2250 words
My articles get posted on the Reddit board /r/hbd and, of course, people don’t like what I write about IQ. I get accused of reading ‘Richardson n=34 studies’ even though that was literally one citation in a 32 page paper that does not affect his overall argument. (I will be responding to Kirkegaard and UnsilencedSci in separate articles.) I’ll use this time to respond to criticisms from the Reddit board.
He’s peddling BS, say this:
“But as Burt and his associates have clearly demonstrated, teachers’ subjective assessments afford even more reliable predictors.”
Well, no, teachers are in fact remarkably poor at predicting student’s success in life. Simple formulas based on school grades predict LIFE success better than teachers, notwithstanding the IQ tests.
You’re incorrect. As I stated in my response to The Alternative Hypothesis, the correlation between teacher’s judgement and student achievement is .66. “The median correlation, 0.66, suggests a moderate to strong correspondence between teacher judgements and student achievement” (Hoge and Coladarci, 1989: 303). This is a higher correlation than what was found in the ‘validation studies’ from. Hunter and Schmidt.
He cherry-picks a few bad studies and ignores entire bodies of evidence with sweeping statements like this:
“This, of course, goes back to our good friend test construction. ”
Test construction is WHOLLY IRRELEVANT. It’s like saying: “well, you know, the ether might be real because Michelson-Morley experiment has been constructed this way”. Well no, it does not matter how MM experiment has been constructed as long as it tests for correct principles. Both IQ and MM have predictive power and it has nothing to do with “marvelling”, it has to do whether the test, regardless of its construction, can effectively predict outcomes or not.
This is a horrible example. You’re comparing the presuppositions of the test constructors who have in their mind who is or is not intelligent and then construct the test to confirm those preconceived notions to an experiment that was used to find the presence and properties of aether? Surely you can think of a better analogy because this is not it.
More BS: “Though a lot of IQ test questions are general knowledge questions, so how is that testing anything innate if you’ve first got to learn the material, and if you have not you’ll score lower?”
Of course the IQ tests do NOT test much of general knowledge. Out of 12 tests in WAIS only 2 deal with general knowledge.
The above screenshot is from Nisbett (2012: 14) (though it’s the WISC, not WAIS they’re similar, all IQ tests go through item analysis, tossing items that don’t conform to the test constructors’ presuppositions).
Either way, our friend test construction makes an appearance here, too. This is how these tests are made and they are made to conform to the constructor’s presuppositions. The WISC and WAIS have similar subtests, either way. Test anxiety, furthermore, leads to a lessened performance on the block design and picture arrangement subtests (Hopko et al, 2005) and moderate to severe stress, furthermore, is related to social class and IQ test performance. Stress affects the growth of the hippocampus and PFC (prefrontal cortex) (Davidson and McEwing, 2012) so does it seem like an ‘intellectual’ thing here? Furthermore, all tests and batteries are tried out on a sample of children, with items not contributing to normality being tossed out, therefore ‘item analysis’ forces what we ‘see’ regarding IQ tests.
Even the great Jensen said in his 1980 book Bias in Mental Testing (pg 71):
It is claimed that the psychometrist can make up a test that will yield any type of score distribution he pleases. This is roughly true, but some types of distributions are easier to obtain than others.
This holds for tbe WAIS, WISC, the Raven, any type of IQ test. This shows how arbitrary the ‘item selection’ is. No matter what type of ‘IQ test’ you attempt to use to say ‘It does test “intelligence” (whatever that is)!!’ the reality of test construction and constructing tests to fit presuppositions and distributions cannot be ran away from.
The other popular test, Raven’s Progressive Matrices does not test for general knowledge at all.
This is a huge misconception. People think that just because there are no ‘general knowledge questions’ or anything verbal regarding the Matrices then it must test an innate power, thus mysterious ‘g’. However, this is wrong and he clearly doesn’t keep up with recent data:
Reading was the greatest predictor of performance Raven’s, despite controlling for age and sex. Attendance was so strongly related with Raven’s performance [school attendance was used as a proxy for motivation]. These findings suggest that reading, or pattern recognition, could be fundamentally affecting the way an individual problem solves or learns to learn, and is somehow tapping into ‘g’. Presumably the only way to learn to read is through schooling. It is, therefore, essential that children are exposed to formal education, have the mother to go/stay in school, and are exposed to consistent, quality training in order to develop the skills associated with your performance. (pg 83) Variable Education Exposure and Cognitive Task Performance Among the Tsimane, Forager- Horticulturalists.
Furthermore, according to Richardson (2002): “Performance on the Raven’s test, in other words, is a question not of inducing ‘rules’ from meaningless symbols, in a totally abstract fashion, but of recruiting ones that are already rooted in the activities of some cultures rather than others.”
The assumption that the Raven is ‘culture free’ because it’s ‘just shapes and rote memory’ is clearly incorrect. James Thompson even said to me that Linda Gottfredson said that people only think the Raven is a ‘test of pure g’ because Jensen said it, which is not true.
This is completely wrong in so many ways. No understanding of normalization. Suggestion that missing heritability is discovering environmentally. I think a distorted view of the Flynn Effect. I’ll just stick to some main points.
I didn’t imply a thing about missing heritability. I only cited the article by Evan Charney to show how populations become stratified.
RR: There is no construct validity to IQ tests
First, let’s go through the basics. All IQ tests measure general intelligence (g), the positive manifold underlying every single measure of cognitive ability. This was first observed over a century ago and has been replicated across hundreds of studies since. Non-g intelligences do not exist, so for all intents and purposes it is what we define as intelligence. It is not ‘mysterious’
Thanks for the history lesson. 1) we don’t know what ‘g’ is. (I’ve argued that it’s not physiological.) So ‘intelligence’ is defined as ‘g’ yet which we don’t know what ‘g’ is. His statement here is pretty much literally ‘intelligence is what IQ tests test’.
It would be correct to say that the exact biological mechanisms aren’t known. But as with Gould’s “reification” argument, this does not actually invalidate the phenomenon. As Jensen put it, “what Gould has mistaken for “reification” is neither more nor less than the common practice in every science of hypothesizing explanatory models or theories to account for the observed relationships within a given domain.” Poor analogies to white blood cells and breathalyzer won’t change this.
It’s not a ‘poor analogy’ at all. I’ve since expanded on the construct validity argument with more examples of other construct valid tests like showing how the breathalyzer is construct valid and how white blood cell count is a proxy for disease. They have construct validity, IQ tests do not.
RR: I said that I recall Linda Gottfredson saying that people say that Ravens is culture-fair only because Jensen said it
This has always been said in the context of native, English speaking Americans. For example it was statement #5 within Mainstream Science on Intelligence. Jensen’s research has demonstrated this. The usage of Kuwait and hunter gatherers is subsequently irrelevant.
Point 5 on the Mainstream Science on Intelligence memo is “Intelligence tests are not culturally biased against American blacks or other native-born, English-speaking peoples in the U.S. Rather, IQ scores predict equally accurately for all such Americans, regardless of race and social class. Individuals who do not understand English well can be given either a nonverbal test or one in their native language.”
This is very vague. Richardson (2002) has noted how different social classes are differentially prepared for IQ test items:
I shall argue that the basic source of variation in IQ test scores is not entire (or even mainly) cognitive, and what is cognitive is not general or unitary. It arises from a nexus or sociocognitive-affective factors determining individuals: relative preparedness for the demands of the IQ test.
The fact of the matter is, all social classes aren’t prepared in the same way to take the IQ test and if you read the paper you’d see that.
RR: IQ test validity
I’ll keep this short. There exist no predictors stronger than g across any meaningful measures of success. Not education, grades, upbringing, you name it.
Yes there are. Teacher assessment which has a higher correlation than the correlation between ‘IQ’ and job performance.
RR: Another problem with IQ test construction is the assumption that it increases with age and levels off after puberty.
The very first and most heavily researched behavioral trait’s heritability has been intelligence. Only through sheer ignorance could the term “assumption” describe findings from over a century of inquiry.
Yes the term ‘assumption’ was correct. You do realize that, of course, the increase in IQ heritability is, again, due to test construction? You can also build that into the test as well, by putting more advanced questions, say high school questions for a 12 year old, and heritability would seem to increase due to just how the test was constructed.
Finally, IanTichszy says:
That article is thoroughly silly.
First, the IQ tests predict real world-performance just fine: http://thealternativehypothesis.org/index.php/2016/04/15/the-validity-of-iq/
I just responded to this article this week. They only ‘predicts real-world performance just fine’ because they’re constructed to and even then, high-achieving children in achievement rarely become high achieving adults whereas low-achieving adults tend to become successful adults. There are numerous problems with TAH’s article which I’ve already covered.
That is the important thing, not just correlation with blood pressure or something biological. Had g not predicted real-world performance from educational achievement to job performance with very high reliability, it would be useless, but it does predict those.
Test construction. You can’t get past that by saying ‘it does predict’ because it only predicts because it’s constructed to (I’d call it ‘post-dict’).
Second, on Raven’s Progressive Matrices test: the argument “well Jensen just said so” is plain silly. If RPM is culturally loaded, a question: just what culture is represented on those charts? You can’t reasonably say that. Orangutans are able to solve simplified versions of RPM, apparently they do not have a problem with cultural loading. Just look at the tests yourself.
Of course it’s silly to accept that the Raven is culture free and tests ‘g’ the best just ‘because Jensen said so’. The culture loading of the Raven is known, there is a ‘hidden structure’ in them. Even the constructors of the Raven have noted this where they state that they transposed the items to read from left to right, not right to left which is a tacit admission of cultural loading. “The reason that some people fail such problems is exactly the same reason some people fail IQ test items like the Raven Matrices tests… It simply is not the way the human cognitive system is used to being engaged” (Richardson, 2017: 280).
Furthermore, when items are familiar to all groups, even young children are capable of complex analogical reasoning. IQ tests “test for the learned factual knowledge and cognitive habits more prominent in some social classes than in others. That is, IQ scores are measures of specific learning, as well as self-confidence and so on, not general intelligence“ (Richardson, 2017: 192).
Another piece of misinformation: claiming that IQs are not normally distributed. Well, we do not really know the underlying distribution, that’s the problem, only the rank order of questions by difficulty, because we do not have absolute measure of intelligence. Still, the claim that SOME human mental traits, other than IQ, do not have normal distribution, in no way impacts the validity of IQ distribution as tests found it and projected onto mean 100 and standard dev 15 since it reflects real world performance well.
Physiological traits important for survival are not normally distributed (of course it is assumed that IQ both tests innate physiological differences and is important for survival so if it were physiological it wouldn’t be normally distributed either since traits important for survival have low heritabilities). It predicts real world performance well because, see above and my other articles on thus matter.
If you know even the basic facts about IQ, it’s clear that this article has been written in bad faith, just for sake of being contrarian regardless of the truth content or for self-promotion.
No, people don’t know the basic facts of IQ (or its construction). My article isn’t written in bad faith nor is it being contrarian regardless of the truth content or for self-promotion. I can, clearly, address criticisms to my writing.
In the future, if anyone has any problems with what I write then please leave a comment here on the blog at the relevant article. Commenting on Reddit on the article that gets posted there is no good because I probably won’t see it.
NotPoliticallyCorrect 
Just a couple things I wanted to correct you on.
“This is a horrible example.”
