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IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle

304 points by oska 8y ago

danieltillett 8y ago
... but g is the only thing of importance.
- pps43 8y ago
  The problem with g is that it's a number. Who has higher g, Magnus Carlsen or Terence Tao?
softwaredoug 8y ago
Best parenting advice I ever got was to praise children for hard work, and avoid calling them “smart.” Intelligence becomes a stand in for some measure of goodness or social fitness that after a while it’s hard to know what we’re talking about anymore. Further, it’s seen as innate whereas hard work is something anyone can do. Being “smart” implies there’s a set of “un-smart” kids that don’t have the same fitness or goodness, and since it’s innate, they’ll always be that way in an ungifted underclass. Cue the icky connections to racism and eugenics... Usually as a parent, seeing your kid as “smart” corresponds to noticing affinity for a kind of interest or task. You’ll help their confidence more to encourage that affinity and notice the hard won accomplishments than just saying they have some magical innate thing called “intelligence”.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > Being “smart” implies there’s a set of “un-smart” kids On the flip side, trusting in my intelligence let me persist on problems even when others said they were lost causes. If everyone is equally smart and all that matters is hard work, it doesn’t make much sense to work on different problems from others. (Or on problems others deem to be unworthy.) This leads to a monoculture. At the end of the day, if you have a smart kid, praise them when they’re clever. If you have an empathetic child, encourage them to explore that. Humans are different.
  - ordu 8y ago
    If I understand you, you are arguing that parents should praise their kids for smartness because it helps kids to understand that they are smarter? But there is not point doing that, if they are smarter they will figure it theirselves. At the same time if parents are praising them for smartness it would lead smartness to become a part of self-esteem and therefore their psychological well being will be tied with their success to be smart. It is bad, really bad. You cannot just make some more effort and become smarter, smartness is out of control of a person, and if self-esteem based on smartness then... It is like praising girl for her beauty. Beauty is not completely under her control, and if she grow to not so beautiful woman, than she would have psychological problems through all her life. From the other side, to work hard or not to work hard is completely under control of a person. And if self-esteem of a person based on working hard it is very good. When she feels bad she make more work to fix her self-esteem, and the fixing of self-esteem hopefelly leads to more success in the real life for her. Isn't it great?
    - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
      > you are arguing that parents should praise their kids for smartness because it helps kids to understand that they are smarter? I’m arguing for truthfulness. If your kid is smart, don’t shy from saying so. If they excel in other ways, point those out. Helping us to understand our strengths and weaknesses is a gift parents can give. > if self-esteem of a person based on working hard it is very good Not necessarily. It can lead to being a grunt. That’s fine if that makes one happy. But many innovations have been sprung from a combination of intelligence and laziness.
      - ordu 8y ago
        There is subtle difference between praising and telling kid that he/she is smart. Smartness should be unconditional idea for a person. I believe that 3-9 years old is the best period when parent should tell repeatedly to his kid that he/she is smart, pretty, brave and so on. But unconditionally, for child didn't come to an idea that he/she is good only if he/she is smart, pretty and brave. If he/she does, then she would be unable to say something stupid, behave cowardly, or look not so pretty without believing that she is bad. This means also that parent must never tell to his child that he is stupid, coward, ugly and in any other sense have traits that are not socially desireable. Unconditionally. All books written by psychologists to parents would tell you that. At least all I've read do. > But many innovations have been sprung from a combination of intelligence and laziness. If your child would grow to be completely not lazy person, then either you are genius of practical psychology and education, or your child have some inherent traits that make him not lazy and your efforts made little or no difference. The second is more probable. Moreover I do not believe that smart kid can grow non lazy. If he did he is not smart enough to see how he can cut corners. I know about innovations, and I did some in the past. I wrote programs for automation but you now, I had never seen success because I was a way too lazy to make this programs usable for someone except of me. My programs die when I change job. I was a way too little motivated to do more than just to write the program. And yes, I never believed that I can work hard for more than a few months. I'm "too smart" for a hard work, if I work hard it means for some deep neural net in my head that I'm not smart enough. I got this idea in the school, where I did nothing and known math better than anyone else, because I had read all math textbooks two years ago just for fun. It was supported by my knowledge that my IQ reach 142 and it is very high. I got this idea and I cannot get rid of it even now, when life keeps proving me that the idea is deadly wrong. And yes, I fear to be stupid, this fear sometimes works even if I managed to stop my impulse to make a stupid thing before anyone noticed. It is just anecdote, but I'm almost got my bachelor degree in psychology, I'm working with psychotherapist around my problems, and I believe that self-esteem should be based on manageable things, on something that is under control of a person. Smartness is not under control of a person, you can behave on impulse without thinking, you can be tricked by circumstances or other people, you can do a lot of stupid things, while trying to be smart. Moreover there are circumstances when to do something now is more important than to do something smart. So smartness is not a good base for a self-esteem.
- gus_massa 8y ago
  > Being “smart” implies there’s a set of “un-smart” kids that don’t have the same fitness or goodness You don't like the implications of this, but is it true? I'd never play soccer as good as Messi, even if I'd practice every day in my life for many hours. Do you think that everyone has the same innate ability to play soccer? You can replace the example with any sport/music/whatever you like. Do you think that intelligence is special and everybody has the same intelligence level?
  - softwaredoug 8y ago
    You’re right, as an adult I’m not suddenly going to become a piano virtuoso. Innateness here is a pretty complicated topic. Hard work at an early age probably has a huge part of molding skills we associate with so-called “intelligence”. Was Mozart a genius? Or was he working really hard at being a musician from an early age, and thus just very skilled? Would Mozart succeed if we suddenly had to train him to be a Java programmer? Where does the narrow “skill” end and the broader “general intelligence” begin? I would argue skill is measurable and meaningful, but “intelligence” less so
    - akira2501 8y ago
      > but "intelligence" less so I don't think there's any problem measuring intelligence, where we've traditionally run into issues is where we start to make policy or social decisions using this data without understanding it's subtleties. I think Jordan B Peterson has a good classroom video segment[1] on this problem. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSo5v5t4OQM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSo5v5t4OQM
    - SamReidHughes 8y ago
      Mozart was a genius. Ryo Fukui started playing the piano at 22 (accordion at 18), he did alright for himself. Mozart’s dad was a great student and his mother’s father was highly educated too. So my guess is, he’d be able to handle Java. It’s actually easy (in principle) to measure the programming facet of intelligence: CS programs do this with weed-out classes.
- nabla9 8y ago
  Even more generally: talk in terms of what they do, not what they are. For example: you did something bad vs. you are bad. This applies to adults as well. Talking in terms of what people are gets the ego involved and people resist or become neurotic. Correcting mistakes or behaviour is much easier than identity.
- SamReidHughes 8y ago
  I'm pretty sure this parenting advice was based on a psychological experiment that failed to replicate.
  - hyperpape 8y ago
    You may be right about some particular study, but in general, there is a lot of research around growth mindset, and I have not heard about failures to replicate (though I cannot vouch that they haven't happened): https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/04/08/no-clarity-around-growth-mindset-yet/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/04/08/no-clarity-around-grow....
    - taeric 8y ago
      Just Google "psychology replication crisis". Pretty sure it will hit on a lot of this. Last I heard, which could be outdated, is most of the popular experiments have failed to replicate to a good measure. Odds are, if you just heard of an experiment, it hasn't replicated. Worse, many of the studies were propping each other up. So that when one failed to replicate, it brought the others into question.
    - SamReidHughes 8y ago
      There’s clarity that the original study was way overblown and the effect size is, on average, really small. I don’t know whether this parenting advice was actually borne of that research, but it smells like it. But also, the advice is at worst harmless, if not obvious.
  - taeric 8y ago
    It saddens me that that seems to be true for damned near all of psychology. :(
- harry8 8y ago
  One link about such things if anyone cares to read further. http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/ http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/
- jdietrich 8y ago
  If you've spent any amount of time in education (or you have any faith in the data), then it is patently obvious that there is indeed a set of "un-smart" kids. We can quibble about how big that group is, but they definitely exist. It's not their fault, they just got a bad set of numbers in the polygenetic lottery or were subjected to environmental stresses that caused lasting damage. Pretending that they're smart is a brutal act of cruelty that only serves to perpetuate inequality. Some people aren't smart. Some people aren't tall. Some people aren't athletic. Some people aren't beautiful. It is incumbent on us to build a society that affords everyone security, respect and opportunity, regardless of whether they're smart or tall or athletic or beautiful. Still not convinced? Imagine a society where we just pretended that there was no such thing as physical disability. Paraplegics are just as capable of walking as anyone else if only they get the right training. We shouldn't give paraplegics wheelchairs, we should lend them $150,000 to spend three years at walking school. The blind don't need canes and dogs, they just need extra seeing practice. How barbaric, how inhumane, how very familiar.
  - vixen99 8y ago
    I rather hope you don't teach kids or anyone else, armed as you would likely be with a set of non-evidential assumptions about their mental development including that of drawing a spurious, simplistic and dangerous parallel between physical disability and mental 'disabilities' as you apply it to the non-clinically-referable population.
    - shusson 8y ago
      > a set of non-evidential assumptions about their mental development I think if you look at the best evidence we have (IQ), it does support the general idea that there are a set of "un-smart" kids. But that depends on the definition of smart. If you're a teacher of a subject in which IQ is a predictor then why not treat individuals differently?
    - jdietrich 8y ago
      What would you prefer? That I ignore the overwhelming burden of research on cognitive development? That I pretend that everyone has equal potential for cognitive development, regardless of genetics and environment? That I pretend that we know how to compensate fully for those early disadvantages? No reasonable person would tell a stunted, sickly and uncoordinated teenager that they could make the NFL combine if only they tried hard enough. It would be an act of cruelty to persuade them of that rather than guiding them towards a more realistic ambition. We have to accept the very simple reality that while everyone is born with equal rights and equal value as a human being, not everyone is born with equal potential and there is only so much that we as a society can do to ameliorate those differences. We must encourage everyone to achieve their full potential, but we must also recognise that not everyone has the same potential. We must build a society that is fair, decent and humane in spite of that fact. A great number of non-clinically-referable people have to work extremely hard just to achieve elementary-level literacy and numeracy. Some simply don't have the concentration, memory and cognitive ability required to successfully complete a secondary or post-secondary education. The answer is not to bury our heads in the sand, but to create meaningful opportunities and social support for the millions of people who, through no fault of their own, are currently being shafted by the pointy end of meritocracy. "You can achieve anything you set your mind to" is a hair's breadth away from "if you fail, it's because you didn't try hard enough". That's an unconscionably callous ideology to base an education system or a society upon.
