3 ms·

Unless you ask them about IQ, which is apparently not real?

by 0xy 3mo ago

cheikhcheikh 3mo ago
[flagged]
thatjoeoverthr 3mo ago
Cue the IQ denier deniers
- runarberg 3mo ago
  I‘ll bite. IQ is a racist pseudo-science. It offers nothing of value to science nor philosophy. I will proudly claim to be an “IQ denier“ just like I am also a “phrenology denier“ as well as an “aether denier”.
  - tptacek 3mo ago
    I don't think this is a valid argument, and I think the search bar will show my bona fides on the "racism" angle of this. I don't think "proud IQ denier" is a strong rhetorical position. IQ is, among other things, an important clinical and diagnostic tool, especially in individual settings. In concert with other instruments it diagnoses cognitive deficits and routes people to treatments and supports. It's a useful tool of scientific inquiry as well; for example, it's used in epidemiology, and to evaluate interventions. The thing to be a proud opponent of is the idea of IQ as a social "sorting hat", or a ranking of cognitive superiors and inferiors. It's clearly abused, so much so that virtually every mention of IQ you'll read on HN (outside of its now ubiquitous and odd use as a metric for LLMs) is pseudoscientific and problematic. The valid uses of IQ are not message-board-interesting, and the message-board-interesting uses of IQ aren't valid. It's easy to see how people fall into the trap of denying it completely. But when you do that, you're setting yourself for an argument you're probably not going to be able to win.
    - runarberg 3mo ago
      My post was tailored around the kinds of people who say stuff like “Cue the IQ deniers” and who very carefully insinuate not accepting fraudulent data from desecrated IQ scientist Richard Lynn is “denying facts”. And as such I used this on the nose speech. If I was having this conversation with you (which we’ve had in the past) whom I believe is a Gloomy Prospector (a la Turkheimer) as opposed to my GPs Bell Curvers I would have been more careful with my wording. Before I continue I do want to note that a lot has changed since the Gloomy Prospect‘s heyday in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Back then people like Turkheimer were still pushing them selves to become the mainstream pshychology (although the writing was pretty much on the wall for the likes of Plomin, and before him Jensen, Lynn, et. al.). I want to make it absolutely clear that I respect (nay, love) the work Turkheimer et. al. have done in getting us here. He and people like him are true scientists. But now his Gloomy Prospect is being challenged from the left still, and I would not be surprised that in 20-30 years IQ will have gone the way of the Aether. That said, I want to correct you, IQ tests are being used as one of many important clinical and diagnostic tools, in particular the subtests. IQ has not been used in diagnostic since DSM-III I believe (I may be wrong; I don‘t have a DSM-III handy). Many clinical and developmental psychologists still use subtests of IQ, but very few compute the actual IQ. Some social psychologists still compute IQ of and try to find some correlation to this and that, but when I read those research I get the vibes from studying the effect of weightlessness on tiny screws[1]. If I were to guess (and Turkheimer would disagree with me on this) this is purely because of momentum, and has nothing to do with the scientific value of IQ. IQ tests are extremely robust, have been thoroughly standardized, and whole generations of clinical psychologists have been extremely well trained in administering them. 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4DUWXLt7xE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4DUWXLt7xE Now, I don‘t think my GPs have read beyond the words Gloomy Prospect in my post, and I don‘t think bringing some critique on Eric Turkheimer from the left is gonna open the eyes of people who are still promoting the Bell Curve 30 years later.
      - tptacek 3mo ago
        I agree with you about the Bell Curve stuff, I believe that's where you're coming from, I think where you're coming from is a good place, I don't agree with you (or rather: think you're way overstating) the diminished role of IQ in science and medicine, but we agree on the important things about IQ and how it has mostly a malign role on message boards so we don't have to hash it out too far. I just don't want to concede the IQ frame to race trolls. My thing is just: there's plenty of room to believe IQ is totally legitimate without giving an inch on what people who refer to "IQ-deniers" when what you always suspect they really mean is "race/IQ-deniers".
  - thatjoeoverthr 3mo ago
    Thanks. The other guy asked if the IQ deniers are “in the room with us right now”.
    - runarberg 3mo ago
      Whoops, I only read 4 of the 5 words in your post, and reacted to that.