Actually it’s not, or at least it doesn’t invalidate his point. Test construction is irrelevant if the test has a high predictive power of what it’s supposed to.
“though it’s the WISC, not WAIS they’re similar,”
This isn’t a valid criticism, if you’re going to rebuttal his claim at least use the actual test he was referring to, that’s just rude and intellectually dishonest.
“People think that just because there are no ‘general knowledge questions’ or anything verbal regarding the Matrices then it must test an innate power”
That wasn’t his point at all, unless you’re unintentionally just taking the quote out of context. I think he was just pointing out your ignorance of the actual literature, furthermore the quote doesn’t address the argument on the validity of g in any way shape or for. Of course, you could just still be clinging onto the whole “belief in g=belief in genetic determinism” bullshit again.
“but of recruiting ones that are already rooted in the activities of some cultures rather than others.””
Where is the data? He’s just making baseless assertions.
“So ‘intelligence’ is defined as ‘g’ yet which we don’t know what ‘g’ is.”
Everyone knows what g is, you literally just deny it.
“They only ‘predicts real-world performance just fine’ because they’re constructed to”
LMAO that’s just embarrassing RR. This ties into my first reply, you’re basically saying, that Alcohol breathalyzers only predict how drunk you are because they are “constructed” to do so. DUH!!
“high-achieving children in achievement rarely become high achieving adults whereas low-achieving adults tend to become successful adults.”
That’s complete bullshit.
“even young children are capable of complex analogical reasoning. ”
You’re being purposefully vague, children cannot grasp Quantum mechanics, evolution, complete a degree in rocket science etc.
“of course it is assumed that IQ both tests innate physiological differences and is important for survival so if it were physiological it wouldn’t be normally distributed either since traits important for survival have low heritabilities”
IQ’s variability is one reason why it is a survival trait. Also the low heritability thing you just said isn’t absolutely true, but most of the times it is.
“No, people don’t know the basic facts of IQ (or its construction). My article isn’t written in bad faith nor is it being contrarian regardless of the truth content or for self-promotion. I can, clearly, address criticisms to my writing.”
Honestly RR, you dont even know what question items most modern IQ tests have. The reason why no one is going to come here and argue against you is because they know it doesn’t matter what they say, you’ll just repeat ad nauseam with semantic autism.
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It has the ‘high predictive power’ (of a correlation of .5 between IQ and grades) due to test construction. It becomes circular. See the Jensen quote. That’s the same idea.
Let’s see what they share in common.
Information, vocabulary, similarities, arithmetic, block design, coding. The WAIS adds matrix reasoning, which has an analogous subtest on the WISC, visual puzzles, cancelation, etc. The WISC IV even has similar subtests to the WAIS, so no it was not a ‘rude and intellectually dishonest’ rebuttal.
That’s what he was implying, maybe he will clarify himself but when I encounter these types of statements, way more often than not that’s what they mean when they state something like that or similar.
As an example, from page 289:
“For example, most IQ tests, like the Stanford-Binet and the Weschler scales, include numerous questions like ‘What is the boiling point of water?’; ‘Who wrote Hamlet?’; ‘In what continent is Egypt?’; and so on. These most clearly demand little more than rote reproduction of factual knowledge most likely acquired as valued pieces of information, from experience at home or by deliberate teaching in school. However, much research indicates how opportunities and pressures for acquiring such valued pieces of information—from books in the home to parents’ interests and educational level—are more likely to be found in middle-class than working-class or ethnic minority homes (for reviews see Mackintosh, 1998; Martinez, 2000). … Such individuals will thus be much better prepared for an IQ test by virtue of their cultural background rather than cognitive ability as such. Yet such items are abundant in the most popular IQ tests and contribute much to the final score.”
There are numerous other examples in the paper.
Argumentum ad populum.
Robert Plomin: “g is widely accepted by experts … it is less clear what g is.” and ” it is rather less certain what g is.”
Breathalyzers are tested against a biological model with an agreed-upon theory. Breathalyzers are different from IQ in that breathalyzers test your BAC while IQ tests test…
Do you not see the problem there? You blow into a breathalyzer and out comes your BAC. You take your IQ test and our pops—relatively well enough—is how ‘intelligent’ you are compared to your peers of the same age. Throw in the problems brought up and there toy have it.
No it isn’t. See the paper Natural Learning in Higher Education by J. S. Armstrong (2011) pg 4
“Grades vs. job performance: Grades at recent universities have a low relationship to long-term job performance (r = .05 for 6 or more years after graduation) despite the fact that cognitive skills are highly related to job performance (Roth et al. 1996). In addition, they found that this relationship between grades and job performance has been lower for the more recent studies.”
(Even then, the correlation between job performance and IQ is around .2 to .3, not as high as the ‘validation studies’ with inflated correlations from Hunter and Schmidt. See Richardson and Norgate (2015). Still further, teacher assessment has a higher correlation with student achievement than IQ tests do so why waste time and money administering a test when a simple teacher assessment has better predictive value in which no test items need to be forced to get the so-called predictability?)
Ironically enough, Goswami shows that children use “spontaneous analogies on their reasoning about physics” just like they reason about biology. Goswami argues in her book that failure on ‘analogical reasoning ability’ arises from lack of experience with those specific relations and that we will know that we are truly testing for complexity of cognition and not cultural experience by designing items familiar to all groups being tested which, to the best of my knowledge, has not been done yet. However if you read the Goswami paper you’ll see that my claim holds.
Do you mean variability as in distribution? Natural selection produces more phenotypes that would have been previously above average. Buzsaki and Mizuseki show evidence against bell curves for psychological traits. Ronald Fisher said thst traits important for survival have low heritabilities, by the way. Why would it not hold for IQ? Isn’t it a trait like others? It’s like how people say ‘but humans are animals too!’ and so evolution should apply to them for X, Y and Z. So the same would apply to IQ and any so-called ‘survival benefit’ from it (which shows the ridiculousness of saying that IQ is a physiological variable when how its described mimicks no other and I’ve even shown the ridiculousness with my BMR example).
By the way, check out some WAIS sample questions.
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“It becomes circular”
All measurement systems are circular, that’s how they work to begin with. If a test doesn’t measure what it’s supposed to then it’s useless.
“so no it was not a ‘rude and intellectually dishonest’ rebuttal.”
Yes it was, his argument had to do with the amount of general knowledge questions on the test not whether they were both “constructed”, the proponent stated: “Of course the IQ tests do NOT test much of general knowledge. Out of 12 tests in WAIS only 2 deal with general knowledge.”
Your reply to him/her was irrelevant, and your reply to me was just as pointless.
“when I encounter these types of statements, way more often than not that’s what they mean when they state something like that or similar.”
Either way, it’s a strawman.
“For example, most IQ tests, like the Stanford-Binet and the Weschler scales, include numerous questions like ‘What is the boiling point of water?’; ‘Who wrote Hamlet?’; ‘In what continent is Egypt?’;”
I want to know how he thinks pattern recognition tests with novel symbols have any kind of cultural bias. It has nothing to do with general knowledge questions like that.
“Argumentum ad populum.”
No it’s not, you can’t pretend g doesn’t exist just because you say so.
“Breathalyzers are tested against a biological model with an agreed-upon theory. ”
Interesting, so is IQ.
” while IQ tests test…”
Intelligence***, which is evident by a large body of research. Sorry, just trying to fix your typo.
“No it isn’t”
Yes it is, You stated there was an inverse correlation not a low positive one. Secondly you never stated anything about “job performance” in your original quote.
“Still further, teacher assessment has a higher correlation with student achievement than IQ tests do so why waste time and money administering a test when a simple teacher assessment has better predictive value”
Cherrypicking studies as usual, what do you mean by student achievement?
The SAT has .8 correlation with IQ and the tests do have a higher correlation than .5 but because the relationship breaks down after 1 or two years(especially in younger children) it lowers it. One study here tried to rectify this issue: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1041608015000412
Also, IQ isn’t meant to test student achievement, it tests intelligence……….
“Goswami argues in her book that failure on ‘analogical reasoning ability’ arises from lack of experience with those specific relations and that we will know that we are truly testing for complexity of cognition and not cultural experience by designing items familiar to all groups being tested which, to the best of my knowledge, has not been done yet”
Children score lower because of crystallized knowledge. Even metaphorical comprehension isn’t 1:1. So while they may “get” something they can’t successfully elaborate on it, but this also leaves room for more creativity.
“Why would it not hold for IQ? Isn’t it a trait like others?”
Yes, but in biology there is always exceptions. This isn’t physics. The variability of IQ is a direct result of the brains plasticity. This plasticity is what gives the brain such huge survival benefits.
“when how its described mimicks no other and I’ve even shown the ridiculousness with my BMR example).”
It actually mimics physiological systems pretty well, you just decided that two arbitrary characteristics(it’s distribution and heritability) were powerful enough predictors for categorization which in reality is just plain silly. it’s like saying a basketball isn’t a basketball because it isn’t exactly orange.
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IQ doesn’t measure ‘intelligence’.
IQ tests are constructed to educational achievement because they’re constructed with questions and other things learned in school. Further circularity comes from IQ’s correlation with wealth, income, job status etc because education largely determines entry into the job market. Think back to our side discussion in the other thread on social stratification. That plays a part here too.
This is a false claim. Look at the sample WAIS questions I provided.
In what other type of way can that statement be interpreted? People have said to me : ‘it’s just shapes’ regarding the Matrices, thinking that culture and school doesn’t count in regard to them. I’ve falsified that claim too.
Are you talking about the Raven? Since you’re asking for his thoughts here, here’s a quote from his book Genes, Brains, and Human Potential: The Science and Ideology of Intelligence:
“Most psychologists seem to be utterly convinced of the validity of the Raven, supposing it to be invulnerable to criticism. Surprisingly, though, as with other IQ test items, there has actually been in-depth analysis of the cognitive demands of the Raven. The rules—such as adding or subtracting elements along a row—describe arrangement of elements in the items and not actual cognitive processes.
Indeed, what analysis there has been suggests that the Raven is surprisingly un-complex in its cognitive demands. The items may be unfamiliar in appearance, but the cognitive demands turn out to be simple compared with the complex cognition children and adults use in solving their everyday problems in social contexts. Just think of cooking, childcare, driving on a busy road, team work at work or during play, and so on. In perhaps the most thorough analysis to date, Patricia Carpenter and colleagues found little evidence that level of abstraction, as in complexity of the rules, influences difficultly.” (pg 94-95)
Also:
“Human cognitive functions are not ones that develop from the inside out, as with other skills like walking orncosualnacutiumtjis is a point I will elaborate on a great deal in chapter 9. Instead, they are soxiallybecokcied tools of that that, in individuals, are acquired from the outside in. This is obvious with functions like language, but it is true for out cognitive functions, too. In this perspective, what IQ tests actually assess is not some universal scale of cognitive strength, but the presence of skills and knowledge structures more likely to be acquired in some groups than in others.
This point applies both to verbal and nonverbal test items. Since the Raven is widely thought of as a test of pure g, I will use it as an example. The test involves deducing rules from symbols in two-dimensional arrays on paper. Psychologists have always claims that these are entirely abstract—meaning that the problems are not dependent on any way on previous experience, but only on inner cognitive strength. But it is not difficult to show that the specific rules are more prevalent in some cultures than others (e.g., middle-class compared with working-class families). They are more or less likely to he acquired by children in those families in a way that has nothing to do with their mental potential.
