5 ms·

It doesn't have to be junk science to be morally repugnant. Lots of things would be administratively useful, and aligned with everything we know scientifically,

by iguy 9y ago

It doesn't have to be junk science to be morally repugnant. Lots of things would be administratively useful, and aligned with everything we know scientifically, yet evil. This is a great idea, morally: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights". But as you know if you've ever watched the Olympics on TV, "created equal" here isn't a scientific fact.

pasabagi 9y ago
Absolutely. But equally, something being useful does not make it scientific. The thing about running is, it's very easy to explain what we mean by 'good at running'. It's very hard to describe what we mean by 'intelligence'. When you see a very large number of people convinced of the objectivity of something they can't describe, you normally call it a religion. Being convinced of the objectivity of IQ has many of the same flaws.
- iguy 9y ago
  No it's not religion. It's statistical knowledge, in a way that people seem to struggle to grasp. (And there are thorns! What use it is put to is another issue.) If you look at all sports you'll find the same thing. We call the common factor physical fitness, or athleticism, or let's say "AQ". It's exactly the same idea. AQ predicts running speed, although not nearly as well as getting the kids out on the track. Ditto weightlifting. People know this: the kids in the chess club won't agree to arm-wrestle the kids on the track team, because despite having no direct information of their biceps strength, they can guess based on overall impressions. This strategy for keeping their lunch money is scientifically valid. And their profiling of the jocks is a safe distance from being morally repugnant.
  - pasabagi 9y ago
    The problem with statistics is, if you put garbage in, you get garbage out. Especially in the case of garbage categories, and garbage questions. Before you do any statistical work, you have to ascertain whether or not the groups you are considering, or the questions you are asking, are actually existing groups and scientific questions. IQ fails this test. Race fails this test. Running does not. If make statistics about ill-defined, politicized questions, at best, you get nonsense. At worst, you get a reinforcement of your muddy, politicized thinking. The problem with science is, if you're not very careful, it can become a wrapper around stuff that isn't scientific. The only way to avoid this is to be absolutely allergic to any concepts that are unclear, uncertain imports from the normal world. And, while I'd love it if intelligence wasn't like that - let's face it, it is. If it wasn't, and we had a clear image of it, we'd probably be capable of doing stuff like building general AI.
    - iguy 9y ago
      Well, I think the politicized muddle might be on the other side of this fence here. This reads to me like you perceive political implications, and work backwards to cast doubt on the data. Do you think we understand muscles at the level of detail we'd need to understand neurons to build AI? They are much simpler, but there's a lot of crazy stuff about how myosin works we don't understand. And it doesn't matter, Victorians with stopwatches could correctly gather data about runners & swimmers & wrestlers, and notice what predicts what. Science at this level can be valid too. And what I'm trying to tell you is that intelligence research is not all bunk as you imagine. There is lots of data. Lots of people have tried to shoot holes in it, for a century, and we keep the bits which survived that. Yes we use words which had everyday meanings before, because we always do that... I mean "energy" and "power" still have wooly everyday meanings, but are used precisely on your electricity bill.
      - pasabagi 9y ago
        What I'm trying to say is you can't research something you can't define. So any research on an ill-defined subject is a priori bunk. It's like if a medieval scientist set out to study the cosmic spheres. He could amass as much data as he liked, but it doesn't matter - since he's fundamentally using the wrong concepts to understand what he's seeing. Not to mention, I think your analogy works against your point. If you think about energy or power in any other way than the specific electrical sense, you're making a mistake. Just because they use the same words doesn't mean they are the same concept.
        iguy 9y ago
        We talk about political power all the time. And energy drinks. And force of personality. Time. These words didn't have the precise scientific meaning they have acquired until someone got the science working. Their older less precise meaning are not mistakes. Temperature is another good example. Most of the objections you are raising were raised against this single number when it was being invented. How can the many-faceted feelings of weather become a single number, etc. Your number doesn't fit my pre-existing idea, you're studying the wrong concept, etc. All the same squirming. Lots of messy back and forth. But what survived all that was a number which turned out to be scientifically useful for predicting stuff, like how well your steam engine would work. So it got accepted. (Much later we learned what was going on microscopically, but this wasn't necessary.)

