1550 words
The word ‘construct’ is defined as “an idea or theory containing various conceptual elements, typically one considered to be subjective and not based on empirical evidence.” Whereas the word ‘validity’ is defined as “the quality of being logically or factually sound; soundness or cogency.” Is there construct validity for IQ tests? Are IQ tests tested against an idea or theory containing various conceptual elements? No, they are not.
Cronbach and Meehl (1955) define construct validity, which they state is “involved whenever a test is to be interpreted as a measure of some attribute or quality which is not “operationally defined.”” Though, the construct validity for IQ tests has been fleeting to investigators. Why? Because there is no theory of individual IQ differences to test IQ tests on. It is even stated that “there is no accepted unit of measurement for constructs and even fairly well-known ones, such as IQ, are open to debate.” The ‘fairly well-known ones’ like IQ are ‘open to debate’ because no such validity exists. The only ‘validity’ that exists for IQ tests is correlations with other tests and attempted correlations with job performance, but I will show that that is not construct validity as is classicly defined.
Construct validity can be easily defined as the ability of a test to measure the concept or construct that it is intended to measure. We know two things about IQ tests: 1) they do not test ‘intelligence’ (but they supposedly do a ‘good enough job’ so that it does not matter) and 2) it does not even test the ‘construct’ that it is intended to measure. For example, the math problem ‘1+1’ is construct valid regarding one’s knowledge and application of that math problem. Construct validity can pretty much be summed up as the proof that it is measuring what the test intends…but where is this proof? It is non-existent.
Richardson (1998: 116) writes:
Psychometrists, in the absence of such theoretical description, simply reduce score differences, blindly to the hypothetical construct of ‘natural ability’. The absence of descriptive precision about those constructs has always made validity estimation difficult. Consequently the crucial construct validity is rarely mentioned in test manuals. Instead, test designers have sought other kinds of evidence about the valdity of their tests.
The validity of new tests is sometimes claimed when performances on them correlate with performances on other, previously accepted, and currently used, tests. This is usually called the criterion validity of tests. The Stanford-Binet and the WISC are often used as the ‘standards’ in this respect. Whereas it may be reassuring to know that the new test appears to be measuring the same thing as an old favourite, the assumption here is that (construct) validity has already been demonstrated in the criterion test.
Some may attempt to say that, for instance, biological construct validity for IQ tests may be ‘brain size’, since brain size is correlated with IQ at .4 (meaning 16 percent of the variance in IQ is explained by brain size). However, for this to be true, someone with a larger brain would always have to be ‘more intelligent’ (whatever that means; score higher on an IQ test) than someone with a smaller brain. This is not true, so therefore brain size is not and should not be used as a measure of construct validity. Nisbett et al (2012: 144) address this:
Overall brain size does not plausibly account for differences in aspects of intelligence because all areas of the brain are not equally important for cognitive functioning.
For example, breathalyzer tests are construct valid. There is a .93 correlation (test-retest) between 1 ml/kg bodyweight of ethanol in 20, healthy male subjects. Furthermore, obtaining BAC through gas chromatography of venous blood, the two readings were highly correlated at .94 and .95 (Landauer, 1972). Landauer (1972: 253) writes “the very high accuracy and validity of breath analysis as a correct estimate of the BAL is clearly shown.” Construct validity exists for ad-libitum taste tests of alcohol in the laboratory (Jones et al, 2016).
There is a casual connection between what one breathes into the breathalyzer and his BAC that comes out of the breathalyzer and how much he had to drink. For example, for a male at a bodyweight of 160 pounds, 4 drinks would have him at a BAC of .09, which would make him unfit to drive. (‘One drink’ being 12 oz of beer, 5 oz of wine, or 1.25 oz of 80 proof liquor.) He drinks more, his BAC reading goes up. Someone is more ‘intelligent’ (scores higher on an IQ test), then what? The correlations obtained from so-called ‘more intelligent people’, like glucose consumption, brain evoked potentials, reaction time, nerve conduction velocity, etc have never been shown to determine higher ‘ability’ to score higher on IQ tests. That, too, would not even be construct validation for IQ tests, since there needs to be a measure showing why person A scored higher than person B, which needs to hold one hundred percent of the time.
Another good example of the construct validity of an unseen construct is white blood cell count. White blood cell count was “associated with current smoking status and COPD severity, and a risk factor for poor lung function, and quality of life, especially in non-currently smoking COPD patients. The WBC count can be used, as an easily measurable COPD biomarker” (Koo et al, 2017). In fact, the PRISA II test has white blood cell count in it, which is a construct valid test. Even elevated white blood cell count strongly predicts all-cause and cardiovascular mortality (Johnson et al, 2005). It is also an independent risk factor for coronary artery disease (Twig et al, 2012).
A good example of tests supposedly testing one thing but testing another is found here:
As an example, think about a general knowledge test of basic algebra. If a test is designed to assess knowledge of facts concerning rate, time, distance, and their interrelationship with one another, but test questions are phrased in long and complex reading passages, then perhaps reading skills are inadvertently being measured instead of factual knowledge of basic algebra.
Numerous constructs have validity—but not IQ tests. It is assumed that they test ‘intelligence’ even though an operational definition of intelligence is hard to come by. This is important, as if there cannot be an agreement on what is being tested, how will there be construct validity for said construct in question?
Richardson (2002) writes that Detterman and Sternberg sent out a questionnaire to a group of theorists which was similar to another questionnaire sent out decades earlier to see if there was an agreement on what ‘intelligence’ is. Twenty-five attributes of intelligence were mentioned. Only 3 were mentioned by more than 25 percent of the respondents, with about half mentioning ‘higher level components’, one quarter mentioned ‘executive processes’ while 29 percent mentioned ‘that which is valued by culture’. About one-third of the attributes were mentioned by less than 10 percent of the respondents with 8 percent of them answering that intelligence is ‘the ability to learn’. So if there is hardly any consensus on what IQ tests measure or what ‘intelligence’ is, then construct validity for IQ seems to be very far in the distance, almost unseeable, because we cannot even define the word, nor actually test it with a test that’s not constructed to fit the constructors’ presupposed notions.
Now, explaining the non-existent validity of IQ tests is very simple: IQ tests are purported to measure ‘g’ (whatever that is) and individual differences in test scores supposedly reflect individual differences in ‘g’. However, we cannot say that it is differences in ‘g’ that cause differences in individual test scores since there is no agreed-upon model or description of ‘g’ (Richardson, 2017: 84). Richardson (2017: 84) writes:
In consequence, all claims about the validity of IQ tests have been based on the assumption that other criteria, such as social rank or educational or occupational acheivement, are also, in effect, measures of intelligence. So tests have been constructed to replicate such ranks, as we have seen. Unfortunately, the logic is then reversed to declare that IQ tests must be measures of intelligence, because they predict school acheivement or future occupational level. This is not proper scientific validation so much as a self-fulfilling ordinance.
Construct validity for IQ does not exist (Richardson and Norgate, 2015), unlike construct validity for breathalyzers (Landauer, 1972) or white blood cell count as a disease proxy (Wu et al, 2013; Shah et al, 2017). So, if construct validity is non-existent, then that means that there is no measure for how well IQ tests measure what it’s ‘purported to measure’, i.e., how ‘intelligent’ one is over another because 1) the definition of ‘intelligence’ is ill-defined and 2) IQ tests are not validated against agreed-upon biological models, though some attempts have been made, though the evidence is inconsistent (Richardson and Norgate, 2015). For there to be true validity, evidence cannot be inconsistent; it needs to measure what it purports to measure 100 percent of the time. IQ tests are not calibrated against biological models, but against correlations with other tests that ‘purport’ to measure ‘intelligence’.
(Note: No, I am not saying that everyone is equal in ‘intelligence’ (whatever that is), nor am I stating that everyone has the same exact capacity. As I pointed out last week, just because I point out flaws in tests, it does not mean that I think that people have ‘equal ability’, and my example of an ‘athletic abilities’ test last week is apt to show that pointing out flawed tests does not mean that I deny individual differences in a ‘thing’ (though athletic abilities tests are much better with no assumptions like IQ tests have.))
NotPoliticallyCorrect 
“since brain size is correlated with IQ at .4 (meaning 16 percent of the variance in IQ is explained by brain size). However, for this to be true, someone with a larger brain would always have to be ‘more intelligent’ ”
Someone could have higher axonal conduction velocity which would compensate for a smaller brain. If all else was held equal i think Larger brains will always give way to larger cognition. That’s why most intelligent animals are relatively larger in size.
“The correlations have never been shown to determine higher ‘ability’ to score higher on IQ tests.”
That’s not true. We know the physiological mechanisms that define Intelligence or brain activity in general ” like glucose consumption, brain evoked potentials, reaction time, nerve conduction velocity,” as you so eloquently put it. PFIT theory essentially states that higher intelligence is characterized by higher activity in the associated brain regions, so if we know what biologically causes these oscillations to be projected from the CDZ, and we know from brain trauma studies which regions govern which particular functions, then the correlations of PFIT theory become vindicated, simultaneously providing construct validity to IQ tests. On a different note even without a perfect correlation, it’s not like breathalyzers and other correlative measurements don’t have standard of errors.
” A scored higher than person B, which needs to hold one hundred percent of the time.”
Not unless you know how the brain works. 100% percent replicability isn’t necessary considering the brain runs a “winner takes all” scenario between neurons so rare oscillations in abnormal brain regions is of course expected every now and then.
“As an example, think about a general knowledge test of basic algebra. If a test is designed to assess knowledge of facts concerning rate, time, distance, and their interrelationship with one another, but test questions are phrased in long and complex reading passages, then perhaps reading skills are inadvertently being measured instead of factual knowledge of basic algebra.”
That’s actually an example of g being measured, not incompetence in test making.
LikeLike
I think not. As I stated in the article, it’s not known whether these correlates cause differences in IQ, so that’s why ‘biological g correlates’ are no good.
