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IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle (2019)

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Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle (2019)

#41

Post by mattrp »

jcranmer wrote: post #22
zug_zug wrote: post #3

I can't even bring myself to read this. After perusing and seeing it gets so emotional (bringing up eugenics, morality, etc), I have a hard time believing it's going to be objective. "There is no significant statistical association between IQ and hard measures such as wealth." So... you're saying that people with an IQ of 60 are equally wealthy as those with an IQ of 110? I understand getting frustrated about misappl…

Even as someone who agreed in large part with the conclusion before coming to this article, I find this virtually unreadable. It's just so full of vindictiveness and pettiness that it loses sight of its argument, and the images and graphs it uses aren't particularly coherent in their framing. > you're saying that people with an IQ of 60 are equally wealthy as those with an IQ of 110? Actually, if I understand his poi…

You have a point re: vindictiveness and pettiness. I clicked the link and immediately scrolled into the article failing to notice the author. After about 30 seconds I had the following reaction, “wait! Is this Taleb?” Despite the severe flaws in his prose, he makes some points that I think are worth considering. The chief one is that it’s kind of dumb to attempt a measure of total mental capacity. At best it will result in gross over generalization of the individual’s potential. So what’s the point if not to serve as a means for separating people into developmental tracks as early as possible. Put another way, IQ is simply another way people get evaluated not as individuals but as cogs in the machine. I rather like this critique of IQ and I’m appreciative for Taleb bringing it up (though I doubt he’s the first).

Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle (2019)

#42

Post by danharaj »

There are a lot of posts complaining about Taleb's tone. I find it refreshing. Too often are statistics and stupid measurements applied to give a veneer of quantitative rigor to stupid ideas or ineffective systems.

If a manager ranked you based on a statistic of your lines of code produced per day, you would rightly be derisive. It turns out that such stupid quantification infects a great deal of society, especially the sciences.

There are many examples of statistical phenomena that starkly illustrate how subtle and counterintuitive probability can be: by no means a transparent and straightforward subject. Think of Monty Hall or Simpson's paradox. Taleb is just pointing out more sophisticated traps of probability that plague amateurs, and most of us who apply statistics are amateurs.

Why is he so mad? He hates it when stupid ideas are granted importance because of nonsense statistics, especially when they have consequences for people and society as a whole. I hope Taleb never stops being mad.

Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle (2019)

#43

Post by ashtonkem »

zug_zug wrote: post #3

I can't even bring myself to read this. After perusing and seeing it gets so emotional (bringing up eugenics, morality, etc), I have a hard time believing it's going to be objective. "There is no significant statistical association between IQ and hard measures such as wealth." So... you're saying that people with an IQ of 60 are equally wealthy as those with an IQ of 110? I understand getting frustrated about misappl…

Forget the polemical style; this is just genuinely hard to read. It’s structured like his personal notes, not like something that’s supposed to be read by anyone else.

Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle (2019)

#44

Post by badRNG »

longtom wrote: post #32
zug_zug wrote: post #3

I can't even bring myself to read this. After perusing and seeing it gets so emotional (bringing up eugenics, morality, etc), I have a hard time believing it's going to be objective. "There is no significant statistical association between IQ and hard measures such as wealth." So... you're saying that people with an IQ of 60 are equally wealthy as those with an IQ of 110? I understand getting frustrated about misappl…

IQ is one of the few actually, and maybe THE most robust and measurable dimension in humans that psychology has come up with. Some people are smarter than others and they are expected to rise higher in a (necessarily imperfectly) meritocratic system. The big question is whether the bottom end should starve. I think they should not starve and should have certain minimal living standards met, but they are going to be l…

> IQ is one of the few actually, and maybe THE most robust and measurable dimensions in humans that psychology has come up with.

How did you come to that conclusion? That feels like a claim that would be pretty difficult to defend.

I think you have far more of an uphill climb to justify that the wealthy/poor divide is largely correlated to intelligence, rather than social systems that advantage/disadvantage certain classes of people or one's access to certain privileges (prior wealth, access to education, etc.)

Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle (2019)

#45

Post by alexandercrohde »

jcranmer wrote: post #22
zug_zug wrote: post #3

I can't even bring myself to read this. After perusing and seeing it gets so emotional (bringing up eugenics, morality, etc), I have a hard time believing it's going to be objective. "There is no significant statistical association between IQ and hard measures such as wealth." So... you're saying that people with an IQ of 60 are equally wealthy as those with an IQ of 110? I understand getting frustrated about misappl…

Even as someone who agreed in large part with the conclusion before coming to this article, I find this virtually unreadable. It's just so full of vindictiveness and pettiness that it loses sight of its argument, and the images and graphs it uses aren't particularly coherent in their framing. > you're saying that people with an IQ of 60 are equally wealthy as those with an IQ of 110? Actually, if I understand his poi…

Two thoughts.

