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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

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 5y 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 5y 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 5y 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 5y 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 5y ago
        Brainwashing about what? Be specific.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - AussieWog93 5y 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 5y 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 5y ago
        It's not an "obviously false" belief, it's one backed by good data and science. Intelligence and other personality traits are of course heritable, but controlled by thousands of genes that are unlikely to shift significantly over the course of around 50,000 years. Intelligence and personality are also a result of culture, and we've seen a 30 point increase in IQ scores in a single century, and a similarly spectacular drop in violent crime rates. If you honestly believe racial genetics are a significant factor, you are either willfully ignorant or unable to engage in complex thought processes yourself.
        fighterpilot 5y ago
        > thousands of genes that are unlikely to shift significantly over the course of around 50,000 years. Large evolutionary changes can happen rather rapidly with the right sustained pressures, certainly within a 50,000 year window. Check out this plot of brain size over time[1] If we can have such a dramatic increase in brain volume over a 500k year window, then we can absolutely have nontrivial changes to intelligence in a 50k year window. > Intelligence ... are also a result of culture IQ differences between races may be a result of prenatal nutrition, but I struggle to believe that they're a result of culture. The reason I doubt this is transracial adoption studies where the child is adopted out at birth to well-off white parents and tested at a very young age. So I can plausibly see how bad prenatal nutrition could have reduced this kids' IQ but attributing it to culture stretches credulity a bit, in my opinion. (I could be wrong about that though, as the kids weren't that young, so it's plausible that there's some cultural influence from early school friends, but I still think that it strains credulity). [1] http://aquatic-human-ancestor.org/anatomy/images/brain-size-sm.jpg http://aquatic-human-ancestor.org/anatomy/images/brain-size-...
  - concordDance 5y ago
    This is a lazy and unverifiable response. Point at a specific book or search term if you want to convince people.
    - logicslave 5y ago
      I'm not here to convince you of anything, more so to understand, maybe just a little, how people are being convinced of things that arent true. And how is it happening on such a wide scale. How did knowledge that was common 100 years ago, and then reaching back thousands of years, completely disappear or become so shunned.
      - f6v 5y ago
        Man, I’m doing a thesis on regulatory genomics. Just tell how exactly do you think I’m brainwashed and we can discuss that.
      - dTal 5y ago
        What things? You mention 100 years ago, so I found a quote from the debate of the Dyer bill, a piece of anti-lynching legislation, in 1921 - would you say you agree with it? "Representative Percy Quin of Mississippi, spoke of lynch law, "Whenever an infamous outrage is committed upon a [Southern] White woman the law is enforced by the neighbors of the woman who has been outraged? The colored people of [the South] realize the manner of that enforcement, and that is the one method by which the horrible crime of rape has been held down where the Negro element is in a large majority. The man who believes that the Negro race is all bad is mistaken. But you must recollect that there is an element of barbarism in the black man, and the people around where he lives recognize that fact." (Holden-Smith, 1996, p. 15) "
  - tsimionescu 5y ago
    I can only assume you are talking about the widely debunked 'race science' component of biology. Most of that was not only wrong, but explicitly constructed just to provide a scientific sounding excuse for slavery and associated practices, like widely cited 'studies' comapring IQs of black and white children in apartheid South Africa. This is all not to mention that 'race' is not a biological construct, and virtually none of these studies actually check the genetics of the individual. They simply assume that black skin correlates with a particular genotype, without any reason to believe that thr genes for skin color are in any way correlated with any genes which could predict IQ. It would make more sense to compare IQ across geographical locations, since geographical separation is a strong predictor of genetic separation as well. However, there you end up with huge confounding factors stemming from culture when trying to measure IQ.
- vixen99 5y 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 5y 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 5y 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 5y 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 5y 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 5y 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 5y 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 5y 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 5y 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 5y 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 5y 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

AussieWog93 5y 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 5y 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 5y 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 5y 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 5y ago
      Brainwashing about what? Be specific.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- AussieWog93 5y 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 5y 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 5y ago
      It's not an "obviously false" belief, it's one backed by good data and science. Intelligence and other personality traits are of course heritable, but controlled by thousands of genes that are unlikely to shift significantly over the course of around 50,000 years. Intelligence and personality are also a result of culture, and we've seen a 30 point increase in IQ scores in a single century, and a similarly spectacular drop in violent crime rates. If you honestly believe racial genetics are a significant factor, you are either willfully ignorant or unable to engage in complex thought processes yourself.
      - fighterpilot 5y ago
        > thousands of genes that are unlikely to shift significantly over the course of around 50,000 years. Large evolutionary changes can happen rather rapidly with the right sustained pressures, certainly within a 50,000 year window. Check out this plot of brain size over time[1] If we can have such a dramatic increase in brain volume over a 500k year window, then we can absolutely have nontrivial changes to intelligence in a 50k year window. > Intelligence ... are also a result of culture IQ differences between races may be a result of prenatal nutrition, but I struggle to believe that they're a result of culture. The reason I doubt this is transracial adoption studies where the child is adopted out at birth to well-off white parents and tested at a very young age. So I can plausibly see how bad prenatal nutrition could have reduced this kids' IQ but attributing it to culture stretches credulity a bit, in my opinion. (I could be wrong about that though, as the kids weren't that young, so it's plausible that there's some cultural influence from early school friends, but I still think that it strains credulity). [1] http://aquatic-human-ancestor.org/anatomy/images/brain-size-sm.jpg http://aquatic-human-ancestor.org/anatomy/images/brain-size-...
- concordDance 5y ago
  This is a lazy and unverifiable response. Point at a specific book or search term if you want to convince people.
  - logicslave 5y ago
    I'm not here to convince you of anything, more so to understand, maybe just a little, how people are being convinced of things that arent true. And how is it happening on such a wide scale. How did knowledge that was common 100 years ago, and then reaching back thousands of years, completely disappear or become so shunned.
    - f6v 5y ago
      Man, I’m doing a thesis on regulatory genomics. Just tell how exactly do you think I’m brainwashed and we can discuss that.
    - dTal 5y ago
      What things? You mention 100 years ago, so I found a quote from the debate of the Dyer bill, a piece of anti-lynching legislation, in 1921 - would you say you agree with it? "Representative Percy Quin of Mississippi, spoke of lynch law, "Whenever an infamous outrage is committed upon a [Southern] White woman the law is enforced by the neighbors of the woman who has been outraged? The colored people of [the South] realize the manner of that enforcement, and that is the one method by which the horrible crime of rape has been held down where the Negro element is in a large majority. The man who believes that the Negro race is all bad is mistaken. But you must recollect that there is an element of barbarism in the black man, and the people around where he lives recognize that fact." (Holden-Smith, 1996, p. 15) "
- tsimionescu 5y ago
  I can only assume you are talking about the widely debunked 'race science' component of biology. Most of that was not only wrong, but explicitly constructed just to provide a scientific sounding excuse for slavery and associated practices, like widely cited 'studies' comapring IQs of black and white children in apartheid South Africa. This is all not to mention that 'race' is not a biological construct, and virtually none of these studies actually check the genetics of the individual. They simply assume that black skin correlates with a particular genotype, without any reason to believe that thr genes for skin color are in any way correlated with any genes which could predict IQ. It would make more sense to compare IQ across geographical locations, since geographical separation is a strong predictor of genetic separation as well. However, there you end up with huge confounding factors stemming from culture when trying to measure IQ.
vixen99 5y 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 5y 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 5y 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 5y 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 5y 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 5y 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 5y 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 5y 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 5y 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 5y 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 5y 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