Christopher Michael Langan
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Christopher Michael Langan (born March 25, 1952) is an American horse rancher and former bar bouncer, known for scoring highly on an
IQ test An intelligence quotient (IQ) is a total score derived from a set of standardized tests or subtests designed to assess human intelligence. Originally, IQ was a score obtained by dividing a person's mental age score, obtained by administering ...
that gained him entry to a high-IQ society and for being formerly listed in the ''Guinness Book of Records'' high IQ section under the pseudonym of Eric Hart, alongside
Marilyn vos Savant Marilyn vos Savant ( ; born Marilyn Mach; August 11, 1946) is an American magazine columnist who has the highest recorded intelligence quotient (IQ) in the ''Guinness Book of Records'', a competitive category the publication has since retired. S ...
and
Keith Raniere Keith Allen Raniere ( ; born August 26, 1960) is an American cult leader who was convicted of a pattern of Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, racketeering activity, including human trafficking, Sex offender, sex offenses and fr ...
. The record was discontinued in 1990, as high IQs are considered too unreliable to document as world records. Langan was later a subject of
Malcolm Gladwell Malcolm Timothy Gladwell (born 3 September 1963) is a Canadian journalist, author, and public speaker. He has been a staff writer for ''The New Yorker'' since 1996. He has published eight books. He is also the host of the podcast ''Revisionist ...
's 2008 book, ''Outliers: The Story of Success'', in which the journalist sought to understand why Langan's high IQ had not led to greater success in life – Langan has no degree, having twice dropped out of college. The book compared him with
J. Robert Oppenheimer J. Robert Oppenheimer (born Julius Robert Oppenheimer ; April 22, 1904 – February 18, 1967) was an American theoretical physics, theoretical physicist who served as the director of the Manhattan Project's Los Alamos Laboratory during World ...
and focused on the influence of their respective environments on success. Langan has spent many years working on a hypothesis that reality is a self-simulation. He calls the theory the Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe. The thesis is self-published. He has been interviewed and has self-published his views on various matters, including his belief in eugenics to prevent genetic degradation in a technological world, opposition to interracial relationships, the 9/11 Truth movement, and other conspiracy theories that have gained him a following amongst the
alt-right The alt-right (abbreviated from alternative right) is a Far-right politics, far-right, White nationalism, white nationalist movement. A largely Internet activism, online phenomenon, the alt-right originated in the United States during the late ...
.


