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> One thing I wonder is what makes intelligence "special" so that there are no differences, as compared to other physical traits where you do see differences be

> One thing I wonder is what makes intelligence "special" so that there are no differences, as compared to other physical traits where you do see differences between ethnicities? IQ theory has the following problems: 1. Intelligence is not the same as height, as one of these is low-dimensional and mechanical, and the other is high-dimensional and very complex. 2. There are problems defining what intelligence is. 3. The "intelligence" as measured by IQ is problematic because it's engineered to follow a normal distribution. This then contradicts claims by IQ-ists that IQ predicts things which are very much non-normally distributed. 4. Many of the apparent successes of IQ theory can be explained by saying that low IQ relative to a surrounding population is indicative of a learning disability. This doesn't make higher-than-average IQ useful though. 5. People who score highly in IQ tests are interested in puzzles and seeing patterns in things. This is not necessarily a useful skill in real life, and may even be detrimental sometimes. 6. IQ-ists claim to be dispassionately following what the science says, but are generally incompetent at the fundamentals of science. For instance, they use measures of statistical association like Pearson Correlation Coefficient, which have been abandoned in all the hard sciences. These old-fashioned methods of statistical association are very brittle, and are easy to misuse. They appear to be ignorant of more modern and robust statistics. When their data has been checked using more modern methodology, their conclusions don't hold up. 7. IQ-ists claim to be dispassionately following what the science says, but their mistakes have serious consequences for people's lives. It can be used to justify racism and eugenics.

zepto 5y ago
Not disputing any of your other point but this one: > 1. Intelligence is not the same as height, as one of these is low-dimensional and mechanical, and the other is high-dimensional and very complex. Is way off. Height is influenced by a huge number of factors. It’s not just some simple genetic program.
- vgel 5y ago
  I think you have their point a bit backwards: they're not saying the causes of height are simple, but rather that the output is simple to measure. If you measure 5 groups and one is 20% taller than the rest, that's pretty clear evidence of something. You get one simple number, one dimension. Intelligence is much squishier because IQ is a suspect measure at best. If a group scores 20% higher on some intelligence test, is that because of genetics? Cultural focus on learning the specific skills measured by this test? A biased test? Completely different methods of testing being falsely compared? There's no real meterstick for intelligence like there (literally) is for height, so trying to extract a number you can throw into a statistical analysis is a lot more fraught, if it's possible at all.
  - zepto 5y ago
    > they're not saying the causes of height are simple, but rather that the output is simple to measure. By talking about the dimensionality, they are saying both. I agree that measuring height is easier, but I disagree that it’s causally simpler, and that is frankly what matters. Is someone taller because of genetics or nutrition? Is there a nutrition difference because of culture, or because of racism, or because of wealth or because of IQ? Etc. Etc. > … if it's possible at all. It sounds like you are someone who doesn’t believe intelligence can be measured.
    - vgel 5y ago
      That's fair. I think I actually remember reading somewhere that worldwide height is catching up with European height, and what was posited to be genetic differences was actually due to nutrition. Don't have a source at hand, though. > It sounds like you are someone who doesn’t believe intelligence can be measured. I'm certainly skeptical about the utility of IQ or any other test as a general measure of "intelligence", when what intelligence even means is an active matter of debate.
      - soundnote 5y ago
        > I'm certainly skeptical about the utility of IQ or any other test as a general measure of "intelligence", when what intelligence even means is an active matter of debate. That's partly because it's mythologized to hell and back, and people often turn to the lack of a definition given concisely in words as proof that we don't really know it. But, g exists, we know its nature rather well, and being able to do hang on to that measure has enabled considerable detective work as to the physical underpinnings of it. Most simply, I think treating it as a brain performance benchmark, just like you would for a computer, doesn't go very far wrong. It's variation in the general monkey brain blueprint we're all built from, and has physical correlates that imply it as a rather general measure of the brain's performance (it's eg. linked to faster average reaction times, which would make no sense for a measure of book-learning aptitude). So, more IQ = monkey with more CPU cycles and RAM, done. Zero mythology, zero romanticism, simple. As one analogy, you could liken it to gravity: For the longest time we knew things fell down, we could measure that speed, etc. but we didn't know why things fell down. Then we made some theories, and then new ones, and then new ones. But we don't actually know the cause and the mechanism completely. We know mechanisms of how it acts and measures of how strongly, but stuff like a quantum mechanical theory of gravity is anyone's guess at this point. All along that journey of discovery, we still knew a fundamental fact: Somehow things fell down. That observation is the anchor. In intelligence research, that observation is g.
quacked 5y ago
Good lord, listen to yourself. > People who score highly in IQ tests are interested in puzzles and seeing patterns in things. This is not necessarily a useful skill in real life, and may even be detrimental sometimes. Have you been outside in the last thirty years? "Real life" has been completely designed by people who are good at puzzles and patterns! Grocery store checkout machines, venture capital, social media, automobiles, the internet--all of these are puzzles and patterns. The better you are at puzzles and patterns, the better you'll be at "real life". There is a difference between discussing the weaknesses of IQ theory and completely ignoring reality in favor of making sure you can't be accused of "racism or eugenics". You sound like someone in an authoritarian religious state making fervent declarations of whatever the parish is telling people to say. I agree that IQ does not exist, it is an abstract metric invented a while ago--but on the whole, people who score highly on IQ tests are going to have a much, much easier time succeeding in the modern puzzle-and-pattern reality.
cinntaile 5y ago
1 & 2 are very intertwined I think. Height just happens to be easily measured. 3. You mean because IQ is assumed to be normally distributed in a population? What are you thinking of when you say "This then contradicts claims by IQ-ists that IQ predicts things which are very much non-normally distributed."? I don't think IQ distributed normally means that you can't have non-normally distributed consequences in other areas?
kbelder 5y ago
I disprove you thusly: "IQ-ists"