Unless you ask them about IQ, which is apparently not real?

by 0xy 3mo ago

Unless you ask them about IQ, which is apparently not real?

cheikhcheikh 3mo ago

[flagged]

thatjoeoverthr 3mo ago

Cue the IQ denier deniers

runarberg 3mo ago
I‘ll bite. IQ is a racist pseudo-science. It offers nothing of value to science nor philosophy. I will proudly claim to be an “IQ denier“ just like I am also a “phrenology denier“ as well as an “aether denier”.
- tptacek 3mo ago
  I don't think this is a valid argument, and I think the search bar will show my bona fides on the "racism" angle of this. I don't think "proud IQ denier" is a strong rhetorical position. IQ is, among other things, an important clinical and diagnostic tool, especially in individual settings. In concert with other instruments it diagnoses cognitive deficits and routes people to treatments and supports. It's a useful tool of scientific inquiry as well; for example, it's used in epidemiology, and to evaluate interventions. The thing to be a proud opponent of is the idea of IQ as a social "sorting hat", or a ranking of cognitive superiors and inferiors. It's clearly abused, so much so that virtually every mention of IQ you'll read on HN (outside of its now ubiquitous and odd use as a metric for LLMs) is pseudoscientific and problematic. The valid uses of IQ are not message-board-interesting, and the message-board-interesting uses of IQ aren't valid. It's easy to see how people fall into the trap of denying it completely. But when you do that, you're setting yourself for an argument you're probably not going to be able to win.
  - runarberg 3mo ago
    My post was tailored around the kinds of people who say stuff like “Cue the IQ deniers” and who very carefully insinuate not accepting fraudulent data from desecrated IQ scientist Richard Lynn is “denying facts”. And as such I used this on the nose speech. If I was having this conversation with you (which we’ve had in the past) whom I believe is a Gloomy Prospector (a la Turkheimer) as opposed to my GPs Bell Curvers I would have been more careful with my wording. Before I continue I do want to note that a lot has changed since the Gloomy Prospect‘s heyday in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Back then people like Turkheimer were still pushing them selves to become the mainstream pshychology (although the writing was pretty much on the wall for the likes of Plomin, and before him Jensen, Lynn, et. al.). I want to make it absolutely clear that I respect (nay, love) the work Turkheimer et. al. have done in getting us here. He and people like him are true scientists. But now his Gloomy Prospect is being challenged from the left still, and I would not be surprised that in 20-30 years IQ will have gone the way of the Aether. That said, I want to correct you, IQ tests are being used as one of many important clinical and diagnostic tools, in particular the subtests. IQ has not been used in diagnostic since DSM-III I believe (I may be wrong; I don‘t have a DSM-III handy). Many clinical and developmental psychologists still use subtests of IQ, but very few compute the actual IQ. Some social psychologists still compute IQ of and try to find some correlation to this and that, but when I read those research I get the vibes from studying the effect of weightlessness on tiny screws[1]. If I were to guess (and Turkheimer would disagree with me on this) this is purely because of momentum, and has nothing to do with the scientific value of IQ. IQ tests are extremely robust, have been thoroughly standardized, and whole generations of clinical psychologists have been extremely well trained in administering them. 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4DUWXLt7xE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4DUWXLt7xE Now, I don‘t think my GPs have read beyond the words Gloomy Prospect in my post, and I don‘t think bringing some critique on Eric Turkheimer from the left is gonna open the eyes of people who are still promoting the Bell Curve 30 years later.
    - tptacek 3mo ago
      I agree with you about the Bell Curve stuff, I believe that's where you're coming from, I think where you're coming from is a good place, I don't agree with you (or rather: think you're way overstating) the diminished role of IQ in science and medicine, but we agree on the important things about IQ and how it has mostly a malign role on message boards so we don't have to hash it out too far. I just don't want to concede the IQ frame to race trolls. My thing is just: there's plenty of room to believe IQ is totally legitimate without giving an inch on what people who refer to "IQ-deniers" when what you always suspect they really mean is "race/IQ-deniers".
- thatjoeoverthr 3mo ago
  Thanks. The other guy asked if the IQ deniers are “in the room with us right now”.
  - runarberg 3mo ago
    Whoops, I only read 4 of the 5 words in your post, and reacted to that.