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This does not address the substance of Taleb's arguments. Read Taleb's original article: https://medium.com/incerto/iq-is-largely-a-pseudoscientific-swindle-f1

This does not address the substance of Taleb's arguments. Read Taleb's original article: https://medium.com/incerto/iq-is-largely-a-pseudoscientific-swindle-f131c101ba39 https://medium.com/incerto/iq-is-largely-a-pseudoscientific-... He's showing us that psychologists' statistical methods are faulty, that IQ advocates don't understand the underlying mathematics and blindly plug things into R. Lo and behold, in rebuttal, psychologists try to prove Taleb wrong by plugging more things into R.

Radle 7y ago
Doesn't mean the psychologists are wrong.
- tompccs 7y ago
  Well, IQ is their measure. They should be able to defend it properly. And frankly, if there is any doubt that IQ maps to intelligence, then its abuse over the last half-century has done immesurable harm to individuals and given considerable fuel to racists.
  - horsawlarway 7y ago
    An IQ test is a tool. Just like any other tool the way you use it matters. IQ tests turned out to be pretty useful when investigating the effects of Lead in paint/gas/industry/other. See Herbert Needleman's research from the early 80's. The test itself isn't really good or bad (bearing in mind most modern iq tests are heavily scrutinized for bias in race/class/income/location/etc) it's just a tool.
    - concinds 7y ago
      > IQ tests turned out to be pretty useful when investigating the effects of Lead in paint/gas/industry/other. See Herbert Needleman's research from the early 80's. Taleb argues precisely that IQ is only a good measure of unintelligence, not intelligence, and that this prevent IQ from being meaningful. He showed that if you IQ test 10K people, 2K are dead (0 IQ) and then test their performance on something, you'll still end up with correlations that'll get you published in prestigious journals, and peddle nonsense conclusions. https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1115193783145123840 https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1115193783145123840 (the point being that in that scenario, 0 IQ perfectly correlated with 0 performance, can make the population correlation look significant even when "alive" IQ is completely uncorrelated with performance, which, in that example, it is)
      - fvdessen 7y ago
        The problem with Taleb's argument is that, as the linked article shows, IQ tests are as good measure of intelligence as of unintelligence. There is no inflection point after which IQ stops correlating with wealth. The slope is constant across all scales. Taleb's argumentation relies on fictional scenarios whose conclusion do not match what he would have gotten looking at raw data instead.
        martin_bech 7y ago
        Thats also what I got from it. It would be very wierd if IQ correlated very well below the median, and then just stoped..
        papln 7y ago
        It's not weird at all. Caloric intake in children correlates to height very well below the median(+), and then it stops. You can't grow arbitarily tall by eating more food, but if you underfeed a child enough, it will end up shorter than its more-fed siblings. In case you need some justificaiton for this intuitive claim, here's some tangential data: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-much-of-human-height/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-much-of-human... " In contrast, in developing countries, nutrition deficits lead to a lower heritability. The fact that the mean height of the U.S. population has almost plateaued in the past decade suggests that the nutrient environment has almost maximized the genetic potential of height, at least in this country. Improved nutrition elsewhere may have similar benefits in terms of stature." (+) I use median here to mean some unspeicified percentile, as you did.
        concinds 7y ago
        No, it wouldn't. I can hit you on the head with a hammer, and you'll function poorly in every conceivable performance test (low dimensionality), but success is high-dimensional. Here is a good explanation: https://twitter.com/sean_a_mcclure/status/1155487369019232259 https://twitter.com/sean_a_mcclure/status/115548736901923225...
        runarberg 7y ago
- dingoegret 7y ago
