The Latest On Intelligence • Hacker News Board

Re: The Latest On Intelligence

#151

Post by astrodust » Wed, Jul 18, 2012, 5:49 AM UTC

justin_vanw wrote: post #69

"A great deal of time has been wasted in the effort of measuring the heritability of traits in the false expectation that somehow the genetic nature of psychological phenomena would be revealed." There is a strong cultural bias among much of the research community to go out of their way to deny any genetic factors in intelligence. Perhaps this is well intentioned, but it is absurd. I have come across very few squirre…

The performance of laboratory mice in mazes varies considerably among tested populations, with some mice clearly being "smarter" than others. It's possible to train a mouse to be smarter, to learn, but the effect is only a few standard deviations from the norm at best, not orders of magnitude smarter.

Remember that genetics is, at best, all about probabilities. Just because your parents are athletic is no guarantee that you're an athlete. There's always a one in four chance that you get the worst possible pairing of genes, after all.

Intelligence is a complicated thing. A child who can remember things easily will be considered very "smart" even if they can't do much with that information, whereas one who's very clever at figuring things out will be considered "stupid" if they aren't able to memorize as well.

IQ is such an arbitrary metric that it hardly deserves scientific consideration. It completely glosses over any unusual talents someone might have.

Re: The Latest On Intelligence

#152

Post by nhoj » Wed, Jul 18, 2012, 7:29 AM UTC

uncomfytruths wrote: post #123

justin_vanw wrote: post #69

"A great deal of time has been wasted in the effort of measuring the heritability of traits in the false expectation that somehow the genetic nature of psychological phenomena would be revealed." There is a strong cultural bias among much of the research community to go out of their way to deny any genetic factors in intelligence. Perhaps this is well intentioned, but it is absurd. I have come across very few squirre…

You're not alone. I've always wondered, how come different dog breeds have different behavior and intelligence levels. Yet certain breeds are much smarter than others and capable of greater learning capacity. Any kind of comparison, even scientific, between human races would be seen as racist and thrown out immediately. It conjures up all sorts of negative emotions. Hitler, Nazis, Eugenics, Master Races, Holocausts.…

"Half the world would be on anti-depression medications if you told them that and proved it."

So at least their unhappiness isn't limited by their genes?

Re: The Latest On Intelligence

#153

Post by avatarlite » Wed, Jul 18, 2012, 8:43 AM UTC

mangala wrote: post #145

monkeypizza wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you explain the fact that when the law allows, companies all over the world give IQ tests to prospective employees? And that studies have shown that IQ is one of the best predictors of job performance?

Your first point would only elucidate a common misconception that IQ tests adequately measure intelligence. As to your second point, what studies are these? (I'd actually be interested)

This is a good intro: http://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/reprints/1997whygmatter...

Re: The Latest On Intelligence

#154

Post by light3 » Wed, Jul 18, 2012, 8:52 AM UTC

Nitpicking but this seems like a contradiction: "It is noteworthy, for example, that at a given level of IQ, Chinese have smaller frontal cortexes than Americans (Chee, Zheng, Goh, & Park, 2011), although Chinese brains as a whole may be larger than those of Americans (Rushton, 2010). Even with brain size equated between Chinese and Americans, the frontal cortex is larger in Americans (Chee et al., 2011)."

Re: The Latest On Intelligence

#155

Post by malbertife » Wed, Jul 18, 2012, 8:59 AM UTC

uncomfytruths wrote: post #123

justin_vanw wrote: post #69

"A great deal of time has been wasted in the effort of measuring the heritability of traits in the false expectation that somehow the genetic nature of psychological phenomena would be revealed." There is a strong cultural bias among much of the research community to go out of their way to deny any genetic factors in intelligence. Perhaps this is well intentioned, but it is absurd. I have come across very few squirre…

You're not alone. I've always wondered, how come different dog breeds have different behavior and intelligence levels. Yet certain breeds are much smarter than others and capable of greater learning capacity. Any kind of comparison, even scientific, between human races would be seen as racist and thrown out immediately. It conjures up all sorts of negative emotions. Hitler, Nazis, Eugenics, Master Races, Holocausts.…

"Also, look at men vs women. How many wars have women started compared to men? Nearly every war, genocide, and conflict has been caused entirely by men. Why is it that we never see the female versions of Hitler, Gangis Kahn, Napoleon, Stalin, etc... Because evolution has created extremely violent men (not all of us of course)."

One thing is to say that a war is unlikely to be started by a woman (your historical observation); another thing is to say that a woman is unlikely to start a war (your claim). That's because, historically, the people in a position to start a war have mostly been men.

If W means that a given leader (i.e., someone who could have started a war if he or she wanted to) was a woman and S means that the leader started a war, by Bayes' theorem the probability of the leader having started a war, given that she was a woman, is

P(S|W) = P(W|S) P(S) / P(W)

Likewise for men (if ~ means negation):

P(S|~W) = P(~W|S) P(S) / P(~W)

You observed that P(W|S) is much smaller than P(~W|S); but to compare P(S|W) and P(S|~W) you also need to take into account how much smaller P(W) is than P(~W).