P-FIT is based off of correlations from correlations. Further, the fact that Haier and Jung state that ‘voxel-based morphometry studies’ correlated substantially with IQ 40 percent of the time, meaning that 60 percent of the time it did not. You’ve also got to think of differing experiences, nutrition, stress, etc. And perhaps one of the most important factors—as I have brought up to you in the past—is that MRI studies are far from a ‘natural setting’. Quoting Richardson (2017: 192-193):
As mentioned in chapter 1, the experience of having a scan, lying in a claustrophobic cylindrical enclosure, is far from natural conditions. A survey in 2007 indicated that 43 percent of participants found the experience upsetting, with 33 percent reporting side effects like headaches. Children in particular are likely to be restless. As Michael Rutter and Andrew Pickles warn, “motion artifacts … can lead to quite misleading conclusions about the interconnectivity across brain regions.”
Moreover, when the participant is confined in the cylinder, it is difficult to present him or her with realistic cognitive tasks and evoke meaningful responses. For example, speech, which involves muscle movements, distorts readings. In other words, fMRIs can be quite accurate as indices of categorical disease or trauma states. But they need to be applied more carefully for describing normal variation.
(Also read Annual Research Review: Threats to the validity of
child psychiatry and psychology for more information.)
How does the brain operate? If what you said was true, Haier and Jung (2009) would have found the relationships more than 40 percent of the time.
No it isn’t (whatever that is); it’s a fault in the test. You’re testing for math knowledge. 1 + 1 = 2 tests for math knowledge.
The evolution of the brain is due to the evolution of intelligent physiological systems, a continuation of the trend as Richardson says, whose primary function is to “abstract (statistical) structural information from rapidly changing environments.” This information is then assimilated which the system uses to create novel responses to stimuli from the environment.
Most all researchers state that it’s “not clear” what ‘g’ is. You need to look at intelligent systems, not look for the fictional ‘g’, as the dynamic systems theory better explains individual differences in comparison to the unicorn called ‘g’ (Richardson, 2013).
The fact of the matter is this: as I’ve argued, construct validity doesn’t exist for IQ.
Daily reminder:
Dominant IQ theory has relied mainly on correlations among test scores, and associations with other supposed criteria like school achievement, to arrive at models based on ‘strength’ or ‘capacity’ metaphors of a pervasive mental power, referred to as ‘g’. But a generally accepted theory of what that power consists of, what actually varies, and how, is still not available after more than a century of scientific inquiry. Accordingly, as Deary puts it, ‘There is no such thing as a theory of human intelligence differences – not in the way that grown-up sciences like physics or chemistry have theories’ (Deary, 2001, p. ix). (Richardson, 2013: 122)
LikeLike
“it’s not known whether these correlates cause differences in IQ”
Says who? I’m pretty sure it’s obvious to the majority of Biologists and Animal Neurologists that larger Organisms with longer life spans tend to also have large brains and display sophisticated levels of cognitive functioning like , Apes, Elephants, and Cetaceans. It’s also pretty blatant that brain size is not the only factor that can affect this functioning, and I’ve never seen any reasonable person state the opposite. And of course any reasonable person would also know that if multiple semi independent factors have an arithmetic affect on a function, then holding one constant while constraining all others will still increase capabilities of said function.
“so that’s why ‘biological g correlates’ are no good. P-FIT is based off of correlations from correlations.”
What do you mean they are no good? You literally just listed off Physiological mechanisms of Intelligence and claimed IQ was nonsense because of some false assumption that the two have not been correlated. The Pfit theory did link them to IQ with quite a few studies! The neural efficiency Hypothesis only needs to be shown to fit with IQ studies and it does because of it’s high compatibility with Pfit theory. IQ predicts differences in Neural efficiency with high confidance, so the correlation becomes causal.
https://www.nature.com/articles/mp201266
“correlated substantially with IQ 40 percent of the time, meaning that 60 percent of the time it did not.”
Pfit was just an example, but still MRI is not the only way to measure brain activity. There is EEG and PET scans, both of which still vindicate the Neural efficiency Hypothesis and subsequently PFIT theory.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304394098008052?via%3Dihub
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811985710361?via%3Dihub
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19580915
“is that MRI studies are far from a ‘natural setting’. ”
That’s such a subpar complaint. If anything making it more comfortable would increase the variance favoring my argument, as stated earlier MRI is not the only way to assess brain function and not everyone is claustrophobic.
“(Also read Annual Research Review: Threats to the validity of
child psychiatry and psychology for more information.)”
Neurodiagnostic Technologists do not practice psychology or psychometry. They are one step below Neurologists and probably know more about the brain than most Psychologists or psychiatrists. They work with sophisticated technology and are apart of one of the largest growing fields. Their work is not subjective it is used to diagnose countless cases of mental diseases.
“No it isn’t (whatever that is)”
Funny, you seem to be the only person who doesn’t know what that is.
“You’re testing for math knowledge. 1 + 1 = 2 tests for math knowledge.”
The ability to solve a problem still requires some level of communicational understanding. Math is expressed in symbols the same way language is.
“whose primary function is to “abstract (statistical) structural information from rapidly changing environments.” This information is then assimilated which the system uses to create novel responses to stimuli from the environment.”
How does this definition conflict with g?
“The fact of the matter is this: as I’ve argued, construct validity doesn’t exist for IQ.”
I’ve clearly demonstrated the opposite, I have met all criteria you stated for IQ needing construct validity. I provided Physiological mechanisms for intelligence like the NEH and then demonstrated that individual differences can be accurately predicted by the measurement system. In the future I plan to write a post about Synaptic plasticity’s involvement in intelligence.
LikeLike
Me. We’re talking about IQ tests, not actual human intelligence—there is a difference here.
You’re equating ‘IQ’ with actual ‘intelligence’. Do larger brains always score higher on IQ tests than smaller brains? Is one who drank more alcohol than another going to blow higher on the breathalyzer than the other?
Even IQ-ists like Deary state that replacing IQ tests with electronics seems like a “pipe dream“.
Regarding your last citation, they state in their conclusion:
On the basis of currently available evidence, it is not clear if this reversal of the brain activation– intelligence relationship is simply due to brighter individuals’ volitional decision to invest more effort as compared to the less able ones, who might have simply ‘given up’ as they experience that the task surpasses their ability.
Always, always correlations. And P-FIT, it seems, is the ultimate of correlations since its correlations derived from other correlations and literally correlations from images.
You’ve also got to remember that these correlations can be interpreted in other ways. Regarding P-FIT, Richardson and Norgate write:
Such considerations suggest that “bigger” brain areas are not a cause of higher IQ. Rather, both are consequences of social experience. Accordingly, J&H’s theory merely redescribes the class structure and social history of society and its unfortunate consequences. It seems to us that a host of variables, terms, and ecological factors need to be clarified before their model can be entertained further.
No it isn’t. The objections brought up there as well as in the paper cited bring up good arguments that should at least have one show caution in interpreting results from MRI etc. MRI is the most-used machine to assess brain functioning.
Michael Rutter is a child psychiatrist at King’s College, London, and Andrew Pickles is a biostatistician at the same facility. Either way, what you said is irrelevant to their argument.
Robert Plomin, too along with most psychologists/’behavioral geneticists’. They all say that it’s ‘not certain’ what ‘g’ is. What a great ‘theory’ huh?
Because it does not entail one ‘underlying factor’; it’s the dynamic intelligent system that accounts for the statistical abstraction. Cooperation between our ancestors was an adaptation to ever-changing environments and without these ever-changing environments, human intelligence—and along with it intelligent physiological systems—would never have evolved. Intelligence is a dynamic process; it’s not a ‘thing’.
Intelligence isn’t ‘in the brain’, as Haier and Jung (2009) claim, as much as it is a function of the interaction between the brain and the brain’s environment. Individual differences cannot be ‘predicted accurately’ (40 percent of the time is not accurate!) and the ‘measurement system’ (IQ tests) are, as I have argued, highly flawed instruments. Let’s say that a test was constructed to reveal different things than what it is constructed to currently reveal. Let’s then say that what is currently seen as ‘bad’ is now seen as ‘good’, so we do the same studies that we’re discussing here and we say ‘Look, X happens when Y happens 40 percent of the time etc etc’. Do you see how all of these correlations and correlations of correlations and correlations based off of images (P-FIT) can be reversed by having different assumptions during test construction?
I look forward to your article.
LikeLike
“there is a difference here.”
If so, you have yet to demonstrate it.
“You’re equating ‘IQ’ with actual ‘intelligence’. Do larger brains always score higher on IQ tests than smaller brains? ”
IQ is a measurement of intelligence. Assuming brain size is isolated from other causal factors, then yes, at least the potential will exist. Size is of course mostly a buffer for damage.
“Even IQ-ists like Deary state that replacing IQ tests with electronics seems like a”
It’s quite the stretch arguing that actual physical data on the brain is not superior evidence to paper and pencil tests. At the end of the day I wouldn’t give a second thought to tossing IQ out the window if a better correlate was found. unfortunately none exists.
“Regarding your last citation, they state in their conclusion:intelligence relationship is simply due to brighter individuals’ volitional decision to invest more effort as compared to the less able ones, who might have simply ‘given up’ as they experience that the task surpasses their ability.”
That sudden lack of effort, or feeling of “giving up”, is actually a side affect of mental incompetence. for the task at hand.
“Always, always correlations. And P-FIT, it seems, is the ultimate of correlations since its correlations derived from other correlations and literally correlations from images.”
As I’ve repeatedly shown, and you conveniently ignore: Once the physiological mechanism is identified all you need is to confirm the reliability of the measuring system(IQ) when applied to individual differences in capability of this mechnism. Pfit theory is what bridges these concepts(IQ and NEH). That is how a correlation becomes causation, because IQ reliably predicts differences in neural efficiency. At this point crying that “it’s a correlation” is equivalent to lying, with the amount of evidence I have shown you.
“The objections brought up there as well as in the paper cited bring up good arguments”
Oh so because some pussy is uncomfortable when being diagnosed we should throw out the whole study? Claustrophobia is not a good enough excuse.
“Either way, what you said is irrelevant to their argument.”
It’s not, people who are trained to run those machines are not psychiatrists or psychologists.
“What a great ‘theory’ huh?”
This sentence implies you do not know what a theory is.
