4 ms·

I understand the point you're making but you risk giving IQ credibility by comparing it to height. Height is a real, physical uni-dimensional measure that has a

by oska 7y ago

I understand the point you're making but you risk giving IQ credibility by comparing it to height. Height is a real, physical uni-dimensional measure that has a Gaussian distribution. IQ is a made-up measure that pretends to fit a multi-dimensional, non-physical 'thing' (intelligence) that we have a lot of trouble actually defining, onto a uni-dimensional scale with a modeled Gaussian distribution. It's a fraud. Or at least, in this grossly extended use it became a fraud. Testing people for falling below a certain threshold on a test was an ok diagnostic for mental deficiency. But even there it should have just been one tool among many, not a final arbiter of "general intelligence".

lliamander 7y ago
> IQ is a made-up measure that pretends to fit a multi-dimensional, non-physical 'thing' (intelligence) that we have a lot of trouble actually defining, onto a uni-dimensional scale with a modeled Gaussian distribution. I think one of the points of intelligence research is that it seems to confirm intelligence (whatever it is) is largely a unified by a single dimension, even when that wasn't necessarily what was expected by the researchers. > It's a fraud. Or at least, in this grossly extended use it became a fraud. Hardly. IQ testing has been vigorously resisted for decades, and yet continues because of it's utility. But if you're going to take that stance, let me ask you: are you willing to throw out the rest of the social sciences? Because that's the only logical result. IQ research is the gold standard of the social sciences. IQ is fraudulent, then so is the rest. > Testing people for falling below a certain threshold on a test was an ok diagnostic for mental deficiency. It is also useful at the higher end. Not all high IQ people are successfully working in complex jobs, but I expect all people who are successfully working in complex jobs are high IQ.
- oska 7y ago
  > But if you're going to take that stance, let me ask you: are you willing to throw out the rest of the social sciences? Because that's the only logical result. IQ research is the gold standard of the social sciences. IQ is fraudulent, then so is the rest. No, the 'logical result' is throwing out psychology, which I'm more than happy to do. Would also throw out 90% of economics. Happy to keep descriptive sociology, descriptive anthropology, descriptive human geography, descriptive linguistics, etc.
  - lliamander 7y ago
    The parts you are keeping from sociology, anthropology, etc. aren't really what I would call science. I mean yes, it is knowledge about our world, and useful knowledge at that, but it really doesn't fit into a Baconian framework. I will admit that I'm bearish overall on the social sciences. In science you want to be able to make statements that are both a) general, and b) predictive. In the social sciences, generally what is predictive is not general (i.e. "market research") and what is general is usually not in fact predictive (i.e. "hogwash"). I guess I'm just curious why you think IQ is bunk. IQ researchers, perhaps more than any other discipline, have had to endure a considerable degree of scrutiny. Many objections have been raised, and over the decades they've put a lot of work into empirically addressing those objections.
    - oska 7y ago
      > I guess I'm just curious why you think IQ is bunk. I could not put it better or more rigorously than Nassim Taleb, so if you are curious I really do recommend a good read of the piece I linked above (and the technical paper he links at the top of that piece).
      - LegitShady 7y ago
        If you can't present an argument as to why you think something, you probably haven't.
      - lliamander 7y ago
