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I’m pretty unconvinced by this, the author makes a number of leaps that lost me. For instance, at the end of the article, the author says that Taleb’s claim tha

I’m pretty unconvinced by this, the author makes a number of leaps that lost me. For instance, at the end of the article, the author says that Taleb’s claim that IQ only measures unintlelligence well isn’t true because at higher IQ, income continues to increase. This could be easily explained by numerous other third factors, like (hypothetically) IQ being a test for WASP culture and knowing WASP culture being correlated with better job opportunities.

liability 7y ago
> "like (hypothetically) IQ being a test for WASP culture and knowing WASP culture being correlated with better job opportunities." These sort of arguments always ring hollow for me, because I am not a WASP and the test I took didn't resemble a WASP-culture test in the slightest. The test I took was all "given this series of abstract geometric patterns, which comes next," not, "During which season is the weather at Martha's Vineyard the most temperate" Maybe wrapping your mind around abstract geometry is something WASPs are good at and, say, people from the Islamic world suck at, but I really really doubt that considering the relatively elevated roll geometric patterns have in Islamic culture compared to WASP culture. Of course I am neither a Muslim nor a WASP, but even so I am pretty sure I didn't struggle too hard on that test.
- mattnewton 7y ago
  That’s what the “hypothetically” was for- it was meant as an illustration that there could easily be a third effect loosely correlated with both. For this to dispute Taleb’s claim, you have to think that income is also correlated with intelligence and not more strongly correlated with other things that IQ could be measuring. That example probably popped into my head first, because of the long controversy around IQ tests cultural effects and the history of using those tests to make arguments that race determines intelligence
  - liability 7y ago
    Oh, I don't claim to refute Taleb's claim because reading too much of what Taleb writes makes my head spin in a rather uncomfortable manner, and it would be unfair of me to try refuting Taleb's claims without first coolly considering them. Maybe my IQ is low after all, or maybe I just have a low tolerance for self promotion... either way, my intention is only to speak about my personal experience, which is that the IQ test I happened to take did not seem culturally biased, except perhaps to some woodsman who's never seen a straight line before (but even then I'm skeptical.)
Consultant32452 7y ago
There's a lot of ways to eliminate cultural bias in IQ testing. For example, you can just take a set of people that are not WASPs. You will find their relative outcomes still correlate strongly with IQ relative to their peers in the non-WASP culture. Even if you feel that Psychologists have failed to do so, you still have to explain why East Asians and Ashkenazi Jews consistently outperform WASPs.
reasonaway 7y ago
IQ predicts more than just income. It has incremental value for predicting scientific publications, academic achievement, patents etc even within the top percentile. http://adamlgreen.com/smpy/ http://adamlgreen.com/smpy/ there is also no evidence of strong cultural bias of the sort you are speculating about.

liability 7y ago

> "like (hypothetically) IQ being a test for WASP culture and knowing WASP culture being correlated with better job opportunities." These sort of arguments always ring hollow for me, because I am not a WASP and the test I took didn't resemble a WASP-culture test in the slightest. The test I took was all "given this series of abstract geometric patterns, which comes next," not, "During which season is the weather at Martha's Vineyard the most temperate" Maybe wrapping your mind around abstract geometry is something WASPs are good at and, say, people from the Islamic world suck at, but I really really doubt that considering the relatively elevated roll geometric patterns have in Islamic culture compared to WASP culture. Of course I am neither a Muslim nor a WASP, but even so I am pretty sure I didn't struggle too hard on that test.

mattnewton 7y ago
That’s what the “hypothetically” was for- it was meant as an illustration that there could easily be a third effect loosely correlated with both. For this to dispute Taleb’s claim, you have to think that income is also correlated with intelligence and not more strongly correlated with other things that IQ could be measuring. That example probably popped into my head first, because of the long controversy around IQ tests cultural effects and the history of using those tests to make arguments that race determines intelligence
- liability 7y ago
  Oh, I don't claim to refute Taleb's claim because reading too much of what Taleb writes makes my head spin in a rather uncomfortable manner, and it would be unfair of me to try refuting Taleb's claims without first coolly considering them. Maybe my IQ is low after all, or maybe I just have a low tolerance for self promotion... either way, my intention is only to speak about my personal experience, which is that the IQ test I happened to take did not seem culturally biased, except perhaps to some woodsman who's never seen a straight line before (but even then I'm skeptical.)

Consultant32452 7y ago

There's a lot of ways to eliminate cultural bias in IQ testing. For example, you can just take a set of people that are not WASPs. You will find their relative outcomes still correlate strongly with IQ relative to their peers in the non-WASP culture. Even if you feel that Psychologists have failed to do so, you still have to explain why East Asians and Ashkenazi Jews consistently outperform WASPs.

reasonaway 7y ago

IQ predicts more than just income. It has incremental value for predicting scientific publications, academic achievement, patents etc even within the top percentile. http://adamlgreen.com/smpy/ http://adamlgreen.com/smpy/ there is also no evidence of strong cultural bias of the sort you are speculating about.