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Harold and George Destroy the World

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Re: Harold and George Destroy the World

#291

Post by tptacek »

xyzzyz wrote: post #270
hirvi74 wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People don’t like the fact that requiring individuals to cooperate can enhance health outcomes for the group as a whole. I am not certain where you are deriving this claim from. > Similarly, people don’t like the idea that some individuals are just born smarter than other individuals. Nor this claim, as well. I have had many discussions on the topic of IQ, and I have never once seen anybody ever argue that there is…

There's no debate on construct validity of IQ among the experts in the field. The consensus position is that IQ tests measure something real, that the tests enjoy extremely high measurement invariance (which implies construct validity), and that the results have extremely high predictive validity (relative to literally anything else in the entire field of psychology). The current debate is more along the lines, wheth…

Wait, this comment starts out with an assertion about one scientific question (the construct validity of a quantitative psychological metric) and ends with a statement about the range of a totally different question, and it's one studied by different fields than the former question.

Re: Harold and George Destroy the World

#292

Post by hirvi74 »

xyzzyz wrote: post #271
hirvi74 wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Results consistent with the existence of a construct are not sufficient evidence for the existence of a construct. We can talk about statistical correlations till the Sun goes down, and I will not dispute that this ethereal 'g-factor' can infer minor to moderate predictions in some domains of people's lives at a population level. However, I have one question. What evidence is there that this 'g-factor' is actually re…

Sorry, what exactly do you mean by "is representative of general intelligence"? This is a very abstract statement. What does this mean in scientific, empirical terms? What kind of facts we would observe in the world where this is true? What empirical observations we'd make in the world where it's false?

> Sorry, what exactly do you mean by "is representative of general intelligence"? This is a very abstract statement.

No need to apologize. Perhaps my g is too low to describe my thoughts properly.

> "is representative of general intelligence"?

This factor that is derived from the positive correlations, g, is called general intelligence. So, g is nominally general intelligence, but is g actually what the name implies? One can take n number of positively correlated but independent things, and there will always be a some factor that can be derived from it. However, that does not mean the underlying factor is necessarily causal.

> This is a very abstract statement.

We are discussing abstract concepts.

> What does this mean in scientific, empirical terms?

That causality would be scientifically and empirically verifiable.

> What kind of facts we would observe in the world where this is true? What empirical observations we'd make in the world where it's false?

Alas, that is precisely the point I was trying to paraphrase from Shalizi. Whether g be true or false -- the result wouldn't look any different. The methodology being used cannot determine what is true nor false, and that is the crux of this entire problem.

Re: Harold and George Destroy the World

#293

Post by DangitBobby »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #122
DangitBobby wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't have to support Eugenics to understand there's probably a real effect.

You can’t disentangle “smart people have few kids, dumb people have lots of kids, ergo we are gradually getting dumber” from eugenics (or class for that matter). It’s inherent in the argument. It’s also not how genes work. It’s a very classist, flawed argument. In some way it’s emblematic of what the right calls “East Coast elitism” yet I find people from across the political spectrum have no issue embracing the argu…

Your assessment of "classist" gives away the game. It's either a real thing that can happen via selective pressure (or lack of selective pressure) or it isn't.

Re: Harold and George Destroy the World

#294

Post by DangitBobby »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #246
eudamoniac wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we can't agree that IQ is a useful predictor ("measurement") of cognitive performance and potential, perhaps the most supported and studied theory in all of psychology, then I'm afraid we have no common point of discussion.

That’s an alternate reality. IQ as a measurement of “intelligence” is highly controversial and is better explained by home life/environment.

Lots of people find it very politically and idealogically important that IQ be considered controversial, yes.

Re: Harold and George Destroy the World

#295

Post by pandaman »

nradov wrote: post #185
MidnightRider39 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Starting the war with Iran was definitely a pretty stupid decision, even at this point of it. In a couple of years it will look like the beginning of the end for the US hegemony.

Starting the war with Iraq in 2003 was definitely a pretty stupid decision, and at the time some pundits predicted that it was the beginning of the end for US hegemony. But now a couple decades later the US is still looking pretty hegemonic. US hegemony will end some day, but we should be skeptical of predictions about timing.

