want to downplay him being a genius, if that's your angle, there are interviews where he is dismissive of this claim to fame. He even stated once, "Genius?... I don't think so", in an interview.^[3]

71.9.141.71 (talk) 12:47, 30 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

One of the sources you cited said he was a forced prodigy. Do you know what that means? It means that you're pushed to behave and achieve like a prodigy – when you aren't a prodigy.

Yes, he graduated with a degree in mathematics. Did you read the sources about what his profs said later, once his bullying father was out of the picture? They said that he struggled with advanced mathematics, and the father put a lot of pressure on them to give him passing grades.

See also the newspaper article that describes him as "Adragon has seemingly turned out well, not a genius". This is a consistent theme: "father thought he was a genius", his efforts to make his son famous as a nationally publicized “genius” (scare quotes in the original), alleged genius, touted by his father as a genius. The reliable sources do not accept the claim that he is a genius. WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:24, 30 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Do you know what that means? It means that you're pushed to behave and achieve like a prodigy – when you aren't a prodigy.

If he wasn't a prodigy, he wouldn't be in Mensa (They don't accept everyone), he wouldn't be in Internel. He would have not got accepted at such a young age to a college.

I highly doubt anyone is going to go around self-proclaiming themselves a genius or ask that that label be given to them.

If publications go around saying he is a genius or he is not a genius it's inconsequential to what he managed to achieve.

Sense genius is a loaded term for some, and oftentimes vague,I won't use it anymore. A prodigy would be more apt, and that he certainly is - whether it's forced or not is immaterial to the discussion. Graduating at 11 from a college is a feat in and of itself(and being the first to do so in the U.S). Being a member of not one, but two, high IQ organizations is also highly notable.

Did you read the sources about what his profs said later, once his bullying father was out of the picture? They said that he struggled with advanced mathematics, and the father put a lot of pressure on them to give him passing grades.

Yes I did, but you have to put things in perspective, this is an 11 year old, and unless Adragon's degree was pulled out of a Cracker Jack Box, he still had to earn it through hard work, it doesn't diminish the significance of an 11 year old earning a degree in computational mathematics. Unless you can prove that he didn't deserve any of those grades, or his degree was fraudulent, then this is just hearsay. His childhood aside, you can't just take any 11 year old and expect them have a degree even with rigorous schooling.

71.9.141.71 (talk) 17:54, 30 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sure that he did work hard – extremely, unreasonably, abusively hard – but hard work is not the only way to get a degree. Consider this allegation of outright cheating: "Questions have also been raised about Adragon's academic record. The boy's mother told the police that she and his father did much of his community college homework.

And how about just threatening to shoot instructors who didn't want to give him a passing grade?

"And several teachers at Santa Cruz said Adragon performed poorly in class and suggested that Mr. De Mello harassed teachers who balked at giving the boy passing grades...on April 29, according to a report filed by a professor with the university police, the father stormed into the mathematics office and confronted a department aide. The report said that Mr. De Mello reminded the aide of a 1978 murder committed by a Stanford University mathematics student who bludgeoned his faculty adviser in the belief that the teacher had prevented him from obtaining his Ph.D.The aide told the police that Mr. De Mello told her, ''That could happen here.''"

(Mensa did not require much paperwork in the 1980s; they probably just took his father's claims at face value.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:57, 30 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Questions have also been raised about Adragon's academic record. The boy's mother told the police that she and his father did much of his community college homework.

This happens right now, in most colleges, rich students have other people do their course work and only show up for exams or when necessary. While it's a good point, and could be included in the article, I don't think it deters from an 11 year old earning a degree.

As far as the second quote, no one is denying that is father was abusive, and took things to the extreme, but again, if you had an average or dull child they wouldn't even be in that position to start with. UC Santa Cruz didn't have to accept Adragon, this wasn't like a CSU. The acceptance rate in UC Santa Cruz is little over half.

Can you provide me a source that states Mensa didn't require much paperwork in the 1980s? As I recall the opposite is true, it's easier to get into Mensa now than it was back then. If you want to discredit his Mensa membership, I think an easier way to go about it is to ask what kind of test he took, or how exactly did he qualify for Mensa (I don't think he would have got in with his father's recommendation alone). Supposedly they even have some 2 year olds in Mensa now, which I think is a bit preposterous.