- zorga 8y ago
  > Being “smart” implies there’s a set of “un-smart” kids that don’t have the same fitness or goodness, and since it’s innate, they’ll always be that way in an ungifted underclass. Which is true. You're against teaching your children the truth?
- z3t4 8y ago
  This is why I like kids to try sports that use precise measures of performance, where one can compete with oneself. I also think sports and games that encourage teamwork is very important. But by having the performance exactly measured, in most cases "hard work" will pay off. When the kids see the correlation between "hard work" and results, they can apply it to other areas such as studying. Then there are "gifted" children that are very early in their maturity and will excel at everything, and will have a very easy ride until their growth curve flatten out, but will have a very hard time when the others catch up.
whymauri 8y ago
Maybe I'm dumb, but why is "performance fat-tailed"? It was kinda left as an exercise to the reader, but maybe someone has insight. The article got a bit edited, but I'm still not getting it.
- amasad 8y ago
  In other words it's pareto distribution. Most of the scientific citations goes to the 1% of scientists. Most of the success in business goes to the 1% of companies/entrepreneurs. In Taleb's words: we live in extremistan.
  - whymauri 8y ago
    Got it, this was helpful as was the answerer below. Thank you guys!
- pps43 8y ago
  Taleb is coming from the quant world. A trader can make or lose a lot of money, and that distribution of returns is fat-tailed, as exemplified by 2008 crisis.
barrkel 8y ago
IQ is undoubtedly overemphasized by some factions, especially those with an axe to grind and a dog whistle to blow, if it helps them feel less guilty about their position in the world or otherwise rationalizes injustice. OTOH there's definitely a difference between people, people who aren't mentally defective, people that are quick on the uptake, sharp and alert, who adapt to new mental models. IQ might be an unscientific metric for identifying these people, it might leave some of them unidentified, but they definitely exist. Anyone who's worked with other people, hired other people, had to evaluate other people's capabilities, can be in no doubt about this. It's hard to separate out Taleb's own axe-grinding from anything concrete he's trying to say about what IQ means as an independent concept. He seems more upset at short-sighted application of thought to first-order problems rather than asking higher-order questions about why the problems are problems in the first place, why the questions are being asked. When I've seen a difference between people in this degree, it's more a matter of personality than intelligence: the more detail-oriented, autistic-spectrum someone is, the more they focus only on the details, and miss out on the bigger picture. It takes a little effort to step back, but I think it can be learned. Whereas IQ (or g) doesn't seem to be improved easily with learning.
- diminoten 8y ago
  At this point I would accept it if someone told me that 100% of what I perceive as "smarts" when interacting with someone is explained by confidence and other learned social behaviors.
  - Jedi72 8y ago
    Just to clarify, are you making the claim that everyone has the same mental capacity for thinking/deduction/memory/etc, it's just our perception of that based on various external cues which makes us think these levels exist? Because I would disagree with that statement. Even if I had 50 years of study I would not think on the level of say Terrance Tao.
    - objektif 8y ago
      Think about what? Think about poems with Terrence or music or movies or stochastic calculus?
opportune 8y ago
Also the people with 180+ IQs that make random lists of “smartest people ever” if you look into it, basically have IQ test taking as a hobby and practice for it to improve their IQ (or rather, ability to take IQ tests). Or they took some test like Stanford-Binet that allows child IQs to reach ridiculous levels if the child happens to develop faster than normal (because of the formula of adjusting a child’s IQ to an adult level)
- mike00632 8y ago
  In other words: "when a measure become a target it ceases to be a measure"
judge2020 8y ago
Related: Adam ruins everything had a segment about IQ in 2017, https://www.trutv.com/shows/adam-ruins-everything/blog/adams-sources/emily-ruins-adam.html https://www.trutv.com/shows/adam-ruins-everything/blog/adams...
dang 8y ago
Two threads about this from last week: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18756946 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18756946 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18755193 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18755193
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
mbell 8y ago
The title doesn't seem to match up with the article. The point seems to be that IQ is good at predicting intellectual deficits at the low end but bad at predicting 'success' above that; further it indicates that IQ is mis-used in this range. This doesn't seem to indicate that IQ is 'pseudoscience', just that it's a misused statistic. Not a real shocker there, almost every statistic is misused by some group.
- microcolonel 8y ago
  Not to mention, the assumption is that if IQ is not useful for predicting success regardless of circumstance (i.e. whether somebody is employed as an astrophysicist or as a sweatshop seamstress), it must be not useful in all cases. The fact that IQ is a useful metric at the low end of the scale is exactly the hint as to why it's not useful when misused at the high end. That is, the difference between being able to return 100% of balls in tennis at, say, one return every 800ms, is not any greater help when your opponent can only return every 1400ms anyhow. In order for a difference of general cognitive ability to be useful, a cognitive task of sufficient complexity over a sufficiently short period of time must be presented.
- flocial 8y ago
  In a sense this is much scarier than the controversial IQ strongly correlates with genetics argument. Instead of being "pseudoscientific swindle" it becomes a reliable tool to marginalize people on the lower end based on their test results.
- Analemma_ 8y ago
  Taleb is saying that if IQs above 100 have no predictive power, then what’s the point in measuring them? It would be like taking a BuzzFeed quiz that tells me my Hogwarts house: a real measurement yielding a reproducible result, sure, but a pointless one and any use of it beyond “Huh, that’s interesting” would be pseudoscience.
  - geezerjay 8y ago
    > Taleb is saying that if IQs above 100 have no predictive power, then what’s the point in measuring them? The whole point of IQ tests is not to identify or rank people who score above 100. The whole point is to identify those who fall well below 100,because that's actually a disability. Look at it this way: some amusement parks feature amusement rides that are only safe to ride if riders can be kept safe by the safety equipment. One way to ensure safety requirements are met is to admit only people taller than a predefined height. That means that a specific metric (height) is used to pick who is able from those who are not. However, that does not mean taller people are better at riding that specific ride, let alone any attraction. The IQ concept serves the same purpose. Those with a low IQ simply struggle to perform some tasks, but above a fuzzy threshold IQ is a meaningless metric to evaluate or predict success.
gok 8y ago
The title is actually much less extreme than the article. The author basically claims all of psychology is a pseudoscience.
- vertline3 8y ago
  Well he addressed the replication crisis in earlier writings, which others have noted is a problem as well.
6nf 8y ago
Ugh ok, another 'IQ is worthless but I have no alternative' article. What's the point?
- llamaz 8y ago
  Do you need an alternative to criticise a measure? The alternative is to place less emphasis on IQ tests and focus on other qualities.
  - soufron 8y ago
    And other tests that actually measure something that exists.
    - 6nf 8y ago
      Like what tests?
  - 6nf 8y ago
    What ‘other qualities’ should (for example) the US Army test for if not IQ?
    - mike00632 8y ago
      The US Army has numerous tests and almost none of them relate to IQ. There is the DLAB (Defense Language Aptitude Battery) which measures ability to learn languages, and of course there are the famous (and far more important) physical tests which measure running speed, push-ups and sit-ups.
  - pokemongoaway 8y ago
    I support OP, but censored without evidence. It is factually true. This article is against IQ as a measure and does not give an alternative, while even admitting that low IQ can be very predictive of problems.
i_feel_great 8y ago
Q. What is an IQ test? A. A test that measures intelligence. Q. What is intelligence? A. The thing measured by an IQ test. Throw this at the next person who mentions IQ to see how intelligent their answer is.
- xupybd 8y ago
  Intelligence: the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills. I don't think you need to define Intelligence with reference to the IQ metric.
  - pps43 8y ago
    Yet IQ test does not measure ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills.
    - justtopost 8y ago
      Thats pattern identification and solving, which is the bulk of what most IQ tests are. So, it kinda does.
      - pps43 8y ago
        IQ tests measure ability to correctly guess what test creators meant. Many of those questions have multiple correct answers, especially the more "complex" ones.
- Itsdijital 8y ago
  I present to you three small companies. All three provide the same type of service. One has an average worker IQ of 80, the next 100, and the last 120. Which one would you feel most confident in using?
  - i_feel_great 8y ago
    The one who does best in a 3 month trial.
zozbot123 8y ago
So, does this mean that when I read some "genius"'s endless tweeting about how he "has one of the best I.Q.'s" while soandso is a "very low I.Q. individual", that doesn't actually mean anything of substance? Color me surprised!
- mikemotherwell 8y ago
  Nassim Nicholas Taleb is saying that the second part is likely accurate - e.g. low IQ people are accurately assessed - but the former part is off. This graph: https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/0*76fPv686eOXo1b7F.jpg https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/0*76fPv686eOXo1b7F.... shows how he claims IQ scores correlate with outcomes, i.e. as you move away upwards from < 70 IQ, its predictive power plummets. Said simply: stupid is stupid, but we're not totally sure what smart is.
  - akhilcacharya 8y ago
    I'm not sure if you got the reference but in case you didn't: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/332308211321425920 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/33230821132142592...
- akhilcacharya 8y ago
  Thankfully, it's unlikely that someone who spends their day tweeting like that could ever be a position of responsibility.
pcurve 8y ago
Wow. So much hatred in this. Iq is just one of many ways to measure certain aspects of aptitude. No institutions are shortsighted enough to place strong emphasis solely on IQ test. This is why college admissions take other data points into equation because sat and act scores are highly correlated to Iq.
- soufron 8y ago
  Well, most of his argument is that it measures nothing, at least not more than let's say... astrology. IQ is pseudoscience. And people using it are wrong - whether they place a strong emphasis on it, or only a little one.
waynecochran 8y ago
I have been afraid to take an IQ test for the fear of finding out that I am not very smart. In any case, the current hubbub of folks speaking against IQ tests seems to be more of a idealogical reaction to what IQ tests are telling us. OTOH, this guy seems to be legit. Truth is so hard to find these days.
- sifoobar 8y ago
  Maybe you're looking in the wrong place? The question on my mind is the following: How is blindly trusting science better than blindly trusting the pope or your local shaman? Wasn't the real issue blind trust, rather than who or what? There's nothing to be afraid of, and no reason to take a stupid test. I had to as part of drafting and I can't see these tests leading anywhere worth going. Maybe ask why being seen as smart is important?
  - waynecochran 8y ago
    Most of what any of us believe is trust in some other source. Few things that we believe admit to the scientific method, and even those things that do very few of us reproduce on our own. When is comes to social science, the "science" is pretty weak anyway. Most folks just believe what is popular or what they want to believe. I tend to look for consistency and track record -- most useful tests for truth in practice.
- alexashka 8y ago
