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> Removing admission tests was a huge slap in the face to social mobility out of the middle class. I agree, but arguably the benefits of the SAT with regard to

> Removing admission tests was a huge slap in the face to social mobility out of the middle class. I agree, but arguably the benefits of the SAT with regard to class mobility is less than it was when it was introduced. The heritability of IQ, combined with assortative mating, means that increasingly class divides are forming around differences in IQ. I think many people are rightly concerned that this will eventually result in simply a different entrenched class hierarchy. I still think MIT should use the SAT, but the problem of maintaining class mobility is one we should continue to assess.

whynotminot 5y ago
> The heritability of IQ, combined with assortative mating, means that increasingly class divides are forming around differences in IQ. Do you have a citation for this?
- notservile 5y ago
  The research on IQ heritability is abundant. You’ll get death threats if you point out the research though. It’s inconvenient and correlates with SAT performance. Hence the big push to get rid of the SAT to try to hide the disparities in general cognition within groups and between groups. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-biosocial-science/article/abs/social-mobility-and-iq-components/EA9C417B74DD404D48E3ABC49058CCDE https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-biosocial...
  - whynotminot 5y ago
    I was asking more about class divides becoming IQ based. Do you have a citation for that.
    - lliamander 5y ago
      That's the whole thesis of The Bell Curve and also Coming Apart, both works by Charles Murray. There's plenty of citations in those works as well. Edit: but beyond that, IQ-based class divides seems like a rather logical consequence of the following: 1. The heritability of IQ 2. Assortative mating 3. IQ being a significant determining factor of success in a given society
      - whynotminot 5y ago
        Maybe. I'm just more than a little skeptical given that GP has a scant post history, and spends his other posts railing on about CRT being marxism. There's a lot of people pedaling this kind of IQ stuff to justify blatant racism, so you'll forgive me for wanting to see the data and not just letting statements like that fly by unchallenged.
        lliamander 5y ago
        > Maybe. I'm just more than a little skeptical given that GP has a scant post history, and spends his other posts railing on about CRT being marxism. I do think the comments about CRT were a bit off-topic from this discussion. However, I do agree that CRT is Marxist and I doubt the original formulators of CRT would object to that characterization. The people I've seen most vigorously object to that characterization have been classic Marxists who object that CRT rejects the materialism of Marxism. From just about every other perspective, there is a great deal of overlap. > There's a lot of people pedaling this kind of IQ stuff to justify blatant racism, so you'll forgive me for wanting to see the data and not just letting statements like that fly by unchallenged. Fair enough. However, most of the misinformation about IQ is coming from the skeptics of IQ[1]. I'm aware that IQ research is sometimes used by racists, but that's only possible because certain political interests have done their level best to make IQ as radioactive as possible. It makes it hard for anyone not already on the fringes of society to engage in the research. [1]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6963451/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6963451/
        runarberg 5y ago
        To be frank IQ research is getting less and less relevant, and I suspect it has less to do with politics, and more to do with the fact that it has failed to further our understanding of human behavior and the human mind for the past 80 years. Much more interesting research has come from other fields of psychology, including (in order of peak popularity) behaviorism, cognitive psychology, social psychology, neuro-psychology. Unlike IQ works from these fields have made predictions in unrelated fields and inspired lasting paradigm shifts inside psychology. For example social psychology has provided very useful constructs used in economy, behaviorism in criminology, neuro-psychology in medicine, cognitive psychology in computer science etc. Scientifically IQ is a dead end. It only makes predictions inside the field of psychometrics, it correlates only with related constructs, the only place where it is used in an unrelated field is when racists are trying to excuse ludicrous statements. Note: This is not entirely true. IQ was (is?) used to assess cognitive disability in individuals, but today we have a lot better tools for that (thanks to cognitive and neuro-psychology), so it’s usefulness has been surpassed by other fields.
notservile 5y ago
Class divides have always been around IQ in every society. Which is why CRT being pushed on children is so sick. They’re literally teaching children race Marxism. They’ve replaced the idea of class with race and now demand equity not between classes, but between races.
- selimthegrim 5y ago
  CRT is an outgrowth of critical _legal_ theory, which upon examination of the career of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Bean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Bean has ample justification for existing.
  - notservile 5y ago
    Cool story bruh. I escaped communism under threat of death. CRT is carefully repackaged Marxist garbage. And I’ll take a stand with other Americans to make sure our children don’t die slaves in America when the time comes.
    - selimthegrim 5y ago
      Can you explain how anybody is talking about enslaving white people?
      - lliamander 5y ago
        I think he's saying that the whole society would be slaves. While I did not live under communism, I personally know some people who did and I think they would characterize that existence as a form of slavery.
- lliamander 5y ago
  > Class divides have always been around IQ in every society. Given by the positive effects of SAT testing on social mobility in the mid 20th century, I rather doubt that. And to be honest, if we are going to have a class system one way or the other, IQ might be the better approach. But IQ is not wisdom, and I worry that the elites of such a society would be disposed to unprecedented levels of ego and hubris.
torginus 5y ago
The heritability of wealth, combined with assortative mating, means that increasingly class divides are forming around differences in wealth. I think many people are rightly concerned that this will eventually result in simply a different entrenched class hierarchy.
- lliamander 5y ago
  That's how class divides have historically worked, yes. Previously those differences were also enforced through explicit class-based laws (the actually meaning of privilege). The introduction of free markets, and later IQ testing, disrupted a great deal of the entrenched social class structure within western societies and allowed many people of rather humble backgrounds to achieve great things. The concern I express is about whether IQ testing will continue provide the same level of social mobility in the future.
com2kid 5y ago
> The heritability of IQ, For better or for worse, regression to the mean is a thing.
- lliamander 5y ago
  That's a fair point.

