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Regarding the downmodding... discussing biological differences in the races is one of those Things You Can't Say (http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html http://ww

by rms 18y ago

Regarding the downmodding... discussing biological differences in the races is one of those Things You Can't Say (http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html). It's been discussed here before and it never goes anywhere. I would recommend letting it go. I am inclined to agree with you that this study is just as worthless as the ones comparing American students to foreign ones, but for different reasons. It's just about what is being tested -- kids may do worse on some measures, but on average, in the age of Google, everyone is a great deal smarter than 30 years ago.

dgabriel 18y ago
You can discuss biological differences, but you have to do it carefully and extremely intelligently. Eugenics have been used by bad and tremendously ignorant people to do terrible things, and people are rightfully wary about entering the "biological difference between races," territory. In any case, we're talking about the exceptional students, so racial averages are irrelevant to the conversation.
- yummyfajitas 18y ago
  >In any case, we're talking about the exceptional students, so racial averages are irrelevant to the conversation. Nonsense. Assume intellect is normally distributed, with equal sigma to simplify things (1). Assume a racial difference in mean of 0.5 sigma, then 2.2% of the higher intellect group will be 2sigma beyond the (high intellect) mean, while 0.6% of the lower intellect group will reach this level. This difference grows exponentially when we consider more exceptional people (2). (1) Between males and females, sigma is not equal. Men have higher sigma, as Larry Summers famously hypothesized. (2) To see this, write out the CDF for a normal distribution and use the asymptotic expansion for erf. The rate of growth is (smarter group's mean - dumber group's mean)/sigma^2.
  - MaysonL 18y ago
    Assume intelligence is distributed proportionately to time spent thinking on hard problems, starting in childhood, which assumption is borne out by the biographies of many exceptionally gifted individuals, and things start looking very different, don't they?
bmj 18y ago
kids may do worse on some measures, but on average, in the age of Google, everyone is a great deal smarter than 30 years ago. Statistics? I see your point, but one must intellectually curious to make use of the vast pool of resources that is available. Google also allows mis-information to be more readily disseminated.

by rms 18y ago

dgabriel 18y ago

You can discuss biological differences, but you have to do it carefully and extremely intelligently. Eugenics have been used by bad and tremendously ignorant people to do terrible things, and people are rightfully wary about entering the "biological difference between races," territory. In any case, we're talking about the exceptional students, so racial averages are irrelevant to the conversation.

yummyfajitas 18y ago
>In any case, we're talking about the exceptional students, so racial averages are irrelevant to the conversation. Nonsense. Assume intellect is normally distributed, with equal sigma to simplify things (1). Assume a racial difference in mean of 0.5 sigma, then 2.2% of the higher intellect group will be 2sigma beyond the (high intellect) mean, while 0.6% of the lower intellect group will reach this level. This difference grows exponentially when we consider more exceptional people (2). (1) Between males and females, sigma is not equal. Men have higher sigma, as Larry Summers famously hypothesized. (2) To see this, write out the CDF for a normal distribution and use the asymptotic expansion for erf. The rate of growth is (smarter group's mean - dumber group's mean)/sigma^2.
- MaysonL 18y ago
  Assume intelligence is distributed proportionately to time spent thinking on hard problems, starting in childhood, which assumption is borne out by the biographies of many exceptionally gifted individuals, and things start looking very different, don't they?

bmj 18y ago

kids may do worse on some measures, but on average, in the age of Google, everyone is a great deal smarter than 30 years ago. Statistics? I see your point, but one must intellectually curious to make use of the vast pool of resources that is available. Google also allows mis-information to be more readily disseminated.