  I remember having similar feelings. In hindsight, I was right, and also, it's made very little difference once I got out into the real world. The number of people who use their brains for more than getting a better paycheque is small, shockingly so. If you look up the people who've made all the popular javascript libraries of the past decade as one small example - you'll see that none of them are geniuses. They just had an itch that needed scratching. If you have that much, you're way ahead of the game, don't worry about the rest.
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ineedasername 8y ago
It seems like the author is setting up a straw man representing the IQ test as some omnipresent (or at least somewhat prevalent) test administered widely. He then lambastes it for all its faults (some of his accusations are correct). But the reality is that IQ tests are only very, very rarely used. In fact a career on the periphery of academia, academic testing, and their efficacy in predicting academic success at the University level, I have never, not once, not from any colleague or at any conference encountered mention of an IQ test as something to be considered for practical use. I have a lesser degree of familiarity with grade school/high school testing methods, but (in the US) I am similarly unaware of any common practice here.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > the author is setting up a straw man As a former options trader, this is Taleb in a nutshell. He builds and attacks straw men for popular consumption. (The one time he tried running a hedge fund, it failed ruinously.)
  - fujimotos 8y ago
    > The one time he tried running a hedge fund, it failed ruinously. Source? Taleb AFAIK does not publish his track record in a verifiable manner, so we're left to wondering if his bragging about himself really matches his record.
- maroonblazer 8y ago
  Aren't most standardized tests - SAT, ACT, GRE, etc - essentially IQ tests? We don't call them that, but they're testing cognitive ability nonetheless.
  - ineedasername 8y ago
    No, these are some of the tests I work with. Pop culture turned them into a proxy for IQ or Inteligence etc. They're not. The SAT for example is highly targeted towards one specific goal: predicting level of success academically in the first year of college, and only the first year. They make no other primary research claims about the utility of how the test results should be used, and in dealing with them they are very up front about the importance of a good all around picture of a student including HS GPA, rigor of courses taken, etc., along with SAT as one of multiple metrics. I repeat, it is pop culture that has distorted these tests beyond all reasonable correspondence to their actual intent.
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api 8y ago
Interesting... for some reason I thought Taleb was a darling of the alt-right and the biological determinists (but not necessarily that the feeling was mutual).
xupybd 8y ago
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?
- gweinberg 8y ago
  There's no contradiction between "IQ is largely bullshit, especially at the high ends" and "IQ is the most well proven concept in the social sciences".
  - xupybd 8y ago
    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.
    - flatfilefan 8y ago
      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.
      - toasterlovin 8y ago
        There is no reproducibility crisis with IQ research.
- wutbrodo 8y ago
  Taleb is barely this side of being a troll: he has plenty of interesting tidbits to say and is obviously a smart guy, but read enough of his stuff and he's clearly more focused on generating heat instead of light. If you read through the article, he's not quite making the claim that one might assume from the headline: which is basically that IQ isn't much of a useful or well-defined metric.
jdietrich 8y ago
Frankly, I'm incredibly disappointed in Taleb's recent writing. This article is one of many where the actual point being made is buried beneath unnecessary and divisive ad-hominem attacks. Does the caption "Mensa members: typically high “IQ” losers in Birkenstocks." usefully contribute to a serious, scholarly conversation on IQ? Is it reasonable or fair-minded to immediately tar opponents to your argument as racists, eugenicists and "psychometry peddlers looking for suckers"? I am uninterested in engaging with the substance of Taleb's arguments here, because the style is so needlessly vicious. I won't be buying Taleb's next book, because I don't want to endorse this kind of debasement of the public dialogue.
- JamesBarney 8y ago
  The substance isn't much better than the style. He makes substantial claims like IQ is not predictive of performance above 100 which in and of itself could be a whole article. And then just assumes the reader will take his word for it, even though there is a mountain of evidence to the contrary.
  - harry8 8y ago
    >mountain of evidence to the contrary. [citation needed]
    - torstenvl 8y ago
      https://www.lsac.org/lsat https://www.lsac.org/lsat
    - JamesBarney 8y ago
      Here's 10. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient#Social_correlations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient#Social_c...
  - baccheion 8y ago
    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).
pps43 8y ago
What a mess. Tweetstorm was easier to follow.
nabla9 8y ago
>If you want to detect how someone fares at a task, say loan sharking, tennis playing, or random matrix theory, make him/her do that task; we don’t need theoretical exams for a real world function by probability-challenged psychologists. If you want to measure skill and experience, that's good advice. When you want to measure the ability to solve problems where the individual or nobody has skill or experience yet, you have to measure something like intelligence.
- kokokokoko 8y ago
  And anecdotely, IQ style testing has been by far the most determinant data point for successful software developer hires in my experience. I'm almost at the point where I might start to believe it is more important than domain knowledge of programming. This is likely because the type of work I typically hire for has a large amount of problem solving and troubleshooting as opposed higher level system design. Which is essentially what IQ tests test for. The world "intelligence" is just a very loaded word and means different things to different people. IQ tests show how well a person can solve puzzles and make connections between systems. Which many consider to be a sign of intelligence. But not everyone.
  - pl1234 8y ago
    Agreed. I think the current interviewing system should be replaced with an IQ test + some more standardized domain specific knowledge tests. The pseudoscientific programming contest style interviews used by Google and others are highly inconsistent and filled with false negatives + false positives.
projektir 8y ago
Well, I was rather interested in this article at first, as I think IQ is highly questionable and we give it waaaaay too much credit, but this mostly seems to be an article wanting to bash people with focused thinking patterns (perhaps autistic people), or "nerds", or other groups of people that fail to conform. While calling them wage slaves. It's curious how they managed to conflate both Mensa members and the military in attitudes. Would be nice if we could call these various things into question without stooping to something as low as modern Western (who am I kidding, American) conceptions of "succeeding" in life.
vivekd 8y ago
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#Reliability_and_validity 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 anecdotal tidbits suggesting a causation correlation fallacy between academic performance and IQ.
- geezerjay 8y ago
  > 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 That statement doesn't contradict or refute the original assertion. In fact, the original assertion was that the IQ concept is effective at identifying those who fall in the lower spectrum of intelligence. However, IQ fails as an indicator of higher intelligence because it fails to correctly identify who is more gifted among their peers. The basketball example used often in this discussion is very good at illustrating the difference. Just because some individuals feature higher in a specific ranking (i.e., height) that doesn't mean they are or will be better basketball players.
  - feanaro 8y ago
    > However, IQ fails as an indicator of higher intelligence because it fails to correctly identify who is more gifted among their peers. Regardless of whether this is true, it still fairly reliably predicts the fact that they are gifted. Conversely, IQ tests aren't precise enough to predict who is less gifted among a set of peers on the lower end either (for small enough score differences).
- fsloth 8y ago
  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.
tidwall 8y ago
True story
Madmallard 8y ago
I have given dozens of ravens-progressive-matrices variant tests to friends of mine of various intellects and the results are basically never surprising. I guess it's bullshit though. Third world country girl who struggled trying to learn computer science and gave up and became an accountant? 95 Kind of slow guy that can't do any algebra in his head, bronze 1 at league of legends? 98 Genius guy that is master tier in league of legends and constantly outwits everyone in banter? 143 Asperger sharp awkward guy that is astonishingly good at math - diamond 3 league of legends? 133 Me: I think I'm an idiot sometimes and smart other times. Platinum 1 at league of legends? 122 My older brother (1): Obviously smarter than me but not by that much seemingly, and definitely a lot physically healthier than I am: 130 My oldest brother (2): National bridge champion and obviously very intelligent, masters in math, been an alcoholic for 5 years and got noticeably less sharp overtime: 135 Another guy who was challenger tier at league of legends and also obviously very intelligent in conversation? 138 Smart younger guy that is kind of whacky and out there, diamond 3 at league of legends: 120 (deviates from the norm here but still lends evidence to the correlation) Extremely competent native american guy that is 2000 ELO in Chess and was diamond 2/3 in league of legends? 120 (while high though, and same caveat as the above example as the other example just above) hMmmMmmmMmMMMMMM I guess it is just confirmation bias. I found it interesting how well it correlated with rank in league of legends. There are about 5-6 other samples I just don't recall the specifics anymore.
foolrush 8y ago
Missing a bit of sociological historicizing here. IQ and SATs were essentially designed to keep undesirables, notably Jewish, people out of academic circles. Eugenics and these tests marched hand in hand. > Armed with this so-called objective methodology, 3 American eugenicists advanced a straw-man rationale for large-scale testing.14 They reasoned that society needed to identify, segregate, and sterilize the "feeble-minded,"' 5 initially defined as those with mental disabili- ties' 6 but later extended to include any "unfit" person of low intelli- gence, character, or ethnicity.17 In both Germany and the United States, persecution of the "feebleminded"'18 hastened a broader eu- genic campaign against immigration, miscegenation, and other pro- fessed threats to Nordic ascendancy.1 9 https://via.library.depaul.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.ca/&httpsredir=1&article=1270&context=law-review https://via.library.depaul.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=h... https://www.businessinsider.com/the-ivy-leagues-history-of-discriminating-against-jews-2014-12 https://www.businessinsider.com/the-ivy-leagues-history-of-d... https://twitter.com/ft_variations/status/1075782671320657920?s=21 https://twitter.com/ft_variations/status/1075782671320657920...
username90 8y ago
> it explains at best between 13% and 50% of the performance in some tasks, minus the data massaging and statistical cherrypicking by psychologists; it doesn’t satisfy the monotonicity and transitivity required to have a measure. No measure that fails 60–95% of the time should be part of “science”. Where did he get "fails 60-95% of the time" from? To me it looks like he either doesn't understand statistics or he is pulling numbers out of the air.
mbfg 8y ago
Given the general snarkyness of the author towards 'intellectuals' in his words, i tend to write off his opinions whether there is validity or not. I'm quite sure there are problems with IQ tests. I'm also sure that they have value much beyond what is promoted here.
lota-putty 8y ago
Yes, IQ is as much overrated as formal education. Tests, only measure the state of mind during(tests); not the capability in the past or future.
Animats 8y ago
Taleb's output is getting weird. See "G factor"[1]. There's a strong correlation between various metrics of "types of intelligence". [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_factor_(psychometrics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_factor_(psychometrics)
throwaway324232 8y ago
