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

Everyone is capable of, and can benefit from, mathematical thinking

quantamagazine.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

411–419 of 419 posts

Re: Everyone is capable of, and can benefit from, mathematical thinking

#411

Post by davidbessis »

cutemonster wrote: post #405
tptacek wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of the stuff on Gusev's substack is pretty startling, and I highly recommend it. Thank you for taking the time to comment here!

> > twin studies and they have taken in serious beating in the past decade, especially in light of GWAS. Here's a twin study from 2015, newer than the books (Clean Slate etc) and papers you (David) mentioned. "Thinking positively: The genetics of high intelligence" https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4286575/ Figure 3 indicates that intelligence is pretty strongly inherited, and they arrive at 0.44. Now you're s…

Great to see you're making progress!

A few posts ago you were alluding to heritability in the 0.7-0.8 range, as a reason to dismiss the writings of Einstein, Newton, Descartes and Grothendieck.

Now you're at 0.44. If you discount for a mild EEA violation correction, you'd easily get to 0.3 or below — a figure which I personally find believable.

Just FYI, I don't belong to any "camp". These aren't camps but techniques and models. Intra-family GWAS provide underestimated lower bounds, twin studies provide wildly overestimated upper bounds. I don't care about the exact value, as long at it doesn't serve as a distraction from the (much more interesting!) story of how one can develop one's ability for mathematics.

In any case, IQ is a pretty boring construct, especially on the higher end where it's clearly uncalibrated. And it's a deep misunderstanding of mathematics to overestimate the role of "computational ability / short term memory / whatever" vs the particular psychological attitude and mental actions that are key to becoming better at math.

Now that the smoke screen has evaporated, can we please return to the main topic?

Re: Everyone is capable of, and can benefit from, mathematical thinking

#412

Post by margorczynski »

cutemonster wrote: post #373
margorczynski wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In other words: the people who run the mathematical 100m in under a second don't think it's because of their genes. Sure they don't. Most extremely successful people (want to) think that the main reason of their success is their commitment and hard work. It runs completely contrary to the findings of modern biology and psychology, most of our intellectual potential at adulthood is genetic. The floor and ceiling you…

> Most extremely successful people (want to) think that the main reason of their success is their commitment and hard work I suppose that makes sense from their own personal perspectives (but that doesn't make them right), in that they had to put in lots of time and work, but didn't do anything to become bright people. > The floor and ceiling you will operate on in your life Interesting that what you wrote got downvo…

> Interesting that what you wrote got downvoted. Lots of flat-earthers here? (figuratively speaking)

I call it secular creationism - basically humans are special beings to which the rules and laws of biology (evolution and natural selection) do not apply fully.

And people with a liberal disposition who pride themselves as rational thinkers quickly switch off that rationality when it comes to natural differences between humans especially when those differences are in cognitive abilities.

Re: Everyone is capable of, and can benefit from, mathematical thinking

#413

Post by elbear »

Retric wrote: post #335
elbear wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not because it doesn't exist, it's because it's restrained

How? People do studies on weeks old babies, it seems unlikely curiosity has been restrained at that point.

Good point!

I think the case you mentioned is explained by an idea covered in attachment theory. Children explore when they feel safe and secure. Safety and security come from the caregivers, the parents. When that is absent, because the parents' emotional state makes the children feel insecure, then the children are restrained by their own emotions.

Re: Everyone is capable of, and can benefit from, mathematical thinking

#414

Post by cutemonster »

tptacek wrote: post #406
cutemonster wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > twin studies and they have taken in serious beating in the past decade, especially in light of GWAS. Here's a twin study from 2015, newer than the books (Clean Slate etc) and papers you (David) mentioned. "Thinking positively: The genetics of high intelligence" https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4286575/ Figure 3 indicates that intelligence is pretty strongly inherited, and they arrive at 0.44. Now you're s…

The "warring camps" framing is very overstated. Greenberg, who doesn't practice in this space, believes it to be a vital concern, but giants in the twin-study practitioner field freely cite GWAS results, including the EA studies. A 2015 twin study result is basically a citation to the phlogiston era of polygenic population-wide genetic surveys. Heritability estimates of that vintage basically define away indirect gen…

> "warring camps" framing is very overstated ... twin-study practitioner field freely cite GWAS results

Ok, good to know :-)

> the work now is on characterizing and bounding it

Using GWAS I suppose, ok.