“Because it does not entail one ‘underlying factor’; it’s the dynamic intelligent system that accounts for the statistical abstraction. ”
General intelligence is not simply a statistic, it’s the underlying ability behind all neurons that allow reactions toward stimuli. It’s why the brain is experience dependent. because without synaptic plasticity you cannot react to any stimuli and thus cannot adapt to any environment.
“Individual differences cannot be ‘predicted accurately’ ”
They can, Intelligence is not only action. The pattern of oscillations is “recorded” in the brain and then reemerge when any kind of thought process happens, whether it triggers an action or not. The brain is it’s Environment.
LikeLike
IQ tests aren’t a test of human intelligence. They largely test distance from the middle class.
How is it a measure of Intelligence? Especially the general knowledge questions like ‘What is the capital of Egypt’, for instance. Size is a buffer for damage, I do agree but you know my thoughts on brains size and IQ.
I don’t think so. I don’t do this for a living, I’m only a critic. Deary does and I’ll defer to him there. It also makes sense. And I agree with you that none exists and it’s because they don’t test human intelligence.
You’re aware there are more explanations available, right?
That’s a good one. How good does it ‘reliably predict’ neural efficiency? 40 percent of the time? Worse than a coin flip? That doesn’t change the fact that social class is an explanatory factor as Richardson and Norgate state.
Not even. There are other pitfalls. Read the paper. These papers don’t get published for no reason, Melo.
I’m sure they know the ins and outs of the machine and what would screw up readings in the machine. It’s a peer reviewed paper.
Of course I do. And I’m saying that experts in the field, psychologists and ‘behavioral geneticists’ don’t know what ‘g’ is and outright admit it. And you say I’m the only one who doesn’t know what it is when these people admit it themselves that they don’t know what it is.
So you agree that intelligence doesn’t lie in the brain and is due to an interaction between the brain and environment. And obviously it’s more than synaptic plasticity that allows you to react to environmental stimuli. General intelligence isn’t a ‘thing’, it’s reified. Intelligence is not a thing.
The brain is a bundle of neurons in an environment. Intelligence is a dynamic process not a thing. The brain and by extension human intelligence, evolved due to ever changing environments, and it evolved due to intelligent physiology and intelligent cells.
LikeLike
“IQ tests aren’t a test of human intelligence. They largely test distance from the middle class.”
The former partly causes the latter, so it’s like you’ve said nothing at all.
“How is it a measure of Intelligence? Especially the general knowledge questions like ‘What is the capital of Egypt’, for instance.”
While I agree that it is not “culture fair” in the slightest, more intelligent individuals will have more general knowledge, it’s why Vocabulary has such high g loadings in the brain. The logic is that someone who specializes in a singular subject more than likely developed this from years of practice. Someone who has high general knowledge in a large amount of fields but lacks in depth knowledge is probably an “information sponge”. Implying a higher ability to learn in general.
“Size is a buffer for damage, I do agree but you know my thoughts on brains size and IQ.”
If you’re actually interested, I associate size with capacity. One way to test this hypothesis is to see if larger brained individuals recover from head trauma more easily than their smaller brained counterparts.
“It also makes sense.”
How?
” And I agree with you that none exists and it’s because they don’t test human intelligence.”
That is not what i stated, try again.
“You’re aware there are more explanations available, right?”
Like what?
“That’s a good one. How good does it ‘reliably predict’ neural efficiency? 40 percent of the time?”
Sorry but clinging on to a meta analysis that’s a decade old is fallacious. The Hypothesis has been vindicated multiple times even after Jung and haier.
“That doesn’t change the fact that social class is an explanatory factor as Richardson and Norgate state.”
IQ can predict social class.
“And I’m saying that experts in the field, psychologists and ‘behavioral geneticists’ don’t know what ‘g’ is ”
You can’t just cherry pick a few couple researchers and then generalize the whole field. Secondly, very few have outright stated they don’t know what it is, nobody has a concrete definition. But it is actually irrelevant because everyone’s definition still revolves around the same underlying concept: Intelligent people perform more intelligent or efficient actions.
“So you agree that intelligence doesn’t lie in the brain and is due to an interaction between the brain and environment.”
Again, you are implying intelligence is only action when it is not, thoughts exist inside the brain. Furthermore, If the physiological mechanism that executes learning exists inside the brain then yes intelligence is in the brain. While it is does interact with its environment, that doesn’t mean your nervous system is not ultimately what controls you.
“And obviously it’s more than synaptic plasticity that allows you to react to environmental stimuli. ”
Synaptic plasticity is what controls learning. No, not just learning in the classical sense like you did in school. It controls how you learn from stimuli through all 5 senses, like what icecream tastes like, or how good sex feels, what a bridge looks like, your mother’s maiden name, how you interpret sounds etc.
“Intelligence is a dynamic process not a thing.”
The two are not mutually exclusive. I’ve provided evidence for this claim. If you have actually taken the time to read the literature You’d know that Intelligence is a reaction that is governed by biological mechanisms. Your denial is evidence of mental dishonesty.
LikeLike
I have with test construction. Have a whole different set of assumptions, construct a test that shows these assumptions. That’s literally how they’re made, based off of the presuppositions of test constructors. You don’t even need to waste time administering an IQ test to someone when teacher’s assessment is just as good, if not better.
People in the middle class have more knowledge and are exposed to more things than people in lower classes. So therefore someone from a middle class background will be more likely to answer those ‘general knowledge questions’ then someone from a lower class background.
I am interested and you’re right; however the IQ hits seen are negligible and they’re still within the normal range, whether they had a ‘large’ or ‘small’ brain size (relative to each other, of course).
The comment you’re responding to here (‘It also makes sense.’), I meant it also makes sense meaning in regard to the EEG data, Deary says IQ tests will be better and doesn’t see EEG overtaking it.
No, I agree with you that IQ tests are ‘better’ at the moment, the add on at the end was my own.
I provided the quote from. Richardson and Norgate’s response in a previous reply but here it is again:
Such considerations suggest that “bigger” brain areas are not a cause of higher IQ. Rather, both are consequences of social experience. Accordingly, J&H’s theory merely redescribes the class structure and social history of society and its unfortunate consequences. It seems to us that a host of variables, terms, and ecological factors need to be clarified before their model can be entertained further.
How good does it ‘predict’ this? References and quotes to how good the method now is, please. You’ve also got to remember, as I’ve shown, IQ tests are constructed to pretty much mirror current social classes which is why these correlations arise. Social class only ‘predicts’ IQ due to how the tests are constructed.
Due to test construction. You know those GWAS ‘IQ gene’ associations? Correlations with are inevitable and meaningless and due to social class. It’s due to class stratification which cause genetic differences not related to ‘cognitive ability’ or ‘educational attainment’.
GWAS and cognitive abilities: Why correlations are inevitable and meaningless: GWA studies to identify genetic factors for educational achievements largely ignore underlying social structures and dynamics—Richardson, 2017
(Use sci-hub.tw to get the full paper.)
I’m not cherry picking a thing. I’ve shown there is no where near a concrete definition for ‘intelligence’. So intelligent people perform more intelligent or efficient actions? How vague…
Picture a so-called intelligent brain in a black void with no environmental stimuli. Can’t do it? You can only learn with environmental stimulus, the brain with the physiological ability for learning will not do so in a black void.
I’m aware what synaptic plasticity is, its also how the brain is able to recover from TBI. More, obviously, controls learning but synaptic plasticity does too, though it’s not the whole story.
Intelligence isn’t a ‘thing’ like ‘g’ to put down to one number. I’m well-read on the literature, obviously. Of course ‘intelligence’ in the broad sense is governed by biological and physiological mechanisms (the physiology comes first) though things do not exist in a vacum
What causes differences between two individuals in ‘g’? How good do these associations with P-FIT relate to regarding actual IQ data? Are you aware of any papers on this matter? I’m talking like actual IQ scores along with the physiological data behind it for each individual.
LikeLike
“I have with test construction. Have a whole different set of assumptions, construct a test that shows these assumptions. That’s literally how they’re made, based off of the presuppositions of test constructors. People in the middle class have more knowledge and are exposed to more things than people in lower classes.Correlations with are inevitable and meaningless and due to social class. It’s due to class stratification which cause genetic differences not related to ‘cognitive ability’ or ‘educational attainment’.”
If IQ is based on social class then it can still hold value as a test for intelligence. IQ scores have a high correlation to SAT scores, which are a proxy for educational attainment. Higher class individuals also tend to be more educated and since intelligence is experience dependent greater amounts of stimuli will produce a more efficient brain. Natural selection dictates that the children of Higher class,smarter,more educated individuals will share a similar genotype/phenotype which, if favored in their particular environment, will outproduce the rest. With the larger dependence on technology, individuals who can process these deeper concepts and faster lifestyles will be selected for. Of course, less developed worlds have less access to birth control and thus equal out fitness with higher reproduction rates.
“Deary says IQ tests will be better and doesn’t see EEG overtaking it.”
I don’t necessarily believe EEG is more accurate than IQ(even though I do think that) my particular point was: when looking at the physical brain and understanding the physiological mechanisms that take place, what intelligence actually is becomes self evident.
“however the IQ hits seen are negligible and they’re still within the normal range, whether they had a ‘large’ or ‘small’ brain size (relative to each other, of course).”
IQ is irrelevant to that specific Hypothesis.
“References and quotes to how good the method now is, please.”
I have provided multiple studies vindicating this connection, have you not read any of them?
“So intelligent people perform more intelligent or efficient actions? How vague…”
Anything that is “general” is vague. It’s like calling the sun orange as an insult
“Picture a so-called intelligent brain in a black void with no environmental stimuli. Can’t do it? ”
Right, I already told you and pumpkin this. That doesn’t contradict anything I’ve said and actually reinforces this concept
“More, obviously, controls learning”
Like what? I mean on the level that synaptic plasticity does.
“Are you aware of any papers on this matter? I’m talking like actual IQ scores along with the physiological data behind it for each individual.”
That’s what PFIT theory is, it’s basically a merging of the NEH and IQ, I’ve provided you with papers in this thread(and others) that test that very same concept. What I would like to see is that is done on Synaptic plasticty.