It seems a lot are coming to the defense of IQ tests so I thought I'd throw in my perspective having taken these tests 6 times over the years (WAIS and Raven's) for my diagnosis of ADHD (these tests cost thousands of dollars and are usually reviewed by psychologists). An IQ score itself is an average of subtest scores that measure various abilities related to intelligence. So you could have some really high scores for certain abilities (e.g. executive functioning - ability to plan ahead) and some really low scores (e.g. spatial reasoning - understanding three dimensional space) and come out as average. Or you could have a really low score in a certain ability while having average scores in others and come out as below average. Additionally, some test scores can change based on whether they're timed or not. So you could have certain abilities that are above average, but when timed, come out as average or below. Notably, IQ tests DO NOT test for creativity nor emotional intelligence. The problem with judging others by their IQ score is that you throw away their strengths by looking at a single score. Some of my abilities are above average and that could be useful to society. I certainly think creativity, emotional intelligence and other abilities IQ tests neglect are relevant to society as well. For me, my IQ has ranged anywhere from 87 to 117 and this may be due to ADHD. The instability of the score doesn't give me much faith in its usefulness, nor has my intelligence seemed to affect my career as a software engineer (I've had plenty of success in my decade long career). It has however reliably demonstrated I have ADHD for schools and health insurance purposes, and that's really its primary usefulness.
BuckRogers 8y ago
No one on HN has mentioned my takeaway on the IQ subject that I've held for many years now. Upon learning more information over the years since, it has only solidified my view. On his analysis, he has a nice argument but he's outright wrong about some of it. They're discovering more everyday about how advanced 'tribal Europe' really was. From the Vikings having more advanced societies than initially thought, back to the Celts when the Romans actually started to fear the Gauls and decided to stop their advances before they became so organized they also had centralized government. The planning ahead required for survival in northern Europe alone greatly increases the chance of evolving a higher minimum IQ vs more congenial conditions where little to no planning is required. Sometimes truth is inconvenient. I would defend IQ. It's real, and it does matter. What I would say is that in my years, I've learned that it is definitely not the most important attribute. It may not even be the second most important attribute. A cooperative nature is more important than IQ. What use is a highly intelligent person who won't cooperate with others or interact? Einstein without the willingness to collaborate with society overall is useless. Maybe even a nightmare if he's beyond uncooperative and a malevolent genius. A very uncooperative stupid person could potentially be a big problem too. If I'm ever picking people to be on my team for a zombie apocalypse, or even just managing a modern society today, I'll take someone with a cooperative nature and little regard for their IQ. In sum, I would agree with Taleb that IQ can potentially be a swindle, but wouldn't agree with the basis of his argument. IQ is an objective measurement of intelligence, but you don't really need to reach so hard as he did to disqualify the importance of IQ. It's obvious as to why it's secondary to other factors.
caravaggio1 8y ago
I love NNT, but he could use https://www.grammarly.com/ https://www.grammarly.com/
silvat1 8y ago
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.
harekaze 8y ago
(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 https://www.mdpi.com/2079-3200/2/1/12 EDIT: grammar
deleted 8y ago
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scriptproof 8y ago
I guess the author of this paper has a low IQ. And he probably measure his own intelligence by the level of noise he produces. IQ is the measure of a potential, actually and it correlates with brillant minds when they really use it.
bryanrasmussen 8y ago
anecdote time: Once I was taking IQ tests with a group of other people, one guy in that group I knew was just really an idiot. This guy really did seem to be stupider than me in every conceivable measure. There was just no possible human endeavor that I did not feel confident in beating him and this is a pretty rare thing to notice in people for me, I can think of 4-5 people in my life I've thought this of (discounting people suffering from obvious disabilities) Anyway we took the IQ tests, he came back when he got his result, extremely happy and announced 'I got a 100! I had no idea it was that high!'
Janeman544 8y ago
I have a lot of respect for Taleb but I think he always overstates any conclusion. There is no doubt that IQ does not capture a hell lot of things. There is no doubt that many people will succeed in life despite flunking at IQ tests (Feynman scored mere 126 in mensa test). The question is does IQ gives you some idea about the person's behavior in real life or not ? I think it is indisputably yes.
mgamache 8y ago
This post reads like a polemic and not something to be digested as science (note calling it a 'pseudoscientific swindle' and the ad hominem attack on Murray at the start). There seems to be a bi-modal reaction to the IQ measurement problem. It's either a real meaningful and effective measure of intellectual capacity. Or, people try and discredit the whole idea and label anyone that explores it a racist or otherwise posses a shallow understanding of the science. The real problem is that it has some validity so it can be used to argue for and against all sorts of things that are really not justified by the science. However, if we ignore IQ as a valid research subject and line of inquiry we'll be doing ourselves a disservice. We need to follow that thread even if we don't like where it leads.
- feanaro 8y ago
  This is really well put together and I think you hit the crux of the problem. Regarding Taleb's post, I've heard a hard time reading it because it is so over the place and seems to contain many parts which aren't related to the topic at hand but simply appeal to emotion. As an example, I fail how this has anything to do with the IQ being a useful measure: > To do well in life you need depth and ability to select your own problems and to think independently. He constructs an argument that IQ doesn't predict anything related to the "real" life and "real" problems. Furthermore, he claims IQ scores are only correlated with the lower end of intelligence. He says > It measures best the ability to be a good slave. But then he supplies a figure where training success is but one of the things showing a correlation with IQ, with others including job performance, creativity and leader effectiveness, with decreasing degree of correlation. In fact, the figure shows the higher the complexity of the job, the more success at it is correlated with IQ (a moderate but certainly significant correlation of about 0.5). I think he means to manipulate the reader's emotion here by equating high IQ = being a good sheep. But how does this figure show anything but the exact opposite of his argument?
- Traster 8y ago
  I completely agree with you about the unproductive nature of this article, and the fact that there are two lines of extremists both pro and anti and it has absolutely become part of the identity politics of the right (and reactionary left). However, there's some real discussion on the effectiveness of IQ as a measure and its shortcomings. Vox is a great example of this, they published some highly critical articles after Sam Harris had Murray on his podcast. They point to good specific points which are problematic with IQ - particular when IQ is used as an argument for particular policies rather than information. Unfortunately even when there are specific points raised and proper meat to the discussion it still devolves into vitriolic shit flinging. Really the lesson to learn from this is how political tribalism can work to totally destroy the ability of society to have an honest discussion on a topic.
austincheney 8y ago
IQ is largely poorly understood. When measured as a number it is a convergent assignment, which is everybody is measured against a central assessing scheme that doesn't realistically reflect capabilities, competency, or potential. More valid are divergent tests that measure creativity, response quantity, originality, and problem solving. In other words how unique can the answers get and still be applicable.
black-tea 8y ago
People want IQ to be wrong. People like the idea of someone who did bad at school but is still a successful and productive person. Such people surely exist, but successful people overwhelmingly do well at school and have natural aptitude. You can deny it all you like, though.
tim333 8y ago
The 'original tweetstorm' that led to the article: https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1076845397795065856 https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1076845397795065856
kamalkishor1991 8y ago
Is IQ data available in a nice CSV file for us to analyze? I would like to see a nice Jupiter notebook with plots and should be able to play around with the data.
talebreturns 8y ago
I am very confused. On one hand people give some credit to IQ yet fail to acknowledge it's not Europeans or American who have highest IQ but the East/Central Asians. But people from Askenazi Jewish tribe posses even higher IQ. No one really knows why high IQ originates in that region or specific tribe. But it's them who made their way to America before Europeans. Genetic research has proved that the native Americans are genetically Central Asians. It's safe to assume IQ = superior ability to adapt to your environmental not intelligence. It helped you survive genocide targeted at you orchestrated by one of most powerful regime of the time. It helps you survive in the most difficult and diverse terrain. It helps you walk through the frozen land into completely different climate and terrain, still manage to surive. IQ is everything which helps you survive in your environment but it doesn't mean that high IQ people are capable of empathising with the large set of population with average IQ. Should these people whoes primary instinct is to surive at any cost themselves be given chance to thinks for others? No we don't think so. So we shouldn't have high IQ people at top, we should actively select against them. In modern word as you go farther from the mean, the benefit of IQ decreases till ofc we are hit by an apoclyspe you'll not be able to see what high IQ is capable of.
just_one_time_ 8y ago
This fucking guy is a pseudoscientific swindle.
blablabla123 8y ago
> Mensa members: typically high “IQ” losers in Birkenstocks. Nice article. IQ is actually the best measure yet found to see how well people can succeed in life. There used to be some craze about EQ, but that is actually pseudo-scientific stuff invented and monetized by book authors. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14940184 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14940184
- aptwebapps 8y ago
  Yeah, I'm hope I'm not missing out, but the beginning of the article was too aggressive for me to bother with the rest.
  - blablabla123 8y ago
    Same, I just skimmed. Quite sad that people still do this kind of thinking and talking and that it gets rated so high here. I thought that's what people cared about last year, that people deserve equal treatment, no matter what the background is.
vertline3 8y ago
Those birkenstocks look pretty comfortable. Plus maybe they last longer. I suppose they aren't "sexy" , but I suspect the guys have conceded that. I won't knock it until I try it, which is never.
kazinator 8y ago
The thing is, that people who have high IQ can answer the test questions with ease. They don't have to "muster sterile motivation." That's the perspective of someone daunted by the testing, and thus of lower IQ. "Anything too hard for me requires lifeless academics capable of sterile motivation, and anything easier is for idiots. I'm sitting precisely at the perfect intelligence level myself; neither idiot, nor starchy, impractical academic!" > "When someone asks you a question in the real world, you focus first on “why is he/she asking me that?" In this case, why is this blog writer asking me to believe that the IQ has low value? The "no brainer" hypothesis is that he tried and didn't score very well.
arisAlexis 8y ago
If intelligence exists then there can be some measure of it. Maybe current tests are not very good but that doesn't justify all the arguments in the article.
lwindyb 8y ago
If I wanted to read someone citing random papers, splooging, then trying to impress me with a hypercube I'd read the onion.
kc1116 8y ago
Wow lots of people really wrapped up in this whole IQ thing lol. It’s literally a joke, only reason it’s so prevalent these days are because of the racist white supremacist and pseudosciencentist “philosophers” raking in the Youtube money. Can someone point to actual real research where someone literally went around the world and gave IQ test to groups of people ? Also were these test in the people’s native language, how were they chosen etc. I have a hunch (not a biologist or anything like that) that common sense would say if you take any group of people that come from similar environments and administer IQ test the scores would be similar no matter the race, height, sex, etc. (I.e: take middle class college students from different groups and compare. Then take groups of people from poverty stricken backgrounds and compare) Does anyone disagree ? And why?