        I've read it a few times now. I'm going to do my best to summarize Taleb's arguments and respond to each in turn. I: cognitive ability is a multi-dimensional thing. IQ erroneously tries to collapse all of those dimensions into a single dimension. What are these dimensions? And how are they measured? People who make this assertion hardly ever go through the work of actually making a rigorous, falsifiable claim as to what these dimensions are. There have been theories along these lines (e.g. "multiple intelligences") and they are much shakier ground scientifically than IQ. This claim is also just plain false, because if you look at the literature, you'll see that intelligence research does recognize the existence of many different types of cognitive ability. It just so happens that performance on tests of such abilities all strongly correlate with IQ! The correlation isn't perfect, which is why you see these different cognitive abilities acknowledged as distinct from each other, but they are still only aspects of some common factor (g). Now, there are certain mental functions whose performance does not correlate (very much) with IQ. Things like creativity or reaction times. That's not really a problem for intelligence research since those things aren't a form of intelligence. II: Real world success comes more from wisdom and conscientiousness than intelligence I would agree about wisdom, although there's no real way to measure that. The way I think of it is: wisdom is where you are going, and intelligence is how fast you will get there. If you're going the wrong way, then speed will only hasten your destruction. That doesn't mean speed is irrelevant. As for conscientiousness, we can measure how much that impacts life outcomes. Indeed it does have some predictive value, but not as much as IQ! Also, if you're going to take some arbitrary collection of traits and say "this bundle of traits is more predictive than IQ" then you're engaging in a logical fallacy. It doesn't matter what bundle you choose, what matters is whether IQ is worth adding to that bundle. III: IQ is only predictive on the lower ends of performance (because of it's use as a means for detecting mental defficiencies) but has no predictive value at higher levels of performance. I think there's some stuff going on in the statistics that's going to require a lot more digging on my part, but I think the argument I made previously that having a greater intelligence merely gives you more options still holds. IV: People who promote IQ research are racists. Ad hominem. And bullcrap to boot. Whatever you think about another person's motives, it doesn't make their argument wrong. What really angers me about this argument is that in the same frigging paragraph he complains about people making ad hominem arguments against him. The lack of self-awareness is truly breath-taking. V: IQ being "the best measure in psychology" doesn't matter if it's a bad measure This argument is directed at people who want to cherry pick the parts of the psychology that fit their political preferences. It has no relevance in an argument with someone who's willing to toss out the entire enterprise. Nonetheless, the limitations on the predictiveness of IQ should be considered. For instance, the fact that IQ correlates with performance in complex jobs by 50% means that it only explains about 25% of the variance in performance (I don't know where Taleb gets the 13% figure, perhaps from some math I'm not familiar with). All that means is that IQ shouldn't be the only tool you use to evaluate a candidate for such a job. It doesn't mean that there's no value in using it. VI: IQ only measures performance in boring clerical jobs where the work resembles the test. It does measure performance (to some extent) in software engineering. I presume it also does in medical professions as well. Are these "boring clerical jobs"? VII: IQ isn't technically a measure Um, what? It's a measurement of how well one performs a test relative to the average of some reference population. VIII: Using national IQ averages as justification for excluding immigration from certain countries is irrational because it ignores the variance of IQ within populations. Totally agree. For the record, I'm not on-board with such a simplistic policy. However, I do think nations have a responsibility to consider the effects their immigration policy will have on the native populace, especially with regard to issues like the strain placed on (or support given to) the welfare system. If IQ does predict a individual immigrant's likelihood of ending up on welfare, then it should be considered.