LikeLike
Test construction. A quote from that Richardson paper I cited above (which also addresses the rest of what you discuss in that paragraph about social class:
In summary, either directly or indirectly, IQ and related tests are calibrated against social class background, and score differences are inevitably consequences of that social stratification to some extent. Through that calibration, they will also correlate with any genetic cline within the social strata. Whether or not, and to what degree, the tests also measure “intelligence” remains debatable because test validity has always been indirect and circular.
And:
In sum, it seems highly likely that genetic differences–albeit ones irrelevant to CA/EA differences–will correlate with social class. This is why contemporary GWAS/PGS find direct (but weak) correlations with SES [2], although interpreted as an effect of genetic variation on SES, rather than vice versa as argued here.
Can you clarify this?
Intelligence is a property of the system. It’s not a ‘thing’.
Why if IQ is the proxy for intelligence?
I read the first one. I’d like quotes because I’m kinda busy and I think it’s courteous to provide quotations.
Just saying ‘more efficient actions’ is extremely vague. What does that even mean? Why such a vague answer?
It reinforces the concept that intelligence is a property of the system and is not a ‘thing’ in the brain but arises due to complex interactions.
This, too, could be affected by social class and be nongenetic in nature.
So one of the cited papers takes individual IQ data then sees what kind of differences in physiology he has compared to someone with a lower IQ? That’s what I’m asking for. To compare two people with different IQs, how do they differ in brain activity and how does that cause differences in the ‘trait’? Quotes please.
(Also note that I don’t have access to papers through Sci-Hub because my computer is getting repaired and Sci hub links don’t work on my phone, so I am kind of technologically challenged to access papers at the moment.)
LikeLike
“That all you really have to say?”
That’s all it takes to dispel the dumb shit you say.
“No, I said that.”
So then what exactly is your point?
“And you’re wrong.”
No I’m not.
“This doesn’t mean that intelligence is ‘100 percent genetic’.”
The only way you could think that is if you don’t know what “100 percent genetic” means in this context. Reading comprehension. Strawman.
“Me: “Does a heritability of 0 imply full malleability while a heritability 1 implies no malleability?”
You: Yea that’s how I see it.”
You asked a vague question and I answered, if you had bothered to inquisite further, I could have expanded fully what it means. My response was a factual statement, just not an absolute one. Reading comprehension. Strawman.
“There are no ‘instructions for’ plasticity as it’s a dynamic process.”
That’s not true, we have already discussed regulatory genes.
“The ultimate goal of developmental biologists is to unravel the mystery of how a fertilized egg is transformed into a complex multicellular organism. This process requires execution of a complex developmental program whereby specific genes are activated in a precise time sequence and in the correct location, generating different types of tissues and the specific cell types composing them. ”
“By regulating expression of many other genes, it sets off a cascade of events that results in the creation of legs. Remarkably, however, this single gene is sufficient by itself to turn on the leg-producing program, and its absence keeps the program silent. It can even turn it on in other segments. For instance, when antennapedia is mutated to allow it to be expressed in head segments, a pair of legs develops in place of the normal appendages, antennae (hence the gene name, which means “antenna foot”).”
http://www.encyclopedia.com/science-and-technology/biology-and-genetics/genetics-and-genetic-engineering/genetic-control
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK21488/
“filled with logical fallacies”
Name them. And I’ll explain to you why you’re still wrong.
“while heritability is important because it’s apart of misconceptions that people have on traits. ”
I’m not talking about misconceptions people have on traits or genetics for that matter. I’m talking about physiological mechanisms for intelligence. Get it through your head, because I’m not telling you again.
“I don’t have shitty reading comp.”
Yes you do.
“Anyway I showed a few of their assumptions wrong (twin studies and ASPM/MCPH1) ”
Anyway i don’t care about twin studies because they’re irrelevant.
“along with the fact that Jung and Haier admit that all neuroimaging research is correlational by nature.”
And these correlations have been vindicated by the identification of a physical mechanism, which was then matched to IQ scores.
LikeLike
It doesn’t address any claims.
It’s not a strawman. You’re the one saying that a trait is ‘100 percent genetic’ which is bullshit. If I misunderstand you then I’ll admit it if you explain what you mean. Talk about being vague…
It’s not vague at all. It’s a yes or no question.
I know what homeobox genes are. I said there are ‘no instructions for plasticity since developmental plasticity is largely a response to environmental conditions. I’ve cited a paper a while back showing that a species’ morphology can change without any or little change to the genetic code. That’s developmental plasticity brought on by intelligent physiology.
Appeal to motive, ‘character attacks’, ad hominem.
Re heritability. You’re the one who brought it up first saying that they’re trash, which I agree. None of these ‘correlations’ have ever been shown to be causal.
They’re relevant to Jung and Haier’s thesis, along with ASPM and MCPH1, which I’ve shown do not work how they think it works. Twin studies, as a matter of fact, are what the whole HBD/behavioral genetics paradigm rest on and you ‘don’t care about twin studies’?
OK let’s accept your claim as true. Let’s say Bob has an IQ of 100 while Jack had an IQ of 140. What kind of difference in brain physiology do they have? Do any of those papers</em)> have any individual IQ data along with individual physiology differences? And no, they didn’t show a thing to be ‘causal’ because you can just as easily reverse causality as I have done.
LikeLike
” (which also addresses the rest of what you discuss in that paragraph about social class:”
None of those quotes addressed any of my points. It takes intelligence to increase your social class, as well as to maintain it. Denying this connection is retarded. The only exceptions are people like Mugabe who have severe psychological deficits in their personality. So what you run a successful business because you weren’t smart? or hardworking? or patient? How does that make sense to you?
“Can you clarify this?”
I believe EEG is more culture fair than IQ tests are.
“It’s not a ‘thing’.”
Yes it is. I can point to the synapses in the brain and say “Hey look! That’s learning right there!”
“Why if IQ is the proxy for intelligence?”
My hypothesis was testing the connection between brain size and the ability to recover from brain damage. Intelligence had nothing to do with it.
“I think it’s courteous to provide quotations.”
I believe it’s actually courteous to read the citations like I do for you, otherwise I don’t know why i even bother. I am actually able to put information into my own words and only provide citations when it’s necessary and quotations when I’m being lazy.
just read the damn abstract at least: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S092664100500162
“What does that even mean? Why such a vague answer?”
Well, because the brain controls literally everything you do, every action is an action of intelligence.
“This, too, could be affected by social class and be nongenetic in nature.”
Well some genes do play a part in cranial development, the brain is it’s environment, and epigenetic inheritance is still genetic. My point being there is no difference in regards to the brain because of it’s experience dependency. Heritability estimates for IQ are trash.
“(Also note that I don’t have access to papers through Sci-Hub because my computer is getting repaired and Sci hub links don’t work on my phone, so I am kind of technologically challenged to access papers at the moment.)”
Take your time RR, you don’t have to force a response.
LikeLike
The paper addressed those claims and addressed these ‘genes for IQ’ GWAS studies. This, again, goes back to test construction.
Maybe, but you still run into the population stratification problem noted in my previous reply.
… That’s not ‘intelligence’. Intelligence is a dynamic processes.
Well? Do larger brains recover from trauma better? Intuition tells me yes, and I’m sure the data I’ve cited on TBI lend credence to the claim.
I never said you weren’t. I just don’t have the time to read papers right now because 1) I’m typing comments on my phone (which I personally hate, I’ll be writing much much less until I get my machine back) and 2) I don’t have access to full papers and even if I did, reading pdf on my phone is a pain. No one ever said you weren’t able to put information in your own words. Quotes from papers are helpful though. I explained the point on social class, and provided the quotes.
The page you looked for has not been found
It’s still really vague. And remember our conversation from last October (I’m getting old) on PP’s blog. The brain needs the body just as much as the body needs the brain.
I’ll cover your claim ‘epigenetic inheritance still genetic’ when I get my machine back. But let’s accept your claim for tbe sake of argument. So what? It’s still brought on by environmental stresses. The Dutch Famine studies also show evidence for transgenerational epigenetic inheritance in humans, as I’ve written about before.
Epigenetic inheritance can occur through the germ line of cells. And even the environmental source of variation (epigenetics) would show up on twin studies as ‘genetic’ when in all reality it’s ‘environmental’, so even accepting your claim that ‘epigenetic inheritance is still genetic’, it’s ‘still’ brought on by environmental variables.
But the brain can also find itself in environments that it itself didn’t construct which then leads to structural and, maybe, epigenetic changes which get passed down. And yes, the brain is experience-dependant which make Richardson and Norgate’s claims against Haier and Jung that much stronger.
Interesting. I have the same view. What makes you. Feel that way?
Here’s a good quote from Richardson’s 2017 book Genes, Brains, and Human Potential: The Science and Ideology of Intelligence (pg 229):
Complex changeable environments, however, require adaptation on a different time scale from Darwinian natural selection. That is, it requires intelligent (adaptable) variation rather than normal variation. Variation arising from intelligence systems far outstrips that possible from random gene mutations. Yet the latter is still claimed by behavioral geneticists as the main source of differences, even in human intelligence.
Epigenetics most definitely causes differences between individuals, though to what extent remains to be seen. For instance, stress from the mother could be passed down to the babe and then affect IQ test performance.
LikeLike
“The paper addressed those claims and addressed these ‘genes for IQ’ GWAS studies. ”
No it did not at all. You are arguing Nature vs nurture with me, what I’m arguing is when it comes to intelligence such a distinction is nearly impossible and instead a feedback loop exists. You did not answer any of those questions, because you know I am right. I’m waiting for you to actually address the points I made, not repeat yourself ad infinitium.
“… That’s not ‘intelligence’”
Yes it is. Sorry but I’ve been actually studying the neuroscience behind these theories, you have not. Intelligence is applied learning, synaptic plasticity is how you learn.
“Intuition tells me yes, and I’m sure the data I’ve cited on TBI lend credence to the claim.”
I don’t know, I thought you were looking. Next would be to see if Higher IQ individuals recovered from brain trauma better than lower ones.
“The page you looked for has not been found”
“By using a verbal (semantic) and a spatial (rotation) task of comparable complexity in this research, we sought to replicate and extend our earlier findings by additionally considering the individual differences in intelligence structure and the topographical distribution over the cortex. Findings were similar to the previous study: Females (n = 35) display neural efficiency (i.e., less brain activation in brighter individuals) primarily during the verbal task, males (n = 31) in the spatial task. ”
“The brain needs the body just as much as the body needs the brain.”
