Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 400 posts

Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle

#301

Post by cm2187 »

Itsdijital wrote: post #69
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?

There's a lot of good evidence that correlates race and IQ. Even when controlling for as many factors as possible. To the best of our current scientific knowledge, this is a thing. Obviously this is an excellent source of ammo for racists and likewise those fighting racism see it as a threat. By extension, anyone who speaks of this science must also be racist and the science itself must be wrong because it is racist.…

I think it's not even racism vs anti-racism.

Which ever way you cut the population (gender, skin color, etc), you are most likely going to get different IQ distributions. But the variance within a segment of the population is far greater than the difference in average between these segments. I.e. there is a far greater difference between the bottom 10% of population A by IQ and top 10% of population B than there is between the average of population A and population B. So it makes no sense whatsoever to treat an individual from population A based on population A average (or percentile).

So acknowledging these differences in distribution doesn't justify in any way discriminating individuals based on race, gender or any other parameter (which is my definition of racism). But these differences may explain why for certain professions you will not find a distribution that matches exactly the distribution of the wider population (I would expect scientists for instance to mostly come from the top 5 or 10% of the IQ distribution).

What you refer to as "anti-racists" though are more often than not identity politics militants, which ideology is based on the tabula rasa theory, which dictates that there cannot be any difference in IQ distribution. And that therefore any deviation in socioeconomic status is fully explained by discrimination and oppression.

So I don't disagree that racists will also use these studies, even if I think they can only do so by misunderstanding basic statistics. But supressing these studies by labelling them as racist mostly serves another agenda that has little to do with anti-racism.

Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle

#302

Post by api »

jf- wrote: post #299
api wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a straw man, sort of akin to asserting that all right leaning people believe that might makes right.

Very well, maybe not everyone who would describe themselves as on the left would have this belief, but in my experience it is very common.

I think you may be confusing the assumption that people are equal (blank slate) with treating people equally (not misapplying aggregate statistics to individuals and not being an asshole). The latter doesn't require the former. Some leftists might argue for a blank slate but I'm not even sure this is the majority view.

Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle

#303

Post by lordlimecat »

iron0013 wrote: post #139
mikemotherwell wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

He addresses that, the issue is that you aren't identifying "performance" but rather "performance in the sort of test taking environment that exists at school".

His entire point is that, while IQ may identify good, obedient candidates for BS jobs, it is not broadly applicable as anything like a general metric for life.

Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle

#304

Post by leereeves »

mike00632 wrote: post #238
jf- wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IQ is one of those topics which is, unfortunately, inescapably political. If important psychometric traits, like intelligence and personality, are highly heritable, then one of the implicit assumptions of left-leaning points of view is undermined: that everyone is inherently equal, that anyone can achieve anything given the right education, environment and resources. Add to this the fact that we know that other herit…

The leftist position isn't that everyone is inherently equal but that everyone should be valued equally and afforded equal opportunity regardless of their race/gender/ability. The idea of an "IQ" measure is too close to the idea of measuring inherent value, which shouldn't be contingent on things like how much nutrition you had as a child. Furthermore, the idea of "IQ" could be considered dangerous because it often s…

The left uses any inequality of outcome, like the unequal representation of minorities and women in the software development industry, as evidence of discrimination without allowing for the possibility these differences are due to different abilities, choices, or desires.

And if anyone challenges the belief that all outcomes should be equal, they retreat behind the very different argument you've just made, which nearly everyone agrees with.

The motte and bailey tactic.

Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle

#305

Post by zxcvvcxz »

torstenvl wrote: post #104
zxcvvcxz wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's his Twitter/Medium blog, he can write as he pleases. And his book sales do fine, with or without you. This is interestingly a point of his: what's 'rational' is what survives. Maybe arguments/discussion need emotional draw of some sort to be heard in the first place (in the 21st century). If a philosopher is arguing in a forest to no one, is he really arguing? Etc. We've seen the same effect of stylistic changes…

That's a non-sensical argument; it turns the question of intelligence into a question of popularity. An idea that "survives" in the marketplace of ideas isn't per se rational or intelligent. Indeed, anti-science attitudes worldwide have enjoyed a great deal of popularity lately. Certainly anti-vax ideology is surviving just fine at the moment. If Taleb's argument is that IQ tests are a "swindle" because they don't pr…

Survival is the ultimate measure of rationality (as per Taleb).

This is a higher order intelligence than stale test taking, or complete trust in the medical establishment, for instance.

Low IQ is predictive of being mentally deficient. Average and above IQ is a predictor of... not much.

Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle

#306

Post by baccheion »

afpx wrote: post #269
baccheion wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Maybe the high IQ-ers just work harder because there’s higher expectation?

