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> People don’t like the fact that requiring individuals to cooperate can enhance health outcomes for the group as a whole. I am not certain where you are deriv

by hirvi74 8mo ago

> People don’t like the fact that requiring individuals to cooperate can enhance health outcomes for the group as a whole. I am not certain where you are deriving this claim from. > Similarly, people don’t like the idea that some individuals are just born smarter than other individuals. Nor this claim, as well. I have had many discussions on the topic of IQ, and I have never once seen anybody ever argue that there is no variance in human intelligence. There is a large range of variance in every human attribute. That is not the focus of the debate. Rather, most of the debate seems to be surrounding the construct validity of IQ. Statistical validity != construct validity.

rayiner 8mo ago
> Statistical validity != construct validity. Sure. But in science, we regularly postulate the existence of some construct, and confirm that construct by conducting many empirical tests that return results consistent with the existence of that construct. General intelligence is like that. We can’t see it directly. But we have myriad results that are statistically consistent with its existence.
- hirvi74 8mo ago
  Results consistent with the existence of a construct are not sufficient evidence for the existence of a construct. We can talk about statistical correlations till the Sun goes down, and I will not dispute that this ethereal 'g-factor' can infer minor to moderate predictions in some domains of people's lives at a population level. However, I have one question. What evidence is there that this 'g-factor' is actually representative of general intelligence? You may not use the correlation values used to derive the g-factor to support your argument. My understanding is that correlations cannot be used to explain the general factor because the general factor should be what explains the correlations. If you are interested, I implore you to read this blog from the statistician, Cosma Shalizi, of CMU. His explanation is far better than anything I could attempt to make. https://bactra.org/weblog/523.html https://bactra.org/weblog/523.html
  - xyzzyz 8mo ago
    Sorry, what exactly do you mean by "is representative of general intelligence"? This is a very abstract statement. What does this mean in scientific, empirical terms? What kind of facts we would observe in the world where this is true? What empirical observations we'd make in the world where it's false?
    - hirvi74 8mo ago
      > Sorry, what exactly do you mean by "is representative of general intelligence"? This is a very abstract statement. No need to apologize. Perhaps my g is too low to describe my thoughts properly. > "is representative of general intelligence"? This factor that is derived from the positive correlations, g, is called general intelligence. So, g is nominally general intelligence, but is g actually what the name implies? One can take n number of positively correlated but independent things, and there will always be a some factor that can be derived from it. However, that does not mean the underlying factor is necessarily causal. > This is a very abstract statement. We are discussing abstract concepts. > What does this mean in scientific, empirical terms? That causality would be scientifically and empirically verifiable. > What kind of facts we would observe in the world where this is true? What empirical observations we'd make in the world where it's false? Alas, that is precisely the point I was trying to paraphrase from Shalizi. Whether g be true or false -- the result wouldn't look any different. The methodology being used cannot determine what is true nor false, and that is the crux of this entire problem.
      - xyzzyz 8mo ago
        One can take n number of positively correlated but independent things, and there will always be a some factor that can be derived from it. I hope you understand that your vague question cannot be seen as equivalent to this rather more concrete statement. That’s why I asked for clarification, and your patronizing comments were really not called for. In any case, Shalizi is very wrong, probably because he is entirely unfamiliar with the literature. He is wrong on multiple accounts. First, yes, any number positively correlated measurements will yield a common factor. However, when talking about g, this is not an artifact of how we constructed IQ tests. Shalizi says: What psychologists sometimes call the “positive manifold” condition is enough, in and of itself, to guarantee that there will appear to be a general factor. Since intelligence tests are made to correlate with each other, it follows trivially that there must appear to be a general factor of intelligence. But this is just not true. Tests are not made to correlated with each other. Any time anyone attempts to construct a test of general mental ability, we always find the same g factor, even if they explicitly attempt to make a battery that tries to measure distinct, uncorrelated mental aptitudes. Observe how Shalizi fails to provide a single example of a test that does not exhibit the positive manifold with other tests. Second, unlike Shalizi, we know that g is the predictive component of the IQ tests. IQ predicts real world outcomes very well, but what is really interesting is that the predictive power of individual subtests of an IQ test is practically perfectly correlated with g-loadings of the subtest. This would be very surprising if g was just a statistical artifact. Shalizi says So far as I can tell, however, nobody has presented a case for g apart from thoroughly invalid arguments from factor analysis; that is, the myth. But this is just baffling if you have any familiarity with the literature. Whether g be true or false -- the result wouldn't look any different. The methodology being used cannot determine what is true nor false, and that is the crux of this entire problem. That’s just not true. For example, if g was a statistical artifact, one of the hundreds of intelligence tests devised would have not exhibited the positive manifold with all the others. It would not be correlated with heritability. It would not be correlated with phenotype features like reaction time. The world where g is a statistical artifact looks much different than our world.
xyzzyz 8mo ago
There's no debate on construct validity of IQ among the experts in the field. The consensus position is that IQ tests measure something real, that the tests enjoy extremely high measurement invariance (which implies construct validity), and that the results have extremely high predictive validity (relative to literally anything else in the entire field of psychology). The current debate is more along the lines, whether the contribution of genes to variance in IQ is closer to 30% or to 80%.
- tptacek 8mo ago
  Wait, this comment starts out with an assertion about one scientific question (the construct validity of a quantitative psychological metric) and ends with a statement about the range of a totally different question, and it's one studied by different fields than the former question.
  - xyzzyz 8mo ago
    Yes, I could have left off the last comment. I added it to illustrate where the debate currently lies. I am not sure what your point is.
    - tptacek 8mo ago
      That the logic of your comment doesn't even hang together? Which debate? You've managed to cite two of them.
      - xyzzyz 8mo ago
        I’m really struggling to understand what your point is. The person I replied to was wrong as to where the current debate is among experts, so I pointed it out, and gave an example of where the debate currently is. Is that really so strange thing to say?