Yes and PNS is still a part of the CNS.
“And yes, the brain is experience-dependant which make Richardson and Norgate’s claims against Haier and Jung that much stronger.”
I’m not sure how you think and experience dependent brain discredits Haier and Jung. A lot of your criticism are formed on strawmans, like the assumption that everyone is a genetic determinist.
“Interesting. I have the same view. What makes you. Feel that way?”
I just explained why i feel that way, I’m not sure why you held that end sentence in a different context than the words before it of the same paragraph. Heritability at least regarding intelligence is simply a measure of plasticity, all physical traits are genetic and always become inherited, it’s just expressions that change. Heritability when only tell you the extent of change an organism is capable of, not how likely environment affects it.
LikeLike
How are you telling me that the paper didn’t address IQ and GWAS regarding social stratification? It most definitely did.
Seeing as I eschew the false dichotomy of nature vs nurture, no I’m not arguing Nature vs nurture. Developmental systems theory > the false dichotomy of nature vs nurture.
Don’t think I’ve not been reading up on pertinent neuroscience sources, either. I have, and I have something good in store for when I get my computer back.
So that’s it? Intelligence is ‘applied learning’ and synaptic plasticity is ‘how you learn’? Weird how you can define it so easily when scholars can’t agree (that’s not appeal to authority, it’s true). Also, is population/class stratification taken into account in these studies, which would have the same problems as Haier and Jung (2007)?
Take this argument I’ve given you previously: construct different IQ tests to where previous low scorers score high and previous high scores score low. Then genotype/fMRI them. Let’s say you’d see that those who score higher had smaller brains, less white matter etc and had ‘bad genes giving them more IQ points’. What type of conclusions would you draw from that? This is a valid argument due to how tests are constructed. You may see that less synaptic plasticity and less applied learning are associated with these ‘higher IQ [‘intelligence’ scores], so what kind of conclusions would you draw with this type of test?
Check the data I cited in my TBI and IQ post. I’m pretty sure it lends credence to the idea (thought is like to see more robust studies that take into account many more factors that I believe weren’t taken into account in these studies).
Small sample. Anything larger?
Wow really?
I’m not strawmanning anyone. Haier and Jung jump straight to the highly flawed twin paradigm to argue their case on genes etc. There are huge confounds in the twin studies they rely on, which could explain what they found (which meshes well the other things I’ve said, you’ll see that the small GWAS correlations are explainable by social class stratification, not ‘genes for’ or ‘associated with’ IQ). You can also reverse the causality, too.
Does a heritability of 0 imply full malleability while a heritability 1 implies no malleability? What does heritability mean for individuals? Is the heritability of intelligence and, say, hair length different since you added ‘Heritability at least regarding intelligence …’?
LikeLike
“How are you telling me that the paper didn’t address IQ and GWAS regarding social stratification? ”
None of those had anything to do with what i was explaining, you dipshit.1
“no I’m not arguing Nature vs nurture.”
Then stop trying to use differences in SES as evidence against physical discrepancies.
“Weird how you can define it so easily when scholars can’t agree ”
That’s because most scholars are either obfuscating the problem, or they are too emotionally invested(like yourself) to agree with anyone. intelligence is a sensitive subject. For example, how you try to propagate “expertise” over IQ even though there is no real difference you just want an excuse to disregard your already obtained IQ scores, because you’re afraid that if they are a valid concept that it will define you as a person(but that’s your own ignorance that causes this assumption).
“Also, is population/class stratification taken into account in these studies, which would have the same problems as Haier and Jung ”
Population stratification is not an issue, seeing as how most GWAS studies do not use homogeneous sub samples.
“so what kind of conclusions would you draw with this type of test?”
That’s nonsensical, we know what an Intelligent brain looks like, IQ would become invalid if it showed smaller brained people with less propensity to synaptic plasticity scored higher. What you don’t understand, is that we understand physiological mechanisms that make people smarter, so If a test disagrees with this, we know it’s because the test is full of shit. The way IQ is constructed, it aligns with physical phenomena we observe.
“Small sample. Anything larger?”
Im sue there is, I literally just a picked a random study, there’s dozens of them.
“Wow really?”
Are you ebing sarcastic? Because ya really.
“I’m not strawmanning anyone. Haier and Jung jump straight to the highly flawed twin paradigm to argue their case on genes etc. ”
Ok, but what I’m telling you is that GWAS studies are not necessary to vindicate this thesis.
“oes a heritability of 0 imply full malleability while a heritability 1 implies no malleability?”
Yea that’s how I see it.
“Is the heritability of intelligence and, say, hair length different since you added ‘Heritability at least regarding intelligence …’?””
Yes different traits can have different levels of Plasticity.
LikeLike
It’s apart of the theme we are discussing.
So you think thst SES is good enough to capture the differences I’m talking about? It’s really not, it’s a very poor predictor and doesn’t bring up everything involving personal experience etc. As I said, I eschew nature vs nurture, developmental systems theory is superior.
Appeal to motivation. I’m not ’emotionally invested’ in a thing, I look at things differently than you do. I can call you emotionally invested, where will that get us? Nowhere. You have absolutely no basis to believe any of this. Don’t waste my time with nonsense please.
I know more about physiology than you do, I don’t need you to tell me that.
Sure but they’re apart of the theme we are discussing here.
You might wanna read this paper to clear up your confusions on heritability.
The Heritability Fallacy
So you’re clueless about what heritability actually is. It’s fine, it’s a very common misconception. Heritability tells you absolutely nothing about the malleability of a trait.
Read:
The concept of heritability, as used by behavioral geneticists, is often taken to be the converse of malleablility: for example, that individuals differences in a trait with higher heritability are quite fixed, and the “genetic ranking” will persist whatever the environmental conditions.
…
This is a widespread misconception, because there is no relationship between heritability and malleability in a trait. Heritability says nothing about rankings under different environments. Heritability is about associations between variation (or variance), not identity and causation. A condition like phenylketonuria has a heritability of 1 (there is perfect correlation between genetic and phenotypic variation). But the condition is relieved by a simple environmental treatment (removing the amino acid phenylalanine from the diet). Likewise, a heritability of 0 does not mean that genes are not involved in the development of form/function and phenotypic variation. It simply means that there is little correlation between them. Consequently, the heritability of a trait has no implications for predicting individual potential—for example, a child’s IQ from that of its parents—or the success of an intervention. (Richardson, 2017: 69-70)
… That’s not what heritability is.
Now that we know you don’t understand heritability, let’s discuss a bit about Jung and Haier. They appeal to twin studies at the very end of the paper, stating that twin studies show high heritabilities for brain volume, and grey and white matter. However if you’ve read the link I provided in my previous reply you’d see that heritability estimates using twin studies are highly flawed due to a ton of unvalidated assumptions, most importantly the equal environments assumption. Their appeal to twin studies really hurts their case. They furthermore commit the ‘bigger-is-better‘ brain fallacy, which Terrence Deacon covered 3 decades ago. Again, the ‘bigger’ parts of the brain can come down to different experiences since we know how plastic the brain is. Twin studies are highly flawed and heritability estimates are highly inflated. Why are heritability estimates of IQ far higher than heritability estimates of hen egg laying and milk production in cows? Because the method used to see the ‘IQ heritability’ are highly flawed.
However, if, as some critics insist, ‘intelligence’ is undefined, and Spearman’s g is beset with numerous problems, … then how can the heritability of ‘intelligence’ exceed that of milk production of cows and egg production of hens?.
…
To illustrate this concretely, consider some heritabilities of various measures of farm animals listed in Falconer (1960, p. 167f). For body-weight, they cluster around 30%, as do those for egg and milk production. The estimates for body fat of pigs and length of wool of sheep are somewhat higher, near 50%. However, none of the heritabilities of these variables with tangible economic consequences come close to those routinely reported for mental tests. For example, the heritability of ‘IQ’ (without further specification) stood solidly at 80% for more than a century, until it was recently reduced to 60% (20%). This still surpasses almost anything found in the animal kingdom. (Schonemann, 1997: 101)
As to the partition of the systematic variance into a genetic and an environmental component – which was the declared objective of heritability estimation – the only thing known for certain is that the simplistic models from which the coefficients have been derived do not fit most data. The high genetic components that have been reported in the psychological literature seem to be less due to natural procreation than – to borrow a phrase from G.B. Shaw – to ‘artificial halluzination’. (Schonemann, 1997: 107)
On models and muddles of heritability.
Also watch this video on heritability by Robert Sapolsky. You can be cured, Melo.
(I’d also like to let you know that traits important for survival have low, not high heritabilities. IQ is supposedly useful for survival and was supposedly useful in our evolutionary past. Variation would be low, not high, in these traits. However, see the sky-high heritability of IQ gleaned from the flawed twin studies and you’ll see how these estimates are highly flawed and highly wrong.)
LikeLike
“It’s apart of the theme we are discussing.”
I don’t care, it did not provide a decent rebuttal to any of my points and is irrelevant.
“So you think thst SES is good enough to capture the differences I’m talking about? It’s really not, it’s a very poor predictor and doesn’t bring up everything involving personal experience etc.”
Not entirely but probably a majority, your social class is more determinant of life outcome than race. You said it yourself, higher class people have more experiences.
“I can call you emotionally invested, where will that get us? Nowhere.”
You could call me emotionally invested, but it would have no logical bearing because there is absolutely no reason that I could be biased about this subject. My stance on IQ goes against, my EGI, my political beliefs, my appearance, my social class etc. There is no possible way that I could be emotionally invested in this. You however, have already taken an IQ test, my accusations are no different than what Afro and other egalitarian’s claims of racism on scholars like Rushton and Lynn .
“you have absolutely no basis to believe any of this.”
When you continuously ignore contradicting information, it becomes very apparent that motive is involved. I’m not necessarily saying your bias is conscious. You could just be simply doing mental gymnastics, to rationalize absurd concepts just for the sake of argumentation. I even told you to take your time and wait until you had proper access to your machine, so that we could properly debate such an important subject. It’s very insulting how lazy you are being.
