6 ms·

Given that our higher cognitive powers come from a millimeters thick section the size of an unwrapped golf ball, brain volume doesn't mean much, and brain volum

Given that our higher cognitive powers come from a millimeters thick section the size of an unwrapped golf ball, brain volume doesn't mean much, and brain volume vs body size means even less. Human assumptions about intelligence are debunked by facts.

logicslave 6y ago
I would argue its rather that the facts are too hard for society to handle. A neural network that predicts IQ from physiology/outwardly visible characteristics is certainly possible. Phenotypes exist and display specific behavioral and thought process traits. But to recognize it would be like staring into the sun
- AussieWog93 6y ago
  I've read some of your other comments and have the strong impression you're trying to make a comment tying IQ to race without actually saying the word outright. I'm not going to say that you're morally reprehensible, but I do recommend reading about the Flynn effect. The variance in IQ between modern whites and whites 100 years ago is significantly higher than any measurable difference between whites and blacks today. In addition to this, the IQ of blacks is rising at a faster rate than the IQ of whites, and seems to be approaching convergence. Looking at changes over time, it seems that average IQ in large population groups is mostly a function of culture rather than genetics.
  - logicslave 6y ago
    It's more so that I am in awe of the widespread brainwashing that I see in society. Head into a college library, maybe into the biology or genetics section, crack a book from twenty years ago thats not well known. Read dissertations, there are bodies of knowledge inside universities and medical professions that aren't exposed to the public.
    - ggm 6y ago
      Bodies of knowledge about what? I agree with your respondant: your answers obscurity tends to imply you're avoiding saying what you think.
      - logicslave 6y ago
        I'm under the opinion that there is widespread brainwashing, and more than trying to prove my point, I just cant help but comment on it.
        ggm 6y ago
        Brainwashing about what? Be specific.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
    - AussieWog93 6y ago
      It's the same story in many fields, including non-controversial fields such as Biomedical Engineering (I only use this as an example because I studied it). It's less about uncomfortable topics being actively covered up by nefarious actors, and more about bad ideas dying out naturally. The main reason we don't study correlation between race and IQ is because it isn't useful and doesn't explain anything particularly interesting.
      - logicslave 6y ago
        I will just leave it at this: For evolution to work, IQ has to be heritable, otherwise how did humans evolve intelligence? People who believe in evolution, but not in heritability of personality traits are living in a warped reality. I'm not that interested in proving my point, I'm just more shocked at how many people hold obviously false beliefs.
        AussieWog93 6y ago
  - vixen99 6y ago
    The Flynn effect appears to be over. I agree with you on culture and genetics. Thomas Sowell is worth reading on this. We should stop categorizing on the basis of 'race' and think about cultural groups and the dynamics of their characteristics. https://www.sciencealert.com/iq-scores-falling-in-worrying-reversal-20th-century-intelligence-boom-flynn-effect-intelligence https://www.sciencealert.com/iq-scores-falling-in-worrying-r...
  - concordDance 6y ago
    I tried to look up graphs of the iq gap over time but such data is harder to find than it was five years ago. I did find that the convergence of math scores seems to have slowed down or stopped though: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/57/NAEP-longterm-Black-math-ss09-17.gif https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/57/NAEP-lon... For the American "black"-"white" IQ gap itself (and I think it's very important to specify American, as conclusions about "blacks" in the USA are likely to be very misleading if applied to Botswanans for example) the I found a few seemingly contradictory studies, but it looks like the childhood gap is closing quickly (3+ IQ points per decade) while the adult gap is closing much more slowly (<1 IQ point per decade). Do you have any good sources on this?
  - SkyBelow 6y ago
    >it seems that average IQ in large population groups is mostly a function of culture rather than genetics. Probably environment more than culture (unless you are counting environment in that). Just look at the effects nutrition during pregnancy has or the effects lead has on IQ.
  - specialist 6y ago
    Further, as I understand it, nurture are huge factors, if not the biggest. Poverty, abuse, pollution, zip code, etc. Noob me: Sure, some fraction of IQ is hereditary for individuals. But there's no correlation between hereditary (genetic) IQ and group sizes larger than families, and mosdef none at population levels. PS- Reprehensible is the nicest adjective I can think of for those retrograde beliefs.
  - erhk 6y ago
    IQ is verifiably a tool to exclude people based on race. It used inane things like vocabulary to deign intelligence. It has no merit and is not worth discussing.
    - CryptoPunk 6y ago
      This is a completely unscientific claim. IQ is extremely well studied by credible scientists and found to be a very reliable indicator of general intellectual ability, as reflected in competence in a wide variety of intellectual tasks.
- sprafa 6y ago
  You should read more about IQ and it’s failure to predict success. Like Nassim Taleb has said - IQ just shows you’re not dumb, not that you’re smart. Which you are a perfect example of, I’m sure.
  - bloak 6y ago