For example, tests like the Raven nearly all requires the reading of elements in a matrix from top-left to bottom-right, just as in (Western) text. But they also embed further rules than that, far from. Being experience free, mimic those in record sheets, timetables, or other tables of rows and columns, with totals and subtotals. The rules involve additions, subtractions, and substitutions of symbols across columns and down rows, and the deduction of new information from them.
These arrangements and rules are far more likely to be part of the culture and mindset in families whose parents have white-collar occupations than in others. Being able to handle them involves acquired mental skills, just as the use of a physical tool develops certain patterns of motion in limbs and muscles.” (pg 98-99)
Saying that ‘everybody knows’ something is argumentum ad populum.
Nice try but item selection isn’t based on any cognitive theory, it’s based on what items fit the curve the constructors want, agains see the quote from Jensen: “It is claimed that the psychometrist can make up a test that will yield any type of score distribution he pleases. This is roughly true, but some types of distributions are easier to obtain than others.”
It’s not a typo. They don’t test ‘intelligence’. Every test is steeped in culture, some more than others and even some tests you’d think weren’t (as I’ve shown with the Raven). IQ tests test learned skills.
The point is, University grades (correlated with IQ) have an extremely low correlation with job performance up to 6 years after college. This implies that success in University doesn’t translate over to success in the real world.
Care to explain how showing a correlation between teacher assessment and student achievement is ‘cherrypicking’? It’s not what I mean, it’s what the authors mean and they mean ‘achievement’ in regard to ‘a standardized achievement test’ (pg 299).
Good for Portugal. In America, we’re beginning to not care about college grades (after graduation).
Due to test construction the relationship is inevitable. Item selection. See my response to your first comment on this comment.
Or they score lower due to the reasons I’ve brought up.
Natural selection lowers heritability for traits important for survival. This is a truism. Also, I’m this context, I’m talking about IQ as a physiological trait. I’ve shown the brain studies from Buzsaki and Mizuseki showing psychological traits not being normally distributed. The BG statistical model assumes there has been no natural selection for human potential. It assumes that variable genes are randomly spread across individuals. Though traits important for survival have been under intense selection. What this implies reduction in generic variation and heritability through generations since those with deleterious alleles are eliminated from the gene pool. This is one reason why the sky-high heritability estimates for ‘IQ’ are highly flawed.
The physiological argument lies on its supposed distribution. The heritability argument is to show that heritabilities I’m truly controlled environments are never as high as seen in IQ. Furthermore, the argument on natural selection producing more and more phenotypes that were previously above average show that survival traits important to survival aren’t normally distributed. Resting heart rate, basal metabolic rate, visual acuity aren’t normally distributed (ask me about BMR and testing heart rate). My personal BMR heritability example is just the same as IQ: BMR is just as heritable (between .4 and .8) so is someone with a higher BMR ‘better’ than someone with a lower BMR? That shows the ridiculous logic of believing that IQ tests a physiological process.
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“IQ tests are constructed to educational achievement because they’re constructed with questions and other things learned in school.”
No, IQ tests are made to test intelligence, and they do a near perfect job. I’ve empirically validated this assertion multiple times on this blog, and am still waiting for you to address the citations for the posts on world wide IQ estimates, and the one on test validity. Until then, any future garbage you post is irrelevant.
Even then, my point is that you idiotically thought that a test of intelligence is biased because it’s made to test intelligence.
“This is a false claim. Look at the sample WAIS questions I provided.”
Did it occur to you that you two may be referring to two different WAIS tests? Only 4 of the examples you showed were general knowledge questions and the 4th is actually dubious because Arithmetic can be tested without the use of words.
“In what other type of way can thst statement be interpreted? ”
He stated:
“The other popular test, Raven’s Progressive Matrices does not test for general knowledge at all.”
How you extrapolated his opinion on innate vs learned intelligence from that one sentence is beyond me. Unless you equivalate general knowledge questions with cultural biased questions, which in reality are only culturally biased to the extent of “what” you know, not how you know it or how well you know it. Within the same society there is no cultural bias, except in extreme cases, like if you were comparing the 1% richest people to people living in ghettos and only because of possible malnutrition and discrimination of the latter. Between upper middle class and lower middle class, there isn’t any bias because general knowledge or cultural memes will all be similar.
” here’s a quote from his book Genes, Brains, and Human Potential: The Science and Ideology of Intelligence:”
The first Quote is nonsensical, how are the questions not complex, if there are many, many , many people who can’t answer them correctly? Secondly the pattern recognition tests are not meant to test open skills, which general knowledge is more likely to correlate with. Is he talking about this study by Carpenter?:
http://repository.cmu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1727&context=psychology
Because it didn’t say anything like what he is claiming….
The second set of quotes are just unsubstantiated garbage. Working class and white collar children both go to school and both have experience with the order a mathematical(or other) function is solved in western society. LOL so the Japanese are smarter because they read right to left?
“Saying that ‘everybody knows’ something is argumentum ad populum.”
Ok, and saying no one knows is just talking out of your ass.
“Nice try but item selection isn’t based on any cognitive theory”
? It wasn’t a try, I was just stating facts. The rest of your comment was just irrelevant to what it was supposedly meant to address.
“It’s not a typo. ”
Oh, so it was just a false statement.
“IQ tests test learned skills.”
So? The brain literally discards a majority of it’s potential by a certain age. At that point what is potential and what is learned is indistinguishable.
“I’ve shown the brain studies from Buzsaki and Mizuseki showing psychological traits not being normally distributed. ”
I don’t care, there are plenty of exceptions. Pumpkin even made a blog post about it. Im aware that IQ should have a low heritability, as far as I’m aware most are, except on adults which can be explained by synaptic pruning.
“Care to explain how showing a correlation between teacher assessment and student achievement is ‘cherrypicking’?”
You mean the study that’s over two decades old? You really thought there wasn’t anything on the subject recently?
“In America, we’re beginning to not care about college grades.”
Which probably explains why we’re such a shitty country. Good grades isn’t just indicative of IQ it’s indicative of good personality traits like high motivation and conscientiousness.
‘Due to test construction the relationship is inevitable.”
It doesn’t matter, that’s not the purpose of the test.
“That shows the ridiculous logic of believing that IQ tests a physiological process.”
It’s actually pretty logical if you just use your brain for ten seconds.
High plasticity makes the distribution irrelevant, the jump from low to high heritability is due to synaptic pruning. When you actually research neuroscience, plasticity, IQ, and heritability you quickly begin to realize how parsimonious these ideas are. Honestly, if it hadn’t been for you making your original post on the physiology of g then I wouldn’t of bothered to look into it. Now I understand much more about intelligence than before, so thanks.
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No they don’t. Don’t worry, I got something for you there coming soon. And surely you’re aware that back in October you agreed with me that IQ isn’t normally disturbing and that you believed the same held true for 99 percent of traits, right?
RR: “Something I’ve been wanting to discuss is the construction of IQ tests. They have been deliberately constructed to exhibit a normal distribution but I will show that psychological traits are not normally distributed below.”
Melo: Jesus christ, no shit. Go argue with some HBDer who thinks intelligence is normally distributed because I don’t. I would actually argue that 99.99999% of biological traits are not normally distributed. This is why people who say over representation is evidence of jewish conspiracy, are fucking retarded.
No, you missed my point.
Still a learned skill.
1) I extrapolated it on the rest of what he wrote, along with what else I’ve read on the subject.
2) what are IQ differences between upper-middle- and lower-middle-class people?
The first quote isn’t nonsensical. He elucidates on the reasoning after. You think I’m conflating general knowledge being related to inducing rules on the Raven? I’m not, I only said that the tools for them are concentrated in certain social class over others, which I’ve provided evidence for. Yes that study by Carpenter.
All home environments are the same? It’s not unsubstantiated. No one ever claimed that about the Japanese.
No it’s not, I’ve provided evidence.
It wasn’t a fact and yes it was relevant to what I was addressing. Item analysis isn’t based on a cognitive theory. In fact, from that same Carpenter paper we have this: “However, the descriptions of the abilities that Raven intended to measure are primarily characteristics of the problems, not specifications of the requisite cognitive processes. John Raven constructed problems that focused on each of six different problem characteristics, which approximately correspond to the different types of rules that we describe later. He used his intuition and clinical experience to rank order the difficulty of the six problem types.” Hmmm that sounds familiar…
And also: “In the Raven test, more difficult problems tended to involve more abstract rules than the less difficult problems. (Interestingly, the level of abstraction of even the most difficult rule, distribution of two values, does not seem particularly great compared with the abstractions that are taught and acquired in various academic domains, such as physics or political science.)”
Care to elaborate on the ‘brain discards a majority of it’s [sic] potential by a certain age’? The fact of the matter is that, as shown with those general knowledge question examples, they test learned skills. And the Raven example also proves my point that it further tests learned cognitive structure.
Buzsaki and Mizuseki shows overwhelming evidence against such distributions, PP’s post dealt with mostly physical traits. It should have a low heritability and I’ve shown evidence that heritability estimates are irrelevant for biological systems. Study causes, not variances.
Yes and newer reviews show the same relationship. This shows that IQ tests are a waste of time and money.
It does matter and it doesn’t ‘test intelligence’. I’ve shown this with class stratification, and I’ve shown this with IQ test items and the overall points on what IQ tests test, such as the citation from Goswami on analogical reasoning in children which buttresses the point. Again, the tests are constructed to reveal the presumed differences as thought by the test constructors. It’s self-fulfilling.
It’s not irrelevant… The distribution is what the behavioral genetic paradigm tests on! What about heritability? I schooled you there. How does heritability make the idea ‘parsimonious’! I’ve shown how heritability estimates are flawed for biological systems.
No problem. What about this? re physiology:
In sum, no physiologist would suggest the following:
(a) that within the normal range of physiological differences, a higher level is better than any others (as is supposed in the construction of IQ tests);
(b) that there is a general index or “quotient” (a la IQ) that could meaningfully describe levels of physiological sufficiency or ability and individual differences in it;
(c) that “normal” variation is associated with genetic variation (except in rare deleterious conditions; and
(d) the genetic causation of such variation can be meaningfully separated from the environmental causes of the variation. (Richardson, 2017)
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RR,
“These arrangements and rules are far more likely to be part of the culture and mindset in families whose parents have white-collar occupations than in others.”
If the IQ does test skills which are imbued by environment, then, obviously, for adopted children their IQ should be correlated highly with adoptive parents, and not correlated with real parents. This effect should become more pronounced with age.
However, this is not the case. By adulthood IQ results are more correlated with natural parents, not with adoptive parents.
Yes, I know all about criticism about all adoptive families being self-selected, but this still means at least that there is hereditary component to results of IQ tests, meaning they CANNOT be solely effects of middle class upbringing.
Moreover, I know you know it.
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Kids adopted from a low to middle class home gain between 12 and 18 IQ points. IQ tests do test learned skills. Even, as I’ve shown, the so-called ‘culture free tests’.
