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Yeah I think the notion of a scalar intelligence metric won't stand the test of time. Some people are born with golden hands and excel at everything they touch

by est31 6y ago

Yeah I think the notion of a scalar intelligence metric won't stand the test of time. Some people are born with golden hands and excel at everything they touch while others are over-achievers in narrow subjects only. Just think what a scalar intelligence concept would mean: there is only one single gene that gives rise to all of the variance in intelligence among humans. This can't be it, there are likely dozens if not hundreds of genes involved and each gene regulates a different aspect of brain function.

chongli 6y ago
Even if you say that intelligence is a vector, well, vectors have norms. The perception I'm trying to counter here is that intelligence involves tradeoffs which somehow result in a fair outcome for all. That Bobby's writing ability is offset by Billy's chess-playing. That's not the case at all. Take someone like John Von Neumann. One of the greatest mathematicians of the 20th century (and perhaps all time), he could also converse in a multitude of languages (native Hungarian, English, French, German, Italian, Ancient Greek). He was also an avid history buff, reading through Wilhelm Oncken's 46-volume Allgemeine Geschichte in Einzeldarstellungen at the age of 8 [1]. Later, he studied and became a chemical engineer while at the same time studying for his Ph.D in mathematics at the age of 20! there is only one single gene that gives rise to all of the variance in intelligence among humans. This does not follow. The claim is that some brains are better at learning than others. This means they can model and describe the complex relationship between ideas across a multitude of subject domains. It doesn't say anything about a single gene being responsible. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann#Child_prodigy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann#Child_prodigy
- est31 6y ago
  > The perception I'm trying to counter here is that intelligence involves tradeoffs which somehow result in a fair outcome for all. Yeah a zero cost sum model is totally wrong. As are models which assume that everyone is born equally smart and all differences just come from training or whatever. Some people have better abilities and it doesn't imply that they are worse in other areas. But they might only have extraordinary performance in specific tasks. And others, like I've mentioned above, have golden hands, von Neumann being an example. I've done some searching and the model of intelligence seems to be an open area of debate, but it seems that research has moved on from the "not much more than g" era. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6526477/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6526477/ > For several decades, the question of whether measures of specific cognitive ability contributed anything meaningful to the prediction of performance on the job or performance in training once measures of general mental ability were taken into account appeared to be settled, and a consensus developed that there was little value in using specific ability measures in contexts where more general measures were available. It now appears that this consensus was premature, and that measures of specific abilities can make important contributions even if general measures are taken into account. See also https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6480721/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6480721/ and https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.2010.01182.x https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.2010.01182.x
es7 6y ago
That's quite a strawman argument. 'g' is a scalar that tries to measure the relatively large chunk of correlation that tends to show up on aptitude tests. On average, individuals who do well on one type of intellectual task tend to do well on most other types of intellectual tasks. Maybe someone is good at all forms of pattern recognition but just can't manage 3d-rotation tasks. It happens. So an IQ test isn't perfect. There isn't one true value that exists in the world that is 'g'. Many tests now break out 'verbal' and 'mathematical' IQ, but I suspect even those have a correlation > 0.5

by est31 6y ago

chongli 6y ago

Even if you say that intelligence is a vector, well, vectors have norms. The perception I'm trying to counter here is that intelligence involves tradeoffs which somehow result in a fair outcome for all. That Bobby's writing ability is offset by Billy's chess-playing. That's not the case at all. Take someone like John Von Neumann. One of the greatest mathematicians of the 20th century (and perhaps all time), he could also converse in a multitude of languages (native Hungarian, English, French, German, Italian, Ancient Greek). He was also an avid history buff, reading through Wilhelm Oncken's 46-volume Allgemeine Geschichte in Einzeldarstellungen at the age of 8 [1]. Later, he studied and became a chemical engineer while at the same time studying for his Ph.D in mathematics at the age of 20! there is only one single gene that gives rise to all of the variance in intelligence among humans. This does not follow. The claim is that some brains are better at learning than others. This means they can model and describe the complex relationship between ideas across a multitude of subject domains. It doesn't say anything about a single gene being responsible. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann#Child_prodigy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann#Child_prodigy

est31 6y ago
> The perception I'm trying to counter here is that intelligence involves tradeoffs which somehow result in a fair outcome for all. Yeah a zero cost sum model is totally wrong. As are models which assume that everyone is born equally smart and all differences just come from training or whatever. Some people have better abilities and it doesn't imply that they are worse in other areas. But they might only have extraordinary performance in specific tasks. And others, like I've mentioned above, have golden hands, von Neumann being an example. I've done some searching and the model of intelligence seems to be an open area of debate, but it seems that research has moved on from the "not much more than g" era. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6526477/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6526477/ > For several decades, the question of whether measures of specific cognitive ability contributed anything meaningful to the prediction of performance on the job or performance in training once measures of general mental ability were taken into account appeared to be settled, and a consensus developed that there was little value in using specific ability measures in contexts where more general measures were available. It now appears that this consensus was premature, and that measures of specific abilities can make important contributions even if general measures are taken into account. See also https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6480721/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6480721/ and https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.2010.01182.x https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.2010.01182.x

es7 6y ago

That's quite a strawman argument. 'g' is a scalar that tries to measure the relatively large chunk of correlation that tends to show up on aptitude tests. On average, individuals who do well on one type of intellectual task tend to do well on most other types of intellectual tasks. Maybe someone is good at all forms of pattern recognition but just can't manage 3d-rotation tasks. It happens. So an IQ test isn't perfect. There isn't one true value that exists in the world that is 'g'. Many tests now break out 'verbal' and 'mathematical' IQ, but I suspect even those have a correlation > 0.5