  It does
- moomin 7y ago
  Yeah, a bust clock is right twice a day. Maybe that's one of those times.
- cljs-js-eval 7y ago
  No, but these [1][2][3] sure do: [1]: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1745691615609918 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/17456916156099... [2]: https://osf.io/ezcuj/wiki/home/ https://osf.io/ezcuj/wiki/home/ [3]: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/349/6251/aac4716.full?ijkey=1xgFoCnpLswpk&keytype=ref&siteid=sci https://science.sciencemag.org/content/349/6251/aac4716.full... You should have very little confidence in the predictive power of most psychology findings since the founding of the field.
  - nshepperd 7y ago
    Those papers have nothing to do with IQ.
    - cljs-js-eval 7y ago
      They have everything to do with showing that the primary field that makes use of IQ, psychology, is unreliable. If someone says that IQ is unreliable, they're likely right just given the track record of that field.
devoply 7y ago
Talebs' main beef is that the system selects for drones that serve the system and can think on its terms and the question is obviously why would it not do that. All systems protect their own integrity and obviously the IQ test would further serve to protect the power structure of the people who designed those tests. And the effects of selecting for these sorts of people is obvious everywhere in a dysfunctional system which pretends to care about critical thought and different ways of thinking only to subvert those and use those to increase its own control and power... despite not being a good candidate for managing the affairs of the planet.
- ohaideredevs 7y ago
  Raw capability has nothing to do with how that capability is applied. IQ is supposed to measure raw capability. Especially tests such as Raven's which focus on fluid intelligence.
  - devoply 7y ago
    Techne, in terms of what makes people good tools to do certain type of technical work. The other part is schooling in which grades indicate how good of a tool the person actually makes.
    - ohaideredevs 7y ago
      I am not fully following what you are saying. Let's see if we actually disagree. Intelligence has two parts: 1. Crystallized intelligence - essentially your knowledge / what you have memorized (including useful heuristics, experience, etc). This can grow throughout your lifetime. 2. Fluid intelligence - in reality, this is basically defined as your "working memory", which is how many pieces of distinct information you can maintain in short term memory and work with. The magic number is 7(+-2). Anyway, this influences your ability to learn, since if you keep in mind what you just read/heard, you can connect the dots. Pieces to memorize can be grouped to make them easier to work with. As a result, an expert in a field will have pieces grouped and organized in long term memory, and WILL appear more intelligent than an amateur in the field, when discussing that field. In my, subjective, experience this can be enough to work in one field. When you want to be a Renaissance man, or compete at an extremely high level, low IQ chokes you. Even a difference of 10 points between 120 and 130 chokes you. Hopefully this wasn't a rant and you know what I mean.
nabla9 7y ago
Generic arguments about bad methodology don't invalidate specific arguments about IQ. If he used bad statistical arguments himself in this case, we are in impasse. Of course Taleb understand statistics if he wants to, but he is just pushing his rants and loses his bearings in Twitter. Even his old friends are lamenting his online personality and bitterness.
- iQuercus 7y ago
  What does his personality have to do with what he is arguing? Is he using “bad statistical” arguments or not?
- ilikehurdles 7y ago
  > Of course Taleb understand statistics if he wants to, but he is just pushing his rants and loses his bearings in Twitter. Even his old friends are lamenting his online personality and bitterness. Generic arguments about personality and character don't invalidate specific arguments about IQ. If I indulge your "argument", from what I see on twitter is threads full of very openly nordic-/white- supremacist keyboard warriors and zerohedge trolls. Of all the people to call out in these threads, Taleb seems the most level-headed.
  - reasonaway 7y ago
