8 ms·

This article is full of very explicit racism.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
castlecrasher2 7y ago
I fail to see how it's filled with racism. If you're referring to the theory that it's immigrants and poor people reproducing more, you must not have read the next paragraph before you got angry about it: >One potential explanation was quasi-eugenic. As in the movie “Idiocracy,” it was suggested that average intelligence is being pulled down because lower-IQ families are having more children ("dysgenic fertility" is the technical term). Alternatively, widening immigration might be bringing less-intelligent newcomers to societies with otherwise higher IQs. >However, a 2018 study of Norway has punctured these theories by showing that IQs are dropping not just across societies but within families. The article (and study) make it clear that IQs are dropping from parent to child, even.
foolrush 7y ago
You aren’t wrong, and yet you get downvoted. SAT tests are rooted in eugenics theory. IQ testing, despite the original developer warning of incorrect application, was weaponized in that direction. Yet here you find yourself getting voted down. 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://owlcation.com/social-sciences/Intelligence-Testing-and-the-Beginning-of-Eugenics https://owlcation.com/social-sciences/Intelligence-Testing-a... https://www.apa.org/monitor/2009/01/assessment https://www.apa.org/monitor/2009/01/assessment
- fromthestart 7y ago
  So, hypothetically, if objective measures of intelligence show correlations with ethnicity, we should just ignore them because they're inconvenient? Isn't that a little irrational? How can you make any use of intelligence measures if you cherry pick according to your preconcieved notions of what you want them to show? What then is the point in practicing any sort of psychology or sociology at all, if your conclusions are so unscientific?
  - cameronbrown 7y ago
    We don't even know if ethnicity and IQ are the common factors here. I have a hunch is it's far more weighted on culture than genetics but I don't have any evidence to back that up.
    - vixen99 7y ago
      Tend to agree and here's some telling evidence. https://youtu.be/SzHd5bmEdU4 https://youtu.be/SzHd5bmEdU4
  - foolrush 7y ago
    Read the research. Read the links. Study sociology. When you invent a metric and model, you imbue it with bias. “Objective” is something that has been up for debate since the dawn of epistemology. It hasn’t been solved yet. It’s also worth understanding the Demarcation Problem.
  - raxxorrax 7y ago
    The danger many people see is that some might start to value human life by intelligence. Ironically, that would be pretty dumb. But still a danger and probably the core of the antipathy towards a closer look at data about intelligence.
  - Nasrudith 7y ago
    Well because it confuses causation and correlation in addition to being a fertile ground for confirmation bias. Not to mention the rich history of "last time". Even if group X is lower it telks you nothing about Y and allows the jump to justification for travesties like eugenics if it is "clearly their genes", wiping out culture and engaging in mass child theft "if it is their culture" and whatever other sick and twisted rationalizations occur. Except oops - it was comparing subsistence farmers in a disease ridden area to vaccinated and well fed and educated upper middle class! Or the tests are based upon preconceived notions themselves and they did worse because the "neutral" puzzles assumed left to right as associated with temporal flow.
    - 7y ago
- clord 7y ago
  Lots of things are “rooted” in dark places. Rocket technology developed in wartime Germany. Some pesticides came out of gas chambers. Agent orange is a herbicide now. Should we throw out everything developed by someone who holds a bad idea by today’s standards?
  - notahacker 7y ago
    I have yet to be convinced that comparisons of IQ between cohorts have as much practical utility as rockets or pesticides (on the contrary, the sole utility of intergenerational comparisons of IQ tests seems to be in highlighting the limitations of IQ as an objective measure of intellectual capacity...)
thrower123 7y ago
Where? The one sentence mentioning immigration? It seems to me that the article goes over and above to try to attribute this change to environmental factors.
geggam 7y ago
How is measuring something racist ?
- foolrush 7y ago
  Historicize. Medicalization.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

I fail to see how it's filled with racism. If you're referring to the theory that it's immigrants and poor people reproducing more, you must not have read the next paragraph before you got angry about it: >One potential explanation was quasi-eugenic. As in the movie “Idiocracy,” it was suggested that average intelligence is being pulled down because lower-IQ families are having more children ("dysgenic fertility" is the technical term). Alternatively, widening immigration might be bringing less-intelligent newcomers to societies with otherwise higher IQs. >However, a 2018 study of Norway has punctured these theories by showing that IQs are dropping not just across societies but within families. The article (and study) make it clear that IQs are dropping from parent to child, even.

foolrush 7y ago

You aren’t wrong, and yet you get downvoted. SAT tests are rooted in eugenics theory. IQ testing, despite the original developer warning of incorrect application, was weaponized in that direction. Yet here you find yourself getting voted down. 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://owlcation.com/social-sciences/Intelligence-Testing-and-the-Beginning-of-Eugenics https://owlcation.com/social-sciences/Intelligence-Testing-a... https://www.apa.org/monitor/2009/01/assessment https://www.apa.org/monitor/2009/01/assessment

fromthestart 7y ago
So, hypothetically, if objective measures of intelligence show correlations with ethnicity, we should just ignore them because they're inconvenient? Isn't that a little irrational? How can you make any use of intelligence measures if you cherry pick according to your preconcieved notions of what you want them to show? What then is the point in practicing any sort of psychology or sociology at all, if your conclusions are so unscientific?
- cameronbrown 7y ago
  We don't even know if ethnicity and IQ are the common factors here. I have a hunch is it's far more weighted on culture than genetics but I don't have any evidence to back that up.
  - vixen99 7y ago
    Tend to agree and here's some telling evidence. https://youtu.be/SzHd5bmEdU4 https://youtu.be/SzHd5bmEdU4
- foolrush 7y ago
  Read the research. Read the links. Study sociology. When you invent a metric and model, you imbue it with bias. “Objective” is something that has been up for debate since the dawn of epistemology. It hasn’t been solved yet. It’s also worth understanding the Demarcation Problem.
- raxxorrax 7y ago
  The danger many people see is that some might start to value human life by intelligence. Ironically, that would be pretty dumb. But still a danger and probably the core of the antipathy towards a closer look at data about intelligence.
- Nasrudith 7y ago
  Well because it confuses causation and correlation in addition to being a fertile ground for confirmation bias. Not to mention the rich history of "last time". Even if group X is lower it telks you nothing about Y and allows the jump to justification for travesties like eugenics if it is "clearly their genes", wiping out culture and engaging in mass child theft "if it is their culture" and whatever other sick and twisted rationalizations occur. Except oops - it was comparing subsistence farmers in a disease ridden area to vaccinated and well fed and educated upper middle class! Or the tests are based upon preconceived notions themselves and they did worse because the "neutral" puzzles assumed left to right as associated with temporal flow.
  - 7y ago
clord 7y ago
Lots of things are “rooted” in dark places. Rocket technology developed in wartime Germany. Some pesticides came out of gas chambers. Agent orange is a herbicide now. Should we throw out everything developed by someone who holds a bad idea by today’s standards?
- notahacker 7y ago
  I have yet to be convinced that comparisons of IQ between cohorts have as much practical utility as rockets or pesticides (on the contrary, the sole utility of intergenerational comparisons of IQ tests seems to be in highlighting the limitations of IQ as an objective measure of intellectual capacity...)

thrower123 7y ago

Where? The one sentence mentioning immigration? It seems to me that the article goes over and above to try to attribute this change to environmental factors.

geggam 7y ago

How is measuring something racist ?

foolrush 7y ago
Historicize. Medicalization.