Home » Posts tagged 'IQ' (Page 5)
Tag Archives: IQ
IQ Test Construction, IQ Test Validity, and Raven’s Progressive Matrices Biases
2050 words
There are a lot of conceptual problems with IQ tests that I never see talked about. The main ones are how the tests are constructed (to fit a normal curve, no less); to the fact that there is no construct validity to the tests (IQ tests aren’t calibrated against a biological model like breathalyzers are calibrated against a model of blood in the blood stream); and how the Raven’s Progressive Matrices test is actually biased despite being touted as the most culture-free test since all you’re doing is rotating abstract symbols to see what comes next in the sequence. These three assumptions have important implications for the ‘power’ of the IQ tests, the most important being the test construction and validity.
I) IQ test construction
IQ tests are constructed with the assumption that we know what IQ tests test (we don’t) and with the prior ‘knowledge’ of who is or is not intelligent. Test constructors construct the tests to reveal presumed differences between individuals.
It is assumed that 1) IQ scores lie on a normal distribution (they don’t) and 2) few natural bio functions conform to this curve. Another problem with IQ test construction is the assumption that it increases with age and levels off after puberty. Though this, like the other things, has been built into the test by choosing items that an increasing proportion of children pass. You can, of course, reverse this effect by choosing items that older people do well on and younger people don’t.
Further, they keep 50 percent of items that children get right while keeping a smaller proportion of items that children get right, which, in effect, presupposes who is or is not intelligent.
Though, you never see those who believe that IQ is a ‘good enough’ proxy for intelligence ever being this up. Why? This is very important for the validity of these tests. Because if how the tests are constructed is wrong and test scores are not to fit a normal distribution when no normal distribution actually exists for most human mental (including IQ scores) and physiological traits, then the assumptions and conclusions drawn from them are wrong. IQ tests are constructed with the prior idea of who is or is not ‘intelligent’ and this is done by how the items are chosen—50 percent of the items that people get right are kept while the smaller proportion of items people get right or wrong are kept. This is how this so-called ‘normal curve’ appears in IQ tests and is why the book The Bell Curve has the name it has. But bell curve don’t exist for a modicum of traits including IQ!!
Simon (1997: 204) writes (emphasis mine):
There is another, and completely irrefutable, reason why the bell-shaped curve proves nothing at all in the context of H-M’s book: The makers of IQ tests consciously force the test into such a form that it produces this curve, for ease of statistical analysis. The first versions of such tests invariably produce odd-shaped distributions. The test-makers then subtract and add questions to find those that discriminate well between more-successful and less-successful test-takers. For this reason alone the bell-shaped IQ curve must be considered an artifact rather than a fact, and therefore tells us nothing about human nature or human society.
The analysis and selection of items that go on the tests are biased since there is no cognitive theory on which the analysis and selection of items are based. Carpenter, Just and Shell (1990: 408) note how John Raven, the creator of the Raven’s Progressive Matrices, even discussed this in his personal notes, writing “He used his intuition and clinical experience to rank order the difficulty of the six problem types. Many years later, normative data from Forbes (1964), shown in Figure 3, became the basis for selecting problems for retention in newer versions of the test and for arranging the problems in order of increasing difficulty, without regard to any underlying processing theory.”
II) IQ test validity
Another problem with IQ tests are its validity. People attempt to ‘prove’ its validity with correlating job performance success with IQ scores, though there are huge flaws in the studies purporting to show a .5 correlation between IQ and job performance (Richardson, 2002; Richardson and Norgate, 2015). IQ tests are not like, say, breathalyzers (which are calibrated against a model of blood alcohol) or white blood cell count (which is a proxy for disease in the body). Those two measures have a solid theoretical basis and underpinning; as blood alcohol rises, the individual had increased alcohol consumption. The same is true for white blood cell count. The same is not true for IQ tests.
One of the biggest measures used in regards to job performance and IQ testing (people attempt to use job performance to attempt to validate IQ tests) is supervisor rating. However, supervisory ratings are hugely subjective and a lot of factors that would have a supervisor be said to be a ‘good worker’ are not variables that entail just that job.
The only ‘validity’ that IQ test have is correlations with other IQ tests and tests like the SAT. This is not validity. Say the breathalyzer wasn’t calibrated against a model of blood alcohol in the body, would breathalyzers still be a valid tool to test people’s blood/alcohol level? On that same note let’s say that white blood cells wasn’t construct valid. Would we be able to reliably use white blood cell count as a valid measure for disease in the body? These very same problems plague IQ tests and people accept them as ‘proxies’ for intelligence, they test ‘enough of intelligence’ to be able to say that one is smarter than another because they scored higher in a test and therefore tap into this mystical ‘g’ that they have more of which is like a ‘power’ or ‘energy’.