For the 2003 Iraq war, US managed to goad 48 countries to get involved [1] For the 2026 Iran war, it looks more like the US was goaded itself. The current coalition consists of Israel and a dozen of Middle East countries providing bases to stage the war. If you squint, it is still looking hegemonic but nothing like what was 20 years ago.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalition_of_the_willing_(Iraq...

Re: Harold and George Destroy the World

#297

Post by tclancy »

econ wrote: post #25
alecco wrote: post #16

The effects of Idiocracy are much worse than we appreciate. I believe it's hidden in part by technology (as a cognitive crutch) and part by top skilled immigration (people previously suppressed in their undeveloped countries). And education is much, much worse almost everywhere by leaning more to memorization and catering to the lowest common denominator. Student A is bad at math and good at language, student B is th…

Education is a weird field with perhaps a few thousand years of very good unimplemented ideas. Imagine training an llm by putting it in a room with other untrained LLMs? All that knowledge is sure to rubb of!

>Imagine training an llm by putting it in a room with other untrained LLMs? All that knowledge is sure to rubb of!

Right around puberty your theory starts to break down.

Re: Harold and George Destroy the World

#298

Post by rayiner »

tptacek wrote: post #288
rayiner wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Attacking IQ test is like vaccine denialism. People don’t like the fact that requiring individuals to cooperate can enhance health outcomes for the group as a whole. Similarly, people don’t like the idea that some individuals are just born smarter than other individuals.

Attacking IQ is nothing whatsoever like vaccine denialism. The valid/meaningful uses of IQ are widely debated in several hard science fields. That's not true of vaccines.

> ttacking IQ is nothing whatsoever like vaccine denialism. The valid/meaningful uses of IQ are widely debated in several hard science fields

You’re shifting the goal posts from the first sentence to the second sentence. What I said was: “IQ is real and highly heritable.” Responding to that by asserting that IQ tests are “skewed” and culturally biased, as OP did, is up there with vaccine denialism.

If you want to make a more nuanced point about what you can use IQ to prove, sure, that’s up for debate. But that’s not what we were talking about.

Re: Harold and George Destroy the World

#299

Post by rayiner »

tptacek wrote: post #289
rayiner wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly the opposite is true. Adoption studies have been used to isolate the effect of SES itself, and the contribution of that factor is low: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01602... (“Proportion of variance in IQ attributable to environmentally mediated effects of parental IQs was estimated at .01… Heritability was estimated to be 0.42.”).

This is just SIBS data. It has all the standard "Minnesota" limitations: the study is tiny, the cohort isn't demographically representative, adoption isn't itself random, nothing deconfounds the prenatal environment, and the children in the cohort are also adopted at different ages. It's one thing to call out an interesting paper; it's another to act as if the matter has been settled simply by pointing to SIBS.

The assertion I was responding to was this: “IQ correlates most strongly with socioeconomic class.”

Find me any study that shows that IQ is more strongly correlated with SES than with parental IQ.

Re: Harold and George Destroy the World

#300

Post by TimorousBestie »

hirvi74 wrote: post #267
rayiner wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Statistical validity != construct validity. Sure. But in science, we regularly postulate the existence of some construct, and confirm that construct by conducting many empirical tests that return results consistent with the existence of that construct. General intelligence is like that. We can’t see it directly. But we have myriad results that are statistically consistent with its existence.

Results consistent with the existence of a construct are not sufficient evidence for the existence of a construct. We can talk about statistical correlations till the Sun goes down, and I will not dispute that this ethereal 'g-factor' can infer minor to moderate predictions in some domains of people's lives at a population level. However, I have one question. What evidence is there that this 'g-factor' is actually re…

> If you are interested, I implore you to read this blog from the statistician, Cosma Shalizi, of CMU. His explanation is far better than anything I could attempt to make.

Ah, this essay is very, very good. I’m not surprised, Shalizi is a genius, but I hadn’t read this particular one before. Thanks for the link.

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