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IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle

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Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle

#181

Post by silvat1 »

I'm not sure I believe in varying levels of innate intelligence at all. And if it does exist, it is probably so removed from our standard measures of intelligence so as to make it inconsequential.

What I do believe is that what we perceive to be different levels of intelligence among people is actually learned ways of thinking and approaching problems. Some people are lucky enough to be exposed to habits and ways of thinking early on in their life that provide a compounding return for the rest of it.

Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle

#182

Post by toasterlovin »

fsloth wrote: post #148
vivekd wrote: post #97

reading the Wikipedia article, it says that scientific consensus among surveyed psychologists and educational researchers is that IQ is a valid and accurate mesaure of the important components of intelligence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient#Reliabil... If you're going to challenge that scientific consensus you better have something better to bring to the table than "it's being used by racists" and…

Wikipedia is not a totally reliable reference when researching non-quantitative information, especially in area with active stakeholders that likely edit wikipedia. And I would not trust "scientific consensus" in this instance given psychology's recent well documented reproducibility crisis.

IQ research is not part of the reproducibility crisis.

Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle

#183

Post by feanaro »

diminoten wrote: post #177
zorga wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A brilliant mathematician like Terence Tao may still very well consider themselves a dullard when faced with, say, the musical intuition of a piano virtuoso, or the effortless foresight of a chess grandmaster, or the rapt attention commanded by master storyteller, or the social intelligence of a smooth-talking Jobsian entrepreneur. I'd bet all of those people would score high in IQ. > For these kinds of intelligenc…

> IQ is actual science with lots of evidence to support it. ...did you read the submission? Don't worship science blindly; it's not nearly as black/white as you're framing it to be. IQ can have evidence to support it and still be deeply flawed/incomplete/entirely wrong.

Incomplete, certainly. But entirely wrong? The results still need explaining and the IQ model will surely be at least related to any new, better model, given its ability to produce at least some reliable results.

Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle

#184

Post by harekaze »

(1) The details of popular IQ tests are considered commercial secrets by testing companies. The reliability data and validity data are kept secret to people other than selected experts connected to those companies. This opaqueness does nothing to enhance the credibility of IQ tests.

(2) The claims that IQ tests are supported by consensus of psychologists ignore that, scientific knowledge does not rely on consensus to justify its credibility, but the explanatory power and predictive power stemmed from such knowledge. Plus, most psychologists don't do research on IQ tests, the so-called consensus can be regarded to an extent as textbook claims in disguise.

(3) There have always been disagreements. Multiple intelligence theory is one that made its way to textbooks. But there are others. For example, the mutualism model by van der Maas, Kan, and Borsboom (2014) claims that IQ tests do not constitute as a reliable measure that can reflect the underlying mental capacity (if there is one, not none or multiple), the value of IQ tests can only be (weakly, in my opinion) justified by pragmatic considerations [0]. The mutualism model is somewhat tangential to the claims made by Taleb, but my point is that IQ tests are not something that should be glorified.

(4) Psychometrics in general, has deep issues. Operationalism plagues the discipline. The practice of many (I shall reserve properly that it's not all) psychometricians does not meet the idea of validity as instigated by current recommended guidelines, and what should be constitutive of validity is still somewhat an open question that remains to be explored. These are not direct evidence for or against the credibility of IQ tests, but nonetheless should make us cautious how we reach our judgments.

[0] https://www.mdpi.com/2079-3200/2/1/12

EDIT: grammar

Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle

#185

Post by 80386 »

viraptor wrote: post #73
dqpb wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll admit I spend probably greater than average time brooding over how dumb most people are. But I don't think this is inherent in those people. I think it's mostly a result of their prior knowledge, sleep, energy level, stress/anxiety, and give-a-shit. I think most people are fundamentally capable of great intelligence.

> energy level, stress/anxiety, and give-a-shit. I think most people are fundamentally capable of great intelligence. This sounds like there's a missing link where "most people are fundamentally capable of higher energy level, less anxiety, more give-a-shit" may not be taken for granted.

High energy and low anxiety seem more trainable than IQ, although even then they aren't infinitely trainable. Thomas Edison, by the common accounts, slept four or five hours a night plus a few short naps; most people couldn't do that.

There are some other important factors that aren't as flattering to modern Western society. I know some smart people who are stuck in dead-end jobs because their parents didn't know the right hoops to jump through to get them into an environment conducive to socioeconomic advancement and a good college, and some who aren't going anywhere because they just can't buy into the BS they're supposed to buy into. If you can't suck it up and agree with your professors, even when they're obviously wrong, you're going to have a hard time.

On the other hand, I know a guy who isn't very smart but got into Harvard because his parents were rich and he's the sort of person who reflexively identifies with and agrees with authority.

Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle

#186

Post by qznc »

toasterlovin wrote: post #165
Animats wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obsessiveness only helps if you're headed in the right direction. That's why YCombinator starts up startups with so little capital - so if they're headed in the wrong direction, they find out fast.

Hence item b.

Isn't that intuition, so Kahnemans criteria [0] apply? This means item b comes down to:

> So all we need is an unchanging environment, lots of practice, and immediate feedback.

[0] https://fs.blog/2012/03/daniel-kahneman-on-intuition/

Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle

#187

Post by toasterlovin »

jcranmer wrote: post #112
xupybd wrote: post #36

I have no way to navigate this, I've heard psychologists claim that IQ is the most well proven concept in the social sciences. Now this guy comes along saying the complete opposite. Anyone have any advice on how to weight this up and figure out what the truth is?

The thing to remember is that psychology is a field that has a well-worn history of being driven by heavy misinterpretation of flawed experiments, and psychometrics in particular tends to vary from the awful to the truly execrable in this regard. IQ and the Big-5 personality tests are the best of the field, but we're not talking Standard Model-level of verification--these theories are the nearsighted one-eyed kings o…

Except that IQ predicts real world performance on cognitive tasks. In fact, it is the single best predictor of job performance that exists.

Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle

#189

Post by toasterlovin »

flatfilefan wrote: post #71
xupybd wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps but there is once between "IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle" and "IQ is the most well proven concept in the social sciences". Unless you are just taking a dig at the social sciences.

Maybe he does and it's a right thing to do. Taleb is briefly mentioning the gaping problems of lacking reproducibility of social sciences research.

There is no reproducibility crisis with IQ research.

Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle

#190

Post by xyzzyz »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #172
yourapostasy wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think most people are fundamentally capable of great intelligence. If the real world distribution of IQ closely approximates the Gaussian distribution IQ tests are meant to model, then in the US alone there are about 44 million people in the range from about 70-85. World wide, about 1 billion people in that cohort of 1-2 standard deviations. Even if actual real world results are half of what the models predict, w…

We would likely do better to deal with biomedical issues, like inadequate nutrition and unidentified health issues.

Malnutrition only has effect on intelligence at extreme levels that basically never occur in the US. The American poor sometimes go hungry, but are never actually starving, and don’t lack micronutrients either. Don’t get me wrong, terrible food and atrocious eating habits, resulting in serious health problems, are one of the most serious problems in this country. However, this doesn’t impact intelligence.
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