These tests, therefore, are constructed with the idea of who is or is not intelligent and you can see that by looking at how the items are chosen for the test. That’s not scientific. So a true test of ‘intelligence’ may not even exist since these tests have this type of construct bias already in them.
IQ tests have no validity like breathalyzers and white blood cell count, and the so-called ‘culture-free’ IQ test Raven’s Progressive Matrices is anything but.
III) Raven’s and culture bias
I specifically asked Dr. James Thompson about Raven’s being culture-fair. I said that I recall Linda Gottfredson saying that people say that Ravens is culture-fair only because Jensen said it:
Yes, Gottfredson made that remark, and I remember her doing it at an ISIR conference.
So that’s one thing about Ravens that crumbles. A quote from Ken Richardson’s book Genes, Brains, and Human Potential: The Science and Ideology of Intelligence:
It is well known that families and subcultures vary in their exposure to, and usage of, the tools of literacy, numeracy, and associated ways of thinking. Children will vary in these because of accidents of background. …that background experience with specific cultural tools like literacy and numeracy is reflected in changes in brain networks. This explains the importance of social class context to cognitive demands, but is says nothing about individual potential.
(This argument on social class is much more complex than ‘poor people are genetically predisposed to be dumb and poor’.
Consider a recent GCTA study by Plomin et al., who reported a SNP-based heritability estimate of 35% for “general cognitive ability” among UK 12 year olds (as compared to a twin heritability estimate of 46%) [8]. According to the Wellcome Trust “genetic map of Britain,” striking patterns of genetic clustering (i.e. population stratification) exist within different geographic regions of the UK, including distinct genetic clusterings comprised of the residents of the South, South-East and Midlands of England; Cumbria, Northumberland and the Scottish borders; Lancashire and Yorkshire; Cornwall; Devon; South Wales; the Welsh borders; Anglesey in North Wales; Scotland and Ireland; and the Orkney Islands [8]. Now consider the title of a study from the University and College Union: “Location, Location, Location – the widening education gap in Britain and how where you live determines your chances” [9]. This state of affairs (not at all unique to the UK), combined with widespread geographic population stratification, is fertile ground for spurious heritability estimates.
Still Chasing Ghosts: A New Genetic Methodology Will Not Find the “Missing Heritability”
I think this argument is interesting, and it throws a wrench into a lot of things, but more on that another day.)
Richardson continues:
In other words, items like those in the Raven contain hidden structure which makes them more, not less, culturally steeped than any other kind of intelligence testing items, like the Raven, as somehow not knowledge-based, when all are clearly learning dependent. Ironically, such cultural-dependency testing is sometimes tacitly admitted by test users. For example, when testing children in Kuwait on the Raven in 2006, Ahmed Abdel-Khalek and John Raven transposed the items “to read from left to right following the custom of Arabic writings.” (Richardson, 2017: 99)
Finally, we have this dissertation which shows that urban peoples score better than hunter-gatherers (relevant to this present article):
Reading was the greatest predictor of performance Raven’s, despite controlling for age and sex. Attendance was also strongly correlated with Raven’s performance. 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 motivation to go/stay in school, and are exposed to consistent, quality training in order to develop the skills associated with improved performance. (pg. 83)
This is telling: This means that there is no such thing as a ‘culture-free’ IQ test and there will always be something involved that makes it culture un-fair.
People may say ‘It’s only rotating pictures and shapes to get the final answer, how much schooling could you need??’, well as seen above with the Tsimane, schooling is very important to IQ tests since they test learned skills. I’ve seen some people claim that IQ tests don’t test learned ability and that it’s all native, unlearned ability. That’s a very incorrect statement.
So although the symbols in a test like the RPM are experience-free, the rules governing their changes across the matrix are certainly not, and they are more likely to be already represented in the minds of children from middle-class homes, less so in others. 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 activites of some cultures rather than others. Like so many problems in life, including fields as diverse as chess, science and mathematics (e.g. Chi & Glaser, 1985), each item on the Raven’s test is a recognition problem (matching the covariation structure in a stimulus array to ones in background knowledge) before it is a reasoning problem. The latter is rendered easy when the former has been achieved. Similar arguments can be made about other so-called ‘culture-free’ items like analogies and classifications (Richardson & Webster, 1996). (Richardson, 2002: pg 292-292)
Everyday life is also more complex than the hardest items on Raven’s Matrices, while the test is not complex in its demands compared to tasks undertaken in everyday life (Carpenter, Just, and Shell, 1990). They conclude that the cause is differences in working memory, but that is an ill-defined concept in psychology. They do say, though, that “The processes that distinguish among individuals are primarily the ability to induce abstract relations and the ability to dynamically manage a large set of problem-solving goals in working memory.” So item complexity doesn’t make Raven’s items more difficult for others, since everyday life is more complex.