There are numerous reasons why adopted children would resemble their biological parents. 1) Assignment is nonrandom. 2) thru looked for adoptive homes thst reflect the social class of the biological mother. 3) This range restriction reduces the correlation estimates between adopted children and adopted parents. 4) Adoptive mothers come from a narrow social class. 5) Their average age at testing will be closet to their biological parents than adopted parents. 6) They experience the womb of their mothers. 7) Stress in the womb can alter gene expression. 8 Adoptive parents are given information about the birth family which may bias their treatment. 9) Biological mothers and adopted xuomdr show reduced self-esteem and are more vulnerable to changing environments which means they basically share environment. 10) Conscious or unconscious aspects of. Family treatment may make adopted children diff from other adopted family members. 11) Adopted children also look more like ehtiyjeit biological parents than their adoptive parents which means they’ll be treated accordingly.
See K. Richardson and S. H. Norgate, “A Critical Analysis of IQ Studies of Adopted Children,” Human Development 49 (January 2005): 319-335
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“you agreed with me that IQ isn’t normally disturbing and that you believed the same held true for 99 percent of traits, right?”
Yes, and a I further expanded on it in previous arguments that I don’t believe the distribution is a perfectly symmetrical bellcurve. That doesn’t mean I think it follows a different shape completely. Plus it’s pretty obvious I was slightly exaggerating.
“No, you missed my point.”
No you just don’t have one.
“1) I extrapolated it on the rest of what he wrote, along with what else I’ve read on the subject.
2) what are IQ differences between upper-middle- and lower-middle-class people?”
1) A strawman.
2) I don’t know.
” You think I’m conflating general knowledge being related to inducing rules on the Raven?”
No no no. Jesus, to put it as simple for you as I can, he’s just making a strawman like you. He assumes the test should test non-physical, open skills, but they are only meant to test pattern recognition.
“Yes that study by Carpenter.”
Yikes, he must have pretty shitty reading comprehension too.
“No one ever claimed that about the Japanese.”
It’s what he’s implying. That criticism simply doesn’t work on comparisons between two first world countries, and even if it does, it’s only responsible for a nearly insignificant amount of variation.
“I’ve provided evidence.”
Evidence of people agreeing with you? I could do that too….
“yes it was relevant to what I was addressing. Item analysis isn’t based on a cognitive theory”
It was irrelevant. You stated there was no biological theory behind IQ I said that’s blatantly wrong, and you just randomly starting harping about test construction again. You realize your criticisms aren’t connected right? Like test construction says nothing of it’s predictive validity, or it’s physiological nature, and vice versa.
“that are taught and acquired in various academic domains, such as physics or political science.”
Well of course, those subjects involve more mental skills. Not just pattern recognition or abstract rule making.
“Care to elaborate on the ‘brain discards a majority of it’s [sic] potential by a certain age’?”
Synaptic pruning. I can explain, or you can just go look it up. Your decision. When you’re a child it’s more or less all potential until you’re an adult, the longer the maturation period the more potential can be realized, which is one of the reasons East asians are more intelligent than whites who are more intelligent than Africans. Honestly the validity of IQ would be irrelevant to this truth.
“Study causes, not variances.”
No. It’s possible to study both, each have their own purposes. LOL so you just hand wave mathematical models when you don’t like their results?
“This shows that IQ tests are a waste of time and money.”
Only if you’re dumb enough to use IQ as a proxy for school achievement. That’s like using a ruler to see how heavy someone is. So far, you’re the only person I know who does this.
“it doesn’t ‘test intelligence’.”
Yes it does.
“It’s self-fulfilling.”
In the same way an Alcohol breathalyzer is self fulfilling in identifying if you’re drunk or not.
“It’s not irrelevant… The distribution is what the behavioral genetic paradigm tests on!”
The high plasticity of the brain means, the distribution does not have to follow the same pattern as other physiological traits do. Synaptic plasticty, which is the main physiological process of intelligence is literally a mechanism of malleability.
“What about heritability? I schooled you there. How does heritability make the idea ‘parsimonious’!”
You’d need about 20 extra IQ points to school me anywhere bud. Under this hypothesis, Heritability for IQ should show low estimates in childhood but larger ones in adulthood, the literature mimics this pretty well.
“In sum, no physiologist would suggest the following:”
a) That’s bullshit, because some chemical balances can cause life threatening symptoms. Some values are “better” to have than others, like in IQ a Psychologist isn’t going to argue that someone with an IQ of 131 is smarter than someone with an IQ of 130, but he will argue that someone with an IQ of 70 is mentally retarded and needs medical help.
b) That’s also bullshit, because many physiological systems have analogous measurement systems.
c) Only because most survival traits remain in homeostasis, The brain is the exception because of the nature of it’s function: plasticity, which is the exact opposite of homeostasis.
d) DUUUUUHHHHH!
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RR, I am more asking questions below than arguing. You thought surely longer than me and some of my questions you might consider moronic; but hey, what is comment section if not for answering sometimes moronic questions, right?
“There are numerous reasons why adopted children would resemble their biological parents. 1) Assignment is nonrandom. 2) thru looked for adoptive homes thst reflect the social class of the biological mother. 3) This range restriction reduces the correlation estimates between adopted children and adopted parents. 4) Adoptive mothers come from a narrow social class. 5) Their average age at testing will be closet to their biological parents than adopted parents”
But you do realize that (2) is wrong argument. The fact is not that children resemble biological parents (since 2 could explain that), but they do resemble them MORE than adoptive parents (for which 2 is irrevelant), meaning that the point (2) actually might reduce the estimation of heritability. Or I do no understand something.
Point about age is interesting, but actually it cannot explain the larger correlation, as parent-biological children living together correlation is also much higher than adoptive parent-non-biological child living together. That means that even if this age effect exist, it must be small and cannot explain what we see here.
Range restriction could mean equalising the environment and therefore increasing the heritability estimates, true; but note that biological siblings living together still differ, meaning environment is not equalised even in the same family, much less in different families. OTOH range restriction should reduce also variability in the IQ scores. If the variability is not reduced, then the range restriction probably is not a big thing, right?
Moreover there are also other studies; which test the children of the same parents living together and testing the relation of the genetical similarity. If there would be no heritability of IQ, then here there should not be influence at all of genetical similiarity, no? And there is.
Also, what do you mean by 12 to 18 IQ points gained? There was one study Duyme, Tomkiewicz, which showed huge gains by children with very low IQ, while no significant gains for children with normal IQ.
Also, Jensen and recently te Nijenhuis claimed gains were not on “g” (i.e. were empty gains)
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Exaggeration doesn’t translate well through text. It seemed you agreed with me is all.
1) How is it a strawman?
2) Why make unverifiable claims?
He’s not making a strawman. I’ve been though the pattern recognition claims.
It’s an example of cultural loading. They had to redo the test for Arab countries due to how they read. I’ve been through other problems with the Raven as well.
There’s no cognitive model for item selection. Fact. It’s based on what fits the distribution of the test constructors. Again, see the quote from Jensen. The quote from Raven in my previous reply buttresses my point. Test construction is how it has ‘predictive validity’ for the last time, it’s circular.
Evidence of everyday life being more complex along with Richardson’s other arguments.
Or you can explain since you made the claim. Drew Thomas’ analysis of adoption data showed East Asians score even or even slightly lower than whites.
It’s not handwaving. Read the Steven Rose paper on biological systems. The other critiques of heritability I provided buttress my claims.
No it’s not its because they’re different versions of the same test.
So high plasticity is why it’s normally distributed? Strong claim. I’ve provided many lines of evidence that psychological and even so-called physiological correlates of intelligence, like RT, aren’t normally distributed (Buzsaki and Mizuseki). The standard BG model assumes genetically determined operations with individual differences coming from differences in genes. Though as you know, we really have plastic networks that abstract information from the circuits in the brain brought on throughout environmental structure. This shows that the BG model, which is what all of these claims rest on, is false.
This too is built in through test construction. The fact of the matter is, controlled animal breeding studies show low heritabilities for survival traits. There’s no getting around this. See the Schonemann critique of heritability.
IQ 70 implies developmental disorders, like, say, autism or PWS, we’re discussing normal variation. Point c addresses this claim.
Examples?
Human physiology is homeodynamic.
Good to know that you agree.
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One more thing re brain plasticity. It’s quite obvious, that hardwired solutions are faster and more efficient that those more plastic. However, the disadvantage is that they are … not plastic :D. That is, in a constant environment there is no sense in plasticity. In a environment where nothing is constant, there is no sense in hardwiring things. However, we are living in environment where some thing change slowly, where there is a lot of repeating patterns. Hence, plasticity will be favoured by evolution, but it is also inevitable that there MUST be something hardwired in brain. Brain cannot be infinitely plastic because environment is not infinitely plastic.
Finally, RR, i would really welcome a post on what are your thoughts about intelligence, its heritability and so on. Not about IQ or “g”, but about concept of intelligence, what is the best way to measure it, whether it can be measured at all, whether it is entirely shaped by environment or not.
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If the brain were hardwired, i.e., if genes determined the structure of the brain and only genes, then the human mind and intelligence wouldn’t have evolved. The structural plasticity of the brain along with the evolution of intelligent systems. Is how our brain and mind evolved, through neural plasticity and how the intelligent physiological systems abstract information from ever changing environments. Irregardless of our ‘unchanging environment’ (it is changing constantly, just not in ways that are immediate), our minds evolved due to ever changing environments. The human mind isn’t ‘made’ for instance, for the types of problems on the Raven. I have a solid article in mind on this subject.
I have a good piece in mind on heritability as well. They’re highly overestimated through flawed twin studies. I don’t believe we can measure it because we don’t have an agreed-upon model of cognitive theory. Maybe it can be measured. And as I’ve shown, most, if not all, IQ tests have learned structure, whether it’s immediately obvious or not.
The point on heritability is this: the heritability estimates of .8 and up are higher than anything seen in the animal kingdom, and we know those heritabilities of traits in the animal kingdom are sound because they’re truly in controlled environments. This isn’t the case for IQ since we don’t know the relevant environments for its ‘development’.as I’m sure you know, I don’t believe there are ‘genes for’ ‘intelligence’. See the paper No Genes for Intelligence in the Fluid Genome by Mae-Wan Ho. She further critiques heritability and twin studies.
Ill respond to your other comments tonight.
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“If the brain were hardwired, i.e., if genes determined the structure of the brain and only genes, then the human mind and intelligence wouldn’t have evolved.”
Sure, but my point is not that brain is hardwired, but there must be something hardwired in it. that it cannot be [i]infinitely[/i] plastic, not that it is not plastic.
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‘Something’ like what? I never claimed infinite plasticity, just that neuroplasticity is how and why our minds and brains evolved, abstracting information from ever changing environments.
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“Exaggeration doesn’t translate well through text”
In this context you would have to be pretty autistic to not see it.
“1) How is it a strawman?
2) Why make unverifiable claims?”
1) You’re basing your argument of baseless assumptions not the actual axioms presented. So you’re being fallacious.
2) I’m not, you stated in previous conversations that IQ is “constructed” to mirror discrepancies in social class.
“He’s not making a strawman”
Yes he is, address my assertions.
“It’s an example of cultural loading. ”
LOL no, the quote you provided by him stated that the difference between white collar and working class people could be attributed to the method of question analysis. This is absolutely false, seeing as how East asian countries do score higher on IQ tests than Whites.
“There’s no cognitive model for item selection. ”
This is a nonsensical statement, and I have no idea what you mean by it. I provided a numerous amount of citations of the Physiological processes that define intelligence. Address them otherwise you’re wasting my time.
” for the last time, it’s circular.”
So? All measurement systems are.
