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So you believe that IQ alone is the most predictive metric for a person’s ability to what? Seriously who cares about a couple of IQ points?

water-your-self 4y ago
IQ is generally thrown out entirely. Im shocked to see it treated as a legitimate metric on hacker news
- peter422 4y ago
  Only on HN would the prevailing thought be that leet-code interviews are stupid but IQ is a magical, unbiased metric of a person’s ability and potential.
- paledot 4y ago
  Really? HN in 1822 would be filled with educated people seriously defending phrenology. 1922 HN would be falling over itself to defend eugenics. Apparently 2022 HN hasn't come very far from 1922. No one falls for pseudoscientific groupthink like communities of affluent, well-educated people.
- kansface 4y ago
  The military still uses it because it is highly predictive. They also have a hard cutoff at the bottom which wasn’t always the case (see McNamara’s Folly for the history of when the army accepted literally retarded people - it didn’t end well). We also see a very strong correlation between eg IQ and occupation. It is a legitimate metric of *something*.
  - peter422 4y ago
    The U.S. marine corp promoted its first black 4 star general this year. I don’t think it’s the shining example of a race-blind institution, at least as far as leadership is concerned.
    - kansface 4y ago
      You are cherry picking data. The US military has historically been far more progressive than the country as a whole. It integrated in 1948 - long before the voting rights act or the end of Jim crow. We had a black chair of the joint chiefs long before we elected a black president. Rights and privileges were extended to gay members long before they existed elsewhere.
- sacrosancty 4y ago
  What are you talking about? It has statistical predictive ability when used on groups of people. Of course it can be very inaccurate for an individual but the reality of being able to make testable predictions makes it pretty hard to throw out, except for ideologically motivated people who don't like what it reveals.
Vecr 4y ago
I thought IQ was correlated quite well with the idea of "Spearman's G", and unless people actually use something else on a massive scale over decades I'm not sure how you can avoid using it as a metric.

water-your-self 4y ago

IQ is generally thrown out entirely. Im shocked to see it treated as a legitimate metric on hacker news

peter422 4y ago
Only on HN would the prevailing thought be that leet-code interviews are stupid but IQ is a magical, unbiased metric of a person’s ability and potential.
paledot 4y ago
Really? HN in 1822 would be filled with educated people seriously defending phrenology. 1922 HN would be falling over itself to defend eugenics. Apparently 2022 HN hasn't come very far from 1922. No one falls for pseudoscientific groupthink like communities of affluent, well-educated people.
kansface 4y ago
The military still uses it because it is highly predictive. They also have a hard cutoff at the bottom which wasn’t always the case (see McNamara’s Folly for the history of when the army accepted literally retarded people - it didn’t end well). We also see a very strong correlation between eg IQ and occupation. It is a legitimate metric of *something*.
- peter422 4y ago
  The U.S. marine corp promoted its first black 4 star general this year. I don’t think it’s the shining example of a race-blind institution, at least as far as leadership is concerned.
  - kansface 4y ago
    You are cherry picking data. The US military has historically been far more progressive than the country as a whole. It integrated in 1948 - long before the voting rights act or the end of Jim crow. We had a black chair of the joint chiefs long before we elected a black president. Rights and privileges were extended to gay members long before they existed elsewhere.
sacrosancty 4y ago
What are you talking about? It has statistical predictive ability when used on groups of people. Of course it can be very inaccurate for an individual but the reality of being able to make testable predictions makes it pretty hard to throw out, except for ideologically motivated people who don't like what it reveals.

Vecr 4y ago

I thought IQ was correlated quite well with the idea of "Spearman's G", and unless people actually use something else on a massive scale over decades I'm not sure how you can avoid using it as a metric.