“So you’re clueless about what heritability actually is. It’s fine, it’s a very common misconception. Heritability tells you absolutely nothing about the malleability of a trait.”
Heritability is a proportion of variance as I’ve stated multiple times, the entire time I’ve been on both of these blogs. The article agrees with me it just conflates malleability with a measure of genetic predisposition, and you took advantage of this mistake. Intelligence and it’s physiology are actually 100 percent genetic as are all physical traits. You do realize plasticity itself can have a heritability estimate? Actually I already know you didn’t.
“… That’s not what heritability is. Now that we know you don’t understand heritability”
You seem to forget that I am far more educated than you are in Genetics, Biology, and Evolution. Claiming I don’t know what heritability is, is ridiculous and nothing I have said implies this. In fact i am one of the few HBDers who actually does understand it and your irrelevant video and quotes are evidence of your ignorance in the subject. Next time you try to “bait” me with vague questions make sure your reading comprehension is at least on par, because apparently you don’t even know how to read your own citations.
Since that was quite the epic fail, I’ll give you another go.
LikeLike
You should care because it’s directly related to our discussion on brain scans and social class.
They have different experiences which then causes changes in the structure of the brain in comparison to lower class people. And SES is a horrible estimator.
Calling you emotionally invested in your belief system has no logical bearing? Got ya. (Though I am not doing that because logical fallacies are useless in discussions.)
I’m not ignoring anything. Population stratification, as laid out in that Richardson article and as Evan Charney notes here:
Population stratification refers to the fact that frequencies of polymorphisms can differ in different populations and subpopulations (ethnic or geographical) due to unique ancestral patterns of migration, mating practices, and reproductive expansions and contractions. Nearly all outbred (i.e., nonfamilial) populations exhibit population stratification, including populations deemed relatively homogenous (e.g., among Icelanders).
Population stratification needs to be accounted for, lest you get spurious correlations and heritability estimates. These do matter for imaging studies, I hope you know.
Was it a mistake or was it what you actually thought, since you answered my question that heritability implies how ‘plastic’ a trait is? And Moore and Shenk show how people conflate heritability with how ‘genetic’ a trait is, and, as your mistake showed, how people confuse heritability with how malleable a trait is. How does the article agree with you? Provide quotes please.
This is one of the funniest things I’ve ever read.
So is the heritability estimate of plasticity how plastic plasticity is?
Bold (and untrue) claim and your (mis)understanding of heritability shows that.
Let’s entertain your clearly ridiculous notion. What makes you believe that? (How much college have you completed? I’m getting my bachelor’s in May then off to grad school in September. What about you?)
If you think it has anything to do with malleability (which you claimed in your previous reply), then you don’t know what heritability is
No your (mis)understanding puts you on the same level with people who think that heritability talks about how ‘genetic’ a trait is.
The video nor quotes were irrelevant. They were attempts at fixing your misconception. They explain what heritability is to people who think it’s how genetic a trait is or how malleable a trait is. Both are wrong.
You’re right, I did bait you and I got the expected answer, I knew you’d say it’s how malleable a trait is and you’re horribly wrong.
Also please provide the quotations from what I cited that shows that I “don’t even know how to read [my] own citations”, I’d love to be enlightened.
No fail at all. I addressed all of your points and showed you citations to fix your misconception on heritability. You’ve not yet addressed the claims from Jung and Haier on twin studies and the heritability brain volume, and grey and white matter. Twin studies are horribly flawed. The EEA is false.
Re heritability:
Biological systems are complex, non-linear, and non-additive. Heritability estimates are attempts to impose a simplistic and reified dichotomy (nature/nurture) on non-dichotomous processes. Real progress in genetics, developmental and behavioural biology will come from paying attention to Lewontin’s insistence that we attempt to analyse causes, not variances.
Commentary: Heritability estimates—long past their sell-off date
Partitioning heritability also tells us nothing about specific genes nor describes pathways that lead to trait variation (Richardson, 2012) so how useful are these ‘heritability estimates’ for ‘IQ’?
LikeLike
IQ tests are validated by experience.
whatever the IQ test, people with high IQs are on average smarter than people with low IQs in the subjective sense of “smart”.
arguing over this is a dead end.
IQ tests are very imperfect, but they aren’t meaningless.
i make no claim whether this is innate or not.
LikeLike
That’s not construct validity.
LikeLike
and always be on guard against making the oj defense…seeing the trees and not the forest.
even if one can dismiss individual pieces of evidence as not dispositive, one cannot dismiss a mountain of such evidence.
eventually the picture of oj wearing “those ugly ass shoes” will be found or the “real killers” will be found.
except the real killers will never be found.
but it is disturbing that jack ruby was an associate of cosa nostra.
LikeLike
I’ve already explained the ‘mountain of evidence’, it’s due to test construction, with the constructors presupposing who is or is not intelligent, and along with ‘item analysis’, items get thrown out or kept based on how the target population does.
LikeLike
“You should care because it’s directly related to our discussion on brain scans and social class.”
You must have poor memory. In one of my previous replies I explained why those quotes did not address any of my points. While it may fit the theme it does not directly respond to my argument. Unless you have something that directly conflicts with my assumption that Nature and nurture form a feedback loop, my statements remain valid and yours; are irrelevant.
“They have different experiences which then causes changes in the structure of the brain in comparison to lower class people.
Ok? LOL This is what I mean, you dont understand anything that’s actually being said here and just continue to embarrass yourself.
“And SES is a horrible estimator.”
Of what? Intelligence? Explain how. The “muh culture” argument has been previously deemed invalid and you have yet to provide a reasonable rebuttal. Eventually you’ll get tired of repeating yourself. I’ve realized it’s best to just shut you down until you provide the proper responses. If you’re going to continue to commit ad nauseam, I’ll just ignore you until you address the problems at hand.
“Calling you emotionally invested in your belief system has no logical bearing? Got ya. (Though I am not doing that because logical fallacies are useless in discussions.)”
It’s a justified belief system, as Im sure yours are as well. The difference being you have reasons to become emotional I don’t. We both believe our logic is sound, but you have a questionable past in regards to this subject and therefore I expect you to get more unreasonable during the debate, which you have been.
“Population stratification needs to be accounted for, lest you get spurious correlations and heritability estimates. These do matter for imaging studies, I hope you know.”
I hope you realize, humans are an incredibly homogenous species, and I was originally referring to twin studies, even then population stratification shouldn’t be an issue in less multicultural populations.
“Was it a mistake or was it what you actually thought, since you answered my question that heritability implies how ‘plastic’ a trait is? And Moore and Shenk show how people conflate heritability with how ‘genetic’ a trait is, and, as your mistake showed, how people confuse heritability with how malleable a trait is. How does the article agree with you?”
First, I didn’t make a mistake, you and the article did. The article states:
“The concept of heritability, as used by behavioral geneticists, is often taken to be the converse of malleablility: for example, that individuals differences in a trait with higher heritability are quite fixed, and the “genetic ranking” will persist whatever the environmental conditions.”
Plasticity is a measurement of how malleable a trait is, but that has nothing to do with how genetic something is, the quotes you provided were conflating the two, there was no separate criticism.. Heritability is more like a correlation and subjects with higher correlations in between them on a particular trait are more likely to have genetic differences in between them, because the variance that exists is not due to random error. That’s why I associate lower estimates as evidence of higher plasticity. So you don’t keep getting confused, Heritability was not made to test plasticity but it can if certain confounds are controlled for. The accuracy is relative.
“You’re right, I did bait you and I got the expected answer, I knew you’d say it’s how malleable a trait is and you’re horribly wrong.”
Exactly, instead of requesting for my thesis on the subject you asked a series of vague and loaded questions and then proceeded to attack a strawman based on the preconceptions. It was a pathetic attempt to discredit me and perfectly displays your pseudo intellectualism.
“This is one of the funniest things I’ve ever read.”
Are you smart enough to understand that Intelligence is near 100% plastic but also 100% genetic? Just wondering.
“So is the heritability estimate of plasticity how plastic plasticity is?”
Plasticity is also relative so yes. Developmental Plasticity is a trait itself that can be selected for as I explained in my post about heterochronies and sexual selection.
” your (mis)understanding of heritability shows that.”
There is no misunderstanding, I demonstrated this. Try again.
“Let’s entertain your clearly ridiculous notion. What makes you believe that? (How much college have you completed? I’m getting my bachelor’s in May then off to grad school in September. What about you?)”
Considering your piss poor reading comprehension, you probably haven’t learned jack shit the entire time you’ve been studying. I constantly have to correct your bullshit on the daily. Whether it’s explaining to you the difference between self awareness and consciousness, behavioral adaptability and general adaptability, the definition of torque equilibrium, and now the definition of heritability, I consistently show higher levels of knowledge in these areas the only one you do excel over me is physiology and anatomy which even then if I actually gave a damn about the subjects I’d more than likely be better at that too. You don’t even spell somatotype right, or actually understand the parameters of the equations involved, you just base it off observation. Remember who the fuck you are talking to, all of your arguments I have used before when I was an Anti-HBDer. You and Afro are swagger jackers to the fullest extent. I’m younger, yet you look up to me.
“I addressed all of your points and showed you citations to fix your misconception on heritability. You’ve not yet addressed the claims from Jung and Haier on twin studies and the heritability brain volume, and grey and white matter. Twin studies are horribly flawed. The EEA is false.”
You’ve addressed none of my points. Twin studies nor GWAS are necessary for the validity of this thesis. You’ve literally just been wasting time with strawmans.
LikeLike
For the last time: the quotes were relevant because it was about test validity. You know damn well that I don’t hold nature over nurture or nurture over nature so what you’re saying is irrelevant.
Irrelevant. Why is most of this comment full of logical fallacies?
Of factors like test-anxiety, motivation, enculturation, etc. Or did you think that the vague parameter of ‘SES’ actually captured all of this? This article covers it.
And population stratification is still a problem even in less multicultural populations. And twin studies are garbage.
So you didn’t read the Heritability Fallacy article, because that quote is from a book!
Right, plasticity and malleability are the same words.