    IQ is, by definition, how well you perform at solving a particular kind of puzzle. "Success" means fulfilling whichever criteria you have defined for a particular goal/objective. IQ results are of some use in predicting how well children will do at school, i.e. what exam results they will get after being taught. That's usually a "success criterion" for the school, though not necessarily for the children, who may have other goals in life, e.g. becoming a footballer.
    - User23 6y ago
      Players that want to play football in the NFL have to take an IQ test[1] and score decently well. Using a rough conversion[2], NFL teams require a minimum IQ in the low 90s to play, because players below that threshold are incapable of learning the plays[3]. So even for persons who want to play competitive football, a certain level of intelligence is extremely important. I don't know much about soccer beyond pickup games, is it roughly as cognitively demanding as football at the highest levels? [1] https://jobdescriptionandresumeexamples.com/10-important-facts-about-nfl-wonderlic-test/ https://jobdescriptionandresumeexamples.com/10-important-fac... [2] https://wonderlictestpractice.com/how-does-the-wonderlic-correspond-to-the-iq-test/ https://wonderlictestpractice.com/how-does-the-wonderlic-cor... [3] https://clutchpoints.com/patriots-news-new-england-requires-minimum-wonderlic-iq-test-score/ https://clutchpoints.com/patriots-news-new-england-requires-...
- kingsuper20 6y ago
  Who knows? Maybe intelligence can be tied to handedness, gingerness (heaven forbid!), or body symmetry. A tricky thing to measure given difficulties in testing, lack of twin studies, and the like. Admittedly it would be interesting to take a million people, give them various sorts of cognitive tests, do a DNA sample, feed in biographical details, and let 'er rip on a big ol' computer. There might be outrage and a need to twiddle knobs on the AI or there might be nothing noteworthy. Some Chinese researcher will let us know soon enough.
- dang 6y ago
  If you keep using HN for ideological flamewar we are going to have to ban you. We've asked you before to stop, and you've continued to do it. Please stop. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
CryptoPunk 6y ago
Brain matter is metabolically very expensive to build, and I assume maintain, so it has to provide a significant evolutionary advantage per mm^3 to make it evolutionarily worth having larger brains.
concordDance 6y ago
If brain volume doesn't mean much then why is it so big it causes death in childbirth in humans?
- op03 6y ago
  There are people doing fine with half of it removed - https://www.inquirer.com/philly/news/local/20160214_20_years_after_surgery__a_full_life_with_half_a_brain.html https://www.inquirer.com/philly/news/local/20160214_20_years...
  - f6v 6y ago
    There’s a huge difference between “doing fine” in a modern society and in nature where she wouldn’t have survived. The article mentions her case is also rather atypical.
  - hanselot 6y ago
    Opportunity cost is a hell of a thing. After the surgery, she grew introverted, and many of the friends who had supported her in third grade drifted away. Her family and doctors knew her ambitious goals of college and a career would be a struggle, but others were more negative, even cruel. A teacher at a technical high school said she doubted Santhouse would ever be able to do more than answer phones. Even the Johns Hopkins doctors said she'd never drive. Yet, "I was full steam ahead," Santhouse said, recounting how she got her driver's license at 17, excelled on the high school bowling team, and pushed herself through college and on to a graduate degree. "I wasn't going to let [the brain surgery] stop me." I don't think its fair to say that this would be considered a full life by many. But, given your view, perhaps you would volunteer to have this surgery done to prove this? Edit: I suppose you would probably be fine if you consumed the news (propaganda) and embraced leftism.
fighterpilot 6y ago
I believe the facts support a different conclusion: (1) There's been a dramatic increase in our brain size over the last million years, is just a coincidence that we've also gotten way smarter? (2) What about the high correlation between brain volume and IQ within humans? (3) What would the evolutionary purpose be of supporting such an expensive organ if its size is irrelevant?
- _0ffh 6y ago
  A possible answer would be that greater volume also implies greater surface area (modulo shape).
TeMPOraL 6y ago
An OS only takes a small part of the computer's overall storage. Imagine you bought one of those high-capacity SSDs off AliExpress, and unbeknownst to you, what you got is a small flash drive in an SSD enclosure, cleverly preformatted to report it's 10x as big as it is. You install your OS on this drive, and happily do your work, but then you start realizing that some files are going missing, even though you're sure you've saved them... Something similar may be happening with the brain - perhaps the core compute runs on the surface layers, but that doesn't mean non-critical functionality isn't occupying the deeper parts, and a person with less of those parts may not realize they have decreased capacity.
- 52-6F-62 6y ago
  > Something similar may be happening with the brain - perhaps the core compute runs on the surface layers, but that doesn't mean non-critical functionality isn't occupying the deeper parts, and a person with less of those parts may not realize they have decreased capacity. That's at once fascinating and existentially horrifying to me. I need to know more...
  - ben_w 6y ago
    It definitely happens at some point — I saw it in my mother when her Alzheimer’s progressed to later stages. She only seemed to be aware of her condition in the initial stages. I have wondered if Alzheimer’s preferentially damages certain parts of the brain? And also if eventual death is unpredictable because it depends on when the damage interferes with autonomous bodily functions such as heartbeat, breathing, or gut peristalsis?