Re: The Latest On Intelligence

#156

Post by obtu » Wed, Jul 18, 2012, 11:17 AM UTC

gwern wrote: post #73

tokenadult wrote: post #5

I would upvote this twice if I could. I have read the underlying paper Nisbett, R. E., Aronson, J., Blair, C., Dickens, W., Flynn, J., Halpern, D. F., & Turkheimer, E. (2012, January 2). Intelligence: New Findings and Theoretical Developments. American Psychologist, 67, 130-159. http://psychology.msu.edu/pers_hambric3/PSY493%20Spring%2020... Daniel Willingham reviews in the submitted post, and the paper is a joint re…

My problem with upvoting is that I have read the underlying paper, and I'm not impressed at all. This paper takes a hugely nurturist approach, and at parts verges on dishonesty. I consider myself - if not an expert, at least very well informed - on the topic of dual n-back and I was flabbergasted when I read pg11 of the PDF. There is not a single mention of the many failures to replicate, methodological critiques, or…

It sounds like you are hijacking the paper to talk about a pet theory. Did you find a cite on p11 about DNB? They refer to cognitive exercise, but not using that particular method. Whether that method is effective or not is orthogonal to their point.

Re: The Latest On Intelligence

#157

Post by obtu » Wed, Jul 18, 2012, 12:07 PM UTC

vibrunazo wrote: post #92

Am I the only one who reads these kinds reports and has that impression that today's psychology and biology is less than 0.1% of the way to provide a useful model for intelligence? The best measurement of intelligence that we have today (IQ tests) seem completely worthless for practical purpose compared to what we actually need to know to build solutions on. IQ tests are still too bad to measure actual "intelligence"…

IQ is one of those “look for the keys under the streetlight” things. It's for people who really care about intelligence being something measurable as a decimal number. In every study that isn't a meta-study like this one, the tasks that were measured are available and will tell more of the story.

Our minds are modular, studies measuring ability at precise tasks can improve our understanding of it. I wish people didn't try to make silly sweeping statements on nature vs nurture something that science has to care about.

The only justification for this paper is that it is debunking a book that was originally pseudoscience, but the whole discussion that followed that book is flawed for letting that book set the framing that intelligence boils down to one number.

Re: The Latest On Intelligence

#158

Post by maxerickson » Wed, Jul 18, 2012, 12:56 PM UTC

stephengillie wrote: post #28

kenjackson wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. The implication, in my mind at least, is that fighting poverty should be one of the key goals of society. Being in poverty effectively hides gifts as poverty will dominate "natural" ability.

How do you define "poverty"? Most impoverished Americans have TVs and microwaves.

A microwave costs a couple of days of labor in the U.S. and then lasts for a couple of years. It's a pretty basic item these days.

For evaluating the impact on life outcomes, why not define poverty as the state where (lack of) financial resources frequently limit the choices available to an individual?

I don't think poverty is fully explained by external factors, but I think that unexpected events do tend to have a larger impact on people with limited resources, often exacerbating their problems.

Re: The Latest On Intelligence

#159

Post by Eliezer » Wed, Jul 18, 2012, 1:03 PM UTC

uncomfytruths wrote: post #123

justin_vanw wrote: post #69

"A great deal of time has been wasted in the effort of measuring the heritability of traits in the false expectation that somehow the genetic nature of psychological phenomena would be revealed." There is a strong cultural bias among much of the research community to go out of their way to deny any genetic factors in intelligence. Perhaps this is well intentioned, but it is absurd. I have come across very few squirre…

You're not alone. I've always wondered, how come different dog breeds have different behavior and intelligence levels. Yet certain breeds are much smarter than others and capable of greater learning capacity. Any kind of comparison, even scientific, between human races would be seen as racist and thrown out immediately. It conjures up all sorts of negative emotions. Hitler, Nazis, Eugenics, Master Races, Holocausts.…

> Evolution wise, we're disposable. Women are not. The human race can easily be replenished with 99 women and 1 man. But not with 99 men and 1 women

This is not how evolution works. It runs on which genes outreproduce which other genes within a species, and cares nothing for "the good of the species" or "the survival of the species". If men are more violent, it was because individually more violent males outreproduced less violent males - not because "males are disposable". (Even this is still a simplification relative to inclusive genetic fitness, but it's definitely not because "males are disposable!")

http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Group_selection

Re: The Latest On Intelligence

#160

Post by stephengillie » Wed, Jul 18, 2012, 1:14 PM UTC

maxerickson wrote: post #158

stephengillie wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you define "poverty"? Most impoverished Americans have TVs and microwaves.

A microwave costs a couple of days of labor in the U.S. and then lasts for a couple of years. It's a pretty basic item these days. For evaluating the impact on life outcomes, why not define poverty as the state where (lack of) financial resources frequently limit the choices available to an individual? I don't think poverty is fully explained by external factors, but I think that unexpected events do tend to have a l…

Your reply captures the sentiment very well - ownership of a microwave really isn't a good indicator of poverty. It IS a good indicator of the kind of systemic poverty that exists. Simply by luck of being born within the US, I'm privileged with higher wages which gives me the opportunity to purchase one, and easier access to buy such appliances. I can purchase one at any time (24/7) for an hour's wage, if not less.

For evaluating the impact on life outcomes, why not define poverty as the state where (lack of) financial resources frequently limit the choices available to an individual?

I like your definition for poverty. I'm well acquainted with our (US) social services that provide food, shelter, clothing, transportation, basic phone and internet service, and education funding to any parent, woman, or child, and some single men. By this definition, I'm led to believe that poverty doesn't exist within the US, even though myself and most of my friends and family fall below the "poverty line".