    but all his specific arguments are completely false - see the linked blog post!
- cljs-js-eval 7y ago
  I really, really wish people took bad methodology criticisms more seriously. I have a degree in the social sciences, and if there is one thing that completely defines the field right now it is that you can't use their findings for absolutely anything. A good portion of studies don't replicate, including fundamental ones (in particular see the failed replication here [1] on one on Rand et al, a study on the effects of priming). Priming is a huge topic in social psychology. He understands statistics. I'm not sure his opponents properly understand that when you complain about methodology, the implications are not just "add a section in the paper acknowledging the potential for error", it's "your whole study might be fatally flawed in a way that invalidates all your conclusions". [1]: https://authors.library.caltech.edu/91063/2/41562_2018_399_MOESM1_ESM.pdf https://authors.library.caltech.edu/91063/2/41562_2018_399_M...
cjhanks 7y ago
I love in that article the complete non-sequitur about MENSA members wearing white socks with birkenstocks. It really demonstrates his disdain.
- mcguire 7y ago
  Ignore the rant. Look at the graphs.
  - cjhanks 7y ago
    I have read his books, they're good. It's just amusing.
  - reasonaway 7y ago
    the graphs with made up data? when you look at actual data, all his claims are false.
    - faceplanted 7y ago
      Care to link where you got your data from? I looked quickly and everything agreed with him.
      - reasonaway 7y ago
        read the linked blog post that started this thread!
- zazaraka 7y ago
  Those MENSA members were truly fashion trend setters, as expected. The rest of world only now realizes how cool white socks with birkenstocks really are: https://hypebae.com/2018/11/how-to-wear-birkenstock-sandals-socks-fall-winter-editorial https://hypebae.com/2018/11/how-to-wear-birkenstock-sandals-...
  - cjhanks 7y ago
    Apparently. Although, I have hung out at a lot of marinas and haven't seen that style yet. Must be because those people put their legs in the hoist gears and lose their leg (about 5 from the top).
reasonaway 7y ago
he examines specific claims made by Taleb in detail and shows them to be completely wrong in every case. that can be reasonably described as addressing the substance of his arguments. can you identify any specific problems with the analysis in that post? discussions around taleb often have a very cult like aspect to them - a refusal to discuss specific empirical claims made by Taleb and an assumption that the critics are too dumb to understand taleb's deep mathematical criticisms.
mpweiher 7y ago
Article was specifically not looking at the non-quantitative ranting: "Most of the document is just a rant, but he does make some quantitative claims, which is good. I investigate the veracity of these claims using real data." So he looks at the quantitative claims and they are just flat out wrong. However, the non-quantitative "analysis" is just as faulty. First huge mistake is that he claims that IQ correlating better with outcomes at the low end somehow shows that it doesn't measure what it claims to measure, "raw ability". That is nonsense, because ability is just one factor, but a necessary one, for outcomes. So if you don't have the ability, you're not going to get the outcome. But if you do have the ability, that doesn't mean you're going to get the outcome. You might not be motivated, for example. In fact, I remember a talk from a couple of years back showing that financial success tends to be anti-correlated with the highest IQs, because those people figure out that it just isn't worth it. But anyway, the correlation being stronger inn the "non-ability" part of the distribution does not show that it's not measuring ability. Another whopper is that he claims that performance is is fat-tailed, without citing any evidence. According to Albert-László Barabási[1] who studies performance, success and how they relate, performance is more closely normally distributed, it is success that is fat-tailed. And of course Taleb doesn't seem to distinguish between performance and success, which makes the whole rant pretty worthless. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert-László_Barabási https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert-László_Barabási

