"We have built a think-link, a brain-skein round the biosphere. Earth's green cloak. It is interdisciplinary, not-factional, unbiased, uncommitted, anti-racial. It is free; a world agora, an agrosphere; free of constraints, free of form, free to grow into something the world needs but does not even know it needs."
It is hard to untangle much that is sensible in this splendid tapestry of unrestrained verbosity; clarity has given way to a muddled mysticism. And I believe that it is muddled, and if it were not for the confusion brought about by the obscure presentation, this would stand out clearly.
As an example of the problem facing the reader, consider the following. Victor Serebriakoff says that the basis of Mensa is to be "that quality which distinguishes life from matter and man from beast, that often despised but all-powerful quality, mind, intelligence." Does he propose that intelligence distinguishes life from matter? Does he propose that intelligence is all-powerful? Or in each case, has rhetoric overcome reason?
But consider an area where there is less confusion. Victor Serebriakoff begins by saying that "science has given us a tool; a crude and approximate but effective sieve by which we could sort out those men and women of every type and class who, no matter what their cultural bias, have at least the power to think for themselves." Victor Serebriakoff seems to think that even if the "tool" (by which I assume that he is referring to IQ testing) is crude and approximate - and therefore inaccurate - this is mitigated by the fact that it is "effective"!
I do not deny that we sometimes have no other option but to rely on approximate methods in matters pertaining to science, but if they are approximate, then it is unlikely that they will make effective predictions. A notable example, of course, is the weather. This can be described in terms of partial differential equations, but these equations can only be solved by approximate, numerical methods. Weather forecasting methods can be followed, and in this sense they are effective, i.e. they can be used.
However, this does not ensure that the results of using the methods will be accurate.
In a similar way, IQ testing can be used, and comes up with results - in this sense, being an effective method. But the problems which surely face anyone with a gram of scientific integrity are these: How can we use this to make predictions, and so test the method? How can we improve the approximate results which the method yields?
I would like to make it clear that my comments above are not intended to suggest, in any way, that Victor Serebriakoff is without integrity. But I think that my arguments do show that his idea of intelligence is simply not scientific; in this area, he seems to accept what is given, and applies it. It seems to escape his attention that his ideas of intelligence might be just as dogmatic and fixed as those orthodoxies he has left behind. He does not wish to "adore one god or dogma". Yet his own ideas are surely a monument to the altar of intelligence.