304 points by oska 8y ago

danieltillett 8y ago

... but g is the only thing of importance.

pps43 8y ago
The problem with g is that it's a number. Who has higher g, Magnus Carlsen or Terence Tao?

softwaredoug 8y ago

Best parenting advice I ever got was to praise children for hard work, and avoid calling them “smart.” Intelligence becomes a stand in for some measure of goodness or social fitness that after a while it’s hard to know what we’re talking about anymore. Further, it’s seen as innate whereas hard work is something anyone can do. Being “smart” implies there’s a set of “un-smart” kids that don’t have the same fitness or goodness, and since it’s innate, they’ll always be that way in an ungifted underclass. Cue the icky connections to racism and eugenics... Usually as a parent, seeing your kid as “smart” corresponds to noticing affinity for a kind of interest or task. You’ll help their confidence more to encourage that affinity and notice the hard won accomplishments than just saying they have some magical innate thing called “intelligence”.

JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> Being “smart” implies there’s a set of “un-smart” kids On the flip side, trusting in my intelligence let me persist on problems even when others said they were lost causes. If everyone is equally smart and all that matters is hard work, it doesn’t make much sense to work on different problems from others. (Or on problems others deem to be unworthy.) This leads to a monoculture. At the end of the day, if you have a smart kid, praise them when they’re clever. If you have an empathetic child, encourage them to explore that. Humans are different.
- ordu 8y ago
  If I understand you, you are arguing that parents should praise their kids for smartness because it helps kids to understand that they are smarter? But there is not point doing that, if they are smarter they will figure it theirselves. At the same time if parents are praising them for smartness it would lead smartness to become a part of self-esteem and therefore their psychological well being will be tied with their success to be smart. It is bad, really bad. You cannot just make some more effort and become smarter, smartness is out of control of a person, and if self-esteem based on smartness then... It is like praising girl for her beauty. Beauty is not completely under her control, and if she grow to not so beautiful woman, than she would have psychological problems through all her life. From the other side, to work hard or not to work hard is completely under control of a person. And if self-esteem of a person based on working hard it is very good. When she feels bad she make more work to fix her self-esteem, and the fixing of self-esteem hopefelly leads to more success in the real life for her. Isn't it great?
  - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
    > you are arguing that parents should praise their kids for smartness because it helps kids to understand that they are smarter? I’m arguing for truthfulness. If your kid is smart, don’t shy from saying so. If they excel in other ways, point those out. Helping us to understand our strengths and weaknesses is a gift parents can give. > if self-esteem of a person based on working hard it is very good Not necessarily. It can lead to being a grunt. That’s fine if that makes one happy. But many innovations have been sprung from a combination of intelligence and laziness.
    - ordu 8y ago
      There is subtle difference between praising and telling kid that he/she is smart. Smartness should be unconditional idea for a person. I believe that 3-9 years old is the best period when parent should tell repeatedly to his kid that he/she is smart, pretty, brave and so on. But unconditionally, for child didn't come to an idea that he/she is good only if he/she is smart, pretty and brave. If he/she does, then she would be unable to say something stupid, behave cowardly, or look not so pretty without believing that she is bad. This means also that parent must never tell to his child that he is stupid, coward, ugly and in any other sense have traits that are not socially desireable. Unconditionally. All books written by psychologists to parents would tell you that. At least all I've read do. > But many innovations have been sprung from a combination of intelligence and laziness. If your child would grow to be completely not lazy person, then either you are genius of practical psychology and education, or your child have some inherent traits that make him not lazy and your efforts made little or no difference. The second is more probable. Moreover I do not believe that smart kid can grow non lazy. If he did he is not smart enough to see how he can cut corners. I know about innovations, and I did some in the past. I wrote programs for automation but you now, I had never seen success because I was a way too lazy to make this programs usable for someone except of me. My programs die when I change job. I was a way too little motivated to do more than just to write the program. And yes, I never believed that I can work hard for more than a few months. I'm "too smart" for a hard work, if I work hard it means for some deep neural net in my head that I'm not smart enough. I got this idea in the school, where I did nothing and known math better than anyone else, because I had read all math textbooks two years ago just for fun. It was supported by my knowledge that my IQ reach 142 and it is very high. I got this idea and I cannot get rid of it even now, when life keeps proving me that the idea is deadly wrong. And yes, I fear to be stupid, this fear sometimes works even if I managed to stop my impulse to make a stupid thing before anyone noticed. It is just anecdote, but I'm almost got my bachelor degree in psychology, I'm working with psychotherapist around my problems, and I believe that self-esteem should be based on manageable things, on something that is under control of a person. Smartness is not under control of a person, you can behave on impulse without thinking, you can be tricked by circumstances or other people, you can do a lot of stupid things, while trying to be smart. Moreover there are circumstances when to do something now is more important than to do something smart. So smartness is not a good base for a self-esteem.
gus_massa 8y ago
> Being “smart” implies there’s a set of “un-smart” kids that don’t have the same fitness or goodness You don't like the implications of this, but is it true? I'd never play soccer as good as Messi, even if I'd practice every day in my life for many hours. Do you think that everyone has the same innate ability to play soccer? You can replace the example with any sport/music/whatever you like. Do you think that intelligence is special and everybody has the same intelligence level?
- softwaredoug 8y ago
  You’re right, as an adult I’m not suddenly going to become a piano virtuoso. Innateness here is a pretty complicated topic. Hard work at an early age probably has a huge part of molding skills we associate with so-called “intelligence”. Was Mozart a genius? Or was he working really hard at being a musician from an early age, and thus just very skilled? Would Mozart succeed if we suddenly had to train him to be a Java programmer? Where does the narrow “skill” end and the broader “general intelligence” begin? I would argue skill is measurable and meaningful, but “intelligence” less so
  - akira2501 8y ago
    > but "intelligence" less so I don't think there's any problem measuring intelligence, where we've traditionally run into issues is where we start to make policy or social decisions using this data without understanding it's subtleties. I think Jordan B Peterson has a good classroom video segment[1] on this problem. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSo5v5t4OQM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSo5v5t4OQM
  - SamReidHughes 8y ago
    Mozart was a genius. Ryo Fukui started playing the piano at 22 (accordion at 18), he did alright for himself. Mozart’s dad was a great student and his mother’s father was highly educated too. So my guess is, he’d be able to handle Java. It’s actually easy (in principle) to measure the programming facet of intelligence: CS programs do this with weed-out classes.
nabla9 8y ago
Even more generally: talk in terms of what they do, not what they are. For example: you did something bad vs. you are bad. This applies to adults as well. Talking in terms of what people are gets the ego involved and people resist or become neurotic. Correcting mistakes or behaviour is much easier than identity.
SamReidHughes 8y ago
I'm pretty sure this parenting advice was based on a psychological experiment that failed to replicate.
- hyperpape 8y ago
  You may be right about some particular study, but in general, there is a lot of research around growth mindset, and I have not heard about failures to replicate (though I cannot vouch that they haven't happened): https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/04/08/no-clarity-around-growth-mindset-yet/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/04/08/no-clarity-around-grow....
  - taeric 8y ago
    Just Google "psychology replication crisis". Pretty sure it will hit on a lot of this. Last I heard, which could be outdated, is most of the popular experiments have failed to replicate to a good measure. Odds are, if you just heard of an experiment, it hasn't replicated. Worse, many of the studies were propping each other up. So that when one failed to replicate, it brought the others into question.
  - SamReidHughes 8y ago
    There’s clarity that the original study was way overblown and the effect size is, on average, really small. I don’t know whether this parenting advice was actually borne of that research, but it smells like it. But also, the advice is at worst harmless, if not obvious.
- taeric 8y ago
  It saddens me that that seems to be true for damned near all of psychology. :(
harry8 8y ago
One link about such things if anyone cares to read further. http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/ http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/
jdietrich 8y ago
If you've spent any amount of time in education (or you have any faith in the data), then it is patently obvious that there is indeed a set of "un-smart" kids. We can quibble about how big that group is, but they definitely exist. It's not their fault, they just got a bad set of numbers in the polygenetic lottery or were subjected to environmental stresses that caused lasting damage. Pretending that they're smart is a brutal act of cruelty that only serves to perpetuate inequality. Some people aren't smart. Some people aren't tall. Some people aren't athletic. Some people aren't beautiful. It is incumbent on us to build a society that affords everyone security, respect and opportunity, regardless of whether they're smart or tall or athletic or beautiful. Still not convinced? Imagine a society where we just pretended that there was no such thing as physical disability. Paraplegics are just as capable of walking as anyone else if only they get the right training. We shouldn't give paraplegics wheelchairs, we should lend them $150,000 to spend three years at walking school. The blind don't need canes and dogs, they just need extra seeing practice. How barbaric, how inhumane, how very familiar.
- vixen99 8y ago
  I rather hope you don't teach kids or anyone else, armed as you would likely be with a set of non-evidential assumptions about their mental development including that of drawing a spurious, simplistic and dangerous parallel between physical disability and mental 'disabilities' as you apply it to the non-clinically-referable population.
  - shusson 8y ago
    > a set of non-evidential assumptions about their mental development I think if you look at the best evidence we have (IQ), it does support the general idea that there are a set of "un-smart" kids. But that depends on the definition of smart. If you're a teacher of a subject in which IQ is a predictor then why not treat individuals differently?
  - jdietrich 8y ago
    What would you prefer? That I ignore the overwhelming burden of research on cognitive development? That I pretend that everyone has equal potential for cognitive development, regardless of genetics and environment? That I pretend that we know how to compensate fully for those early disadvantages? No reasonable person would tell a stunted, sickly and uncoordinated teenager that they could make the NFL combine if only they tried hard enough. It would be an act of cruelty to persuade them of that rather than guiding them towards a more realistic ambition. We have to accept the very simple reality that while everyone is born with equal rights and equal value as a human being, not everyone is born with equal potential and there is only so much that we as a society can do to ameliorate those differences. We must encourage everyone to achieve their full potential, but we must also recognise that not everyone has the same potential. We must build a society that is fair, decent and humane in spite of that fact. A great number of non-clinically-referable people have to work extremely hard just to achieve elementary-level literacy and numeracy. Some simply don't have the concentration, memory and cognitive ability required to successfully complete a secondary or post-secondary education. The answer is not to bury our heads in the sand, but to create meaningful opportunities and social support for the millions of people who, through no fault of their own, are currently being shafted by the pointy end of meritocracy. "You can achieve anything you set your mind to" is a hair's breadth away from "if you fail, it's because you didn't try hard enough". That's an unconscionably callous ideology to base an education system or a society upon.
zorga 8y ago
> Being “smart” implies there’s a set of “un-smart” kids that don’t have the same fitness or goodness, and since it’s innate, they’ll always be that way in an ungifted underclass. Which is true. You're against teaching your children the truth?
z3t4 8y ago
This is why I like kids to try sports that use precise measures of performance, where one can compete with oneself. I also think sports and games that encourage teamwork is very important. But by having the performance exactly measured, in most cases "hard work" will pay off. When the kids see the correlation between "hard work" and results, they can apply it to other areas such as studying. Then there are "gifted" children that are very early in their maturity and will excel at everything, and will have a very easy ride until their growth curve flatten out, but will have a very hard time when the others catch up.