It still is misunderstanding heritability. Low heritabilities don’t mean malleability whereas high heritabilities don’t mean that said trait is not malleable. You can associate lower estimates with higher plasticity, but you’re wrong.
I asked you a few questions. Sue me. I didn’t attack any strawman. You said that low heritabilities imply high plasticity and I provided quotes from a book and two journal articles to show thst you’re wrong.
Of course. Just that it’s not ‘100 percent genetic’.
Developmental plasticity is process. And it also lends credence to epigenetics as well.
You’re delusional if you think you know more than me about those subject but these little spats are a waste of time and I will no longer be responding to them after this comment. Half of your comment is useless.
Useless comment. I know you’re better than to get emotional and go on a pointless rant.
You didn’t school me anywhere, especially not heritability. I spell it somatype out of habit. That doesn’t mean you ‘know’ more about it than I do. Try to give a damn about anatomy and physiology and see if you’ll ‘know more than me about it’. Yes I base it off observation because I have the knowledge to do so, I’ve been doing this for years and I don’t need you to tell me how to do my job! I know ‘who the fuck I am talking to’. I don’t look up to you buddy. Why would I look up to a guy I debate on my blog? Funny stuff.
You can continue to make useless comments such as the above but i will not respond to them as my time is too precious to not waste it on irrelevant bullshit.
If you’d read their section 7.2 on imaging genomics you’d see they completely rely on twins studies. I addressed the horribly flawed methodology. As I’ve stated previously, they looked at twins for brain volume, and grey and white matter. And also those two genes they discuss (ASPM and MCPH1) at least regarding ASPM, don’t cause bigger brains. This is in reference to this quote:
… we would also anticipate that the ASPM and microcephalin genes are strong candidates for mediating the relationship between gray and white matter volumes within discrete brain regions identified within the general P-FIT.
Even Rushton says:
No evidence was found of a relation between the two candidate genes ASPM and MCPH1 and individual differences in head circumference, GMA or social intelligence.
No evidence that polymorphisms of brain regulator genes Microcephalin and ASPM are associated with general mental ability, head circumference or altruism
And the funniest part is that they recommend to use the flawed twin paradigm to further look into this. That’s pretty funny.
Again, I’m no longer responding to anything that’s not directly related to this conversation. Please do not waste my time with inane bullshit. Thank you.
LikeLike
“Of factors like test-anxiety, motivation, enculturation, etc. Or did you think thst the vague parameter of ‘SES’ actually captured all of this?”
There you go again with your mating call “muh culture”.
“And twin studies are garbage.”
Yeah I know.
“So you didn’t read the Heritability Fallacy article, because that quote is from a book!”
Reaching as usual. When I use the term “article” I mean any written piece. I’ve used that word to refer to scientific studies, books, pop science articles, and blog posts. Nice try though.
“Right, plasticity nd malleability are the same words.”
I didn’t say they were conflating those two words. More evidence of your reading comprehension or lack thereof.
“You can associate lower estimates with higher plasticity, but you’re wrong.”
I’m not wrong. I never said they were a perfect estimate, and I already stated that it isn’t the purpose of the heritability formulas to measure plasticity. They’re just decent proxies to make inferences.
“It still is misunderstanding heritability. Low heritabilities don’t mean malleability whereas high heritabilities mean that said trait is not malleable”
It’s not, most(key word) of the times low estimates do mean more malleability especially if the trait in question belongs to a very homogeneous population.
“I didn’t attack any strawman. You said that low heritabilities imply high plasticity and I provided quotes from a book and two journal articles to show thst you’re wrong.”
That didn’t show that i was wrong, they misconstrued two different concepts(formed their own strawman). or at least you quote mined and interpreted it wrong..
“Of course. Just that it’s not ‘100 percent genetic’.”
Genes that catalyze cranial and cortical development are always inherited. Phenotypic expressions still vary of course.
“Developmental plasticity is process. And it also lends credence to epigenetics as well”
Both irrelevant to the point. A process’ mechanisms are still under selection.
“Heritability doesn’t mean how plastic a trait is. Stop saying it.”
I never said the two were identical. Stop saying it.
“I know you’re better than to get emotional and go on a pointless rant.”
Not a rant, just a very true paragraph.
“You didn’t school me anywhere, especially not heritability”
This conversation shows otherwise. I school you everywhere bud.
“That doesn’t mean you ‘know’ more about it than I do. Yes I base it off observation because I have the knowledge to do so, I’ve been doing this for years and I don’t need you to tell me how to do my job!”
Apparently you do if you think somatotype has anything to do with body frame. You’re what Hitler called ” people who read a lot, but aren’t well read”
“If you’d read their section 7.2 on imaging genomics you’d see they completely rely on twins studies. I addressed the horribly flawed methodology. ”
But that doesn’t mean Intelligence does not have a physiological component. Have your forgotten what this discussion is even about!? You claim you aren’t arguing nature vs nurture so why are twin studies and heritability such important points to you? They have absolutely nothing to do with what I’m stating and I specifically sad multiple times throughout the conversation that the brain is experience independent and nature/nurture produce a feedback loop therefore, Nature vs nurture arguments are irrelevant.This is fucking sad, I hope you’re trolling. Go ahead RR, I’m giving you a way out. Just say you were trolling and we can put this all behind us, otherwise it’s just another reason you have shitty reading comprehension.
” Please do not waste my time with inane bullshit. ”
If you learned to read better or at least developed some critical thinking skills you wouldn’t waste your own time. If you want to runaway that’s fine, it just shows you know that I’m right.
LikeLike
There you go again with an irrelevant comment. That all you really have to say?
So be more specific.
No, I said that. Talk about reading comprehension.
And you’re wrong.
I didn’t quote mine a thing. I read the book and the articles. You’re more than welcome to check.
This doesn’t mean that intelligence is ‘100 percent genetic’.
Me: “Does a heritability of 0 imply full malleability while a heritability 1 implies no malleability?”
You: Yea that’s how I see it.
Plasticity depends on environment and can and does change based on environment. There are no ‘instructions for’ plasticity as it’s a dynamic process.
A useless rant filled with logical fallacies.
It does but that’s not a conversation for here.
No I’ve not forgotten what it’s about I’m addressing the paper and it’s final claims. Twin studies are important because they overestimate heritability (see the paper I cited yesterday) while heritability is important because it’s apart of misconceptions that people have on traits. Naturally vs nurture is irrelevant and a false dichotomy. As I said, developmental systems theory > nature vs nurture.
I’m not trolling at all. We’re not putting anything behind us. I don’t have shitty reading comp.
Anyway I showed a few of their assumptions wrong (twin studies and ASPM/MCPH1) along with the fact that Jung and Haier admit that all neuroimaging research is correlational by nature. As I’ve written in the past, London cabby drivers who are ‘On the Knowledge’ have certain parts of their brains thst are bigger compared to controls. Now extrapolate this to social class and brain images and then you’ll see why Jung and Haier found what they found. (Population stratification still matters too.) Epigenetic inheritance also matters here, too.
No dude. It’s nothing to do with ‘running away’, I’m saying to end the stupid attacks and stop wasting your time (and mine) with them because I won’t respond to them. My time is more precious than to argue about inane bullshit, I’m sure yours is to so let’s try to leave logical fallacies and supposed character attacks out of this conversation.
LikeLike
“It doesn’t address any claims.”
Yea it does, just not in the way you want it to.
“If I misunderstand you then I’ll admit it if you explain what you mean. Talk about being vague…”
Meaning it’s controlled by genes regardless of phenotypic variance. Your entire body is developed through the propagation of particular genes, this is a fact independent of whether phenotype could be fixed or malleable.
“It’s not vague at all. It’s a yes or no question.”
It’s not open ended, you can interpret many strawman from a vague yes or no answer. And you did just that.
” I’ve cited a paper a while back showing that a species’ morphology can change without any or little change to the genetic code. ”
You said there were no instructions for developmental plasticity, I demonstrated this is wrong. Your assertion was that of absoluteness, I’m already aware of other ways of adaptation.
“Appeal to motive, ‘character attacks’, ad hominem.”
An ad hominem is not the same as an insult, which admittedly attacks a person, but the point is not to discredit evidence with said insult. It’s more like a side note “this is why you’re wrong. P.s you’re an asshole” Same thing with me pointing out your bias. Im not saying you’re wrong because you’re bias, I’m saying you’re going to repeat ad nauseam because you’re bias.
“They’re relevant to Jung and Haier’s thesis”
This is a form of denying the antecedent. Just because one parameter of an overall theory is discredited doesn’t me the entirety is, especially since the two parameters in question are not dependent on each others validity.
“Let’s say Bob has an IQ of 100 while Jack had an IQ of 140. What kind of difference in brain physiology do they have?”
It depends on the task complexity. On simple task the smarter individual will show lower amounts of action potentials in the corresponding brain regions while on more complex tasks he’ll show more. Cerebral bloodflow will follow the same pattern. It’s important that you read these studies:
“Functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a field-deployable optical brain monitoring technology that provides a direct measure of cerebral blood flow in response to cognitive activity. We found that fNIRS was sensitive to variations in task difficulty in both real-life (flight simulator) and laboratory settings (tests measuring executive functions), showing increased concentration of oxygenated hemoglobin (HbO2) and decreased concentration of deoxygenated hemoglobin (HHb) in the prefrontal cortex as the tasks became more complex. Intensity of prefrontal activation (HbO2 concentration) was not clearly correlated to task performance. Rather, activation intensity shed insight on the level of mental effort, i.e., how hard an individual was working to accomplish a task. ”
“From integrating this evidence we conclude that neural efficiency might arise when individuals are confronted with tasks of (subjectively) low to moderate task difficulty and it is mainly observable for frontal brain areas. This is true for easier novel cognitive tasks or after sufficient practice allowing participants to develop appropriate (efficient) strategies to deal with the task. In very complex tasks more able individuals seem to invest more cortical resources resulting in positive correlations between brain usage and cognitive ability.”
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-05378-x#Sec17
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19580915
“you can just as easily reverse causality as I have done.”