by hirvi74 8mo ago

rayiner 8mo ago

> Statistical validity != construct validity. Sure. But in science, we regularly postulate the existence of some construct, and confirm that construct by conducting many empirical tests that return results consistent with the existence of that construct. General intelligence is like that. We can’t see it directly. But we have myriad results that are statistically consistent with its existence.

hirvi74 8mo ago
Results consistent with the existence of a construct are not sufficient evidence for the existence of a construct. We can talk about statistical correlations till the Sun goes down, and I will not dispute that this ethereal 'g-factor' can infer minor to moderate predictions in some domains of people's lives at a population level. However, I have one question. What evidence is there that this 'g-factor' is actually representative of general intelligence? You may not use the correlation values used to derive the g-factor to support your argument. My understanding is that correlations cannot be used to explain the general factor because the general factor should be what explains the correlations. If you are interested, I implore you to read this blog from the statistician, Cosma Shalizi, of CMU. His explanation is far better than anything I could attempt to make. https://bactra.org/weblog/523.html https://bactra.org/weblog/523.html
- xyzzyz 8mo ago
  Sorry, what exactly do you mean by "is representative of general intelligence"? This is a very abstract statement. What does this mean in scientific, empirical terms? What kind of facts we would observe in the world where this is true? What empirical observations we'd make in the world where it's false?
  - hirvi74 8mo ago
    > Sorry, what exactly do you mean by "is representative of general intelligence"? This is a very abstract statement. No need to apologize. Perhaps my g is too low to describe my thoughts properly. > "is representative of general intelligence"? This factor that is derived from the positive correlations, g, is called general intelligence. So, g is nominally general intelligence, but is g actually what the name implies? One can take n number of positively correlated but independent things, and there will always be a some factor that can be derived from it. However, that does not mean the underlying factor is necessarily causal. > This is a very abstract statement. We are discussing abstract concepts. > What does this mean in scientific, empirical terms? That causality would be scientifically and empirically verifiable. > What kind of facts we would observe in the world where this is true? What empirical observations we'd make in the world where it's false? Alas, that is precisely the point I was trying to paraphrase from Shalizi. Whether g be true or false -- the result wouldn't look any different. The methodology being used cannot determine what is true nor false, and that is the crux of this entire problem.
    - xyzzyz 8mo ago
      One can take n number of positively correlated but independent things, and there will always be a some factor that can be derived from it. I hope you understand that your vague question cannot be seen as equivalent to this rather more concrete statement. That’s why I asked for clarification, and your patronizing comments were really not called for. In any case, Shalizi is very wrong, probably because he is entirely unfamiliar with the literature. He is wrong on multiple accounts. First, yes, any number positively correlated measurements will yield a common factor. However, when talking about g, this is not an artifact of how we constructed IQ tests. Shalizi says: What psychologists sometimes call the “positive manifold” condition is enough, in and of itself, to guarantee that there will appear to be a general factor. Since intelligence tests are made to correlate with each other, it follows trivially that there must appear to be a general factor of intelligence. But this is just not true. Tests are not made to correlated with each other. Any time anyone attempts to construct a test of general mental ability, we always find the same g factor, even if they explicitly attempt to make a battery that tries to measure distinct, uncorrelated mental aptitudes. Observe how Shalizi fails to provide a single example of a test that does not exhibit the positive manifold with other tests. Second, unlike Shalizi, we know that g is the predictive component of the IQ tests. IQ predicts real world outcomes very well, but what is really interesting is that the predictive power of individual subtests of an IQ test is practically perfectly correlated with g-loadings of the subtest. This would be very surprising if g was just a statistical artifact. Shalizi says So far as I can tell, however, nobody has presented a case for g apart from thoroughly invalid arguments from factor analysis; that is, the myth. But this is just baffling if you have any familiarity with the literature. Whether g be true or false -- the result wouldn't look any different. The methodology being used cannot determine what is true nor false, and that is the crux of this entire problem. That’s just not true. For example, if g was a statistical artifact, one of the hundreds of intelligence tests devised would have not exhibited the positive manifold with all the others. It would not be correlated with heritability. It would not be correlated with phenotype features like reaction time. The world where g is a statistical artifact looks much different than our world.

xyzzyz 8mo ago

There's no debate on construct validity of IQ among the experts in the field. The consensus position is that IQ tests measure something real, that the tests enjoy extremely high measurement invariance (which implies construct validity), and that the results have extremely high predictive validity (relative to literally anything else in the entire field of psychology). The current debate is more along the lines, whether the contribution of genes to variance in IQ is closer to 30% or to 80%.

tptacek 8mo ago
Wait, this comment starts out with an assertion about one scientific question (the construct validity of a quantitative psychological metric) and ends with a statement about the range of a totally different question, and it's one studied by different fields than the former question.
- xyzzyz 8mo ago
  Yes, I could have left off the last comment. I added it to illustrate where the debate currently lies. I am not sure what your point is.
  - tptacek 8mo ago
    That the logic of your comment doesn't even hang together? Which debate? You've managed to cite two of them.
    - xyzzyz 8mo ago
      I’m really struggling to understand what your point is. The person I replied to was wrong as to where the current debate is among experts, so I pointed it out, and gave an example of where the debate currently is. Is that really so strange thing to say?