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IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle

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Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle

#91

Post by SamReidHughes »

hyperpape wrote: post #78
SamReidHughes wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure this parenting advice was based on a psychological experiment that failed to replicate.

You may be right about some particular study, but in general, there is a lot of research around growth mindset, and I have not heard about failures to replicate (though I cannot vouch that they haven't happened): https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/04/08/no-clarity-around-grow... .

There’s clarity that the original study was way overblown and the effect size is, on average, really small.

I don’t know whether this parenting advice was actually borne of that research, but it smells like it. But also, the advice is at worst harmless, if not obvious.

Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle

#92

Post by harry8 »

JamesBarney wrote: post #61
jdietrich wrote: post #56

Frankly, I'm incredibly disappointed in Taleb's recent writing. This article is one of many where the actual point being made is buried beneath unnecessary and divisive ad-hominem attacks. Does the caption "Mensa members: typically high “IQ” losers in Birkenstocks." usefully contribute to a serious, scholarly conversation on IQ? Is it reasonable or fair-minded to immediately tar opponents to your argument as racists,…

The substance isn't much better than the style. He makes substantial claims like IQ is not predictive of performance above 100 which in and of itself could be a whole article. And then just assumes the reader will take his word for it, even though there is a mountain of evidence to the contrary.

>mountain of evidence to the contrary. [citation needed]

Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle

#93

Post by projektir »

Well, I was rather interested in this article at first, as I think IQ is highly questionable and we give it waaaaay too much credit, but this mostly seems to be an article wanting to bash people with focused thinking patterns (perhaps autistic people), or "nerds", or other groups of people that fail to conform. While calling them wage slaves. It's curious how they managed to conflate both Mensa members and the military in attitudes.

Would be nice if we could call these various things into question without stooping to something as low as modern Western (who am I kidding, American) conceptions of "succeeding" in life.

Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle

#94

Post by zxcvvcxz »

jdietrich wrote: post #56

Frankly, I'm incredibly disappointed in Taleb's recent writing. This article is one of many where the actual point being made is buried beneath unnecessary and divisive ad-hominem attacks. Does the caption "Mensa members: typically high “IQ” losers in Birkenstocks." usefully contribute to a serious, scholarly conversation on IQ? Is it reasonable or fair-minded to immediately tar opponents to your argument as racists,…

It's his Twitter/Medium blog, he can write as he pleases.

And his book sales do fine, with or without you.

This is interestingly a point of his: what's 'rational' is what survives. Maybe arguments/discussion need emotional draw of some sort to be heard in the first place (in the 21st century). If a philosopher is arguing in a forest to no one, is he really arguing? Etc.

We've seen the same effect of stylistic changes in classical music even. In my city, in order to keep up ticket sales and actually get to play proper classical music, the local symphony has to do renditions of pop songs to occasionally draw a larger audience and boost ticket sales.

Maybe classical music is dying. Maybe dry academic discussions that nobody except academics read, are dying.

[Aside - if you want to argue that maybe the 21st century modern discourse sucks, I'm right there with you. Ditto for changing music tastes.]

It's OK, these things happen. Things change, as driven by the market of human interest and willingness to participate.

Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle

#95

Post by chillacy »

pps43 wrote: post #66
barrkel wrote: post #4

IQ is undoubtedly overemphasized by some factions, especially those with an axe to grind and a dog whistle to blow, if it helps them feel less guilty about their position in the world or otherwise rationalizes injustice. OTOH there's definitely a difference between people, people who aren't mentally defective, people that are quick on the uptake, sharp and alert, who adapt to new mental models. IQ might be an unscien…

The point Taleb is making is that IQ works well in the lower half of the distribution, but not in the upper half. Which makes sense, considering that questions for IQ tests are created by people with close to average intelligence. Imagine third-graders writing college-level math tests, or beginner chess players coming up with chess problems to separate masters from grandmasters.

But many of the tests aren’t binary in outcome, like ravens progressive matrices or N back.

Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle

#96

Post by ouid »

gus_massa wrote: post #62
softwaredoug wrote: post #6

Best parenting advice I ever got was to praise children for hard work, and avoid calling them “smart.” Intelligence becomes a stand in for some measure of goodness or social fitness that after a while it’s hard to know what we’re talking about anymore. Further, it’s seen as innate whereas hard work is something anyone can do. Being “smart” implies there’s a set of “un-smart” kids that don’t have the same fitness or g…

> Being “smart” implies there’s a set of “un-smart” kids that don’t have the same fitness or goodness You don't like the implications of this, but is it true? I'd never play soccer as good as Messi, even if I'd practice every day in my life for many hours. Do you think that everyone has the same innate ability to play soccer? You can replace the example with any sport/music/whatever you like. Do you think that intell…

I think the point is that if you want to optimize your child, you should reward them for making the most of what they have, rather than rewarding them for something that profoundly have no control over.

Just talk to your kids, teach them what you can, explain the things that you can't teach, and tell them the truth about the things you can't explain (i.e. that you can't explain them)

Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle

#97

Post by vivekd »

reading the Wikipedia article, it says that scientific consensus among surveyed psychologists and educational researchers is that IQ is a valid and accurate mesaure of the important components of intelligence

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient#Reliabil...

If you're going to challenge that scientific consensus you better have something better to bring to the table than "it's being used by racists" and anecdotal tidbits suggesting a causation correlation fallacy between academic performance and IQ.

Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle

#98

Post by waynecochran »

sifoobar wrote: post #80
waynecochran wrote: post #19

I have been afraid to take an IQ test for the fear of finding out that I am not very smart. In any case, the current hubbub of folks speaking against IQ tests seems to be more of a idealogical reaction to what IQ tests are telling us. OTOH, this guy seems to be legit. Truth is so hard to find these days.

Maybe you're looking in the wrong place? The question on my mind is the following: How is blindly trusting science better than blindly trusting the pope or your local shaman? Wasn't the real issue blind trust, rather than who or what? There's nothing to be afraid of, and no reason to take a stupid test. I had to as part of drafting and I can't see these tests leading anywhere worth going. Maybe ask why being seen as…

Most of what any of us believe is trust in some other source. Few things that we believe admit to the scientific method, and even those things that do very few of us reproduce on our own. When is comes to social science, the "science" is pretty weak anyway. Most folks just believe what is popular or what they want to believe. I tend to look for consistency and track record -- most useful tests for truth in practice.

Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle

#99

Post by fujimotos »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #42
ineedasername wrote: post #22

It seems like the author is setting up a straw man representing the IQ test as some omnipresent (or at least somewhat prevalent) test administered widely. He then lambastes it for all its faults (some of his accusations are correct). But the reality is that IQ tests are only very, very rarely used. In fact a career on the periphery of academia, academic testing, and their efficacy in predicting academic success at th…

> the author is setting up a straw man As a former options trader, this is Taleb in a nutshell. He builds and attacks straw men for popular consumption. (The one time he tried running a hedge fund, it failed ruinously.)

> The one time he tried running a hedge fund, it failed ruinously.

Source? Taleb AFAIK does not publish his track record in a verifiable manner, so we're left to wondering if his bragging about himself really matches his record.

Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle

#100

Post by SamReidHughes »

softwaredoug wrote: post #70
gus_massa wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Being “smart” implies there’s a set of “un-smart” kids that don’t have the same fitness or goodness You don't like the implications of this, but is it true? I'd never play soccer as good as Messi, even if I'd practice every day in my life for many hours. Do you think that everyone has the same innate ability to play soccer? You can replace the example with any sport/music/whatever you like. Do you think that intell…

You’re right, as an adult I’m not suddenly going to become a piano virtuoso. Innateness here is a pretty complicated topic. Hard work at an early age probably has a huge part of molding skills we associate with so-called “intelligence”. Was Mozart a genius? Or was he working really hard at being a musician from an early age, and thus just very skilled? Would Mozart succeed if we suddenly had to train him to be a Java…

Mozart was a genius.

Ryo Fukui started playing the piano at 22 (accordion at 18), he did alright for himself.

Mozart’s dad was a great student and his mother’s father was highly educated too. So my guess is, he’d be able to handle Java.

It’s actually easy (in principle) to measure the programming facet of intelligence: CS programs do this with weed-out classes.

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