71.9.141.71 (talk) 03:09, 1 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I have said nothing about detracting from him earning a degree. (Moving the goalposts?) I have said that we should not present his father's claims about him having an impossibly high IQ, "projected" or otherwise, as being anything other than his father's claims. None of the high-quality sources present that as being true, and many of the ones that mention it are openly skeptical about it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:18, 1 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I thought you where inferring that because his father threatened to bludgeon administrators and because he had help with assignments the degree he earned was illegitimate.None of the high-quality sources you present mention his projected 400 IQ as being not true either, however several credible, mainstream sources present that as being true.^[4][5][6][7] If you want someone to refute that claim, why not bring a quote from a credible expert in the field or someone with understanding? Or why not find the test he took, present it to an expert in the field, and have him/her explain why that's preposterous.

For the record I think a lot of these entries about High-IQ individuals are subject to a lot of aggrandizement. Whether that be through unverified or dated IQ tests, records that don't exist anymore (Like Guinness World Records with Marylin Vos Savant). In many cases individuals try to become "expert" test-takers, which I think also invalidates a lot of claims to exceptionally high IQs (IQs above 200 for example, -Again that's an opinion though). Because there are so many different methods used to calculate exceptionally high IQ (Educational attainment, Advanced Placement, PSAT Score, Occupation, Historical relevance), It's difficult to come to consensus on the issue of IQ.^[8]

71.9.141.71 (talk) 03:31, 2 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think it would be okay to say that his father claimed that his son had an IQ of 400, and contrast that with the fact that his measured IQ was not that high when he enrolled into the gifted school. The emphasis of course being on the claim of an enormous and necessarily false estimation, with no regard for it as being true. I would even suggest, if any source repeating the claim says it as well, to mention the fact that IQs simply don't go that high. That would be appropriate if a related source does mention it, otherwise it would be OR. Dawkin Verbier (talk) 06:30, 3 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Dawkin Verbier, he didn't have a measured IQ test. He scored on the 85th percentile on a test designed for gifted children who normally score in the 95th percentile. Again reread the discussion about PSAT's or occupational correlation with IQ. It tells us nothing about his actual IQ, we can only infer which is WP:OR. As a soft quantifier, generally you are correct, IQ scores usually don't go up that high. Talking about IQ's above 160 usually leads us into no-man's land, see that discussion in this thread, or the eoht.info source.^[9] Which is seen as unreliable by my interlocutor (WhatamIdoing) in this discussion.

71.9.141.71 (talk) 07:18, 3 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think it perhaps would be better for one of us to be more accepting of compromise, as this discussion has went on to the extent that the talk page is now almost three times the length (!) of the article's subject. This is, I feel, quite a minor thing. I mean, obviously he doesn't have an IQ of 400. At this point, the discussion is so extensive that I'm having difficulty understanding what either of the positions here are... Dawkin Verbier (talk) 18:13, 3 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That's why it's helpful to read the discussion Dawkin Verbier. :). Your mentioning several things that have already been addressed. To summarize, I am of the position the following sentence is sufficient, Adragon's father claimed that Adragon had a projected IQ of 400, based on a test administered to him at 4 years old. That actually already is a compromise. Originally I just wanted to follow sources, "Adragon has a projected IQ of 400", which there are many many sources which state that emphatically. (Including but not limited to, Yahoo News!, CNBC (Indonesia), Business Insider (India), USA Today.) Several of which are considered "high-quality" by my interlocutor. WhatIAmDoing stated several things about Adragon, many of which where WP:OR. For example, that his IQ is 115 based on a test he took at Popper-Keizer, which we can't infer his IQ from a test he took at a gifted institution, as it was not an IQ test.

WhatIamDoing also brought up the fact that he may be a forced prodigy, not a real prodigy by the fact his father threatened administrators, and he was pressured to succeed academically. I brought up the fact that's unlikely an 11 year old would be accepted into Mensa, Internel, and graduate from college with a degree in computational mathematics without being a prodigy (or gifted in some way) of some sort.

I also brought up the fact that a projected IQ ≠ an actual IQ. Ainan Cawley is also a good example of this, passing a chemistry exam at a young age he was assumed to have a projected IQ of 263. I brought up the fact that, as is the case with many historical figures we can't know their actual IQ, so many are just projections. (da Vinci and Issac Newton come to mind).

I also state if you want to dispute the claim of a projected IQ of 400, why not bring an expert psychometrician in the field, rather than relying on WP:OR. Again we have to follow credible sources in Wikipedia and not rely on hearsay.

71.9.141.71 (talk) 04:59, 4 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Let's go through these in detail, so you can see why they're not good sources.

