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Yes, and it's somewhat irresponsible for the author to present it this way. Taleb is not being specific that he's talking about variance of performance in his c

Yes, and it's somewhat irresponsible for the author to present it this way. Taleb is not being specific that he's talking about variance of performance in his claim. That is only one way to measure the relationship between two things (via covariance and then correlation). But it's not the only way. In fact Taleb's claim is actually underspecified here, so in lieu of rebutting it with a calculation of Pearson's r, the author should try to critique it more holistically. As it stands, an R^2 of 0.356 is not actually a refutation of Taleb's "5 - 13%". Taleb probably shouldn't have quantified his point without some rigor behind it, but the author's single counterexample doesn't substantively respond to it.

tgv 6y ago
Yes, it is a rebuttal. Without further information, you have to assume the default meaning of "explains x%", so Taleb's claim is wrong.
- fractionalhare 6y ago
  I don't have to assume anything, and to be charitable I'm not going to assume anything. I would afford the author the same charitability. Taleb's point is underspecified and needs further clarification before we can meaningfully engage with it by citing statistics. You risk beating up a strawman by tossing a quick calculation of R^2 at it and saying it's wrong. Using R^2 this way is like saying someone's wrong in an online debate by citing a logical fallacy. I guess, sure, you successfully rebutted them in a shallow sense. But nothing of value has been achieved (yet). We haven't arrived at a better understanding of the truth.
  - tgv 6y ago
    Sure, because the effect cannot be linear, but then Taleb's article loses any merit, and it's 1-0 for JSMP anyway. Not that I'm defending IQ. I find it a weird measure, and certainly not one in which to base all trust, but it does seem to correlate reasonably with many outcomes. That other factors also have an influence on these outcomes, and that IQ is not purely measuring intelligence, does not discredit it as a (limited) predictor. Taleb's article would be much stronger if he could point at better predictors.
- pfortuny 6y ago
  Ough! “Without further information “ is too technical to what Taleb is arguing.

tgv 6y ago

Yes, it is a rebuttal. Without further information, you have to assume the default meaning of "explains x%", so Taleb's claim is wrong.

fractionalhare 6y ago
I don't have to assume anything, and to be charitable I'm not going to assume anything. I would afford the author the same charitability. Taleb's point is underspecified and needs further clarification before we can meaningfully engage with it by citing statistics. You risk beating up a strawman by tossing a quick calculation of R^2 at it and saying it's wrong. Using R^2 this way is like saying someone's wrong in an online debate by citing a logical fallacy. I guess, sure, you successfully rebutted them in a shallow sense. But nothing of value has been achieved (yet). We haven't arrived at a better understanding of the truth.
- tgv 6y ago
  Sure, because the effect cannot be linear, but then Taleb's article loses any merit, and it's 1-0 for JSMP anyway. Not that I'm defending IQ. I find it a weird measure, and certainly not one in which to base all trust, but it does seem to correlate reasonably with many outcomes. That other factors also have an influence on these outcomes, and that IQ is not purely measuring intelligence, does not discredit it as a (limited) predictor. Taleb's article would be much stronger if he could point at better predictors.
pfortuny 6y ago
Ough! “Without further information “ is too technical to what Taleb is arguing.