Biography

Langan was born in 1952 in
San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...
,
California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...
. His mother, Mary Langan-Hansen (''
née The birth name is the name of the person given upon their birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name or to the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a births registe ...
'' Chappelle, 1932–2014), was the daughter of a wealthy shipping executive but was cut off from her family. Langan's biological father left before he was born, and is said to have died in Mexico. Langan's mother married three more times, and had a son by each husband. Her second husband was murdered, and her third killed himself. Langan grew up with the fourth husband Jack Langan, who has been described as a "failed journalist" who used a bullwhip as a disciplinary measure and went on drinking sprees, disappearing from the house, locking the kitchen cabinets so the four boys could not get to the food in them. The family was very poor; Langan recalls that they all had only one set of clothes each. The family moved around, living for a while in a teepee on an
Indian reservation An American Indian reservation is an area of land land tenure, held and governed by a List of federally recognized tribes in the contiguous United States#Description, U.S. federal government-recognized Native American tribal nation, whose gov ...
, then later in
Virginia City, Nevada Virginia City is a census-designated place (CDP) that is the county seat of Storey County, Nevada, United States, and the largest community in the county. The city is a part of the Reno, Nevada, Reno–Sparks, Nevada, Sparks Reno, NV Metropolitan ...
. When the children were in grade school, the family moved to
Bozeman, Montana Bozeman ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Gallatin County, Montana, United States. The 2020 United States census put Bozeman's population at 53,293, making it Montana's fourth-largest city. It is the principal city of the Bozeman, Montan ...
, where Langan spent most of his childhood. Langan attended high school, but spent his last years engaged mostly in independent study. He did so after his teachers denied his request for more challenging material. According to Langan, he began teaching himself "advanced math, physics, philosophy, Latin, and Greek". He earned a perfect score on the
SAT The SAT ( ) is a standardized test widely used for college admissions in the United States. Since its debut in 1926, its name and Test score, scoring have changed several times. For much of its history, it was called the Scholastic Aptitude Test ...
despite taking a nap during the test. Langan was offered two full scholarships, one to
Reed College Reed College is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Portland, Oregon, United States. Founded in 1908, Reed is a residential college with a campus in the Eastmoreland, Portland, Oregon, E ...
in Oregon and the other to the
University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...
. He chose the former, which he later called "a big mistake". He had a "real case of culture shock" in the unfamiliar urban setting. He explained that in his first semester he earned all As but that he lost his scholarship after his mother did not send in the necessary financial information. Langan withdrew before final exams in his second semester and received all Fs. Langan returned to Bozeman and worked as a forest service
firefighter A firefighter (or fire fighter or fireman) is a first responder trained in specific emergency response such as firefighting, primarily to control and extinguish fires and respond to emergencies such as hazardous material incidents, medical in ...
for 18 months before enrolling at
Montana State University–Bozeman Montana State University (MSU) is a public land-grant research university in Bozeman, Montana, United States. It enrolls more students than any other college or university in the state. MSU offers baccalaureate degrees in 60 fields, master's d ...
. Faced with financial and transportation problems, and believing that he could teach his professors more than they could teach him, he
dropped out Dropping out refers to leaving high school, college, university or another group for practical reasons, necessities, inability, apathy, or disillusionment with the system from which the individual in question leaves. Canada In Canada, most ind ...
. He took a string of labor-intensive jobs for some time, and by his mid-40s had been a
construction worker A construction worker is a person employed in the physical construction of the built environment and its infrastructure. Definitions By some definitions, construction workers may be engaged in manual labour as unskilled or semi-skilled workers ...
,
cowboy A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century arose from the ''vaquero'' ...
, forest service ranger, farmhand, and, for over twenty years, a
bouncer A bouncer (also known as a door supervisor) is a type of security guard, employed at licensed or sanctioned venues such as bars, nightclubs, cabaret clubs, strip clubs and casinos. A bouncer's duties are to provide security, to check legal ag ...
on
Long Island Long Island is a densely populated continental island in southeastern New York (state), New York state, extending into the Atlantic Ocean. It constitutes a significant share of the New York metropolitan area in both population and land are ...
. He also worked for the
technology company A technology company (or tech company) is a company that focuses primarily on the manufacturing, support, research and development of—most commonly computing, telecommunication and consumer electronics–based—technology-intensive products and ...
Virtual Logistix. In comparing the lack of academic and life success of Langan to the successes of
J. Robert Oppenheimer J. Robert Oppenheimer (born Julius Robert Oppenheimer ; April 22, 1904 – February 18, 1967) was an American theoretical physics, theoretical physicist who served as the director of the Manhattan Project's Los Alamos Laboratory during World ...
, journalist
Malcolm Gladwell Malcolm Timothy Gladwell (born 3 September 1963) is a Canadian journalist, author, and public speaker. He has been a staff writer for ''The New Yorker'' since 1996. He has published eight books. He is also the host of the podcast ''Revisionist ...
, in his 2008 book ''
Outliers In statistics, an outlier is a data point that differs significantly from other observations. An outlier may be due to a variability in the measurement, an indication of novel data, or it may be the result of experimental error; the latter ar ...
'', points to the background and social skills of the two men. Oppenheimer was raised in a wealthy cosmopolitan environment, and Gladwell argues that such an environment gave help along the way and allowed Oppenheimer to gain a social savvy that Langan lacked, and prevented him from progressing academically. He had had little or no guidance from his parents or his teachers, and never developed the social skills needed to cope with and overcome his challenges. In 1999, Langan and others formed a non-profit corporation named the Mega Foundation for those with IQs of 164 or above. He went through litigation with the Mega Society over use of its name, Mega Society East, and his publication of a journal also called ''Noesis''. He was required to cease use of the Mega Society East name but retained control of the Mega Foundation domain names. Under the auspices of the Mega Foundation, he sat on the Society of Fellows of the
International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design The International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design (ISCID) was a creationism advocacy organization that described itself as "a cross-disciplinary Professional association, professional society that investigates complex systems apart ...
(ISCID), an
intelligent design Intelligent design (ID) is a pseudoscientific argument for the existence of God, presented by its proponents as "an evidence-based scientific theory about life's origins".#Numbers 2006, Numbers 2006, p. 373; " Dcaptured headlines for it ...
advocacy organisation, until its dissolution. In 2008, he appeared on the game show ''
1 vs. 100 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number, numeral, and glyph. It is the first and smallest positive integer of the infinite sequence of natural numbers. This fundamental property has led to its unique uses in other fields, ranging from science to sp ...
'' and won $250,000. He used the proceeds to purchase a horse farm in
Missouri Missouri (''see #Etymology and pronunciation, pronunciation'') is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it border ...
, where he now lives with his wife Gina (), a clinical neuropsychologist.