logicslave 6y ago

I would argue its rather that the facts are too hard for society to handle. A neural network that predicts IQ from physiology/outwardly visible characteristics is certainly possible. Phenotypes exist and display specific behavioral and thought process traits. But to recognize it would be like staring into the sun

AussieWog93 6y ago
I've read some of your other comments and have the strong impression you're trying to make a comment tying IQ to race without actually saying the word outright. I'm not going to say that you're morally reprehensible, but I do recommend reading about the Flynn effect. The variance in IQ between modern whites and whites 100 years ago is significantly higher than any measurable difference between whites and blacks today. In addition to this, the IQ of blacks is rising at a faster rate than the IQ of whites, and seems to be approaching convergence. Looking at changes over time, it seems that average IQ in large population groups is mostly a function of culture rather than genetics.
- logicslave 6y ago
  It's more so that I am in awe of the widespread brainwashing that I see in society. Head into a college library, maybe into the biology or genetics section, crack a book from twenty years ago thats not well known. Read dissertations, there are bodies of knowledge inside universities and medical professions that aren't exposed to the public.
  - ggm 6y ago
    Bodies of knowledge about what? I agree with your respondant: your answers obscurity tends to imply you're avoiding saying what you think.
    - logicslave 6y ago
      I'm under the opinion that there is widespread brainwashing, and more than trying to prove my point, I just cant help but comment on it.
      - ggm 6y ago
        Brainwashing about what? Be specific.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - AussieWog93 6y ago
    It's the same story in many fields, including non-controversial fields such as Biomedical Engineering (I only use this as an example because I studied it). It's less about uncomfortable topics being actively covered up by nefarious actors, and more about bad ideas dying out naturally. The main reason we don't study correlation between race and IQ is because it isn't useful and doesn't explain anything particularly interesting.
    - logicslave 6y ago
      I will just leave it at this: For evolution to work, IQ has to be heritable, otherwise how did humans evolve intelligence? People who believe in evolution, but not in heritability of personality traits are living in a warped reality. I'm not that interested in proving my point, I'm just more shocked at how many people hold obviously false beliefs.
      - AussieWog93 6y ago
- vixen99 6y ago
  The Flynn effect appears to be over. I agree with you on culture and genetics. Thomas Sowell is worth reading on this. We should stop categorizing on the basis of 'race' and think about cultural groups and the dynamics of their characteristics. https://www.sciencealert.com/iq-scores-falling-in-worrying-reversal-20th-century-intelligence-boom-flynn-effect-intelligence https://www.sciencealert.com/iq-scores-falling-in-worrying-r...
- concordDance 6y ago
  I tried to look up graphs of the iq gap over time but such data is harder to find than it was five years ago. I did find that the convergence of math scores seems to have slowed down or stopped though: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/57/NAEP-longterm-Black-math-ss09-17.gif https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/57/NAEP-lon... For the American "black"-"white" IQ gap itself (and I think it's very important to specify American, as conclusions about "blacks" in the USA are likely to be very misleading if applied to Botswanans for example) the I found a few seemingly contradictory studies, but it looks like the childhood gap is closing quickly (3+ IQ points per decade) while the adult gap is closing much more slowly (<1 IQ point per decade). Do you have any good sources on this?