by oska 7y ago

lliamander 7y ago

> IQ is a made-up measure that pretends to fit a multi-dimensional, non-physical 'thing' (intelligence) that we have a lot of trouble actually defining, onto a uni-dimensional scale with a modeled Gaussian distribution. I think one of the points of intelligence research is that it seems to confirm intelligence (whatever it is) is largely a unified by a single dimension, even when that wasn't necessarily what was expected by the researchers. > It's a fraud. Or at least, in this grossly extended use it became a fraud. Hardly. IQ testing has been vigorously resisted for decades, and yet continues because of it's utility. But if you're going to take that stance, let me ask you: are you willing to throw out the rest of the social sciences? Because that's the only logical result. IQ research is the gold standard of the social sciences. IQ is fraudulent, then so is the rest. > Testing people for falling below a certain threshold on a test was an ok diagnostic for mental deficiency. It is also useful at the higher end. Not all high IQ people are successfully working in complex jobs, but I expect all people who are successfully working in complex jobs are high IQ.

oska 7y ago
> But if you're going to take that stance, let me ask you: are you willing to throw out the rest of the social sciences? Because that's the only logical result. IQ research is the gold standard of the social sciences. IQ is fraudulent, then so is the rest. No, the 'logical result' is throwing out psychology, which I'm more than happy to do. Would also throw out 90% of economics. Happy to keep descriptive sociology, descriptive anthropology, descriptive human geography, descriptive linguistics, etc.
- lliamander 7y ago
  The parts you are keeping from sociology, anthropology, etc. aren't really what I would call science. I mean yes, it is knowledge about our world, and useful knowledge at that, but it really doesn't fit into a Baconian framework. I will admit that I'm bearish overall on the social sciences. In science you want to be able to make statements that are both a) general, and b) predictive. In the social sciences, generally what is predictive is not general (i.e. "market research") and what is general is usually not in fact predictive (i.e. "hogwash"). I guess I'm just curious why you think IQ is bunk. IQ researchers, perhaps more than any other discipline, have had to endure a considerable degree of scrutiny. Many objections have been raised, and over the decades they've put a lot of work into empirically addressing those objections.
  - oska 7y ago
    > I guess I'm just curious why you think IQ is bunk. I could not put it better or more rigorously than Nassim Taleb, so if you are curious I really do recommend a good read of the piece I linked above (and the technical paper he links at the top of that piece).
    - LegitShady 7y ago
      If you can't present an argument as to why you think something, you probably haven't.
    - lliamander 7y ago
      I've read it a few times now. I'm going to do my best to summarize Taleb's arguments and respond to each in turn. I: cognitive ability is a multi-dimensional thing. IQ erroneously tries to collapse all of those dimensions into a single dimension. What are these dimensions? And how are they measured? People who make this assertion hardly ever go through the work of actually making a rigorous, falsifiable claim as to what these dimensions are. There have been theories along these lines (e.g. "multiple intelligences") and they are much shakier ground scientifically than IQ. This claim is also just plain false, because if you look at the literature, you'll see that intelligence research does recognize the existence of many different types of cognitive ability. It just so happens that performance on tests of such abilities all strongly correlate with IQ! The correlation isn't perfect, which is why you see these different cognitive abilities acknowledged as distinct from each other, but they are still only aspects of some common factor (g). Now, there are certain mental functions whose performance does not correlate (very much) with IQ. Things like creativity or reaction times. That's not really a problem for intelligence research since those things aren't a form of intelligence. II: Real world success comes more from wisdom and conscientiousness than intelligence I would agree about wisdom, although there's no real way to measure that. The way I think of it is: wisdom is where you are going, and intelligence is how fast you will get there. If you're going the wrong way, then speed will only hasten your destruction. That doesn't mean speed is irrelevant. As for conscientiousness, we can measure how much that impacts life outcomes. Indeed it does have some predictive value, but not as much as IQ! Also, if you're going to take some arbitrary collection of traits and say "this bundle of traits is more predictive than IQ" then you're engaging in a logical fallacy. It doesn't matter what bundle you choose, what matters is whether IQ is worth adding to that bundle. III: IQ is only predictive on the lower ends of performance (because of it's use as a means for detecting mental defficiencies) but has no predictive value at higher levels of performance. I think there's some stuff going on in the statistics that's going to require a lot more digging on my part, but I think the argument I made previously that having a greater intelligence merely gives you more options still holds. IV: People who promote IQ research are racists. Ad hominem. And bullcrap to boot. Whatever you think about another person's motives, it doesn't make their argument wrong. What really angers me about this argument is that in the same frigging paragraph he complains about people making ad hominem arguments against him. The lack of self-awareness is truly breath-taking. V: IQ being "the best measure in psychology" doesn't matter if it's a bad measure This argument is directed at people who want to cherry pick the parts of the psychology that fit their political preferences. It has no relevance in an argument with someone who's willing to toss out the entire enterprise. Nonetheless, the limitations on the predictiveness of IQ should be considered. For instance, the fact that IQ correlates with performance in complex jobs by 50% means that it only explains about 25% of the variance in performance (I don't know where Taleb gets the 13% figure, perhaps from some math I'm not familiar with). All that means is that IQ shouldn't be the only tool you use to evaluate a candidate for such a job. It doesn't mean that there's no value in using it. VI: IQ only measures performance in boring clerical jobs where the work resembles the test. It does measure performance (to some extent) in software engineering. I presume it also does in medical professions as well. Are these "boring clerical jobs"? VII: IQ isn't technically a measure Um, what? It's a measurement of how well one performs a test relative to the average of some reference population. VIII: Using national IQ averages as justification for excluding immigration from certain countries is irrational because it ignores the variance of IQ within populations. Totally agree. For the record, I'm not on-board with such a simplistic policy. However, I do think nations have a responsibility to consider the effects their immigration policy will have on the native populace, especially with regard to issues like the strain placed on (or support given to) the welfare system. If IQ does predict a individual immigrant's likelihood of ending up on welfare, then it should be considered.