whymauri 8y ago

Maybe I'm dumb, but why is "performance fat-tailed"? It was kinda left as an exercise to the reader, but maybe someone has insight. The article got a bit edited, but I'm still not getting it.

amasad 8y ago
In other words it's pareto distribution. Most of the scientific citations goes to the 1% of scientists. Most of the success in business goes to the 1% of companies/entrepreneurs. In Taleb's words: we live in extremistan.
- whymauri 8y ago
  Got it, this was helpful as was the answerer below. Thank you guys!
pps43 8y ago
Taleb is coming from the quant world. A trader can make or lose a lot of money, and that distribution of returns is fat-tailed, as exemplified by 2008 crisis.

barrkel 8y ago

IQ is undoubtedly overemphasized by some factions, especially those with an axe to grind and a dog whistle to blow, if it helps them feel less guilty about their position in the world or otherwise rationalizes injustice. OTOH there's definitely a difference between people, people who aren't mentally defective, people that are quick on the uptake, sharp and alert, who adapt to new mental models. IQ might be an unscientific metric for identifying these people, it might leave some of them unidentified, but they definitely exist. Anyone who's worked with other people, hired other people, had to evaluate other people's capabilities, can be in no doubt about this. It's hard to separate out Taleb's own axe-grinding from anything concrete he's trying to say about what IQ means as an independent concept. He seems more upset at short-sighted application of thought to first-order problems rather than asking higher-order questions about why the problems are problems in the first place, why the questions are being asked. When I've seen a difference between people in this degree, it's more a matter of personality than intelligence: the more detail-oriented, autistic-spectrum someone is, the more they focus only on the details, and miss out on the bigger picture. It takes a little effort to step back, but I think it can be learned. Whereas IQ (or g) doesn't seem to be improved easily with learning.

diminoten 8y ago
At this point I would accept it if someone told me that 100% of what I perceive as "smarts" when interacting with someone is explained by confidence and other learned social behaviors.
- Jedi72 8y ago
  Just to clarify, are you making the claim that everyone has the same mental capacity for thinking/deduction/memory/etc, it's just our perception of that based on various external cues which makes us think these levels exist? Because I would disagree with that statement. Even if I had 50 years of study I would not think on the level of say Terrance Tao.
  - objektif 8y ago
    Think about what? Think about poems with Terrence or music or movies or stochastic calculus?

opportune 8y ago

Also the people with 180+ IQs that make random lists of “smartest people ever” if you look into it, basically have IQ test taking as a hobby and practice for it to improve their IQ (or rather, ability to take IQ tests). Or they took some test like Stanford-Binet that allows child IQs to reach ridiculous levels if the child happens to develop faster than normal (because of the formula of adjusting a child’s IQ to an adult level)

mike00632 8y ago
In other words: "when a measure become a target it ceases to be a measure"

judge2020 8y ago

Related: Adam ruins everything had a segment about IQ in 2017, https://www.trutv.com/shows/adam-ruins-everything/blog/adams-sources/emily-ruins-adam.html https://www.trutv.com/shows/adam-ruins-everything/blog/adams...

dang 8y ago

Two threads about this from last week: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18756946 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18756946 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18755193 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18755193

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mbell 8y ago

The title doesn't seem to match up with the article. The point seems to be that IQ is good at predicting intellectual deficits at the low end but bad at predicting 'success' above that; further it indicates that IQ is mis-used in this range. This doesn't seem to indicate that IQ is 'pseudoscience', just that it's a misused statistic. Not a real shocker there, almost every statistic is misused by some group.

microcolonel 8y ago
Not to mention, the assumption is that if IQ is not useful for predicting success regardless of circumstance (i.e. whether somebody is employed as an astrophysicist or as a sweatshop seamstress), it must be not useful in all cases. The fact that IQ is a useful metric at the low end of the scale is exactly the hint as to why it's not useful when misused at the high end. That is, the difference between being able to return 100% of balls in tennis at, say, one return every 800ms, is not any greater help when your opponent can only return every 1400ms anyhow. In order for a difference of general cognitive ability to be useful, a cognitive task of sufficient complexity over a sufficiently short period of time must be presented.
flocial 8y ago
In a sense this is much scarier than the controversial IQ strongly correlates with genetics argument. Instead of being "pseudoscientific swindle" it becomes a reliable tool to marginalize people on the lower end based on their test results.
Analemma_ 8y ago
Taleb is saying that if IQs above 100 have no predictive power, then what’s the point in measuring them? It would be like taking a BuzzFeed quiz that tells me my Hogwarts house: a real measurement yielding a reproducible result, sure, but a pointless one and any use of it beyond “Huh, that’s interesting” would be pseudoscience.
- geezerjay 8y ago
  > Taleb is saying that if IQs above 100 have no predictive power, then what’s the point in measuring them? The whole point of IQ tests is not to identify or rank people who score above 100. The whole point is to identify those who fall well below 100,because that's actually a disability. Look at it this way: some amusement parks feature amusement rides that are only safe to ride if riders can be kept safe by the safety equipment. One way to ensure safety requirements are met is to admit only people taller than a predefined height. That means that a specific metric (height) is used to pick who is able from those who are not. However, that does not mean taller people are better at riding that specific ride, let alone any attraction. The IQ concept serves the same purpose. Those with a low IQ simply struggle to perform some tasks, but above a fuzzy threshold IQ is a meaningless metric to evaluate or predict success.

gok 8y ago

The title is actually much less extreme than the article. The author basically claims all of psychology is a pseudoscience.

vertline3 8y ago
Well he addressed the replication crisis in earlier writings, which others have noted is a problem as well.

6nf 8y ago

Ugh ok, another 'IQ is worthless but I have no alternative' article. What's the point?

llamaz 8y ago
Do you need an alternative to criticise a measure? The alternative is to place less emphasis on IQ tests and focus on other qualities.
- soufron 8y ago
  And other tests that actually measure something that exists.
  - 6nf 8y ago
    Like what tests?
- 6nf 8y ago
  What ‘other qualities’ should (for example) the US Army test for if not IQ?
  - mike00632 8y ago
    The US Army has numerous tests and almost none of them relate to IQ. There is the DLAB (Defense Language Aptitude Battery) which measures ability to learn languages, and of course there are the famous (and far more important) physical tests which measure running speed, push-ups and sit-ups.
- pokemongoaway 8y ago
  I support OP, but censored without evidence. It is factually true. This article is against IQ as a measure and does not give an alternative, while even admitting that low IQ can be very predictive of problems.

i_feel_great 8y ago

Q. What is an IQ test? A. A test that measures intelligence. Q. What is intelligence? A. The thing measured by an IQ test. Throw this at the next person who mentions IQ to see how intelligent their answer is.

xupybd 8y ago
Intelligence: the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills. I don't think you need to define Intelligence with reference to the IQ metric.
- pps43 8y ago
  Yet IQ test does not measure ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills.
  - justtopost 8y ago
    Thats pattern identification and solving, which is the bulk of what most IQ tests are. So, it kinda does.
    - pps43 8y ago
      IQ tests measure ability to correctly guess what test creators meant. Many of those questions have multiple correct answers, especially the more "complex" ones.
Itsdijital 8y ago
I present to you three small companies. All three provide the same type of service. One has an average worker IQ of 80, the next 100, and the last 120. Which one would you feel most confident in using?
- i_feel_great 8y ago
  The one who does best in a 3 month trial.

zozbot123 8y ago

So, does this mean that when I read some "genius"'s endless tweeting about how he "has one of the best I.Q.'s" while soandso is a "very low I.Q. individual", that doesn't actually mean anything of substance? Color me surprised!

mikemotherwell 8y ago
Nassim Nicholas Taleb is saying that the second part is likely accurate - e.g. low IQ people are accurately assessed - but the former part is off. This graph: https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/0*76fPv686eOXo1b7F.jpg https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/0*76fPv686eOXo1b7F.... shows how he claims IQ scores correlate with outcomes, i.e. as you move away upwards from < 70 IQ, its predictive power plummets. Said simply: stupid is stupid, but we're not totally sure what smart is.
- akhilcacharya 8y ago
  I'm not sure if you got the reference but in case you didn't: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/332308211321425920 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/33230821132142592...
akhilcacharya 8y ago
Thankfully, it's unlikely that someone who spends their day tweeting like that could ever be a position of responsibility.

pcurve 8y ago

Wow. So much hatred in this. Iq is just one of many ways to measure certain aspects of aptitude. No institutions are shortsighted enough to place strong emphasis solely on IQ test. This is why college admissions take other data points into equation because sat and act scores are highly correlated to Iq.

soufron 8y ago
Well, most of his argument is that it measures nothing, at least not more than let's say... astrology. IQ is pseudoscience. And people using it are wrong - whether they place a strong emphasis on it, or only a little one.

waynecochran 8y ago

I have been afraid to take an IQ test for the fear of finding out that I am not very smart. In any case, the current hubbub of folks speaking against IQ tests seems to be more of a idealogical reaction to what IQ tests are telling us. OTOH, this guy seems to be legit. Truth is so hard to find these days.

sifoobar 8y ago
Maybe you're looking in the wrong place? The question on my mind is the following: How is blindly trusting science better than blindly trusting the pope or your local shaman? Wasn't the real issue blind trust, rather than who or what? There's nothing to be afraid of, and no reason to take a stupid test. I had to as part of drafting and I can't see these tests leading anywhere worth going. Maybe ask why being seen as smart is important?
- waynecochran 8y ago
  Most of what any of us believe is trust in some other source. Few things that we believe admit to the scientific method, and even those things that do very few of us reproduce on our own. When is comes to social science, the "science" is pretty weak anyway. Most folks just believe what is popular or what they want to believe. I tend to look for consistency and track record -- most useful tests for truth in practice.
alexashka 8y ago
I remember having similar feelings. In hindsight, I was right, and also, it's made very little difference once I got out into the real world. The number of people who use their brains for more than getting a better paycheque is small, shockingly so. If you look up the people who've made all the popular javascript libraries of the past decade as one small example - you'll see that none of them are geniuses. They just had an itch that needed scratching. If you have that much, you're way ahead of the game, don't worry about the rest.