- SkyBelow 6y ago
  >it seems that average IQ in large population groups is mostly a function of culture rather than genetics. Probably environment more than culture (unless you are counting environment in that). Just look at the effects nutrition during pregnancy has or the effects lead has on IQ.
- specialist 6y ago
  Further, as I understand it, nurture are huge factors, if not the biggest. Poverty, abuse, pollution, zip code, etc. Noob me: Sure, some fraction of IQ is hereditary for individuals. But there's no correlation between hereditary (genetic) IQ and group sizes larger than families, and mosdef none at population levels. PS- Reprehensible is the nicest adjective I can think of for those retrograde beliefs.
- erhk 6y ago
  IQ is verifiably a tool to exclude people based on race. It used inane things like vocabulary to deign intelligence. It has no merit and is not worth discussing.
  - CryptoPunk 6y ago
    This is a completely unscientific claim. IQ is extremely well studied by credible scientists and found to be a very reliable indicator of general intellectual ability, as reflected in competence in a wide variety of intellectual tasks.
sprafa 6y ago
You should read more about IQ and it’s failure to predict success. Like Nassim Taleb has said - IQ just shows you’re not dumb, not that you’re smart. Which you are a perfect example of, I’m sure.
- bloak 6y ago
  IQ is, by definition, how well you perform at solving a particular kind of puzzle. "Success" means fulfilling whichever criteria you have defined for a particular goal/objective. IQ results are of some use in predicting how well children will do at school, i.e. what exam results they will get after being taught. That's usually a "success criterion" for the school, though not necessarily for the children, who may have other goals in life, e.g. becoming a footballer.
  - User23 6y ago
    Players that want to play football in the NFL have to take an IQ test[1] and score decently well. Using a rough conversion[2], NFL teams require a minimum IQ in the low 90s to play, because players below that threshold are incapable of learning the plays[3]. So even for persons who want to play competitive football, a certain level of intelligence is extremely important. I don't know much about soccer beyond pickup games, is it roughly as cognitively demanding as football at the highest levels? [1] https://jobdescriptionandresumeexamples.com/10-important-facts-about-nfl-wonderlic-test/ https://jobdescriptionandresumeexamples.com/10-important-fac... [2] https://wonderlictestpractice.com/how-does-the-wonderlic-correspond-to-the-iq-test/ https://wonderlictestpractice.com/how-does-the-wonderlic-cor... [3] https://clutchpoints.com/patriots-news-new-england-requires-minimum-wonderlic-iq-test-score/ https://clutchpoints.com/patriots-news-new-england-requires-...
kingsuper20 6y ago
Who knows? Maybe intelligence can be tied to handedness, gingerness (heaven forbid!), or body symmetry. A tricky thing to measure given difficulties in testing, lack of twin studies, and the like. Admittedly it would be interesting to take a million people, give them various sorts of cognitive tests, do a DNA sample, feed in biographical details, and let 'er rip on a big ol' computer. There might be outrage and a need to twiddle knobs on the AI or there might be nothing noteworthy. Some Chinese researcher will let us know soon enough.
dang 6y ago
If you keep using HN for ideological flamewar we are going to have to ban you. We've asked you before to stop, and you've continued to do it. Please stop. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

