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IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle

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Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle

#131

Post by pgeorgi »

pps43 wrote: post #102
chillacy wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The problem is not whether the answer is binary. The problem is that the author of the test needs to have at least the same level of intelligence (and probably even higher) than what the test is measuring. Otherwise how can you tell if the answer is correct? So to get a good IQ score one needs to be able to figure out what a test designer (with average IQ) thought the correct answer should be.

> Otherwise how can you tell if the answer is correct?

For example: By taking much more time and access to all literature while designing the test, which differs from the test protocol.

IQ tests aren't quizzes: you don't need to be "clever" to design them, you need to know which aspect of thought process you want to measure.

The value comes from their stability: there are tons of tests based on different methodologies and different focus points and still they roughly agree on their ranking, and remain relatively stable for individuals over time.

Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle

#132

Post by username90 »

> it explains at best between 13% and 50% of the performance in some tasks, minus the data massaging and statistical cherrypicking by psychologists; it doesn’t satisfy the monotonicity and transitivity required to have a measure. No measure that fails 60–95% of the time should be part of “science”.

Where did he get "fails 60-95% of the time" from? To me it looks like he either doesn't understand statistics or he is pulling numbers out of the air.

Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle

#133

Post by hhjinks »

mikemotherwell wrote: post #40
waterhouse wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wiki says that the average IQ of MDs, JDs, and PhDs is 125.[1] That is pretty far away from 70. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient#Other_ac...

From the article: > Note that IQ tests correlate with SAT scores! That is (in part) Nassim Nicholas Taleb's point: we use IQ to select for success, then say IQ is correlated with success. It is circular reasoning. The more interesting measure is not jobs for which IQ is the main selection criteria to qualify for the training (your examples of MDs, JDs, and PhDs), but things where people create their own impact, lets…

> we use IQ to select for success

We do? I have never seen IQ used for anything but online wankery. None of my most skilled coworkers have struck me as people outside the bell curve, and we have never had our IQ test results requested, or even measured in most cases.

Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle

#134

Post by mbfg »

Given the general snarkyness of the author towards 'intellectuals' in his words, i tend to write off his opinions whether there is validity or not. I'm quite sure there are problems with IQ tests. I'm also sure that they have value much beyond what is promoted here.

Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle

#135

Post by aleph_naught »

waterhouse wrote: post #35
barrkel wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IQ is definitely not a good measure of value, contribution, quality of thought. I think it's probably correlated, and for some contributions may be a gating factor, but I've seen plenty of smart people examining the wrong things, for sure. Meta-analysis of focus doesn't seem to come free with IQ. I think it's a skill.

A guy I know—who basically spends his time around high-IQ kids, seems to be on speaking terms with several Fields Medalists, and has closely studied the lives of lots of great scientists and mathematicians—says that great achievement comes from three ingredients: (a) mental horsepower (roughly measured by IQ); (b) taste, an aesthetic sense that helps one decide to work on the right things or investigate the right hyp…

Anecdotally, I would very much agree with this, with an added caveat: there are diminishing returns on mental horsepower after 2 stdevs (e.g. 130 iq). After a certain point obsessiveness separates the wheat from the chaff, by very wide margins. The long-game is underrated.

Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle

#136

Post by barry-cotter »

hhjinks wrote: post #133
mikemotherwell wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article: > Note that IQ tests correlate with SAT scores! That is (in part) Nassim Nicholas Taleb's point: we use IQ to select for success, then say IQ is correlated with success. It is circular reasoning. The more interesting measure is not jobs for which IQ is the main selection criteria to qualify for the training (your examples of MDs, JDs, and PhDs), but things where people create their own impact, lets…

> we use IQ to select for success We do? I have never seen IQ used for anything but online wankery. None of my most skilled coworkers have struck me as people outside the bell curve, and we have never had our IQ test results requested, or even measured in most cases.

The SAT, SSAT, GRE, MCAT, LSAT and GMAT are all glorified IQ tests. They’re used for entrance to selective colleges and graduate programmes. Lots of people will be quite happy to tell you where they went to school and what they studied which is the non-vulgar way of signalling your IQ.

Intelligence:Knowns and Unknowns

> are used for many purposes, such as selection, diagnosis, and evaluation. Many of the most widely used tests are not intended to measure intelligence itself but some closely related construct: scholastic aptitude, school achievement, specific abilities, etc. Such tests are es- pecially important for selection purposes. For preparatory school, it's the SSAT; for college, the SAT or ACT; for graduate school, the GRE; for medical school, the MCAT; for law school, the LSAT; for business school, the GMAT. Scores on intelligence-related tests matter, and the stakes can be high.

http://differentialclub.wdfiles.com/local--files/definitions...

Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle

#137

Post by jdietrich »

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…

If you've spent any amount of time in education (or you have any faith in the data), then it is patently obvious that there is indeed a set of "un-smart" kids. We can quibble about how big that group is, but they definitely exist. It's not their fault, they just got a bad set of numbers in the polygenetic lottery or were subjected to environmental stresses that caused lasting damage. Pretending that they're smart is a brutal act of cruelty that only serves to perpetuate inequality.

Some people aren't smart. Some people aren't tall. Some people aren't athletic. Some people aren't beautiful. It is incumbent on us to build a society that affords everyone security, respect and opportunity, regardless of whether they're smart or tall or athletic or beautiful.

Still not convinced? Imagine a society where we just pretended that there was no such thing as physical disability. Paraplegics are just as capable of walking as anyone else if only they get the right training. We shouldn't give paraplegics wheelchairs, we should lend them $150,000 to spend three years at walking school. The blind don't need canes and dogs, they just need extra seeing practice. How barbaric, how inhumane, how very familiar.

Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle

#138

Post by baccheion »

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.

Corporations and schools are biased toward IQs in the 115-125 range, so it is likely predictive of advancement. On the other hand, even higher IQs are associated with greater earnings.

Corporations (and schools) are also biased toward Te users (ENTJ, ESTJ, INTJ, and ISTJ) and extrovert + judger types (ENTJ, ESTJ, ENFJ, and ESFJ).

Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle

#139

Post by iron0013 »

mikemotherwell wrote: post #17
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 original tweetstorm and this post aim to show something very specific, namely that IQ misses the mark as a measure of intelligence the further away from IQ 70 one ventures. In other words, stupid is stupid, but smart seems to come in many flavors. The title of the article itself points to this fact, as the word "largely" is inserted. Nassim Nicholas Taleb himself can see the value at the lower levels. If the goal…

The frustrating thing from the perspective of an individual differences researcher is that Taleb is not at all correct about IQ becoming less predictive of performance at higher levels! Studies pretty consistently show that IQ is a valid predictor of performance all the way up the scale, so that, for example, someone with an IQ of 145 is likely to perform (at school, on the job, etc) better than someone with an IQ of 135. Here's one good reference, but you can easily find many others: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41038598?seq=1#page_scan_tab_co...

Taleb just seems to make the (incorrect) assumption that IQ is less predictive of performance at the high end--without any evidence--and then builds an extended diatribe on top of that falsehood. This thread is evidence of the damage that someone with very little domain knowledge, very high self-assuredness, and a far-reaching voice can do to the factual basis of public discourse.

I just can't get over how misleading it all is. He just made up those figures at the bottom of the article--they aren't based on any actual data at all!

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