LETTERS: QUESTIONABLE STUDY SURVEYS SPEAK OUT IQ

To the editor:

A Speak Out commentator has suggested an IQ test for Speak Out callers.

Coincidentally, I have just completed a decades-long computer-assisted study of Speak Out comments. It has allowed me to accurately determine the average IQ of Speak Out callers and a variety of others who are in some way connected to the forum. The results have been scientifically validated and are not subject to challenge.

The average IQ of a Speak Out caller is 157, at the genius level. Those who both call and read Speak Out have a collective IQ of 162.5, qualifying many of them for Mensa, an organization of super geniuses.

Those who read but do not call Speak Out have IQ's ranging between 130 and 140, significantly superior. These folks would certainly qualify as gifted.

Those who call but do not read Speak Out have IQ's across a similar range.

There are many other interesting conclusions of this exhaustive study.

Space prohibits publishing them all. I hope to have all of the results published in a prestigious scientific journal of some sort.

Interestingly, a very low average IQ -- zero -- characterizes those who condemn Speak Out and publicly profess to never reading nor contributing to it while secretly devouring it daily and calling it at least once a week. I personally pass no judgment on such citizens, but the figures do not lie.

Finally, an appallingly low-level intelligence quotient -- negative 50, equal to that of a porous rock -- goes to those who believed any of the above. To be brutally honest, as I wrote this letter I came to believe it myself and still do. Thus, I am a rock. And not a solid one.

STEVE MOSLEY

Cape Girardeau