CryptoPunk 6y ago

Brain matter is metabolically very expensive to build, and I assume maintain, so it has to provide a significant evolutionary advantage per mm^3 to make it evolutionarily worth having larger brains.

concordDance 6y ago

If brain volume doesn't mean much then why is it so big it causes death in childbirth in humans?

op03 6y ago
There are people doing fine with half of it removed - https://www.inquirer.com/philly/news/local/20160214_20_years_after_surgery__a_full_life_with_half_a_brain.html https://www.inquirer.com/philly/news/local/20160214_20_years...
- f6v 6y ago
  There’s a huge difference between “doing fine” in a modern society and in nature where she wouldn’t have survived. The article mentions her case is also rather atypical.
- hanselot 6y ago
  Opportunity cost is a hell of a thing. After the surgery, she grew introverted, and many of the friends who had supported her in third grade drifted away. Her family and doctors knew her ambitious goals of college and a career would be a struggle, but others were more negative, even cruel. A teacher at a technical high school said she doubted Santhouse would ever be able to do more than answer phones. Even the Johns Hopkins doctors said she'd never drive. Yet, "I was full steam ahead," Santhouse said, recounting how she got her driver's license at 17, excelled on the high school bowling team, and pushed herself through college and on to a graduate degree. "I wasn't going to let [the brain surgery] stop me." I don't think its fair to say that this would be considered a full life by many. But, given your view, perhaps you would volunteer to have this surgery done to prove this? Edit: I suppose you would probably be fine if you consumed the news (propaganda) and embraced leftism.

fighterpilot 6y ago

I believe the facts support a different conclusion: (1) There's been a dramatic increase in our brain size over the last million years, is just a coincidence that we've also gotten way smarter? (2) What about the high correlation between brain volume and IQ within humans? (3) What would the evolutionary purpose be of supporting such an expensive organ if its size is irrelevant?

_0ffh 6y ago
A possible answer would be that greater volume also implies greater surface area (modulo shape).

TeMPOraL 6y ago

An OS only takes a small part of the computer's overall storage. Imagine you bought one of those high-capacity SSDs off AliExpress, and unbeknownst to you, what you got is a small flash drive in an SSD enclosure, cleverly preformatted to report it's 10x as big as it is. You install your OS on this drive, and happily do your work, but then you start realizing that some files are going missing, even though you're sure you've saved them... Something similar may be happening with the brain - perhaps the core compute runs on the surface layers, but that doesn't mean non-critical functionality isn't occupying the deeper parts, and a person with less of those parts may not realize they have decreased capacity.

52-6F-62 6y ago
> Something similar may be happening with the brain - perhaps the core compute runs on the surface layers, but that doesn't mean non-critical functionality isn't occupying the deeper parts, and a person with less of those parts may not realize they have decreased capacity. That's at once fascinating and existentially horrifying to me. I need to know more...
- ben_w 6y ago
  It definitely happens at some point — I saw it in my mother when her Alzheimer’s progressed to later stages. She only seemed to be aware of her condition in the initial stages. I have wondered if Alzheimer’s preferentially damages certain parts of the brain? And also if eventual death is unpredictable because it depends on when the damage interferes with autonomous bodily functions such as heartbeat, breathing, or gut peristalsis?