IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle (2019) • Hacker News Board

Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle (2019)

#61

Post by rglullis » Thu, May 07, 2020, 3:08 PM UTC

brenden2 wrote: post #5

IQ is just a metric from taking a standardized test. I don't know why people have a hard time understanding that. It's like being mad about people's SAT scores. It's not like IQ is even used for anything important, people don't put it on their resumes or anything.

> IQ is just a metric from taking a standardized test. I don't know why people have a hard time understanding that. It's like being mad about people's SAT scores.

Metric for what? That is the point. The main argument as I understand is that "intelligence" is not something one-dimensional that can be measured with a number.

If IQ tests were a simple pass/fail filter for detecting some kind of learning disability, sure. The problem is when you have a whole army of people trying to infer something tremendously complex from a single scalar point.

> It's not like IQ is even used for anything important, people don't put it on their resumes or anything.

Yet, how many psychologists rely on IQ data and IQ "science" to justify their research grants, their books and their consulting fees from companies? How many people parrot Charles Murray to justify their racism with "science"?

Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle (2019)

#62

Post by longtom » Thu, May 07, 2020, 3:08 PM UTC

jcranmer wrote: post #49

longtom wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> in general are not robust

Sure, but they are robust enough to be relevant to everyday life.

> circularly defined

g is circularly defined, which is the nature of how a latent factor is defined. But g also does correlate with school and work performance (around r = .5), so it IS related to everyday life. Though you can only make extreme decisions based on single tests. E.g. you can say they are "likely not gifted" when they score low or "likely not an imbecile" when they score high.

Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle (2019)

#63

Post by _0w8t » Thu, May 07, 2020, 3:08 PM UTC

JamesBarney wrote: post #47

_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.

https://web.archive.org/web/20110713001038/http://www.iapsyc... IQ and SAT scores are correlated.

The correlation comes from low scores. Moreover, above 70 IQ is not even well correlated with itself as variability between results for the same person is like 20%.

Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle (2019)

#64

Post by catalogia » Thu, May 07, 2020, 3:09 PM UTC

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…

The solution to this is to teach clever kids from a young age to be compassionate towards the less clever. Right now our society does a terrible job of this; hating and mocking people for being stupid is far too common. Much of it may feel justified under reasoning like "Stupid people [bullied me|voted wrong|didn't follow instructions|did something wrong and broke things] and for that reason my negative feelings towards them are valid." But clever kids should be reminded that hating their peers for being stupid won't make them any less stupid. Compassion is constructive but disdain is not.

Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle (2019)

#65

Post by iratewizard » Thu, May 07, 2020, 3:10 PM UTC

danharaj wrote: post #55

iratewizard wrote: post #2

This comes off like an angry rant by a person who scored 100 but thinks of himself as highly gifted. IQ as a concept is a useful metric and predictor. Our current "stale" IQ tests still predict criminal behavior more accurately than any sociological theories of crime. It just doesn't predict whether someone will end up in a "menial job" or as a C-level executive.

The author is much better at probability than you. Maybe you're too stupid to notice? Oh? Is insulting you not a good argument? Pot meet kettle.

I'm much better at debating than you are. Maybe you're too stupid to notice? Using a simile to describe a poorly written blog post isn't the same as an ad hominem. Good try, though.

Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle (2019)

#66

Post by JamesBarney » Thu, May 07, 2020, 3:10 PM UTC

danharaj wrote: post #50

JamesBarney wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Your argument applies equally strongly to every scientific finding.

I think this means that either science is poor or the argument is.

Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle (2019)

#67

Post by longtom » Thu, May 07, 2020, 3:13 PM UTC

catalogia wrote: post #64

longtom wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The solution to this is to teach clever kids from a young age to be compassionate towards the less clever. Right now our society does a terrible job of this; hating and mocking people for being stupid is far too common. Much of it may feel justified under reasoning like "Stupid people [bullied me|voted wrong|didn't follow instructions|did something wrong and broke things] and for that reason my negative feelings towa…

Not saying the education system is perfect, but even though IQ is partly determined by education, science indicates there is not much one can achieve this way.

Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle (2019)

#68

Post by badRNG » Thu, May 07, 2020, 3:13 PM UTC

longtom wrote: post #53

badRNG wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 c…

I'm not saying it is largely determined by it and not claiming there are no injustices, but I'm saying it is not a negligible factor.

>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 lower than the top end. You risk dividing the population trying to convince the smart to settle for less than they can get. They will simply band together and manipulate the system until they achieve it.

This implies that poverty is largely a product of being on the wrong end of the intelligence scale, which ignores the substantial impact that social and economic structures play in determining one's economic success. When looking at factors that perpetuate poverty, IQ isn't even on the map.

Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle (2019)

#69

Post by pavlov » Thu, May 07, 2020, 3:13 PM UTC

JamesBarney wrote: post #38

foolrush wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://via.library.depaul.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1...

That is an article about eugenics. No one is arguing for eugenics. Eugenics was awful, but just because something was used as a tool for evil does not make it untrue. If I light someone on fire with gasoline this makes it no less useful for fueling a car.

IQ is more like lead additive in gasoline. Unnecessary to the main purpose, created with very dubious motivations, yet for decades people took it for granted that you can’t do without.

Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle (2019)

#70

Post by catalogia » Thu, May 07, 2020, 3:15 PM UTC

danharaj wrote: post #46

catalogia wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I doubt the skill of test taking is unrelated to aptitude in those fields, or any other field in which it's important to learn a great deal of information from books and to keep that information in mind for rapid recall during high pressure situations 'in the field.' Law or medical school is certainly harder for halfwits to get through, but that doesn't mean there's anything wrong (in that respect) with that schooling. Rather, it reflects the complexity and importance of those fields.

Edit for response:

I don't know anything about the MCAT in particular. However I'm confident in saying that the class of people unable to perform well in any sort of test that requires reading and recalling large amounts of information (as learning medicine surely requires, no matter how you structure the education system for it) should find a career outside medicine.