whynotminot 5y ago

> The heritability of IQ, combined with assortative mating, means that increasingly class divides are forming around differences in IQ. Do you have a citation for this?

notservile 5y ago
The research on IQ heritability is abundant. You’ll get death threats if you point out the research though. It’s inconvenient and correlates with SAT performance. Hence the big push to get rid of the SAT to try to hide the disparities in general cognition within groups and between groups. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-biosocial-science/article/abs/social-mobility-and-iq-components/EA9C417B74DD404D48E3ABC49058CCDE https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-biosocial...
- whynotminot 5y ago
  I was asking more about class divides becoming IQ based. Do you have a citation for that.
  - lliamander 5y ago
    That's the whole thesis of The Bell Curve and also Coming Apart, both works by Charles Murray. There's plenty of citations in those works as well. Edit: but beyond that, IQ-based class divides seems like a rather logical consequence of the following: 1. The heritability of IQ 2. Assortative mating 3. IQ being a significant determining factor of success in a given society
    - whynotminot 5y ago
      Maybe. I'm just more than a little skeptical given that GP has a scant post history, and spends his other posts railing on about CRT being marxism. There's a lot of people pedaling this kind of IQ stuff to justify blatant racism, so you'll forgive me for wanting to see the data and not just letting statements like that fly by unchallenged.
      - lliamander 5y ago
        > Maybe. I'm just more than a little skeptical given that GP has a scant post history, and spends his other posts railing on about CRT being marxism. I do think the comments about CRT were a bit off-topic from this discussion. However, I do agree that CRT is Marxist and I doubt the original formulators of CRT would object to that characterization. The people I've seen most vigorously object to that characterization have been classic Marxists who object that CRT rejects the materialism of Marxism. From just about every other perspective, there is a great deal of overlap. > There's a lot of people pedaling this kind of IQ stuff to justify blatant racism, so you'll forgive me for wanting to see the data and not just letting statements like that fly by unchallenged. Fair enough. However, most of the misinformation about IQ is coming from the skeptics of IQ[1]. I'm aware that IQ research is sometimes used by racists, but that's only possible because certain political interests have done their level best to make IQ as radioactive as possible. It makes it hard for anyone not already on the fringes of society to engage in the research. [1]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6963451/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6963451/
        runarberg 5y ago
        To be frank IQ research is getting less and less relevant, and I suspect it has less to do with politics, and more to do with the fact that it has failed to further our understanding of human behavior and the human mind for the past 80 years. Much more interesting research has come from other fields of psychology, including (in order of peak popularity) behaviorism, cognitive psychology, social psychology, neuro-psychology. Unlike IQ works from these fields have made predictions in unrelated fields and inspired lasting paradigm shifts inside psychology. For example social psychology has provided very useful constructs used in economy, behaviorism in criminology, neuro-psychology in medicine, cognitive psychology in computer science etc. Scientifically IQ is a dead end. It only makes predictions inside the field of psychometrics, it correlates only with related constructs, the only place where it is used in an unrelated field is when racists are trying to excuse ludicrous statements. Note: This is not entirely true. IQ was (is?) used to assess cognitive disability in individuals, but today we have a lot better tools for that (thanks to cognitive and neuro-psychology), so it’s usefulness has been surpassed by other fields.

notservile 5y ago

Class divides have always been around IQ in every society. Which is why CRT being pushed on children is so sick. They’re literally teaching children race Marxism. They’ve replaced the idea of class with race and now demand equity not between classes, but between races.

selimthegrim 5y ago
CRT is an outgrowth of critical _legal_ theory, which upon examination of the career of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Bean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Bean has ample justification for existing.
- notservile 5y ago
  Cool story bruh. I escaped communism under threat of death. CRT is carefully repackaged Marxist garbage. And I’ll take a stand with other Americans to make sure our children don’t die slaves in America when the time comes.
  - selimthegrim 5y ago
    Can you explain how anybody is talking about enslaving white people?
    - lliamander 5y ago
      I think he's saying that the whole society would be slaves. While I did not live under communism, I personally know some people who did and I think they would characterize that existence as a form of slavery.
lliamander 5y ago
> Class divides have always been around IQ in every society. Given by the positive effects of SAT testing on social mobility in the mid 20th century, I rather doubt that. And to be honest, if we are going to have a class system one way or the other, IQ might be the better approach. But IQ is not wisdom, and I worry that the elites of such a society would be disposed to unprecedented levels of ego and hubris.

torginus 5y ago

The heritability of wealth, combined with assortative mating, means that increasingly class divides are forming around differences in wealth. I think many people are rightly concerned that this will eventually result in simply a different entrenched class hierarchy.

lliamander 5y ago
That's how class divides have historically worked, yes. Previously those differences were also enforced through explicit class-based laws (the actually meaning of privilege). The introduction of free markets, and later IQ testing, disrupted a great deal of the entrenched social class structure within western societies and allowed many people of rather humble backgrounds to achieve great things. The concern I express is about whether IQ testing will continue provide the same level of social mobility in the future.

com2kid 5y ago

> The heritability of IQ, For better or for worse, regression to the mean is a thing.

lliamander 5y ago
That's a fair point.