At 115-125, there is an edge over other students. On the other hand, it's not strong enough for others to notice. Also, the typical curriculum is challenging enough to prevent boredom. Then a bias appears to have been institutionalized, as according to corporations, 115-125 equals capable enough to do the job + not smart enough to synthesize (ie, parrot).

Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle

#307

Post by dragonwriter »

otalp wrote: post #215
feanaro wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm as surprised as you and I'm glad someone took the time to write that up (I was about to when I saw your comment). I don't understand why someone would call IQ "unscientific" without addressing research showing it to be a good predictor of future performance. Note that this still doesn't invalidate the point that people can be smart in many different ways (yet have the same IQ), which seems like a reasonable posit…

Just because something is a good predictor doesn't make it scientific. There could be a third variable like wealth which needs to be controlled for, but is rarely done in those studies with few exceptions. In those exceptions, it was generally found that wealth of parents played a much bigger role in future success than IQ.

> Just because something is a good predictor doesn't make it scientific

Perhaps, but Taleb’s charge of it being nonscientific is based on it not being a good predictor of success except at the low end, from which he concludes it is not a valid measure of intelligence. This is wrong both on the facts (it is a good predictor across the board), and the underlying logic (intelligence and propensity to succeed are two different things, while it turns out that IQ is a good predictor of the latter, that actually is not logically necessary for it to be a good measure of the former.)

> There could be a third variable like wealth which needs to be controlled for, but is rarely done in those studies with few exceptions.

I've read lots of studies of the relationship of intelligence to various success measures, and controlling for other variables (especially various socioeconomic ones) is the norm, not an exception.

> In those exceptions, it was generally found that wealth of parents played a much bigger role in future success than IQ.

While that's true for some success measures (for a number, parental educational attainment is actually a better predcitor than parental wealth, which mostly seems to be a predictor as an imperfect proxy for parental educational attainment), that doesn't invalidate IQ as a scientific measure of intelligence or intelligence as a factor in success, since the intelligence as measured by IQ predicts variation not explained by parental wealth. Your argument is like trying to invalidate a measure of speed because it is a worse predictor of winning a race than which starting line a contestant is allowed to use.

Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle

#308

Post by dragonwriter »

leereeves wrote: post #304
mike00632 wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The leftist position isn't that everyone is inherently equal but that everyone should be valued equally and afforded equal opportunity regardless of their race/gender/ability. The idea of an "IQ" measure is too close to the idea of measuring inherent value, which shouldn't be contingent on things like how much nutrition you had as a child. Furthermore, the idea of "IQ" could be considered dangerous because it often s…

The left uses any inequality of outcome, like the unequal representation of minorities and women in the software development industry, as evidence of discrimination without allowing for the possibility these differences are due to different abilities, choices, or desires. And if anyone challenges the belief that all outcomes should be equal, they retreat behind the very different argument you've just made, which near…

> The left uses any inequality of outcome, like the unequal representation of minorities and women in the software development industry, as evidence of discrimination without allowing for the possibility these differences are due to different abilities, choices, or desires.

No, the left doesn't. On a number of levels; as well as not ruling out the possibility of non-discriminatory causes (while being skeptical of handwaves in that direction), the left broadly recognizes that differences in choices and desires are natural and obvious consequences of visible discrimination in society, and thus even when they are direct factors not inconsistent with discrimination as root cause.

Re: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle

#310

Post by roel_v »

scotty79 wrote: post #249
geezerjay wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You need all three. Actually, you don't. It may help to be gifted on all three, but work ethics makes up for any deficit in intellectual potential. For example, MENSA membership does not correlate with intellectual elites in any research field, but you'd be hard pressed to find a leading researcher who doesn't have a strong work ethic.

> For example, MENSA membership does not correlate with intellectual elites in any research field It's mostly because MENSA membership is interesting for very small fraction of intelligent people. If everyone applied to mensa, 150 mln people would get in while only less than 150 thousand are actually in mensa. Even if every member of intelectual elite was above mensa threshold only 1 in 1000 would be in mensa. It's h…

Mensa membership is actually quite interesting, and possibly relevant to this discussion. It's full if people who are 'smart' (i.e., did well on the mensa tests), yet don't do that well professionally to be around smart people all the time. It's full or primary school teachers and nurses and that sort of thing. Mensa is for people who feel out of place in their day to day lives, they're generally not well understood by their day to day environment. While (most) doctors and lawyers and engineers and academics are already around smart people all the time, and don't need any extra on top of it.

(All this imo, may be observation bias, ymmv, etc)

Post reply on HN