> "Blog post looks biased" is not a good way ... but those same authors often wrote excitedly about how GWAS results would bolster their priors

Ok, yes I think I agree. ... Interesting

Thanks for keeping the original comment text. (I had a super quick glance at the blog post it mentioned, this one, right: https://theinfinitesimal.substack.com/p/book-review-eric-tur..., maybe will read at some point. "But Turkheimer sets a trap for GWAS Guys" (in the blog post) made me smile :-))

Re: Everyone is capable of, and can benefit from, mathematical thinking

#415

Post by cutemonster »

davidbessis wrote: post #410
cutemonster wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Did you ever consider the possibility that you might be the one living in a bubble? You're wrong about that, but you couldn't have know. I've lived in far more different places with more different people, than most people you've met. > innate talent predated IQ tests and twin studies by many millenia That's why I wrote it hadn't been well studied, not that it hadn't been studied at all. > You're declaring that Of c…

I was alluding to the quote relevant to the current debate: "Genius is 1% talent and 99% hard work" — which you incorrectly attributed to Einstein.

Aha. That phrase was supposed to support your viewpoint, not mine. "99% hard work" -- in contrary to intelligence.

I tried to find what he might have said that you were referring to, and stumbled upon that phrase, and since it was "your" quote, I didn't double check it.

But it's something else then, or maybe a misunderstanding somehow.

Re: Everyone is capable of, and can benefit from, mathematical thinking

#416

Post by cutemonster »

davidbessis wrote: post #411
cutemonster wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > twin studies and they have taken in serious beating in the past decade, especially in light of GWAS. Here's a twin study from 2015, newer than the books (Clean Slate etc) and papers you (David) mentioned. "Thinking positively: The genetics of high intelligence" https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4286575/ Figure 3 indicates that intelligence is pretty strongly inherited, and they arrive at 0.44. Now you're s…

Great to see you're making progress! A few posts ago you were alluding to heritability in the 0.7-0.8 range, as a reason to dismiss the writings of Einstein, Newton, Descartes and Grothendieck. Now you're at 0.44. If you discount for a mild EEA violation correction, you'd easily get to 0.3 or below — a figure which I personally find believable. Just FYI, I don't belong to any "camp". These aren't camps but techniques…

Thanks!

> A few posts ago you were alluding to heritability in the 0.7-0.8 range, as a reason to dismiss the writings of Einstein, Newton, Descartes and Grothendieck.

No. This is what I wrote:

"Back when they were active, intelligence, IQ tests and the heritability of intelligence hadn't been well studied. They didn't have enough information, like we do today: ... twin studies ..."

And now that changes to: "like we do today: ... GWAS (and twin studies) ...". The precise numbers were not the point.

> you'd easily get to 0.3 or below — a figure which I personally find believable

That's interesting. I thought you were closer to zero. Well, 0.3 or 0.7 or 0.2 -- it's a little bit all the same to me, as long as it's not 0 or 0.0001.

> I don't care about the exact value

Ok, makes sense :-)

> as long at it doesn't serve as a distraction

Aha, so that's why you didn't like 0.7 or 0.8 and reacted to it. Yes that's maybe a bit depressingly high numbers, in a way.

And I don't like 0 or close to 0 because that'd indicate that this animal species was "stuck".

> ... how one can develop one's ability for mathematics ... psychological attitude and mental actions that are key to becoming better at math

Yes, to becoming better. If you have time, I wonder what's the level of maths you think most people on the planet can reach? If everyone had the right encouragement, time and attitude.

- High school maths in economy and finance programs? (needed for example for accounting and running one's own business)

- The most advanced maths classes in high school if you study natural sciences?

- Technical mathematics or theoretical physics a few years at university?

- General theory of relativity?

I'm wondering if you're saying that just as long as someone starts early enough, they can reach the highest levels?

But then what about today's topic:

California's most neglected group of students: the gifted ones

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42247334

Is it just that they started earlier and have the right attitude?

Re: Everyone is capable of, and can benefit from, mathematical thinking

#417

Post by shrubhub »

theclansman wrote: post #83
shrubhub wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people don't try hard at the gym. Most people don't try hard at music. Most people aren't comedians. This reads like the foreword to the incel handbook.

And that's obviously bad because incels are not real people with feelings.

It's bad because there's a strong whiff of being entitled to someone else's body.

Re: Everyone is capable of, and can benefit from, mathematical thinking

#418

Post by cchi_co »

magicalhippo wrote: post #36
cchi_co wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Effort, combined with the right motivation, can overcome most perceived barriers

It sounds like trivial insight, but at least in my experience many adults and even teachers have this "it's hard so it's ok to not want to do it" attitude towards math. And I think that is very detrimental.

[dead]
Post reply on HN