1. USA Today: "Adragon De Mello, who had a projected IQ of 400...according to Reader's Digest". Reader's Digest is a low-quality source for this kind of information, and someone repeating what a low-quality source – but labeling it as RD's statement, so they refuse to take responsibility for the claim themselves – is still not a good source.
2. Business Insider: "A college graduate at the age of 11, De Mello has a projected IQ of 400." See WP:BUSINESSINSIDER for why this is not a good source.
3. Business Talk Magazine: "he was said to have a projected IQ of 400". I've never heard of this website, but I notice that their entry for De Mello is almost word-for-word the Reader's Digest entry, with only the smallest of changes ("he was said to have a projected IQ of 400" instead of "he was reported to have a projected IQ of 400").
4. Reader's Digest First, RD only claims he was "reported" to have a projected IQ of 400; second, RD is a low-quality source. They're known for glurge, not for factual reporting.

So basically what you've provided is:

• a low-quality source (Reader's Digest)
• two sources that copied the low-quality source (Business Talk Magazine and USA Today), and
• WP:BUSINESSINSIDER.

These sources are not sufficient to support a claim that he really did have an off-the-charts IQ, projected or otherwise. WhatamIdoing (talk) 10:31, 2 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

No where does Wikipedia state Reader's Digest is a "Low-Quality Source", those are your words. Neither of those sources "copied" as you say, one references a previous source, USA Today references Readers Digest, and another Business Talk, says the following "Though he was said to have a projected IQ of 400...," which is not the same wording. There are dozens of more "high-quality" sources like this, including CNBC^[10] and Yahoo News^[11]. From Wikipedia, "Editors have treated the original (Yahoo) reporting as an ordinary WP:NEWSORG... and is reliable[emphasis added]. If you quote someone from a book or a movie, you are not plagiarizing what they say. Again, they are not going to expand on something they are not qualified to talk about, they are just following sources which is what Wikipedia is suppose to do. Journalists are not Psychometricians so they are not going dispute such statements. If you wish to dispute such a statement, bring a quotation from an expert in the study of psychometrics explaining why a projected IQ based on the test he took is nonsense.

It's like a journalist covering a story of a very unlikely event that occurred, sightings of the Jersey Devil, for example, your not going to be able to dispute the claim by simply calling the witness crazy(Unless it is proven that the witness is in fact, insane). Instead if you bring an expert in the field you could provide a countervailing explanation that would be more believable to the public writ large.

The sources are sufficient they meet Wikipedia's criteria of WP:NOTE and WP:NOR. The article currently states, Adragon's father claimed that Adragon had a projected IQ of 400, based on a test administered to him at 4 years old. Which ironically doesn't rely on "high-quality" sources but eoht.info. Instead the high-quality sources state, Adragon De Mello had a projected IQ of 400.

71.9.141.71 (talk) 05:09, 3 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The text of the Business Talk Magazine is so close to the text at Reader's Digest that if you posted it here, and cited Reader's Digest, you'd get blocked for Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing (a type of copyright violation).

Again: Yahoo! News doesn't say that he has an IQ of 400. Yahoo! News says only that Reader's Digest said that he has an IQ of 400. "He does" and "Somebody repeated a rumor that claims he does" are not equivalent. WhatamIdoing (talk) 10:16, 3 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Also, which source(s) are you saying are writing about "something they are not qualified to talk about"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 10:18, 3 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Somebody repeated a rumor that claims he does,

It's not a rumor if it's sourced directly. It didn't say, "people around town heard Adragon had an IQ of 400 according to CNN". It said "...According to Readers Digest".

There's only so many ways you can state, "Adragon had a projected IQ of 400", "graduated college at 11", "youngest college graduate in the U.S", and most of the source are clearly attributing Readers Digest.

From Yahoo News! - ...Adragon De Mello, who had a projected IQ of 400 and graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz at 11 years old, according to Reader's Digest." They wouldn't publish that article if they didn't vet their sources, that's why Yahoo News! is listed as credible by Wikipedia.

You also have to take into account a lot of the sources are translating from other sources, there's only a limited number of ways in which they can paraphrase someone's life story. From Wikipedia - Translation from a foreign language is a form of paraphrase, since all the words or phrases have been replaced with equivalent English-language words or phrases. This may or may not be acceptable, depending on whether any creative expression – anything other than simple statements of fact – has been taken from the foreign-language source.

In the case of Business Insider, all that was relied where simple facts.

Yahoo! News doesn't say that he has an IQ of 400.

Yahoo News! is considered credible by Wikipedia. No where does Yahoo news state that Adragon's IQ was a rumor.

I'm saying Journalists are not Psychometricians they are not going to state, "Adragon's projected IQ of 400 is bogus!", because they are not qualified to make such pronouncements.

71.9.141.71 (talk) 05:47, 4 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]