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ineedasername 8y ago

It seems like the author is setting up a straw man representing the IQ test as some omnipresent (or at least somewhat prevalent) test administered widely. He then lambastes it for all its faults (some of his accusations are correct). But the reality is that IQ tests are only very, very rarely used. In fact a career on the periphery of academia, academic testing, and their efficacy in predicting academic success at the University level, I have never, not once, not from any colleague or at any conference encountered mention of an IQ test as something to be considered for practical use. I have a lesser degree of familiarity with grade school/high school testing methods, but (in the US) I am similarly unaware of any common practice here.

JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> the author is setting up a straw man As a former options trader, this is Taleb in a nutshell. He builds and attacks straw men for popular consumption. (The one time he tried running a hedge fund, it failed ruinously.)
- fujimotos 8y ago
  > The one time he tried running a hedge fund, it failed ruinously. Source? Taleb AFAIK does not publish his track record in a verifiable manner, so we're left to wondering if his bragging about himself really matches his record.
maroonblazer 8y ago
Aren't most standardized tests - SAT, ACT, GRE, etc - essentially IQ tests? We don't call them that, but they're testing cognitive ability nonetheless.
- ineedasername 8y ago
  No, these are some of the tests I work with. Pop culture turned them into a proxy for IQ or Inteligence etc. They're not. The SAT for example is highly targeted towards one specific goal: predicting level of success academically in the first year of college, and only the first year. They make no other primary research claims about the utility of how the test results should be used, and in dealing with them they are very up front about the importance of a good all around picture of a student including HS GPA, rigor of courses taken, etc., along with SAT as one of multiple metrics. I repeat, it is pop culture that has distorted these tests beyond all reasonable correspondence to their actual intent.

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api 8y ago

Interesting... for some reason I thought Taleb was a darling of the alt-right and the biological determinists (but not necessarily that the feeling was mutual).

xupybd 8y ago

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?

gweinberg 8y ago
There's no contradiction between "IQ is largely bullshit, especially at the high ends" and "IQ is the most well proven concept in the social sciences".
- xupybd 8y ago
  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.
  - flatfilefan 8y ago
    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.
    - toasterlovin 8y ago
      There is no reproducibility crisis with IQ research.
wutbrodo 8y ago
Taleb is barely this side of being a troll: he has plenty of interesting tidbits to say and is obviously a smart guy, but read enough of his stuff and he's clearly more focused on generating heat instead of light. If you read through the article, he's not quite making the claim that one might assume from the headline: which is basically that IQ isn't much of a useful or well-defined metric.

jdietrich 8y ago

Frankly, I'm incredibly disappointed in Taleb's recent writing. This article is one of many where the actual point being made is buried beneath unnecessary and divisive ad-hominem attacks. Does the caption "Mensa members: typically high “IQ” losers in Birkenstocks." usefully contribute to a serious, scholarly conversation on IQ? Is it reasonable or fair-minded to immediately tar opponents to your argument as racists, eugenicists and "psychometry peddlers looking for suckers"? I am uninterested in engaging with the substance of Taleb's arguments here, because the style is so needlessly vicious. I won't be buying Taleb's next book, because I don't want to endorse this kind of debasement of the public dialogue.

JamesBarney 8y ago
The substance isn't much better than the style. He makes substantial claims like IQ is not predictive of performance above 100 which in and of itself could be a whole article. And then just assumes the reader will take his word for it, even though there is a mountain of evidence to the contrary.
- harry8 8y ago
  >mountain of evidence to the contrary. [citation needed]
  - torstenvl 8y ago
    https://www.lsac.org/lsat https://www.lsac.org/lsat
  - JamesBarney 8y ago
    Here's 10. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient#Social_correlations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient#Social_c...
- baccheion 8y ago
  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).

pps43 8y ago

What a mess. Tweetstorm was easier to follow.

nabla9 8y ago

>If you want to detect how someone fares at a task, say loan sharking, tennis playing, or random matrix theory, make him/her do that task; we don’t need theoretical exams for a real world function by probability-challenged psychologists. If you want to measure skill and experience, that's good advice. When you want to measure the ability to solve problems where the individual or nobody has skill or experience yet, you have to measure something like intelligence.

kokokokoko 8y ago
And anecdotely, IQ style testing has been by far the most determinant data point for successful software developer hires in my experience. I'm almost at the point where I might start to believe it is more important than domain knowledge of programming. This is likely because the type of work I typically hire for has a large amount of problem solving and troubleshooting as opposed higher level system design. Which is essentially what IQ tests test for. The world "intelligence" is just a very loaded word and means different things to different people. IQ tests show how well a person can solve puzzles and make connections between systems. Which many consider to be a sign of intelligence. But not everyone.
- pl1234 8y ago
  Agreed. I think the current interviewing system should be replaced with an IQ test + some more standardized domain specific knowledge tests. The pseudoscientific programming contest style interviews used by Google and others are highly inconsistent and filled with false negatives + false positives.

projektir 8y ago

Well, I was rather interested in this article at first, as I think IQ is highly questionable and we give it waaaaay too much credit, but this mostly seems to be an article wanting to bash people with focused thinking patterns (perhaps autistic people), or "nerds", or other groups of people that fail to conform. While calling them wage slaves. It's curious how they managed to conflate both Mensa members and the military in attitudes. Would be nice if we could call these various things into question without stooping to something as low as modern Western (who am I kidding, American) conceptions of "succeeding" in life.

vivekd 8y ago

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#Reliability_and_validity 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 anecdotal tidbits suggesting a causation correlation fallacy between academic performance and IQ.

geezerjay 8y ago
> 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 That statement doesn't contradict or refute the original assertion. In fact, the original assertion was that the IQ concept is effective at identifying those who fall in the lower spectrum of intelligence. However, IQ fails as an indicator of higher intelligence because it fails to correctly identify who is more gifted among their peers. The basketball example used often in this discussion is very good at illustrating the difference. Just because some individuals feature higher in a specific ranking (i.e., height) that doesn't mean they are or will be better basketball players.
- feanaro 8y ago
  > However, IQ fails as an indicator of higher intelligence because it fails to correctly identify who is more gifted among their peers. Regardless of whether this is true, it still fairly reliably predicts the fact that they are gifted. Conversely, IQ tests aren't precise enough to predict who is less gifted among a set of peers on the lower end either (for small enough score differences).
fsloth 8y ago
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.

tidwall 8y ago

True story

Madmallard 8y ago

I have given dozens of ravens-progressive-matrices variant tests to friends of mine of various intellects and the results are basically never surprising. I guess it's bullshit though. Third world country girl who struggled trying to learn computer science and gave up and became an accountant? 95 Kind of slow guy that can't do any algebra in his head, bronze 1 at league of legends? 98 Genius guy that is master tier in league of legends and constantly outwits everyone in banter? 143 Asperger sharp awkward guy that is astonishingly good at math - diamond 3 league of legends? 133 Me: I think I'm an idiot sometimes and smart other times. Platinum 1 at league of legends? 122 My older brother (1): Obviously smarter than me but not by that much seemingly, and definitely a lot physically healthier than I am: 130 My oldest brother (2): National bridge champion and obviously very intelligent, masters in math, been an alcoholic for 5 years and got noticeably less sharp overtime: 135 Another guy who was challenger tier at league of legends and also obviously very intelligent in conversation? 138 Smart younger guy that is kind of whacky and out there, diamond 3 at league of legends: 120 (deviates from the norm here but still lends evidence to the correlation) Extremely competent native american guy that is 2000 ELO in Chess and was diamond 2/3 in league of legends? 120 (while high though, and same caveat as the above example as the other example just above) hMmmMmmmMmMMMMMM I guess it is just confirmation bias. I found it interesting how well it correlated with rank in league of legends. There are about 5-6 other samples I just don't recall the specifics anymore.

foolrush 8y ago

Missing a bit of sociological historicizing here. IQ and SATs were essentially designed to keep undesirables, notably Jewish, people out of academic circles. Eugenics and these tests marched hand in hand. > Armed with this so-called objective methodology, 3 American eugenicists advanced a straw-man rationale for large-scale testing.14 They reasoned that society needed to identify, segregate, and sterilize the "feeble-minded,"' 5 initially defined as those with mental disabili- ties' 6 but later extended to include any "unfit" person of low intelli- gence, character, or ethnicity.17 In both Germany and the United States, persecution of the "feebleminded"'18 hastened a broader eu- genic campaign against immigration, miscegenation, and other pro- fessed threats to Nordic ascendancy.1 9 https://via.library.depaul.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.ca/&httpsredir=1&article=1270&context=law-review https://via.library.depaul.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=h... https://www.businessinsider.com/the-ivy-leagues-history-of-discriminating-against-jews-2014-12 https://www.businessinsider.com/the-ivy-leagues-history-of-d... https://twitter.com/ft_variations/status/1075782671320657920?s=21 https://twitter.com/ft_variations/status/1075782671320657920...

username90 8y ago

> it explains at best between 13% and 50% of the performance in some tasks, minus the data massaging and statistical cherrypicking by psychologists; it doesn’t satisfy the monotonicity and transitivity required to have a measure. No measure that fails 60–95% of the time should be part of “science”. Where did he get "fails 60-95% of the time" from? To me it looks like he either doesn't understand statistics or he is pulling numbers out of the air.

mbfg 8y ago

Given the general snarkyness of the author towards 'intellectuals' in his words, i tend to write off his opinions whether there is validity or not. I'm quite sure there are problems with IQ tests. I'm also sure that they have value much beyond what is promoted here.

lota-putty 8y ago

Yes, IQ is as much overrated as formal education. Tests, only measure the state of mind during(tests); not the capability in the past or future.