I’ll end with a bit of physiology. What physiological process is does IQ mimic in the body? If it is a physiological process, surely you’re aware that physiological processes *are not* static. IQ is said to be stable at adulthood, what a strange physiological process. Let’s say for arguments’ sake that IQ really does test some intrinsic, biological process. Does it seem weird to you that a supposed real, stable, biological, bodily function of an individual would be different at different times?
Conclusion
There are a lot of assumptions about IQ tests that are never talked about. The most important being how the tests are constructed to fit a normal curve when most traits important for survival aren’t normally distributed. IQ tests are constructed with the assumption of who is or isn’t intelligent just on the knowledge of how the items are prepared for the test. When you look at how the tests are constructed you can see how they are constructed to fit the normal curve because most of their assumptions and conclusions rest on the reality of the normal curve. There is no construct validity to IQ tests, they’re not like breathalyzers for instance which are calibrated against a model of blood alcohol or white blood cell count as a proxy for disease in the body. Raven’s—despite what is commonly stated about the test—is not unbiased, it perhaps is the most biased IQ test of them all. This highlights the problems with IQ tests that are rarely ever spoken about, and should have you call into question the ‘power’ of the IQ test which assumes who is or isn’t intelligent ahead of time.
Most Human Performance Traits Do Not Lie On a Bell Curve
1050 words
Steve Sailer published an article the other day titled Wieseltier vs. “The Bell Curve” and I left a comment saying that psychological traits are not normally distributed. Two people responded to me, and I replied back but Sailer didn’t approve my two comments. I have a blog, so I can post it here.
“We revisit a long-held assumption in human resource management, organizational behavior, and industrial and organizational psychology”
Maybe instead debunking allegedly long-held assumptions they should Notice that none of those disciplines actually exists.
They do actually exist.
“Human resource management: Human Resource Management (HRM) is the term used to describe formal systems devised for the management of people within an organization. The responsibilities of a human resource manager fall into three major areas: staffing, employee compensation and benefits, and defining/designing work.”
Organizational behavior: “the study of the way people interact within groups. Normally this study is applied in an attempt to create more efficient business organizations. The central idea of the study of organizational behavior is that a scientific approach can be applied to the management of workers.”
Industrial and organizational psychology: “This branch of psychology is the study of the workplace environment, organizations, and their employees. Technically, industrial and organizational psychology – sometimes referred to as I/O psychology or work psychology – actually focuses on two separate areas that are closely related.”
O’Boyle Jr and Aguinis (2012) write:
We conducted 5 studies involving 198 samples including 633,263 researchers, entertainers, politicians, and amateur and professional athletes. Results are remarkably consistent across industries, types of jobs, types of performance measures, and time frames and indicate that individual performance is not normally distributed—instead, it follows a Paretian (power law) distribution. Assuming normality of individual performance can lead to misspecified theories and misleading practices. Thus, our results have implications for all theories and applications that directly or indirectly address the performance of individual workers including performance measurement and management, utility analysis in preemployment testing and training and development, personnel selection, leadership, and the prediction of performance, among others.
Even most types of job performance and performance measures don’t fit a normal curve.
You say, “…psychological traits aren’t normally distributed.”
But the abstract you linked says,
…individual performance is not normally distributed.
Yes, those of us who have had the misfortune to manage work groups know all about 80/20. This is performance, not “psychological traits.”
Psychological tests aren’t a measure of performance? Traits like IQ only show a normal distribution because the normal distribution is built into the tests (see below).
The other one linked says,
… at many physiological and anatomical levels in the brain, the distribution of numerous parameters is in fact strongly skewed . . .
Okay. The cylinders in the straight-six engine of my BMW lean over to one side, but that doesn’t seem to effect the horsepower. This is a physical trait.
So, what of those “psychological traits”? Like IQ? Granted, it is a kind of performance, one of taking IQ tests, but the results have a normal distribution, and it’s not the kind of performance being measured in the study referenced anyway. IQ, by definition, is a “psychological trait,” and it has a normal distribution.
IQ tests have been constructed so that the scores will exhibit a bell curve distribution. That is, the tests themselves are constructed to reveal differences that are already presumed. IQ tests are constructed with the assumption that the scores are normally distributed, however, the normal distribution is built into the test. Items that 50 percent of the testees get right are kept, along with the smaller proportion of items that many testees get right. (See Richardson, 2002 for more information.) Even most psychological constructs are not normally distributed. This is like g being supposedly physiological when—if it were—it wouldn’t mimic any known physiologic process in the body.
Buzsaki and Muzuseki (2014) review data that sensory acuity, reaction time, memory word usage and sentence lengths are not normally distributed. Basic physiologic processes, too, are not normally distributed, like visual acuity, resting heart rate, metabolic rate, etc. And this makes sense, because those traits are crucial to human survival and therefore need to be malleable. Hormones raise, for instance, during a life-or-death situation, and that is what is needed for survival. So, therefore, few physiological traits are normally distributed.