IQ testing

In 1986 Langan took an IQ test, the Mega Test, under the pseudonym of Eric Hart; his score admitting him to membership of the Hoeflin Research Group, later to become the Mega Society. He continued to use that pseudonym for some time in his membership of the Mega Society, and was listed in the Guinness Book of Records along with Marilyn vos Savant and Keith Raniere as one of just three people to have scored so highly on the test. It later transpired that Langan, among others, had taken the Mega Test more than once by using a pseudonym. His first test score, under the name of Langan, was 42 out of 48 and his second attempt, as Hart, was 47. The Mega Test was designed only to be taken once. See note 5. Membership of the Mega Society was meant to be for those with scores of 43 and upwards. A score of 42 on the Mega Test was originally designed to yield a predicted IQ value of 173–174, although data analysed from test takers led to a renorming of this and a 163–174 range. Further renorming work has suggested the range may be 159–169. Mensa, the high IQ society, never accepted Mega Test scores for entry into the society. IQ testing at the tail of the normal distribution has been criticised as being dubious as there are insufficient normative cases upon which to base a statistically justified rank-ordering. The Mega Test, among other IQ tests, has been criticised for blurring specific domain knowledge with generalised intelligence, although "most psychologists can agree that they measure something valuable." The Mega Test's attempt to measure high IQ at the tail of the normal distribution has been academically evaluated. Although it is an innovative attempt to create a test that would evaluate very high IQ, the nature of the test—self administered without time limit, which was chosen for pragmatic reasons—would not necessarily measure general intelligence, but could measure resourcefulness or some other factor. The frequent renorming of the test by its author was non standard but also innovative. Nevertheless it contained well known statistical flaws, such as sample self selection. The analysis could not therefore validate the conclusions. Attempts to eke out discrimination at the hundredth or thousandth percentile were clearly overwhelmed by the test's standard error, given that there were only 48 questions. The questions, too, were criticised for being structured with insufficient sensitivity to the detection of knowledge, because of the question format used. The test was thus described as not so much number crunching as "nothing short of number pulverisation". In 1990 the Guinness book of records dropped the listing of highest IQ, deeming high IQ scores to be too unreliable to document.


Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe

Langan has developed a hypothesis he terms the Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe (CTMU) which he maintains "explains the connection between
mind The mind is that which thinks, feels, perceives, imagines, remembers, and wills. It covers the totality of mental phenomena, including both conscious processes, through which an individual is aware of external and internal circumstances ...
and
reality Reality is the sum or aggregate of everything in existence; everything that is not imagination, imaginary. Different Culture, cultures and Academic discipline, academic disciplines conceptualize it in various ways. Philosophical questions abo ...
, therefore the presence of cognition and universe in the same phrase". He self-published an 85-page book on this theory in 2002, revised in 2020. He refers to this thesis as "a true '
theory of everything A theory of everything (TOE), final theory, ultimate theory, unified field theory, or master theory is a hypothetical singular, all-encompassing, coherent theoretical physics, theoretical framework of physics that fully explains and links togeth ...
', a cross between
John Archibald Wheeler John Archibald Wheeler (July 9, 1911April 13, 2008) was an American theoretical physicist. He was largely responsible for reviving interest in general relativity in the United States after World War II. Wheeler also worked with Niels Bohr to e ...
's '
Participatory Universe John Archibald Wheeler (July 9, 1911April 13, 2008) was an American theoretical physicist. He was largely responsible for reviving interest in general relativity in the United States after World War II. Wheeler also worked with Niels Bohr to e ...
' and
Stephen Hawking Stephen William Hawking (8January 194214March 2018) was an English theoretical physics, theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author who was director of research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology at the University of Cambridge. Between ...
's '
Imaginary Time Imaginary time is a mathematical representation of time that appears in some approaches to special relativity and quantum mechanics. It finds uses in certain cosmological theories. Mathematically, imaginary time is real time which has undergone a ...
' theory of cosmology," additionally contending that with the CTMU he "can prove the existence of
God In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...
, the
soul The soul is the purported Mind–body dualism, immaterial aspect or essence of a Outline of life forms, living being. It is typically believed to be Immortality, immortal and to exist apart from the material world. The three main theories that ...
and an
afterlife The afterlife or life after death is a purported existence in which the essential part of an individual's Stream of consciousness (psychology), stream of consciousness or Personal identity, identity continues to exist after the death of their ...
, using
mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...
."


Personal views

Langan has spoken about his personal and political views in a series of interviews, and has published his views on various matters in the book ''FAQs About Reality'' (2021). Asked what he would do if he were in charge, Langan stated his first priority would be to set up an "anti-dysgenics" project, and would prevent people from "breeding as incontinently as they like." He argues that this would be to practice "genetic hygiene to prevent genomic degradation and reverse evolution" owing to technological advances suspending the process of natural selection. Langan's support of
conspiracy theories A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that asserts the existence of a conspiracy (generally by powerful sinister groups, often political in motivation), when other explanations are more probable.Additional sources: * ...
, including the 9/11 Truther movement, as well as his opposition to
interracial relationship Interracial topics include: * Interracial marriage, marriage between two people of different races ** Interracial marriage in the United States *** 2009 Louisiana interracial marriage incident * Interracial adoption, placing a child of one raci ...
s, have contributed to his gaining a following among members of the alt-right and others on the
far right Far-right politics, often termed right-wing extremism, encompasses a range of ideologies that are marked by ultraconservatism, authoritarianism, ultranationalism, and Nativism (politics), nativism. This political spectrum situates itself on ...
. Langan has claimed that the
George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician and businessman who was the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Bush family and the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he i ...
administration staged the 9/11 attacks in order to distract the public from learning about the CTMU. Journalists have described some of Langan's Internet posts as containing "thinly veiled" antisemitism and making antisemitic "
dog whistles A dog whistle (also known as silent whistle or Galton's whistle) is a type of whistle that emits sound in the ultrasonic range, which humans cannot hear but some other animals can, including dogs and domestic cats, and is used in their training. ...
".


References

* * * * * * * * *


Primary sources

* * * * * * *


External links


Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe websiteThe CTMU Guide for Dummies: Explained in Simple Sentences
{{DEFAULTSORT:Langan, Christoper Michael 1952 births American conspiracy theorists American spiritualists Fellows of the International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design Living people People from Princeton, Missouri People from San Francisco Philosophical theists Reed College alumni Montana State University alumni American eugenicists