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Stephen Jay Gould was actually fairly innumerate. It’s clear he didn’t understand even the rather simple math behind the PCA, which underpins IQ measurement. Yo

by tmule 5y ago

Stephen Jay Gould was actually fairly innumerate. It’s clear he didn’t understand even the rather simple math behind the PCA, which underpins IQ measurement. You might find this instructive: https://infoproc.blogspot.com/2011/06/high-v-low-m.html?m=1 https://infoproc.blogspot.com/2011/06/high-v-low-m.html?m=1 “ Boiling brains down to one number and ranking them, and saying it comes from genes, nutty.” Yeah, except that the number correlates with many things we care about in the real world (educational attainment even at the highest levels, crime), even after controlling for many other things we care about in the real world (conscientiousness, SEC).

selimthegrim 5y ago
Well since you are would you like to enlighten us how good PCA is with latent variables?
kuhewa 5y ago
> Stephen Jay Gould was actually fairly innumerate. It’s clear he didn’t understand even the rather simple math behind the PCA, which underpins IQ measurement. You might find this instructive: https://infoproc.blogspot.com/2011/06/high-v-low-m.html?m=1 https://infoproc.blogspot.com/2011/06/high-v-low-m.html?m=1 Not sure the blogpost supports Gould being innumerate or not understanding PCA.. also, an aside, I doubt the author Hsu would agree with your take here, considering his hero Feynman had an underwhelming IQ relative to his success. BTW what do you mean by IQ measurement is underpinned by PCA (principal component analysis? or the requisite math?)?
- tmule 5y ago
  “ Not sure the blogpost supports Gould being innumerate or not understanding PCA.. also, an aside, I doubt the author Hsu would agree with your take here, considering his hero Feynman had an underwhelming IQ relative to his success.” Actually, here’s Hsu on Gould again: https://infoproc.blogspot.com/2011/06/high-v-low-m.html?m=1 https://infoproc.blogspot.com/2011/06/high-v-low-m.html?m=1 The author does indeed tackle Feynman’s IQ here, and agrees with me (actually Hsu has informed a large part of my worldview): https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/finding-the-next-einstein/201112/polymath-physicist-richard-feynmans-low-iq-and-finding-another https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/finding-the-next-ein... “ BTW what do you mean by IQ measurement is underpinned by PCA (principal component analysis? or the requisite math?)?” Principal component analysis. More here, again from Hsu: https://www.cog-genomics.org/static/pdf/ggoogle.pdf https://www.cog-genomics.org/static/pdf/ggoogle.pdf

by tmule 5y ago

selimthegrim 5y ago

Well since you are would you like to enlighten us how good PCA is with latent variables?

kuhewa 5y ago

> Stephen Jay Gould was actually fairly innumerate. It’s clear he didn’t understand even the rather simple math behind the PCA, which underpins IQ measurement. You might find this instructive: https://infoproc.blogspot.com/2011/06/high-v-low-m.html?m=1 https://infoproc.blogspot.com/2011/06/high-v-low-m.html?m=1 Not sure the blogpost supports Gould being innumerate or not understanding PCA.. also, an aside, I doubt the author Hsu would agree with your take here, considering his hero Feynman had an underwhelming IQ relative to his success. BTW what do you mean by IQ measurement is underpinned by PCA (principal component analysis? or the requisite math?)?

tmule 5y ago
“ Not sure the blogpost supports Gould being innumerate or not understanding PCA.. also, an aside, I doubt the author Hsu would agree with your take here, considering his hero Feynman had an underwhelming IQ relative to his success.” Actually, here’s Hsu on Gould again: https://infoproc.blogspot.com/2011/06/high-v-low-m.html?m=1 https://infoproc.blogspot.com/2011/06/high-v-low-m.html?m=1 The author does indeed tackle Feynman’s IQ here, and agrees with me (actually Hsu has informed a large part of my worldview): https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/finding-the-next-einstein/201112/polymath-physicist-richard-feynmans-low-iq-and-finding-another https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/finding-the-next-ein... “ BTW what do you mean by IQ measurement is underpinned by PCA (principal component analysis? or the requisite math?)?” Principal component analysis. More here, again from Hsu: https://www.cog-genomics.org/static/pdf/ggoogle.pdf https://www.cog-genomics.org/static/pdf/ggoogle.pdf