Animats 8y ago

Taleb's output is getting weird. See "G factor"[1]. There's a strong correlation between various metrics of "types of intelligence". [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_factor_(psychometrics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_factor_(psychometrics)

throwaway324232 8y ago

It seems a lot are coming to the defense of IQ tests so I thought I'd throw in my perspective having taken these tests 6 times over the years (WAIS and Raven's) for my diagnosis of ADHD (these tests cost thousands of dollars and are usually reviewed by psychologists). An IQ score itself is an average of subtest scores that measure various abilities related to intelligence. So you could have some really high scores for certain abilities (e.g. executive functioning - ability to plan ahead) and some really low scores (e.g. spatial reasoning - understanding three dimensional space) and come out as average. Or you could have a really low score in a certain ability while having average scores in others and come out as below average. Additionally, some test scores can change based on whether they're timed or not. So you could have certain abilities that are above average, but when timed, come out as average or below. Notably, IQ tests DO NOT test for creativity nor emotional intelligence. The problem with judging others by their IQ score is that you throw away their strengths by looking at a single score. Some of my abilities are above average and that could be useful to society. I certainly think creativity, emotional intelligence and other abilities IQ tests neglect are relevant to society as well. For me, my IQ has ranged anywhere from 87 to 117 and this may be due to ADHD. The instability of the score doesn't give me much faith in its usefulness, nor has my intelligence seemed to affect my career as a software engineer (I've had plenty of success in my decade long career). It has however reliably demonstrated I have ADHD for schools and health insurance purposes, and that's really its primary usefulness.

BuckRogers 8y ago

No one on HN has mentioned my takeaway on the IQ subject that I've held for many years now. Upon learning more information over the years since, it has only solidified my view. On his analysis, he has a nice argument but he's outright wrong about some of it. They're discovering more everyday about how advanced 'tribal Europe' really was. From the Vikings having more advanced societies than initially thought, back to the Celts when the Romans actually started to fear the Gauls and decided to stop their advances before they became so organized they also had centralized government. The planning ahead required for survival in northern Europe alone greatly increases the chance of evolving a higher minimum IQ vs more congenial conditions where little to no planning is required. Sometimes truth is inconvenient. I would defend IQ. It's real, and it does matter. What I would say is that in my years, I've learned that it is definitely not the most important attribute. It may not even be the second most important attribute. A cooperative nature is more important than IQ. What use is a highly intelligent person who won't cooperate with others or interact? Einstein without the willingness to collaborate with society overall is useless. Maybe even a nightmare if he's beyond uncooperative and a malevolent genius. A very uncooperative stupid person could potentially be a big problem too. If I'm ever picking people to be on my team for a zombie apocalypse, or even just managing a modern society today, I'll take someone with a cooperative nature and little regard for their IQ. In sum, I would agree with Taleb that IQ can potentially be a swindle, but wouldn't agree with the basis of his argument. IQ is an objective measurement of intelligence, but you don't really need to reach so hard as he did to disqualify the importance of IQ. It's obvious as to why it's secondary to other factors.

caravaggio1 8y ago

I love NNT, but he could use https://www.grammarly.com/ https://www.grammarly.com/

silvat1 8y ago

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.

harekaze 8y ago

(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 https://www.mdpi.com/2079-3200/2/1/12 EDIT: grammar

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scriptproof 8y ago

I guess the author of this paper has a low IQ. And he probably measure his own intelligence by the level of noise he produces. IQ is the measure of a potential, actually and it correlates with brillant minds when they really use it.

bryanrasmussen 8y ago

anecdote time: Once I was taking IQ tests with a group of other people, one guy in that group I knew was just really an idiot. This guy really did seem to be stupider than me in every conceivable measure. There was just no possible human endeavor that I did not feel confident in beating him and this is a pretty rare thing to notice in people for me, I can think of 4-5 people in my life I've thought this of (discounting people suffering from obvious disabilities) Anyway we took the IQ tests, he came back when he got his result, extremely happy and announced 'I got a 100! I had no idea it was that high!'

Janeman544 8y ago

I have a lot of respect for Taleb but I think he always overstates any conclusion. There is no doubt that IQ does not capture a hell lot of things. There is no doubt that many people will succeed in life despite flunking at IQ tests (Feynman scored mere 126 in mensa test). The question is does IQ gives you some idea about the person's behavior in real life or not ? I think it is indisputably yes.

mgamache 8y ago

This post reads like a polemic and not something to be digested as science (note calling it a 'pseudoscientific swindle' and the ad hominem attack on Murray at the start). There seems to be a bi-modal reaction to the IQ measurement problem. It's either a real meaningful and effective measure of intellectual capacity. Or, people try and discredit the whole idea and label anyone that explores it a racist or otherwise posses a shallow understanding of the science. The real problem is that it has some validity so it can be used to argue for and against all sorts of things that are really not justified by the science. However, if we ignore IQ as a valid research subject and line of inquiry we'll be doing ourselves a disservice. We need to follow that thread even if we don't like where it leads.

feanaro 8y ago
This is really well put together and I think you hit the crux of the problem. Regarding Taleb's post, I've heard a hard time reading it because it is so over the place and seems to contain many parts which aren't related to the topic at hand but simply appeal to emotion. As an example, I fail how this has anything to do with the IQ being a useful measure: > To do well in life you need depth and ability to select your own problems and to think independently. He constructs an argument that IQ doesn't predict anything related to the "real" life and "real" problems. Furthermore, he claims IQ scores are only correlated with the lower end of intelligence. He says > It measures best the ability to be a good slave. But then he supplies a figure where training success is but one of the things showing a correlation with IQ, with others including job performance, creativity and leader effectiveness, with decreasing degree of correlation. In fact, the figure shows the higher the complexity of the job, the more success at it is correlated with IQ (a moderate but certainly significant correlation of about 0.5). I think he means to manipulate the reader's emotion here by equating high IQ = being a good sheep. But how does this figure show anything but the exact opposite of his argument?
Traster 8y ago
I completely agree with you about the unproductive nature of this article, and the fact that there are two lines of extremists both pro and anti and it has absolutely become part of the identity politics of the right (and reactionary left). However, there's some real discussion on the effectiveness of IQ as a measure and its shortcomings. Vox is a great example of this, they published some highly critical articles after Sam Harris had Murray on his podcast. They point to good specific points which are problematic with IQ - particular when IQ is used as an argument for particular policies rather than information. Unfortunately even when there are specific points raised and proper meat to the discussion it still devolves into vitriolic shit flinging. Really the lesson to learn from this is how political tribalism can work to totally destroy the ability of society to have an honest discussion on a topic.

austincheney 8y ago

IQ is largely poorly understood. When measured as a number it is a convergent assignment, which is everybody is measured against a central assessing scheme that doesn't realistically reflect capabilities, competency, or potential. More valid are divergent tests that measure creativity, response quantity, originality, and problem solving. In other words how unique can the answers get and still be applicable.

black-tea 8y ago

People want IQ to be wrong. People like the idea of someone who did bad at school but is still a successful and productive person. Such people surely exist, but successful people overwhelmingly do well at school and have natural aptitude. You can deny it all you like, though.

tim333 8y ago

The 'original tweetstorm' that led to the article: https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1076845397795065856 https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1076845397795065856

kamalkishor1991 8y ago

Is IQ data available in a nice CSV file for us to analyze? I would like to see a nice Jupiter notebook with plots and should be able to play around with the data.

talebreturns 8y ago

I am very confused. On one hand people give some credit to IQ yet fail to acknowledge it's not Europeans or American who have highest IQ but the East/Central Asians. But people from Askenazi Jewish tribe posses even higher IQ. No one really knows why high IQ originates in that region or specific tribe. But it's them who made their way to America before Europeans. Genetic research has proved that the native Americans are genetically Central Asians. It's safe to assume IQ = superior ability to adapt to your environmental not intelligence. It helped you survive genocide targeted at you orchestrated by one of most powerful regime of the time. It helps you survive in the most difficult and diverse terrain. It helps you walk through the frozen land into completely different climate and terrain, still manage to surive. IQ is everything which helps you survive in your environment but it doesn't mean that high IQ people are capable of empathising with the large set of population with average IQ. Should these people whoes primary instinct is to surive at any cost themselves be given chance to thinks for others? No we don't think so. So we shouldn't have high IQ people at top, we should actively select against them. In modern word as you go farther from the mean, the benefit of IQ decreases till ofc we are hit by an apoclyspe you'll not be able to see what high IQ is capable of.

just_one_time_ 8y ago

This fucking guy is a pseudoscientific swindle.

blablabla123 8y ago

> Mensa members: typically high “IQ” losers in Birkenstocks. Nice article. IQ is actually the best measure yet found to see how well people can succeed in life. There used to be some craze about EQ, but that is actually pseudo-scientific stuff invented and monetized by book authors. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14940184 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14940184

aptwebapps 8y ago
Yeah, I'm hope I'm not missing out, but the beginning of the article was too aggressive for me to bother with the rest.
- blablabla123 8y ago
  Same, I just skimmed. Quite sad that people still do this kind of thinking and talking and that it gets rated so high here. I thought that's what people cared about last year, that people deserve equal treatment, no matter what the background is.

vertline3 8y ago

Those birkenstocks look pretty comfortable. Plus maybe they last longer. I suppose they aren't "sexy" , but I suspect the guys have conceded that. I won't knock it until I try it, which is never.

kazinator 8y ago

The thing is, that people who have high IQ can answer the test questions with ease. They don't have to "muster sterile motivation." That's the perspective of someone daunted by the testing, and thus of lower IQ. "Anything too hard for me requires lifeless academics capable of sterile motivation, and anything easier is for idiots. I'm sitting precisely at the perfect intelligence level myself; neither idiot, nor starchy, impractical academic!" > "When someone asks you a question in the real world, you focus first on “why is he/she asking me that?" In this case, why is this blog writer asking me to believe that the IQ has low value? The "no brainer" hypothesis is that he tried and didn't score very well.

arisAlexis 8y ago

If intelligence exists then there can be some measure of it. Maybe current tests are not very good but that doesn't justify all the arguments in the article.

lwindyb 8y ago

If I wanted to read someone citing random papers, splooging, then trying to impress me with a hypercube I'd read the onion.

kc1116 8y ago

Wow lots of people really wrapped up in this whole IQ thing lol. It’s literally a joke, only reason it’s so prevalent these days are because of the racist white supremacist and pseudosciencentist “philosophers” raking in the Youtube money. Can someone point to actual real research where someone literally went around the world and gave IQ test to groups of people ? Also were these test in the people’s native language, how were they chosen etc. I have a hunch (not a biologist or anything like that) that common sense would say if you take any group of people that come from similar environments and administer IQ test the scores would be similar no matter the race, height, sex, etc. (I.e: take middle class college students from different groups and compare. Then take groups of people from poverty stricken backgrounds and compare) Does anyone disagree ? And why?