“Evidence of everyday life being more complex along with Richardson’s other arguments.”
No, the ravens has novel patterns not seen in everyday life, so he’s wrong again. Solution method is not strong enough to have any real affect on variance.
“Or you can explain since you made the claim. ”
Synaptic pruning is simply when the body makes all of it’s “hardwired” connections and eliminates useless synaptic connections.
“Drew Thomas’ analysis of adoption data showed East Asians score even or even slightly lower than whites.”
But doesn’t:
“1) Assignment is nonrandom. 2) thru looked for adoptive homes thst reflect the social class of the biological mother. 3) This range restriction reduces the correlation estimates between adopted children and adopted parents. 4) Adoptive mothers come from a narrow social class. 5) Their average age at testing will be closet to their biological parents than adopted parents. 6) They experience the womb of their mothers. 7) Stress in the womb can alter gene expression. 8 Adoptive parents are given information about the birth family which may bias their treatment. 9) Biological mothers and adopted xuomdr show reduced self-esteem and are more vulnerable to changing environments which means they basically share environment. 10) Conscious or unconscious aspects of. Family treatment may make adopted children diff from other adopted family members. 11) Adopted children also look more like ehtiyjeit biological parents than their adoptive parents which means they’ll be treated accordingly.”
Affect the outcome of IQ in Adopted children? So it’s only Cultural until its conveniently not? Hypocrisy at it’s finest. Plus SES(which is correlated to race) has a huge effect on early stage in neural plasticity , especially during synaptic pruning. Meaning these patterns exist biologically, and racially Despite IQ tests, or adoption studies.
“So high plasticity is why it’s normally distributed? Strong claim”
No, try again. That was not my claim.
“This too is built in through test construction.”
No, this is due to Synaptic pruning. Though neither of our claims(plasticity=low heritability, low heritabiliy= high survival) are true in the absolute sense.
“we’re discussing normal variation.”
No we’re discussing the usefulness of rank ordering.
“Examples?”
Alcohol breathalyzers LOL. You’ve been basing your entire argument on what a physiological process should be. So why do you need examples when you already know plenty, and have been using them as metaphors the entire argument?
“Human physiology is homeodynamic.”
So then why do you assume a survival trait is supposed to have lower genetic variation? If this isn’t the case, then you’re just proving me right even more, because the brain is homeodynamic.
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1) Richardson’s argumentation is clear and he gives examples on how it is the most enculturated test of all.
2) this is true, due to test construction.
He literally gave arguments on how and why this is the case. I’ve already addressed the claim on East Asians (see Drew Thomas’s paper). What are the ns of Lynn’s East Asian samples? Ages?
It’s not nonsensical. The point is there is no cognitive theory on how items are selected, it’s based on, against, the test constructors presuppositions. I’ll address them in time. And you need to show causation or you’re wasting my time.
False. Again, for the last time, they correlate because they’re different versions of the same test, because IQ tests test learned skills. How is a ruler measuring length circular?
He isn’t ‘wrong again’. The rules in the items describe arrangement of elements in the items, not cognitive processes. Item complexity doesn’t make the Raven more difficult for some compared to others.
So from this you infer that potential is ‘in the brain’?
Yes it does. How does it not? Read his analysis on East Asian Adoptees.
This addresses no claim at all. SES is a horrible predictor of true social class, we’ve been through this already. Strong claim that ‘these patterns exist biologically, and racially Despite IQ tests or adoption studies.’ Citations?
Other physiological variables are highly plastic as well (which is the point of physiology!!). So your claim is irrelevant to this discussion.
So if you change the test and with it heritability at different ages is that also due to synaptic pruning? They’re largely true for most physiological traits, and I don’t see why ‘IQ’ would be any different. This, again, goes back to its distribution.
And with it, the causes of normal variation. And the point is, psychologists rank order, physiologists do not.
Because, again, you made a claim and therefore the burden of proof lies on you. Breathalyzers test BAC, not a physiological process. And there are also agreed-upon model and theory for breathalyzers which is the point there. So is that your only example? If so, it truly wasn’t an example of what I was speaking of.
Here’s the thing. The standard neo-Darwinian model assumes that all or most genetic variation arises from genetic mutation and this is why heritability is estimated and why there are hunts for ‘genes for’ ‘IQ’. But this is based on a false premise. Changeable environments require adaption on a different time scale from natural selection, one that is more immediate. So the variation arising from intelligent systems far and away outstrips what is possible from genetic mutations. Variation isn’t the passive outcome of genetic and environmental forces, intelligent systems direct their own development and are creators of variation. And low heritabilities don’t mean low genetic variation. It just shows that there is little correlation between genetic and phenotypic variance.
The point is, the model that the whole BG paradigm rests on is false, and along with it, most, if not everything, said about IQ and its supposed heritability and the ‘genes for’ it. The BG method is based on false assumptions that people like Evan Charney show.
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“1) Richardson’s argumentation is clear and he gives examples on how it is the most enculturated test of all.”
I’m not talking about Richardson. I’m talking about your fallacious interpretation of a reddit commentor’s criticism.
“What are the ns of Lynn’s East Asian samples? Ages?”
N= 24,834 Average IQ = 107 ages range from 6-16 after the early stage of synaptic pruning, so cultural discrimination is minimal, though not nonexistent. I discarded the Chinese sample because it included adults
Click to access Intelligence%20and%20the%20Wealth%20and%20Poverty%20of%20Nations.pdf
http://psycnet.apa.org/record/1982-32417-001
Truthfully, some modern studies I’ve seen show near equal results between chinese and Whites, but this still runs counter to Sexual maturity and it’s connection with synaptic pruning.
http://psycnet.apa.org/record/1996-01722-006
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8889856
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/110/5/911?download=true
“Non-Hispanic black girls had an earlier sexual development for pubic hair and breast development either by median age at entry for a stage or for the mean age for a stage than Mexican American or non-Hispanic white girls. There were few to no significant differences between the Mexican American and non-Hispanic white girls. Non-Hispanic black boys also had earlier median and mean ages for sexual maturity stages than the non-Hispanic white and Mexican American boys.”
“Asian males were older than Caucasians at midpuberty (p < 0.01) and weighed less than the Caucasian males at pubertal maturity (p = 0.001).”
“And you need to show causation or you’re wasting my time.”
I did show causation.
“How is a ruler measuring length circular?”
Because it’s constructed to measure distance between two points, so it’s bias. At least according to you.
“The rules in the items describe arrangement of elements in the items, not cognitive processes. ”
You use cognitive processes to arrange the elements….. This conversation is giving me cancer.
“Item complexity doesn’t make the Raven more difficult for some compared to others.”
That is false. Actually that’s a flat out lie, because I don’t see how anyone could believe something that ludicrous unless they were in complete denial. If IQ tests are so easy, why did you only score 110? Were you culturally challenged?
“So from this you infer that potential is ‘in the brain’?”
Yeah, the brain controls more or less every action. Why some idiot would deny the connection between the brain and intelligence is beyond me.
“Yes it does. How does it not? Read his analysis on East Asian Adoptees.”
“but doesn’t” was not one sentence, im going to repost that comment so you can address it better, sorry to confuse you like that. The parts that are in Quotations is an example by m, You listed off all of the possible factors that could influence Adopted childen’s IQ score, I’m simply wanting to know why the same factors can’t apply to east asian children.
“But doesn’t “1) Assignment is nonrandom. 2) thru looked for adoptive homes thst reflect the social class of the biological mother. 3) This range restriction reduces the correlation estimates between adopted children and adopted parents. 4) Adoptive mothers come from a narrow social class. 5) Their average age at testing will be closet to their biological parents than adopted parents. 6) They experience the womb of their mothers. 7) Stress in the womb can alter gene expression. 8 Adoptive parents are given information about the birth family which may bias their treatment. 9) Biological mothers and adopted xuomdr show reduced self-esteem and are more vulnerable to changing environments which means they basically share environment. 10) Conscious or unconscious aspects of. Family treatment may make adopted children diff from other adopted family members. 11) Adopted children also look more like ehtiyjeit biological parents than their adoptive parents which means they’ll be treated accordingly.” Affect the outcome of IQ in Adopted children? So it’s only Cultural until its conveniently not? Hypocrisy at it’s finest.
“SES is a horrible predictor of true social class, we’ve been through this already. Strong claim that ‘these patterns exist biologically, and racially Despite IQ tests or adoption studies.’ Citations?”
Why are you dichtomoizing social class and SES? Non sarcastic legitmate question. Also It’s not a bold or strong claim at all it’s pretty intuitive.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2012.01147.x/full
My point being that Synaptic pruning is predicted well by SES which has racial correlations.(blacks poor, Whites well off)
“Other physiological variables are highly plastic as wel”
So that proves me right, the brain is actually normal.
“is that also due to synaptic pruning?”
I thought we already discussed plasticity is only a crude inference from heritability concerning ideal conditions.
“And the point is, psychologists rank order, physiologists do not.”
I don’t care. A red basketball is still a basketball, when are you going to get it?
“Because, again, you made a claim and therefore the burden of proof lies on you. ”
Im not arguing the burden of proof with you, if you’ve been using examples this whole time then it’s just redundant for you to ask me, which means you’re grasping at straws and just wasting my time.
” agreed-upon model and theory for breathalyzers”
So does IQ 🙂 still waiting…..
“And low heritabilities don’t mean low genetic variation.”
Not all the time. You stated the exact opposite on a previous post. You stated that Low heritabilities were indicative of high survival benefits because deleterious mutations were bred out by natural selection making the variation homogeneous, essentially increasing the relative proportion Environment has on the variance.
Secondly, As I’m sure you’ve only found out a few weeks ago. Hertibaility is simply a proportion of variance, whatever kind of adaptations an organism uses is irrelevant to the measurement, whether it’s due to epigenetics or actual mutation.
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In what other ways can the statement be interpreted?
Which countries did you use? South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong (for all intents and purposes it’s apart of China)? I hope you discarded North Korea, too because it’s ‘estimated’ from South Korea and Japan’s average. I’m actually going to take a look at all of the relevant references in Appendix 1 when I get my computer back. Please describe your process and how you came to the number (which countries you included and excluded). For instance, what is the average SES of the sample in each country tested? How large is was their middle class at the time of testing since national IQs correlate with the size of the middle class?
You showed a bunch of correlations based off a model that’s worse than a coin flip in ‘predicting’ what it’s supposed to.
… No. That’s not how this works. IQ tests and achievement tests are different versions of the same test. Therefore they’re similar based on the test construction and the items that are ‘analyzed’ for the test which fit the distribution the test makes want. Ruler makers construct rulers based on the presuppositions of what is long or short. So I guess, yea it is biased..
Joking aside, there is no analogous argument for rulers and IQ.
It’s a recognition problem before a reasoning problem and after you recognize then the reasoning becomes easy.
1) it’s not false, I’ve provided evidence and 2) I don’t remember and it doesn’t matter. Let’s compare life success. You start.