Radle 7y ago

Doesn't mean the psychologists are wrong.

tompccs 7y ago
Well, IQ is their measure. They should be able to defend it properly. And frankly, if there is any doubt that IQ maps to intelligence, then its abuse over the last half-century has done immesurable harm to individuals and given considerable fuel to racists.
- horsawlarway 7y ago
  An IQ test is a tool. Just like any other tool the way you use it matters. IQ tests turned out to be pretty useful when investigating the effects of Lead in paint/gas/industry/other. See Herbert Needleman's research from the early 80's. The test itself isn't really good or bad (bearing in mind most modern iq tests are heavily scrutinized for bias in race/class/income/location/etc) it's just a tool.
  - concinds 7y ago
    > IQ tests turned out to be pretty useful when investigating the effects of Lead in paint/gas/industry/other. See Herbert Needleman's research from the early 80's. Taleb argues precisely that IQ is only a good measure of unintelligence, not intelligence, and that this prevent IQ from being meaningful. He showed that if you IQ test 10K people, 2K are dead (0 IQ) and then test their performance on something, you'll still end up with correlations that'll get you published in prestigious journals, and peddle nonsense conclusions. https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1115193783145123840 https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1115193783145123840 (the point being that in that scenario, 0 IQ perfectly correlated with 0 performance, can make the population correlation look significant even when "alive" IQ is completely uncorrelated with performance, which, in that example, it is)
    - fvdessen 7y ago
      The problem with Taleb's argument is that, as the linked article shows, IQ tests are as good measure of intelligence as of unintelligence. There is no inflection point after which IQ stops correlating with wealth. The slope is constant across all scales. Taleb's argumentation relies on fictional scenarios whose conclusion do not match what he would have gotten looking at raw data instead.
      - martin_bech 7y ago
        Thats also what I got from it. It would be very wierd if IQ correlated very well below the median, and then just stoped..
        papln 7y ago
        It's not weird at all. Caloric intake in children correlates to height very well below the median(+), and then it stops. You can't grow arbitarily tall by eating more food, but if you underfeed a child enough, it will end up shorter than its more-fed siblings. In case you need some justificaiton for this intuitive claim, here's some tangential data: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-much-of-human-height/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-much-of-human... " In contrast, in developing countries, nutrition deficits lead to a lower heritability. The fact that the mean height of the U.S. population has almost plateaued in the past decade suggests that the nutrient environment has almost maximized the genetic potential of height, at least in this country. Improved nutrition elsewhere may have similar benefits in terms of stature." (+) I use median here to mean some unspeicified percentile, as you did.
        concinds 7y ago
        No, it wouldn't. I can hit you on the head with a hammer, and you'll function poorly in every conceivable performance test (low dimensionality), but success is high-dimensional. Here is a good explanation: https://twitter.com/sean_a_mcclure/status/1155487369019232259 https://twitter.com/sean_a_mcclure/status/115548736901923225...
      - runarberg 7y ago
dingoegret 7y ago
It does
moomin 7y ago
Yeah, a bust clock is right twice a day. Maybe that's one of those times.
cljs-js-eval 7y ago
No, but these [1][2][3] sure do: [1]: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1745691615609918 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/17456916156099... [2]: https://osf.io/ezcuj/wiki/home/ https://osf.io/ezcuj/wiki/home/ [3]: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/349/6251/aac4716.full?ijkey=1xgFoCnpLswpk&keytype=ref&siteid=sci https://science.sciencemag.org/content/349/6251/aac4716.full... You should have very little confidence in the predictive power of most psychology findings since the founding of the field.
- nshepperd 7y ago
  Those papers have nothing to do with IQ.
  - cljs-js-eval 7y ago
    They have everything to do with showing that the primary field that makes use of IQ, psychology, is unreliable. If someone says that IQ is unreliable, they're likely right just given the track record of that field.

devoply 7y ago

Talebs' main beef is that the system selects for drones that serve the system and can think on its terms and the question is obviously why would it not do that. All systems protect their own integrity and obviously the IQ test would further serve to protect the power structure of the people who designed those tests. And the effects of selecting for these sorts of people is obvious everywhere in a dysfunctional system which pretends to care about critical thought and different ways of thinking only to subvert those and use those to increase its own control and power... despite not being a good candidate for managing the affairs of the planet.

ohaideredevs 7y ago
Raw capability has nothing to do with how that capability is applied. IQ is supposed to measure raw capability. Especially tests such as Raven's which focus on fluid intelligence.
- devoply 7y ago
  Techne, in terms of what makes people good tools to do certain type of technical work. The other part is schooling in which grades indicate how good of a tool the person actually makes.
  - ohaideredevs 7y ago
    I am not fully following what you are saying. Let's see if we actually disagree. Intelligence has two parts: 1. Crystallized intelligence - essentially your knowledge / what you have memorized (including useful heuristics, experience, etc). This can grow throughout your lifetime. 2. Fluid intelligence - in reality, this is basically defined as your "working memory", which is how many pieces of distinct information you can maintain in short term memory and work with. The magic number is 7(+-2). Anyway, this influences your ability to learn, since if you keep in mind what you just read/heard, you can connect the dots. Pieces to memorize can be grouped to make them easier to work with. As a result, an expert in a field will have pieces grouped and organized in long term memory, and WILL appear more intelligent than an amateur in the field, when discussing that field. In my, subjective, experience this can be enough to work in one field. When you want to be a Renaissance man, or compete at an extremely high level, low IQ chokes you. Even a difference of 10 points between 120 and 130 chokes you. Hopefully this wasn't a rant and you know what I mean.

nabla9 7y ago

Generic arguments about bad methodology don't invalidate specific arguments about IQ. If he used bad statistical arguments himself in this case, we are in impasse. Of course Taleb understand statistics if he wants to, but he is just pushing his rants and loses his bearings in Twitter. Even his old friends are lamenting his online personality and bitterness.