The causality in regards to nature/nurture is irrelevant! Both Genes and environment produce a feedback loop, that is the causality of intelligence. That’s what experience dependency is! The only thing missing is the physiological mechanism that lines up with a measuring system. Read the studies above
LikeLike
Please elaborate. What exactly is wrong with the paper that invalidates his whole thesis?
It’s not controlled by genes. Genes are not a causal agent. Intelligence is a property of the system. Potential is realized through intelligent dynamic systems. Genes also don’t cause traits, they influence the system. The cells get bombarded with morphogens which cause the development of new form and function that’s not ‘encoded in the genes’. Potential originates in the morphologic reactions its not “in the genes”. Developmental plasticity is how the organism can handle an ever changing environment, and these ever changing environments are how intelligent and dynamic systems evolved in the first place. So pretty much, what is assumed to be ‘genetic’ is actually a whole developmental system.
No it’s not. It’s not “developed through the propagation of particular genes”, intelligent developmental systems use genes as ‘slaves’, the genes themselves are nothing more than pawns used by the intelligent developmental system.
You’re talking as if you can’t elaborate after your yes or no answer. It’s simple. Is heritability a measure of malleability? If yes, you’re wrong. If no, you’re right. It’s that simple.
There aren’t. The information for the developmental plasticity is not ‘in the genes’, it occurs due to environmental pressure. Developmental plasticity reflects potential and variation in the intelligent system, not what’s ‘encoded in the genes’. And developmental plasticity, of course, also depends on epigenetic processes as well.
It’s still fallacious with no evidence at all to back it up other than your baseless assertions.
I never said it's wrong because of twin study heritability estimates, it just makes their claims extremely dubious. But the fact of the matter is their questioning of the 2 genes in question is wrong, and since the heritability estimates they cites in regard to brain morphology are most likely very strongly inflated then this yet again is more reason to be skeptical of their conclusion.
Regarding the studies you cited there are two problems. For one, the first has an n of 26 and 2:
One hallmark example of a link between global topological network properties of complex functional brain connectivity and cognitive performance is the finding that general intelligence may depend on the efficiency of the brain’s intrinsic functional network architecture. However, although this association has been featured prominently over the course of the last decade, the empirical basis for this broad association of general intelligence and global functional network efficiency is quite limited. In the current study, we set out to replicate the previously reported association between general intelligence and global functional network efficiency using the large sample size and high quality data of the Human Connectome Project, and extended the original study by testing for separate association of crystallized and fluid intelligence with global efficiency, characteristic path length, and global clustering coefficient. We were unable to provide evidence for the proposed association between general intelligence and functional brain network efficiency, as was demonstrated by van den Heuvel et al. (2009), or for any other association with the global network measures employed.More specifically, across multiple network definition schemes, ranging from voxel-level networks to networks of only 100 nodes, no robust associations and only very weak non-significant effects with a maximal R2 of 0.01 could be observed. Notably, the strongest (non-significant) effects were observed in voxel-level networks. We discuss the possibility that the low power of previous studies and publication bias may have led to false positive results fostering the widely accepted notion of general intelligence being associated to functional global network efficiency.
General, crystallized and fluid intelligence are not associated with functional global network efficiency: A replication study with the human connectome project 1200 data set.
… Regarding the imaging study regarding Haier and Jung 2007. And there won’t be a physiological mechanisms that lines up with a measuring system. (Even if there are, it wouldn’t justify ‘rank ordering brains’ based on IQ test results because physiological traits aren’t rank ordered.)
And the point on experience dependency: the claim from Richardson and Norgate was that the bigger brain areas identified by Jung and Haier weren’t a cause of IQ, rather that they were a result of social class structure which, of course, would involve different, less stimulating experience. What I meant when I said ‘reverse the causality’, I meant that in regard to the correlations and their explanations always leading the hereditarian way so conveniently. It’s perfectly logical to reverse the correlation and have it explain the same things.
I read the papers. Not impressed, small ns and the new paper I cited falsified the claim.
LikeLike
“Please elaborate. Do people of different SESs have the same ‘cultural tools’? What exactly is wrong with the paper thst invalidates his whole thesis?”
I’ve already explained this reasoning multiple times, this is the last one. Experience dependency reduces causality to a feedback loop.
” Genes are not a causal agent. ”
Either you don’t know what causation is, or you’re applying it wrong. Which in retrospect, is evidence of the former. It doesn’t matter, you need to provide a proper rebuttal to my citation otherwise you’re wasting my time.
You stated:
” I said there are ‘no instructions for plasticity since developmental plasticity is largely a response to environmental conditions.”
But this isn’t true, so you must of not read my links. Genes can control the timing and expressions of other genes. All genes are expressed through environmental information, like you already stated.
“intelligent developmental systems use genes as ‘slaves’, the genes themselves are nothing more than pawns used by the intelligent developmental system.”
You’re being semantic again, which isn’t an actual argument just fallacious repetitiveness. Just because the system is not completely modular or parallel doesn’t mean its parts don’t exist or have functions that are specific to them.
“If yes, you’re wrong. If no, you’re right. It’s that simple.”
Only a simple person would think that. In this particular context my statement was right, most of the time. Try to think with a little more complexity. Also, I gave Afro a pretty decent explanation which he proceeded to rebuttal with an ad hominem(you know the real kind, not the one you falsely accused me of) so check it out if want to read a more verbose thesis.
“There aren’t. The information for the developmental plasticity is not ‘in the genes’, it occurs due to environmental pressure.”
A gene still exists whether it is expressed or not. Wherever the information comes from is irrelevant to what a gene does.
“It’s still fallacious with no evidence at all to back it up other than your baseless assertions.”
It’s not a fallacy, it’s just my opinion.
“it just makes their claims extremely dubious.”
While I understand your logic, and I do not agree with their conclusions on heritability and GWAS studies, it still doesn’t invalidate their main theory.
“Regarding the studies you cited there are two problems. For one, the first has an n of 26 and 2: I read the papers. Not impressed, small ns and the new paper I cited falsified the claim.”
Nice try, but im “not impressed” if that’s your only real complaint and you have cited plenty of studies with small ns before. Either way, I can and will provide studies with much larger ns that still produce the same results using the same data from the human connectome project(thank you by the way I had no idea that even existed), and we still wouldn’t expect such uniformity across results of multiple studies if low n’s were indeed a problem, plus the first studiy had well executed methodology which made its predictive power much higher. Your citation only “debunks” my second study which in reality i only posted to substantiate my definition of observed patterns in neural efficiency, the first one was the real argument.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4999800/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29135806
“he claim from Richardson and Norgate was that the bigger brain areas identified by Jung and Haier weren’t a cause of IQ, rather that they were a result of social class structure which, of course, would involve different, less stimulating experience.”
It’s obvious you don’t know what you’re talking about. IQ is a result of social structure. The fact that you can reverse causality is evidence of the feedback loop.
LikeLike
Wow, calm down meLo. The blatant ignorance you’ve displayed on this thread is really embarrassing. You should rather discuss the IQ of Cinderella with peepee instead of digging your hole here.
LikeLike
There you are, just as expected. The only hole I’ve been digging recently is in your mother’s coochie. You’re more than welcome to join the discussion, but you and I both know it’s going to end with you not reading any of my links, feigning ignorance, and then running away in fear.
LikeLike
Please, the one who should run away in shame is the one who claims “heritability is a measure of malleability”. Debating with you is a waste of time, you never make logical arguments nor provide any valuable sources then always end up with childish personal attacks that summarize what a clown you are.
LikeLike
“one who claims “heritability is a measure of malleability”.”
It’s a true claim. Neither of you have shown the opposite.
“you never make logical arguments nor provide any valuable sources then always end up with childish personal attacks that summarize what a clown you are.”
Yawn* all i hear are baseless assertions. I’ve provided multiple citations, and as far as I’m concerned you’re too much of a pussy to admit when you’re wrong. I personally attack you, and debunk your bullshit with peer reviewed articles at the same time, so it’s not really a logical fallacy at that point.
LikeLike
Please…
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4612-0669-9_4
You really don’t need to be so salty. Just stick to things that you can understand and it’s gonna be alright.
LikeLike
Literally just reading the first sentence, you can see how full of shit you are
“Herrnstein and Murray claim that a high value for heritability of intelligence limits or constrains the extent to which intelligence can be increased by changing the environment.”
A strawman, that’s not what i think heritability is. As I already told RR heritability is not a measure of plasticity, but you can make inferences on the level of plasticity about the trait if it belongs to a homogeneous population.
“Just stick to things that you can understand and it’s gonna be alright.”
Honestly you should just give up on being a lawyer if you can’t even read properly or produce a decent argument against a random stranger on the internet.
LikeLike
No strawman, heritability is a measure of variance and nothing else. Just tells how theoretically amenable to selection one trait is and doesn’t allow any inference on individual phenotype and how and why it can change. I’ll take your professional advice when you complete college and get a job.
LikeLike
“doesn’t allow any inference on individual phenotype”
Wrong again, but that’s not surprising. “Heritability increases when genetics are contributing more variation or because non-genetic factors are contributing less variation” so when a trait is genetically homogeneous through a population but still shows low heritability, it implies Plasticity.
“and how and why it can change.”
That wasn’t what I stated you could interpret from it. You can interpret how much it changes in a quantitative(albeit a crude one) but not in a qualitative sense. You definitely can’t extrapolate why it’s malleable.
“I’ll take your professional advice when you complete college and get a job.”
I have a job. Even if I never do go to college, I’ll still be able to burn you at every debate. Here in america only idiots put themselves in debt in their early 20’s.
LikeLike
Only a significantly diminished intellect can proudly write such garbage and believe he’s making an actual argument.
LikeLike
“Only a significantly diminished intellect can proudly write such garbage and believe he’s making an actual argument.”
Since you haven’t actually rebutted anything I’ve said take this L for the rest of your life..
LikeLike
When did Jayman start calling himself “MeLo?”
LikeLiked by 1 person
It’s pretty obvious I’m not jayman.
LikeLike
Don’t kniw, he needs to chill out, though.
LikeLike
Know*
My name is literally synonymous to being chill.
LikeLike
[…] meLo on IQ and Construct Validity […]
LikeLike
How construct validity of intelligence is being affected by culture?
LikeLike
[…] IQ and Construct Validity […]
LikeLike