The point is that the BG model assumes different alleles being causes for differences in intelligence between individuals which then influence brain differences. Underlying the P-FIT model you love so much are supposed differences in genes thst cause this trait variation, irregardless of whether or not we know which genes do it, or we identify the pathways relevant to this so-called trait variation (in the genome). Potential is realized through dynamic systems, not expressed through individuals. Further, as I’m sure you agree, the primary function of the brain is to abstract information from ever changing environments. Intelligence is a dynamic process, it’s not a ‘thing too be measured. “Psychologists do not measure…we classify.”—Alfred Binet
That has to do with the correlation similarities within adoption studies and explaining why the adoptee is similar to the biological parents. It has nothing to do with how IQ itself is affected. Read Thomas’s analysis. He calls out a few fallacies from Rushton and Jensen.
Because SES, when talked about in terms of social ‘science’ is just parental occupation and yearly salary, when much more is involved with social class that’s not captured by SES. I’m aware of that paper and I think it’s interesting but the effects held when race was controlled for. Of course blacks are more likely to be in poverty than whites, but I’ll just direct you to Afro’s article Your brain on poverty.
Post hoc, ergo propter hoc.
Your first assertion was that of homeostasis and how it proves your claim. Now that I tell you that physiological systems are homeodynamic that ‘proves you right, the brain is actually normal’?
And heritability estimates are a fudge. Can you answer my hypothetical question? What if a different test was constructed based on different presuppositions and different so-called neural correlates were ascertained, what would your argument be then? Because it’s possible due to test construction so I’d like to see your response here.
I’m not grasping at any straws. You made a claim and it’s up to you to provide evidence for said claim. That I provided examples is meaningless because you were the one thst made the claim. Even so, breathalyzer tests don’t measure a physiological variable, it measures the alcohol content in the blood.
So, again, examples for your assertion from claim b?
Still waiting for what? I’ve addressed it a few times.
Correlations, correlations from images, correlations of correlations. It’s always always always correlations. By the way, that new paper is out that I cited last week. It doesn’t look good for tbe neural efficiency hypothesis, which, per your own words, ‘Did you know the neural efficiency hypothesis coincides strongly with pfit theory?’ Well it doesn’t, there’s no relationship between any measure of ‘intelligence’ and neural efficiency. Also, for instance, there is evidence that the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (which is supposedly implicated in P-FIT) plays a central role in emotion. So going back to your comment that the people who complain in the MRI machine are ‘pussies’, the imaging could very well be showing that what is assumed to be differences in cognition are emotive in origin. And the huge file-drawer effect regarding imagine studies—especially in neuroscience. The replication crisis is also hitting neuroscience research hard. So, again, P-FIT doesn’t cut it.
Exempting certain disorders, natural selection tends to eliminate deleterious gene variances, resulting in reduced heritability.
Yes, heritability is a proportion of variance. Not one of plasticity/malleability.
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“In what other ways can the statement be interpreted?”
Please don’t ask the same question after I have already answered it.
“Which countries did you use? ”
South korea, hong kong, and japan, didn’t even think about singapore.
” Please describe your process and how you came to the number (which countries you included and excluded). ”
…..I added all the samples sizes together and then i averaged all the average IQ scores for each country I used. Simple.
“For instance, what is the average SES of the sample in each country tested? How large is was their middle class at the time of testing since national IQs correlate with the size of the middle class”
Those factors didn’t really matter, so there is no point in controlling for them. The nature/nurture feedback loop makes it redundant, plus it runs off of false assumptions, like a completely additive view on evolution.
“You showed a bunch of correlations based off a model that’s worse than a coin flip in ‘predicting’ what it’s supposed to. Well it doesn’t, there’s no relationship between any measure of ‘intelligence’ and neural efficiency. Also, for instance, there is evidence that the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (which is supposedly implicated in plays a central role in emotion. So going back to your comment that the people who complain in the MRI machine are ‘pussies’, the imaging could very well be showing that what is assumed to be differences in cognition are emotive in origin. And the huge file-drawer effect regarding imagine studies—especially in neuroscience. The replication crisis is also hitting neuroscience research hard. ”
Stop pretending I haven’t produced any studies besides Jung and haier, further grasping of straws. You have yet to respond to any of the new studies,Still waiting. Not all correlations have a coinciding causation but all causations are formed from correlations. A large portion of research in Biology is formed off of inferences from correlational data that is then vindicated by controlled experiments. PFIT has passed these tests, and is responsible for the bridging between g and it’s coalescing neural physiology. For example the metabolic rate at which your synapses utilize gaba and glutamate are directly proportional to the task complexity at hand as is cerebral bloodflow.
The PFIT theory that was first synthesized by haier and jung is not the exact same theory that is used today, just like any theory or hypothesis, it’s been tweaked when new data becomes available. The whole “coin flipping dillemma” you bring up is misleading, because not all research on Voxel based imaging and it’s correlates to IQ had the exact methodology used by Haier, this implies that since a large portion of the literature confirmed their findings, if all of their parameters were held equal to the original study(at least in basic set up) the percentage would have been much higher. Any claims of a replication crisis(at least regarding PFIT) are dubious to begin with simply because PFIT has been retested and validated dozens of times over.
As repeated ad infinium, MRI is not the sole propogator of PFIT, there are multiple other ways , EEG, FNIRs, SPECT, MEG, and PET all of which have been used. Of course not all delve into the chemical details, it’s still a young subject, but it is evident that we’re making strides in understanding it.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306452210015307
Click to access INVE_MEM_2012_119235.pdf
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-the-international-neuropsychological-society/article/intelligence-quotientadjusted-memory-impairment-is-associated-with-abnormal-single-photon-emission-computed-tomography-perfusion/54A63D0C3C9951292A0A706DB475C3DB
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0001691803001227
If you become emotional in a controlled laboratory setting run by doctors who are trained to take care of people in at least a somewhat pleasant manner, then you’re being a pussy. How do you know the connection of emotion to the dorsolateral cortex is not simply because emotion and intelligence are heavily intertwined in our decision making?
“IQ tests and achievement tests are different versions of the same test. ”
Then how do they have a poor correlation with each other? It’s also very ignorant of you to assume it was a joke, because it’s very much the reality of what someone would extrapolate from the ideas you’ve stated. If you believe a test constructed to measure what it purportedly measures is bias because it was made to do so, then there is something inherently wrong with your thinking. Fuck rulers, back to the Breathalyzers, which must be biased because they are made to test Alcohol blood content. The issue seems to be stemming from your misconception that what is a “harder” test item is subjective, when in reality if it wasn’t truly a more difficult question, more people would answer it correctly(assuming both are in SIMILAR SES brackets in the same country)
“It’s a recognition problem before a reasoning problem and after you recognize then the reasoning becomes easy.”
I’d actually assume Pattern recognition is a more “darwinian” trait than reasoning. Our brain is wired to see correlations not causation. This type of thinking would have been preferred in hunter gatherer times, before the “invention” of empiricism.
“I don’t remember and it doesn’t matter. Let’s compare life success. You start.”
My life’s pretty decent, I essentially own a company and I don’t struggle to live. Must be my high IQ 🙂
” Underlying the P-FIT model you love so much are supposed differences in genes thst cause this trait variation, Further, as I’m sure you agree, the primary function of the brain is to abstract information from ever changing environments. Intelligence is a dynamic process, it’s not a ‘thing too be measured. ”
I could take the entire section on heritability and GWAS studies out of Haier and Jung’s thesis and it would still not change the fact that Smarter individuals have higher neural efficiency. Enough with the obfuscation. Development in general is a dynamic process, that doesn’t mean we don’t have ways to measure particular parameters that occur in this process. Since allometrical size is a dynamic process, we must not be able to measure height or weight.
“That has to do with the correlation similarities within adoption studies and explaining why the adoptee is similar to the biological parents. It has nothing to do with how IQ itself is affected.”
You two were both discussing the heritability of IQ, specifically Why the IQ of adopted children are more similar to biological parents. These same factors can affect adopted Asian children, correct?
“when much more is involved with social class that’s not captured by SES. I’m aware of that paper and I think it’s interesting but the effects held when race was controlled for. Of course blacks are more likely to be in poverty than whites, but I’ll just direct you to Afro’s article Your brain on poverty. My point being that Synaptic pruning is predicted well by SES which has racial correlations.(blacks poor, Whites well off) Post hoc, ergo propter hoc.”
Like what, seriously? Im not saying race is why Blacks have higher maturation speeds, or lower IQ, im just saying that race is a correlation to those things for whatever reason. Afro’s post vindicates my point, We know that poverty has deleterious effects on the brain, We know blacks tend to be more poor, we know poor people tend to go through less experiences than richer ones, we know lower experiences will shorten the need for a delayed offset in cranial growth, we know that synaptic pruning will occur earlier proportional to this offset, we know people marry within their Social class/SES bracket(Usually), we know children are a combined algorithm of their parents, and we know evolution is a factual thing. So it becomes obvious where the logic is all coming from, it’s not post hoc reasoning, time isn’t really a factor(til the last part). It is correlational, but that doesn’t mean anything bad because there are so many relational axioms present that it’s nearly impossible for them not to have causation, whichever way that causation flows!
“Your first assertion was that of homeostasis and how it proves your claim. Now that I tell you that physiological systems are homeodynamic that ‘proves you right, the brain is actually normal’?”
You said survival traits have low heritabilities usually because of homeostasis, and then proceeded to claim that a normal distribution was impossible because of this homeostasis(this may not have been your exact logic, but that’s how i interpreted it). I contended that the plasticity of the brain makes it immune to this rule, but if most physiological are indeed homeodynamic the brain is actually right along with them.
“Because it’s possible due to test construction so I’d like to see your response here.”
That’s not possible, you could only change what correlations the Nueroimaging studies showed. That’s still nonsensical because, even if you showed higher importance in different brain regions by tweaking the test, the fact that more intelligent individuals would more efficient metabolic rates, wouldn’t change in the slightest.
“I’m not grasping at any straws. You made a claim and it’s up to you to provide evidence for said claim. That I provided examples is meaningless because you were the one thst made the claim. Even so, breathalyzer tests don’t measure a physiological variable, it measures the alcohol content in the blood.”
You made the claim first dipshit. You stated there wasn’t anything analogous to a breathalyzer measuring and alcohol blood content like there was for IQ, this was a part of your argument for why IQ is not based on physiology because supposedly breathalyzers are. You’re splitting hairs and definitely grasping at straws.
“Not one of plasticity/malleability.”
Ya but you can make crude measurements if the right factors are controlled for.
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You said: “Yes it was, his argument had to do with the amount of general knowledge questions on the test not whether they were both “constructed”, the proponent stated: “Of course the IQ tests do NOT test much of general knowledge. Out of 12 tests in WAIS only 2 deal with general knowledge.””
I showed evidence against the claim.
This is bullshit and you know it. The Flynn Effect is caused by an increase in the middle class. So therefore, countries with a larger middle class correlates strongly national ‘IQ’. Ad nauseum-ing about feedback loops on sound arguments is dishonest, in this case.
Cerebral blood flow etc could be related to task familiarity. What kind of controls were done in the study you’re speaking about here?
Neuroscience, along with psychology, have the most crises regarding replication. “Novel experience … environmental changes and learning new skills are now recognized as modulators of brain function and underlying neuroanatomic circuitry”, with the implications being thst the brain and IQ correlation from MRI being reported as causal in one direction, though if there is any causal effect it could be in the opposite direction. You can completely reverse the causation arrow and your objections of feedback loops don’t matter regarding interpreting correlations. Also functional neuro imaging is a problem in neuroscience. See D. M. Barch and T. Yarkoni, “Introduction to the Special Issue on Reliability and Replication in Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Research,” Cognitive, Affective and Behavioral Neuroscience 13 (December 2013) 687-689, 688.