iQuercus 7y ago
What does his personality have to do with what he is arguing? Is he using “bad statistical” arguments or not?
ilikehurdles 7y ago
> Of course Taleb understand statistics if he wants to, but he is just pushing his rants and loses his bearings in Twitter. Even his old friends are lamenting his online personality and bitterness. Generic arguments about personality and character don't invalidate specific arguments about IQ. If I indulge your "argument", from what I see on twitter is threads full of very openly nordic-/white- supremacist keyboard warriors and zerohedge trolls. Of all the people to call out in these threads, Taleb seems the most level-headed.
- reasonaway 7y ago
  but all his specific arguments are completely false - see the linked blog post!
cljs-js-eval 7y ago
I really, really wish people took bad methodology criticisms more seriously. I have a degree in the social sciences, and if there is one thing that completely defines the field right now it is that you can't use their findings for absolutely anything. A good portion of studies don't replicate, including fundamental ones (in particular see the failed replication here [1] on one on Rand et al, a study on the effects of priming). Priming is a huge topic in social psychology. He understands statistics. I'm not sure his opponents properly understand that when you complain about methodology, the implications are not just "add a section in the paper acknowledging the potential for error", it's "your whole study might be fatally flawed in a way that invalidates all your conclusions". [1]: https://authors.library.caltech.edu/91063/2/41562_2018_399_MOESM1_ESM.pdf https://authors.library.caltech.edu/91063/2/41562_2018_399_M...

cjhanks 7y ago

I love in that article the complete non-sequitur about MENSA members wearing white socks with birkenstocks. It really demonstrates his disdain.

mcguire 7y ago
Ignore the rant. Look at the graphs.
- cjhanks 7y ago
  I have read his books, they're good. It's just amusing.
- reasonaway 7y ago
  the graphs with made up data? when you look at actual data, all his claims are false.
  - faceplanted 7y ago
    Care to link where you got your data from? I looked quickly and everything agreed with him.
    - reasonaway 7y ago
      read the linked blog post that started this thread!
zazaraka 7y ago
Those MENSA members were truly fashion trend setters, as expected. The rest of world only now realizes how cool white socks with birkenstocks really are: https://hypebae.com/2018/11/how-to-wear-birkenstock-sandals-socks-fall-winter-editorial https://hypebae.com/2018/11/how-to-wear-birkenstock-sandals-...
- cjhanks 7y ago
  Apparently. Although, I have hung out at a lot of marinas and haven't seen that style yet. Must be because those people put their legs in the hoist gears and lose their leg (about 5 from the top).

reasonaway 7y ago

he examines specific claims made by Taleb in detail and shows them to be completely wrong in every case. that can be reasonably described as addressing the substance of his arguments. can you identify any specific problems with the analysis in that post? discussions around taleb often have a very cult like aspect to them - a refusal to discuss specific empirical claims made by Taleb and an assumption that the critics are too dumb to understand taleb's deep mathematical criticisms.

mpweiher 7y ago

Article was specifically not looking at the non-quantitative ranting: "Most of the document is just a rant, but he does make some quantitative claims, which is good. I investigate the veracity of these claims using real data." So he looks at the quantitative claims and they are just flat out wrong. However, the non-quantitative "analysis" is just as faulty. First huge mistake is that he claims that IQ correlating better with outcomes at the low end somehow shows that it doesn't measure what it claims to measure, "raw ability". That is nonsense, because ability is just one factor, but a necessary one, for outcomes. So if you don't have the ability, you're not going to get the outcome. But if you do have the ability, that doesn't mean you're going to get the outcome. You might not be motivated, for example. In fact, I remember a talk from a couple of years back showing that financial success tends to be anti-correlated with the highest IQs, because those people figure out that it just isn't worth it. But anyway, the correlation being stronger inn the "non-ability" part of the distribution does not show that it's not measuring ability. Another whopper is that he claims that performance is is fat-tailed, without citing any evidence. According to Albert-László Barabási[1] who studies performance, success and how they relate, performance is more closely normally distributed, it is success that is fat-tailed. And of course Taleb doesn't seem to distinguish between performance and success, which makes the whole rant pretty worthless. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert-László_Barabási https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert-László_Barabási