by iguy 9y ago

pasabagi 9y ago

Absolutely. But equally, something being useful does not make it scientific. The thing about running is, it's very easy to explain what we mean by 'good at running'. It's very hard to describe what we mean by 'intelligence'. When you see a very large number of people convinced of the objectivity of something they can't describe, you normally call it a religion. Being convinced of the objectivity of IQ has many of the same flaws.

iguy 9y ago
No it's not religion. It's statistical knowledge, in a way that people seem to struggle to grasp. (And there are thorns! What use it is put to is another issue.) If you look at all sports you'll find the same thing. We call the common factor physical fitness, or athleticism, or let's say "AQ". It's exactly the same idea. AQ predicts running speed, although not nearly as well as getting the kids out on the track. Ditto weightlifting. People know this: the kids in the chess club won't agree to arm-wrestle the kids on the track team, because despite having no direct information of their biceps strength, they can guess based on overall impressions. This strategy for keeping their lunch money is scientifically valid. And their profiling of the jocks is a safe distance from being morally repugnant.
- pasabagi 9y ago
  The problem with statistics is, if you put garbage in, you get garbage out. Especially in the case of garbage categories, and garbage questions. Before you do any statistical work, you have to ascertain whether or not the groups you are considering, or the questions you are asking, are actually existing groups and scientific questions. IQ fails this test. Race fails this test. Running does not. If make statistics about ill-defined, politicized questions, at best, you get nonsense. At worst, you get a reinforcement of your muddy, politicized thinking. The problem with science is, if you're not very careful, it can become a wrapper around stuff that isn't scientific. The only way to avoid this is to be absolutely allergic to any concepts that are unclear, uncertain imports from the normal world. And, while I'd love it if intelligence wasn't like that - let's face it, it is. If it wasn't, and we had a clear image of it, we'd probably be capable of doing stuff like building general AI.
  - iguy 9y ago
    Well, I think the politicized muddle might be on the other side of this fence here. This reads to me like you perceive political implications, and work backwards to cast doubt on the data. Do you think we understand muscles at the level of detail we'd need to understand neurons to build AI? They are much simpler, but there's a lot of crazy stuff about how myosin works we don't understand. And it doesn't matter, Victorians with stopwatches could correctly gather data about runners & swimmers & wrestlers, and notice what predicts what. Science at this level can be valid too. And what I'm trying to tell you is that intelligence research is not all bunk as you imagine. There is lots of data. Lots of people have tried to shoot holes in it, for a century, and we keep the bits which survived that. Yes we use words which had everyday meanings before, because we always do that... I mean "energy" and "power" still have wooly everyday meanings, but are used precisely on your electricity bill.
    - pasabagi 9y ago
      What I'm trying to say is you can't research something you can't define. So any research on an ill-defined subject is a priori bunk. It's like if a medieval scientist set out to study the cosmic spheres. He could amass as much data as he liked, but it doesn't matter - since he's fundamentally using the wrong concepts to understand what he's seeing. Not to mention, I think your analogy works against your point. If you think about energy or power in any other way than the specific electrical sense, you're making a mistake. Just because they use the same words doesn't mean they are the same concept.
      - iguy 9y ago
        We talk about political power all the time. And energy drinks. And force of personality. Time. These words didn't have the precise scientific meaning they have acquired until someone got the science working. Their older less precise meaning are not mistakes. Temperature is another good example. Most of the objections you are raising were raised against this single number when it was being invented. How can the many-faceted feelings of weather become a single number, etc. Your number doesn't fit my pre-existing idea, you're studying the wrong concept, etc. All the same squirming. Lots of messy back and forth. But what survived all that was a number which turned out to be scientifically useful for predicting stuff, like how well your steam engine would work. So it got accepted. (Much later we learned what was going on microscopically, but this wasn't necessary.)