Regarding your cited papers, all small ns. Resting brain state/neural efficiency was refuted last week. Specifically in the pdf you cited they discussed van den Heuvel et al (2009) which was directly refuted in the new paper. All of those papers discussed neural efficiency. Finally regarding the study on Alzheimer’s patients, what kind of controls were in place for the Alzheimer’s patients? Because exercise and diet are imperative for keeping brain size into old age, as I’ve shown in my review of a few studies on exercise and cognition.
People become emotional inside of the machine which then affects readings. They’re not being a pussy, people are claustrophobic and numerous people report things like headaches which, of course, would affect readings as well. This is where the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex comes into play.
See H. Okon-Singer, T. Hendler, L. Pessoa, and A. J. Shackman, “The Neurobiology of Emotion-Cognition Interactions: Fundamental Questions and Strategies for Future Research,” Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 9 (February 2015) 1-14, 8, 10.3389/fnhum.2015.00058:
“…putatively emotional and cognitive regions influence one another via a complex web of connections in ways that jointly contributions to adaptive and maladaptive behavior. Thus work demonstrates that emotion and cognition are deeply interwoven in the fabric of the brain.
They correlate at about .5 if I recall correctly. IQ tests were constructed to predict school achievement. Correlations between IQ and occupation are in part self-fulfilling due to how they’re constructed. IQ and school achievement are supposed validity for IQ tests. Though as I’ve argued it’s circular since education predicts entry into the job market (though the correlations between college grades and job entry are very very low and still dropping).
This is simple. Breathalyzers aren’t constructed based on presuppositions of the constructors of who is or is not drunk. They’re not ‘biased’, not like IQ tests and how they’re constructed by excision of items that don’t fit normality of what the test constructors want.
Stadiometers have, as far as I’m aware, 100 percent reliability after growth is completed (ask me about it I’ve done it thousands of times). Weight fluctuates due to diet, exercise (kinda) and other factors but we have a reliable measure of weight and even then you can use DXA to ascertain body fat and muscle mass and then estimate body weight based off of the DXA values. Haier attempted in 2009 to correlate certain brain areas with P-FIT and his ‘neuro-g” but failed. Height and weight are different things compared to IQ.
Yes it could. But Thomas considers a lot in his analysis. Like the environmental boost from adoption, the nonrandom environment, Flynn Effect, etc and concludes that the weighted mean average of his reanalyses show average IQ 97, though most data is inconclusive and based off convenience samples. Rushton and Jensen didn’t account for the Flynn Effect or the differences in environment boosting IQ. The point of those factors is showing how and why the correlation between adopted children and their biological parents is so high, higher than with their adopted parents. It’s direct evidence against the hereditarian hypothesis (along with Thomas’s reanalysis).
Higher maturation speed, at least in America, is related to diet. See my article on leptin and black girls hitting puberty. SES is a crude measure of things like test anxiety etc and other correlates. Sure they’re correlates for whatever reason and there are other, just as good, explanations for the cause.
Of course it doesn’t mean anything bad but jumping from correlation to causation without sound reasoning (not saying that’s what you’re doing here) is not sound logic. And of course you can reverse causation from correlation and still make logical sense. The point is, are there differences in the brain between people, let’s use races, in high and low ‘SES’ (and of course other factors not captured by the simplistic SES)? I’d guess yes and will look into it.
Eh you were kinda right regarding my logic. Due to the homeodynamic nature of our physiology, values can and do change and can stay changed when environment changes (whether it’s the social or larger overarching environment, see my articles on stress and race for examples). How does the plasticity of the brain make it immune? It’s like any other physiological variable with a wide range of variation of what’s considered ‘normal’ and individuals love good lives in this horns range. For most organisms, sans pathologies, they’re ‘good enough’ to complete X, Y, and Z. Most genetic variation is irrelevant due to canalization. Physiology is homeodynamic, not homeostatic as we used to believe. Natural selection lowers heritability until fixation is reached. Cognition is a survival trait, therefore heritability would be reduced but that doesn’t mean there is little genetic variation it only me and that there is little correlation between genetic and phenotypic variation.
I think you kinda got my point and kinda didn’t. My point is this: 1) construct a different test where previous low scorers score higher and previous high scorers score lower. 2) use brain imaging to implicate brain regions that show the most activity. 3) what kind of assumptions would you make then? The same? Would the assumptions be tweaked or would that be the new standard of what is ‘intelligence’ since they now score high? How wouldn’t it change? I stated that the so-called intelligent individuals would score lower on this test due to test construction so you’d see that they’d have whatever was correlated with high scores now correlating with low scores.
Yes I did make the claim but you stating that many physiological systems have measuring systems, the burden is on you. Breathalyzers are different I’ve shown, breathalyzers show how much blood alcohol is in your system. IQ don’t reliably show ‘neuro efficiency’ and even Haier admits in his 2009 paper that individuals with the same exact IQ have different brain patterns in the ‘P-FIT brain areas’. Breathalyzers on the other hand are a great index for seeing if one has the capacity to drive a car for instance. Breathalyzers have construct validity because we know the physiological pathways of BAC. I’ve shown this in my previous article.
I stated that physiologists wouldn’t imply a rank ordering when considering physiological variables nor would they attempt to untangle genetic from environmental influences on physiological variables. What do you mean ‘supposedly breathalyzers are’? Are you privy to information I am not regarding breathalyzers?
(Also, underlying this argument are differences in genes supposedly causing these differences. Where are the genes? How do they cause differences in trait variation? Whether or not you are actively arguing for differences in genes causing this or not at the moment, underlying this whole argument are diffences in genes. That brains can be graded on ‘efficiency’ which then comes back to diffences in genes causing these variables. Where are the genes? But most individuals are good enough, and so outside of normal variation like down syndrome and PWS for instance, they don’t matter to this discussion as well are discussing normal variation.)
How ‘crude’? Which factors?
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“I showed evidence against the claim.”
No you didn’t, you showed there were only 3 general knowledge categories on the test, and the test you used wasn’t even the test he was talking about. As a matter of fact, you don’t even know which WAIS he was talking about t begin with. So this particular argument is based on a Strawman.
“This is bullshit and you know it. The Flynn Effect is caused by an increase in the middle class. So therefore, countries with a larger middle class correlates strongly national ‘IQ’. Ad nauseum-ing about feedback loops on sound arguments is dishonest, in this case.”
Wrong again. The feedback loop is well documented and is where we get the “experience dependency” trope from. It seems quite hypocritical to assume that Intelligence is a dynamic process between environment and genetics and then proceed to dichotomize the two.
I’m not dishonest in the slightest but you’re point about ad nauseam is correct. From now if you don’t get it the first time I’m not going to explain a second one, and I’ll just disregard your point all together. Not to say I’ll hand wave it, if you actually have a cogent response that isn’t just a reassertion of the previous one after it’s already been addressed, then I’ll happily reply.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK50991/
And since it’s like pulling teeth to get you over your cognitive dissonance and read my papers:
“Blakemore discussed work in his lab on the development of neural wiring in mice. Researchers have known since the 1960s that the neurons connected to the ultrasensitive whiskers of mice align themselves in a format called “barrel fields.” Each of these barrel fields is connected to a single whisker, although how or why they influence function is unknown. Blakemore showed that if you removed a clump of whiskers at an early age, the segment of the brain linked to that area never develops the barrel structure. Similar research has shown in mice that if you tape one eye shut from birth, the mouse never gains the ability to see from that eye—it needs the stimulation to develop. However, if you tape shut the eye of an adult mouse for a similar period of time, vision is not affected. All this seems to point the finger toward experience, but of course, the system really works as a complete feedback loop. “We used to think . . . that the capacity of the brain to change its connections was an entirely independent process from the genetic regulation of structure,” said Blakemore. “But, of course, that cannot be the case. If adaptive change is possible, that must be the consequence of having molecular mechanisms that mediate those changes. Plasticity is a characteristic that has been selected for, so there must be genes for plasticity.” In the case of barrel fields, Blakemore’s lab and other investigators have identified a number of molecules and genes that appear to be involved in mediating between incoming information for the whiskers and the anatomical changes necessary to produce the barrel field.”
“Cerebral blood flow etc could be related to task familiarity. What kind of controls were done in the study you’re speaking about here?”
You’re a grown man, read the study. You’ll find it posted in our discussion on your previous construct validity post.
“Neuroscience, along with psychology, have the most crises regarding replication. You can completely reverse the causation arrow and your objections of feedback loops don’t matter regarding interpreting correlations.
We aren’t discussing correlations, we’re discussing causation. The replication crisis in psychology is greatly exaggerated, though still existent. And regarding neuroscience:
“That’s the theory. But in fact science as a whole is facing a reproducibility crisis. Scientists don’t have much funding or professional incentive to repeat previous studies, and when they do, many studies have proven impossible to replicate. That means a lot of published findings may be wrong but remain unchallenged. This is true of fMRI studies in particular. Though the cost of fMRI has fallen, a scan can still cost at least $600 an hour to run, and funding for repeating previous studies can be hard to come by. This problem might be alleviated by letting neuroscientists see raw data from other studies, so they can check the results without the cost of doing their own scans. The trouble is that researchers—in neuroscience as in many other disciplines—also tend to keep their data to themselves. They publish just the brain images but not the underlying measurements that made them, and don’t disclose the version of software they used. (This isn’t deliberate secrecy, it’s just the way things have always been done.) Nor are there standard protocols for how long researchers should keep their original datasets. In the early days of fMRI storage was expensive, so it’s unlikely data were kept. That means past studies can’t be reanalyzed even if someone could get the funding to do it. The good news is that neuroscience is also leading the way in fixing the problem of reproducibility. After the dead salmon paper came out, scientists corrected for the flaws it showed up—in their IgNobel speech the researchers said that the number of people using the incorrect methods had gone from 40% down to 10%. “In many ways fMRI scientists lead the field in the application of new statistical methods and best practices,” says Micah Allen, a neuroscientist at University College London, adding that websites like Neurovault, which allow easy sharing of data, are growing in rapid popularity. And Schwarzkopf says that over so many years, any really key findings from fMRI studies have likely been re-tested, some using newer and more accurate methods. False findings would have crumbled and been swept away, as they are supposed to. This is why neuroscientists are not in despair. Eklund’s discovery doesn’t mean fMRI is useless, just that it needs to be used better. And that is what they are now striving to do.
https://www.nature.com/news/psychology-s-reproducibility-problem-is-exaggerated-say-psychologists-1.19498
https://qz.com/725746/a-deep-flaw-has-been-discovered-in-thousands-of-neuroscience-studies-so-why-arent-neuroscientists-freaking-out/
But even disregarding that, It still doesn’t apply to PFIT, because it’s been repeated multiple times.
“Regarding your cited papers, all small ns. Resting brain state/neural efficiency was refuted last week. Specifically in the pdf you cited they discussed van den Heuvel et al (2009) which was directly refuted in the new paper.”
Again, reading comprehension, it can make your replies less redundant. The articles cited were not to vindicate Neural efficiency, it was to show that other methods besides FMRI have been incorporated. Neural efficiency has not been refuted you produced one analysis that targeted a specific study, it did not debunk the concept as a whole. As already stated, small ns are not a concern when results show high replicability, there are literally dozens of studies that show the same results which is an assertion I’ve substantiated throughout the entire debate, not just in this particular thread, but since it first began. Plus, I’m still waiting for you to address the other studies that used large ns and data from the human connectome project.