Firstly if that's his point, his conclusion should match. Saying there is "no correlation" is a reach.

Secondly, I'm not convinced I even believe that point. So is he saying that if I took an IQ test from nobel prize winners they would be equally distributed to a normal population sample (assuming a 100 minimum cutoff)?

Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle (2019)

#46

Post by danharaj »

catalogia wrote: post #36
_0w8t wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The observation is that above roughly IQ 70 the test is not even correlated with SAT scores. And below 70 one does not need a test to see that.

Is there really any doubt that 80 IQ people are represented less than 110 IQ people in industries like medicine, law, or engineering? If there's really no correlation in SAT scores, I wager that says more about that test than it does about IQ.

Read the article. This is his point about circularity this is literally one of his examples. If IQ measures test taking acumen and there are fields that are gate kept with tests, you will see a correlation with IQ.

Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle (2019)

#47

Post by JamesBarney »

_0w8t wrote: post #19
zug_zug wrote: post #3

I can't even bring myself to read this. After perusing and seeing it gets so emotional (bringing up eugenics, morality, etc), I have a hard time believing it's going to be objective. "There is no significant statistical association between IQ and hard measures such as wealth." So... you're saying that people with an IQ of 60 are equally wealthy as those with an IQ of 110? I understand getting frustrated about misappl…

The observation is that above roughly IQ 70 the test is not even correlated with SAT scores. And below 70 one does not need a test to see that.

https://web.archive.org/web/20110713001038/http://www.iapsyc...

IQ and SAT scores are correlated.

Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle (2019)

#48

Post by scoopdewoop »

zug_zug wrote: post #3

I can't even bring myself to read this. After perusing and seeing it gets so emotional (bringing up eugenics, morality, etc), I have a hard time believing it's going to be objective. "There is no significant statistical association between IQ and hard measures such as wealth." So... you're saying that people with an IQ of 60 are equally wealthy as those with an IQ of 110? I understand getting frustrated about misappl…

I find it really naive to treat science like some kind of objective methodology that can output unbiased data. Its complete fantasy.

"Science" is much more of a set of institutions and social regard for those institutions than an objective methodology. We often just want to throw money and scientists at an issue, and get out good "science" but thats like managers hiring 50% more programmers for 50% better/more code, we know the details are what matters.

At the end of the day, "science" in the real world is a lot of professor vying for tenure, caught in publish or perish, funding coming from self-preserving institutions, and a bunch of overworked grad students. Its a lot of companies making a buck, too.

Everything is political! Everything. If you see something like science, religion, art, anything as apolitical, that probably means its just reinforcing prevailing politics.

Check out Anarchistic Epistemology if this idea is of any interest.

Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle (2019)

#49

Post by jcranmer »

longtom wrote: post #32
zug_zug wrote: post #3

I can't even bring myself to read this. After perusing and seeing it gets so emotional (bringing up eugenics, morality, etc), I have a hard time believing it's going to be objective. "There is no significant statistical association between IQ and hard measures such as wealth." So... you're saying that people with an IQ of 60 are equally wealthy as those with an IQ of 110? I understand getting frustrated about misappl…

IQ is one of the few actually, and maybe THE most robust and measurable dimension in humans that psychology has come up with. Some people are smarter than others and they are expected to rise higher in a (necessarily imperfectly) meritocratic system. The big question is whether the bottom end should starve. I think they should not starve and should have certain minimal living standards met, but they are going to be l…

> IQ is one of the few actually, and maybe THE most robust and measurable dimensions in humans that psychology has come up with.

IQ is the most robust psychometric (with the Big 5 personality being the only real contender), but that is largely because psychometrics in general are not robust. It's a one-eyed man in the land of the blind kind of scenario.

The first big issue you run into with IQ is that... as far as we understand intelligence in psychology, there isn't a single number that can be reflected as IQ. The closest we come is a "g factor" that influences all other types of intelligence, and is somewhat circularly defined as the correlation between all of the different intelligence metrics.

Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle (2019)

#50

Post by danharaj »

JamesBarney wrote: post #15
pavlov wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IQ is not science.

IQ is probably more well studied than any other phenomenon in the social sciences or psychology. Also IQ is not science, it is something that is studied scientifically.

So was astrology at one point.
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