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Association Between Maternal Fluoride Exposure During Pregnancy and IQ Scores

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11–20 of 46 posts

Re: Association Between Maternal Fluoride Exposure During Pregnancy and IQ Scores

#11
post #3

IQ scores? Really? Should we look at the correlation to phrenology reports and the subjects balance of humours as well?

Is it your contention that IQ doesn't measure anything?

Can you point to all of the scientists, engineers, and mathematicians with IQs under 80?

Re: Association Between Maternal Fluoride Exposure During Pregnancy and IQ Scores

#12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you under the impression that IQ scores don’t measure anything?

very low IQ scores correlate with ordinary measures of mental performance. Above 100, they're randomly correlated with generic extrinsic measures of performance, and have little test-retest consistency. You can differ as much in your test-retest score as would be the gap between mental retardation and "normal". Above 100, they're mostly a measure of proficiency at taking written tests. In any case, there is no theory…

Extracting apparent patterns in [test answers] is a cognitively difficult task, and is thus a reasonable metric of performing cognitively difficult tasks.

Given that this is what we are attempting to measure, it seems completely fine. Pointing out flaws in the test (lack of generality, non-deterministic behavior) is not actually a counter-argument so long as the test correlates with at least some outcomes that we care about.

And it does! And this is very reproducible!

Re: Association Between Maternal Fluoride Exposure During Pregnancy and IQ Scores

#14
post #2

Interesting. Is it odd that the IQ scores were over 100? For example, population IQ is supposed to be 100. So a score of 105 for boys with a 5 point drop would give us the expected result of average intelligence, right?

>Between 2008 and 2011, the Maternal-Infant Research on Environmental Chemicals (MIREC) program recruited 2001 pregnant women from 10 cities across Canada. Women who could communicate in English or French, were older than 18 years, and were within the first 14 weeks of pregnancy were recruited from prenatal clinics. Participants were not recruited if there was a known fetal abnormality, if they had any medical complications, or if there was illicit drug use during pregnancy. Additional details are in the cohort profile description.

Seems like that would filter out the lower end of the bell curve, especially regarding drug use.

Re: Association Between Maternal Fluoride Exposure During Pregnancy and IQ Scores

#15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you under the impression that IQ scores don’t measure anything?

very low IQ scores correlate with ordinary measures of mental performance. Above 100, they're randomly correlated with generic extrinsic measures of performance, and have little test-retest consistency. You can differ as much in your test-retest score as would be the gap between mental retardation and "normal". Above 100, they're mostly a measure of proficiency at taking written tests. In any case, there is no theory…

[deleted]

Re: Association Between Maternal Fluoride Exposure During Pregnancy and IQ Scores

#16
If flouride indeed both strengthens teeth and bones and lowers IQ, it becomes even more challenging to pick an optimum level.

I think that the more complex a question is, the more important it is for the answers to be decentralized so that we can experiment with many of them. If fluoride does have significant negative as well as positive effects, that's an argument toward removing it from water supplies and making it a choice. Reasonable people could decide that they prefer weaker bones than minds, or visa versa.

Re: Association Between Maternal Fluoride Exposure During Pregnancy and IQ Scores

#17
post #3

IQ scores? Really? Should we look at the correlation to phrenology reports and the subjects balance of humours as well?

IQ is the most strongly supported thing in the field of social science/psychology. Way more strongly supported than many of the concepts being used to steer government policy

The irony being that tons of social science academics desperately want to prove IQ is bunk and become famous for it, but their failures just keep proving it's legitimacy. If only they tried so hard to disprove their own pet theories

Re: Association Between Maternal Fluoride Exposure During Pregnancy and IQ Scores

#18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

very low IQ scores correlate with ordinary measures of mental performance. Above 100, they're randomly correlated with generic extrinsic measures of performance, and have little test-retest consistency. You can differ as much in your test-retest score as would be the gap between mental retardation and "normal". Above 100, they're mostly a measure of proficiency at taking written tests. In any case, there is no theory…

Extracting apparent patterns in [test answers] is a cognitively difficult task, and is thus a reasonable metric of performing cognitively difficult tasks. Given that this is what we are attempting to measure, it seems completely fine. Pointing out flaws in the test (lack of generality, non-deterministic behavior) is not actually a counter-argument so long as the test correlates with at least some outcomes that we car…

No no, i mean the psychometrist is the person superstitiously using the fact that answers to their choice of questions correlate, as some measure of something.

The claim that IQ tests are "cognitively difficult" is either trivial or unevidenced. Its trivial in the sense that most tasks are "cognitively difficult", that doesnt make them valid measures of cognitive difficulty. It is unevidenced in the sense that there is no theory of what "cognitive difficulty" means that can be tested.

My apologies, but IQ tests really are actually pseudoscience. They're a product of a discipline which superstitiously uses GUI-statistical tooling without understanding anything abotu the scientific method, nor the statistical metrics that these tools report.

An animal, and its intelligence, is a complex chaotic system whose "cognitition" or "intelligence" is by no means measured by an IQ test. And such a claim is prima fascie ridiculous from any actual biological (ie., theory-building, scientific) study of intelligence.

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