“They’re not being a pussy”
Yea they are.
“putatively emotional and cognitive regions influence one another via a complex web of connections in ways that jointly contributions to adaptive and maladaptive behavior. Thus work demonstrates that emotion and cognition are deeply interwoven in the fabric of the brain.”
Yea that’s what i just said, so answer the question.
“They correlate at about .5 if I recall correctly.”
So how can they be biased towards higher education if the correlation is low?
“They’re not ‘biased’”
Neither are certain items on IQ tests. If IQ tests are easy and not reflective of mental potential why did you not get a genius level score? You’re white, you live in the most powerful country on the planet, you have great nutrition and you excersize your body, what else could have been holding you back? I’m not trying to insult you, I’m being dead serious, you completely sidestepped the previous response. If the items are indeed biased, why do less people get them correct? They still function on the same axioms so what is the issue? The people who created these tests, didn’t just decide who was smart and who wasn’t, they tested these assumptions first. The normality that is constructed is not subjective it’s objective, do you understand what I mean by this sentence? Seriously?
“Haier attempted in 2009 to correlate certain brain areas with P-FIT and his ‘neuro-g” but failed. Height and weight are different things compared to IQ.”
It’s weird that you’re saying he failed, seeing as how I’ve demonstrated the opposite multiple times. My point about allometry and IQ was that just because something is a complicated and dynamic process does not mean you can’t identify the components or define the result of said process.
“Yes it could.”
Thank you. While Thomas did correct for some factors he didn’t for all of them, and what intrigues me the most about this new “muh culture” thing you keep doing, is despite the fact that IQ tests were made around white men in the nazi era, East asians still score higher on these supposed “structurally biased” tests.
” just as good, explanations for the cause.”
The causation flows in both directions. that’s why it’s a feedback loop. I thought you understood epigenetics? It’s becoming more clear that you don’t, especially if you can deny the nature/nurture feedback loop with a straight face.
“How does the plasticity of the brain make it immune?”
I’m not saying intelligence should have a perfect normal distribution, but if it did it wouldn’t make it not physiological. I don’t think IQ scores are perfectly hierarchical. Like you may have scored 110, but if I recall correctly you had raw verbal scores in the sub-genius range. I might be thinking of someone else.
” My point is this: 1) construct a different test where previous low scorers score higher and previous high scorers score lower. 2) use brain imaging to implicate brain regions that show the most activity. 3) what kind of assumptions would you make then? The same? Would the assumptions be tweaked or would that be the new standard of what is ‘intelligence’ since they now score high? How wouldn’t it change? I stated that the so-called intelligent individuals would score lower on this test due to test construction so you’d see that they’d have whatever was correlated with high scores now correlating with low scores.”
I’m beginning to realize you have very fundamental misunderstanding on how these tests are actually constructed.
IQ tests excise items based on difficulty and category. Intuitively one would assume that changing the category should change the brain region correlates, while changing the difficulty will reverse the relationship your brain metabolism has with the efficiency of task completion.
In reality though it wouldn’t change much because 1) The brain uses a “winner takes all” scenario, so when a false positive shows up it doesn’t always mean it’s an error, sometimes the brain pools neurons from abnormal regions, this along with synaptic plasticity makes it evident that even if you completely changed the type of question, more than likely its going to use the same brain regions. All intelligent thought and actions will have an underlying correlation.
2) It’s retarded to assume that an action that takes more energy for less of a result is more efficient in the long run. So even if you reversed the relationship and subsequently made it to where individuals with higher metabolisms had higher scores, simple logic tells us this is bullshit, and most scientists would question the idiocy of rearranging the normalized difficulty when there is no justification for it in the first place.
“Yes I did make the claim but you stating that many physiological systems have measuring systems, the burden is on you. ”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7910882
Heres another.
” What do you mean ‘supposedly breathalyzers are’? Are you privy to information I am not regarding breathalyzers?
You sated:
“Even so, breathalyzer tests don’t measure a physiological variable, it measures the alcohol content in the blood.”
This contradicts your previous claim that thy are based on physiology and are a template of the accuracy IQ tests should have but (supposedly, according to you) don’t. Also I’m going to ignore your rant on genes since Ive already stated their irrelevant to the argument. If you really are interested and not just wasting my time with pretentious semanticism, just research “regulatory genes.” Plus It’s pretty obvious by the literature that discrepancies in developmental processes is what triggers these racial differences in IQ.
“How ‘crude’? Which factors?”
Check out my response to pumpkin on his jensen argument, though you may need to wait a little because It’s still under moderation.
Just delete the first one
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But even saying that IQ is not a valid construct does not mean much – I mean, whatever IQ measures, is heritable with heritability rising in the adulthood. If IQ measures ability to do IQ tests, then it still measures something related to mental ability and still means that this mental ability is heritable, no?
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Sorry, I am now thinking aloud.
Here’s the thing:
(1) intuitively we see some people learn quicker, and if they are good at learning one thing – exceptions notwithstanding – they are good at learning many things. I am not saying about IQ tests, even this seems like repeating the platitude about “g”. I am saying about what we observe in real world. I teach, and I notice that usually people who get bad marks in my classes, tend to get bad marks everywhere, and people who get good grades from me, tend to get good marks everywhere.
So if IQ tests test only school achievement, then they still should be correlated to our intuition behind what we understand as “intelligence”.
That might mean they are valid only when education is common.
(2) I find it hard to believe that someone has an ability to excel in mental tests only while this ability would have no relation to what we call intelligence.
(3) I find it hard to believe that some of the items commonly found in intelligence tests are really reflecting school education, and if they are, it still might mean that some are better are absorbing school knowledge and some are worse; those who are worse at absorbing school knowledge usually are thsoe who we call unintelligent.
I mean, do you claim that IQ is not relevant to the intelligence, ie. there are better measures of intelligence, or maybe there are many intelligences, or maybe there is no such thing as one intelligence?
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I googled on range restriction and its effects on correlation. You may therefore ignore the questions on that 😀
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https://academic.oup.com/aje/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/aje/kwy006/4812022?redirectedFrom=PDF
I would still like to know if IQ still have some usefulness to you. If we could still get something from it according to you.
For example, a child having an IQ of 60 and the other one having an IQ of 100.
Also, please tell me your thoughts on the linked paper, I used sci hub for the full paper.
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Interesting paper. Good abstract but I need to read the paper. Do I think it has usefulness? Maybe. But other measures are better than wasting time and money on IQ tests. IQ tests test cultural distance from the middle class. So I do think there is some utility, though most claims of other utility are extremely dubious in my opinion.
For instance you don’t even need an IQ test to identify reading problems and developmental delays. Furthermore, IQ 60 implies developmental problems and is outside of normal variation. The point is to explain what causes differences in the ‘normal range’, not to explicitly pathologies. Down syndrome and PWS sufferers have an average IQ of 70. Seventy percent of cases involving PWS are due to a deletion of chronometer 15, so this is useless for describing normal variation. In the vast majority of cases not involving pathology, most biological systems are ‘good enough’ to do what they need to.
Thanks for the paper I’ll leave my full thoughts after I read it.
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I see, it’s true that better measures for intellectual disability exist.
For the linked paper, they control for many variables such as races, SES…etc
You should check the limitations of this study too but it has a national representative sample so it’s not useless.
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I’ll check it out tonight and get back to you. Looks interesting. Keeping up on new research is always good.
The largest associations were observed for deprivation-type experiences, including poverty and low parental education, which were related to reduced IQ. Though lower in magnitude, threat events related to IQ included physical abuse and witnessing domestic violence. Violence prevention and poverty-reduction measures would improve childhood cognitive outcomes.
It’s well known that this leads to negative outcomes but this looks like a solid study design. Remember that social class correlates with IQ/educational attainment due to social stratification. These genetic differences would correlate with social class but not affect cognitive ability or educational attainment. Reasons such as this are why GWAS and PGS studies find weak correlations with social class which then are assumed to flow social class cases low IQ whereas it’s argued that social class correlates with genetic differences that don’t matter to cognitive ability or educational attainment. Relevant quote from Richardson (2017):
The problem is that cognitive tests are designed on the assumption that all cognitive
differences can be assessed against a singular set of criteria. In other words, cognitive tests,
instead of describing cognitive differences inrelation to their contexts, merely “screen”
for degrees of match/mismatch with a set of “ideal” criteria. It is not difficult to show that
those criteria are closely related to social class.
Source: 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
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But some people seem to be better to adapt to those values than the other – after all, there are IQ differences even within the same family, meaning it simply cannot be a measure of “social distance”, abstracting away cognitive abilities.
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Because people experience the same environment differently. Also other factors could be at play, re ‘IQ differences within the same family’. There is good evidence and theory for that assertion. Just because individuals reared in the same household have different IQ scores doesn’t mean that IQ isn’t, pretty much, a test of social class and other, non-cognitive, non-general ‘ability’ as evidenced by Richardson in his paper What IQ Tests Test. In fact, good evidence for the claim is the fact that the Flynn Effect coincides with the swelling of the middle class lending more credence to the social class-IQ theory. Which implies that national IQ correlates with the size of the middle class. (Along with tests constructed based on presuppositions of social class.)
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I see, GWAS were always barely interesting to me anyway.
Do you have more thoughts on this paper?
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[i]Because people experience the same environment differently. [/i]
That’s a different way of saying “people have different innate construction”. Moreover, people do not just randomly belong to the social class. In order to get into middle class, you have to show some ability, which might be heritable. Meaning that “testing a social class” means also “testing whether you have innate ability allowing to get into social middle class”.
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It’s not ‘innate’, see developmental systems theory.
Right, social classes are genetically stratified. Societies are genetically stratified and social stratification has maintained genetic stratification. This then creates cognitive differentiation and then the IQ tests then reflect that prior social stratification.
He shows evidence that genetic differentiation between social classes are irrelevant to cognitive ability/educational attainment. The Flynn Effect is due to the swelling of the middle class itself, which implies, against, that IQ is a measure of social class which then comes back to how the tests are constructed.
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you are not even citing the correct people to support your “contrarian” positions
in psychometrics it has been long known that “jensenisms” (g-factor and correlated vectors methods) were pushed by jensen way too far than the evidence suggested.
both test validity and what g is are debated within psychometrics, but you have never so far cited one of the authoritative psychometricians on the topics, which is weird.
of course it is admirable that you trying to break the news to the echo chamber of hbd blogosphere, but you cite some sloppy researchers like richardson, which makes you lose credibility
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Care to elaborate?
Don’t worry about that. I have something in mind for it. Stay tuned. If it’s anything like correlations with other IQ tests and achievement tests then those arguments have been addressed.
How is he sloppy? Citations?
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“Success in life” is itself dubious, as life does not matter w/o eternity anyway. As I wrote in my comment* to another article, some geniuses — widely read and known today — had horrible lives. The modern mindset got polluted hard by its vulgar greed for money and sex. This may explain, in part, why we no longer have Dantes, Shakespeares, Goethes, but wallow in mediocrity.
*
https://notpoliticallycorrect.me/18/01/15/people-should-stop-thinking-iq-measures-intelligence-a-response-to-grey-enlightenment/
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