zepto 5y ago

Not disputing any of your other point but this one: > 1. Intelligence is not the same as height, as one of these is low-dimensional and mechanical, and the other is high-dimensional and very complex. Is way off. Height is influenced by a huge number of factors. It’s not just some simple genetic program.

vgel 5y ago
I think you have their point a bit backwards: they're not saying the causes of height are simple, but rather that the output is simple to measure. If you measure 5 groups and one is 20% taller than the rest, that's pretty clear evidence of something. You get one simple number, one dimension. Intelligence is much squishier because IQ is a suspect measure at best. If a group scores 20% higher on some intelligence test, is that because of genetics? Cultural focus on learning the specific skills measured by this test? A biased test? Completely different methods of testing being falsely compared? There's no real meterstick for intelligence like there (literally) is for height, so trying to extract a number you can throw into a statistical analysis is a lot more fraught, if it's possible at all.
- zepto 5y ago
  > they're not saying the causes of height are simple, but rather that the output is simple to measure. By talking about the dimensionality, they are saying both. I agree that measuring height is easier, but I disagree that it’s causally simpler, and that is frankly what matters. Is someone taller because of genetics or nutrition? Is there a nutrition difference because of culture, or because of racism, or because of wealth or because of IQ? Etc. Etc. > … if it's possible at all. It sounds like you are someone who doesn’t believe intelligence can be measured.
  - vgel 5y ago
    That's fair. I think I actually remember reading somewhere that worldwide height is catching up with European height, and what was posited to be genetic differences was actually due to nutrition. Don't have a source at hand, though. > It sounds like you are someone who doesn’t believe intelligence can be measured. I'm certainly skeptical about the utility of IQ or any other test as a general measure of "intelligence", when what intelligence even means is an active matter of debate.
    - soundnote 5y ago
      > I'm certainly skeptical about the utility of IQ or any other test as a general measure of "intelligence", when what intelligence even means is an active matter of debate. That's partly because it's mythologized to hell and back, and people often turn to the lack of a definition given concisely in words as proof that we don't really know it. But, g exists, we know its nature rather well, and being able to do hang on to that measure has enabled considerable detective work as to the physical underpinnings of it. Most simply, I think treating it as a brain performance benchmark, just like you would for a computer, doesn't go very far wrong. It's variation in the general monkey brain blueprint we're all built from, and has physical correlates that imply it as a rather general measure of the brain's performance (it's eg. linked to faster average reaction times, which would make no sense for a measure of book-learning aptitude). So, more IQ = monkey with more CPU cycles and RAM, done. Zero mythology, zero romanticism, simple. As one analogy, you could liken it to gravity: For the longest time we knew things fell down, we could measure that speed, etc. but we didn't know why things fell down. Then we made some theories, and then new ones, and then new ones. But we don't actually know the cause and the mechanism completely. We know mechanisms of how it acts and measures of how strongly, but stuff like a quantum mechanical theory of gravity is anyone's guess at this point. All along that journey of discovery, we still knew a fundamental fact: Somehow things fell down. That observation is the anchor. In intelligence research, that observation is g.

quacked 5y ago

Good lord, listen to yourself. > People who score highly in IQ tests are interested in puzzles and seeing patterns in things. This is not necessarily a useful skill in real life, and may even be detrimental sometimes. Have you been outside in the last thirty years? "Real life" has been completely designed by people who are good at puzzles and patterns! Grocery store checkout machines, venture capital, social media, automobiles, the internet--all of these are puzzles and patterns. The better you are at puzzles and patterns, the better you'll be at "real life". There is a difference between discussing the weaknesses of IQ theory and completely ignoring reality in favor of making sure you can't be accused of "racism or eugenics". You sound like someone in an authoritarian religious state making fervent declarations of whatever the parish is telling people to say. I agree that IQ does not exist, it is an abstract metric invented a while ago--but on the whole, people who score highly on IQ tests are going to have a much, much easier time succeeding in the modern puzzle-and-pattern reality.

cinntaile 5y ago

1 & 2 are very intertwined I think. Height just happens to be easily measured. 3. You mean because IQ is assumed to be normally distributed in a population? What are you thinking of when you say "This then contradicts claims by IQ-ists that IQ predicts things which are very much non-normally distributed."? I don't think IQ distributed normally means that you can't have non-normally distributed consequences in other areas?

kbelder 5y ago

I disprove you thusly: "IQ-ists"