Honestly, I don’t know what your point is, but I don’t disagree with what you have shown me. I know it’s true, but I’m just too far left on your ski jump curve of losers to grasp why you responded to me that way.
Wieseltier was referring to The Bell Curve, in which results have a normal distribution.
Rigbt, the IQ book. But tests are constructed with the assumption of a normal distribution, but psychological traits are not normally distributed. Read Mizsukei and Buzsaki’s work.
Burt (1967) writes:
A detailed analysis of test results obtained from a large sample of English children (4,665 in all), supplemented by a study of the meagre data already available, demonstrates beyond reasonable doubt that the distribution of individual differences in general intelligence by no means conforms with strict exactitude to the so-called normal curve.
In sum, IQ tests are constructed with the assumption that whatever is being tested lies on a bell curve. Clearly, since they are constructed in such a way, the results are forced to fit a normal distribution. But, as seen above, most traits that are critical to survival are not normally distributed, so why should intelligence/IQ be the same? The data from Buzsaki and Mizuseki (2014) show that “skewed … distributions are fundamental to structural and functional brain organization.”
(Also read The Myth of the Bell Curve and The Unicorn, The Normal Curve, and Other Improbable Creatures. where Micceri shows that achievement measures in “language arts, quantitative arts/logic, sciences, social studies/history, and skills such as study skills grammar, and punctuation” are not normally distributed. Human performance does not follow a bell curve. Also read The Bell Curve Is A Myth — Most People Are Actually Underperformers. The Bell Curve in Psychological Research and Practice: Myth or Reality?: “If IQ scores distribute normally, this does not mean that intelligence equally distribute normally in the population.” … “ In this way, a normal distribution in summated test scores, for example, would be seen as the sign of the presence of an error sufficient to give scores the characteristic bell shape, not as the proof of a good measurement.“)
Microcephaly and Normal IQ
1400 words
In my last article on brain size and IQ, I showed how people with half of their brains removed and people with microcephaly can have IQs in the normal/above average range. There is a pretty large amount of data out there on microcephalics and normal intelligence—even a family showing normal intelligence in two generations despite having dominantly inherited microcephaly.
Microcephaly is a condition in which an individual has a head circumference of 2 SD below the mean. Though most would think that would doom all microcephalics to low IQs, 15 percent of microcephalics have IQs in the normal range. This is normally associated with mental retardation, but this is a medical myth (Skoyles and Sagan, 2002: 239), though there are numerous cases of microcephalics having normal IQs (Dorman, 1991). Numerous studies show that it’s possible for normal people to have small brains. Giedd et al (1996) showed a wide variation in head circumference. Of the 104 individuals who had their heads scanned, volume for the cerebellum ranged from 735 cc in a 10 year old boy to 1470 cc in a 14 year old boy (Skoyles, 1999: 4, para 12). Though Giedd et al (1996) did not report total brain volumes in their subjects, brain volume can be inferred. Skoyles (1999; 4, para 12) writes:
The cerebral cortex makes up only 86.4% of brain volume when measured by MRI (Filipek, Richelme, Kennedy & Caviness, 1994), so the total brain volume of the 10-year-old would be larger at 850.7 cc. Brains at 10 years are about 4.4% smaller than adult size (Dekaban & Sadowsky, 1978), suggesting that that brain would grow to an adult size of 888 cc. Even using the lower figure of 80% cerebrum to brain ratio derived from anatomical studies suggests a figure of only 960 cc.
The variation of 888 cc to 960 cc depending on which value for the cerebrum to brain ratio you use still shows that people can have brains 450-300 cc lower than average and still be ‘normal’.
Researchers began noticing many cases of both individuals and families exhibiting features of microcephaly—but they had normal intelligence (Simila, 1970;Seemanova et al, 1985; Rossi et al, 1987; Teebi et al, 1987; Sherrif and Hegab, 1988; Desch et al, 1990; Opitz and Holt, 1990; Evans, 1991; Heney et al, 1991; Green et al, 1995; Rizzo and Pavone, 1995; Teebi and Kurash, 1996; Innis et al, 1997; Kawame, Pagon, and Hudgens, 1997; Abdel-Salam et al, 1999; Digweed, Reis, and Sperling, 1999; Woods, Bond, and Enard, 2005; Ghaoufari-Fard et al, 2015). This is a pretty huge blow to the brain size/IQ correlation, for if people with such small heads can have normal IQs, why do we have such large brains that leave us with such large problems (Skoyles and Sagan, 2002: 240-244)?
If we can have smaller heads—which would make childbirth easier and allow us to continue to have smaller pelves which would be conducive to endurance running since we are the running ape, why would brains have gotten so much larger from that of erectus (where modern people can have normal IQs with erectus-sized brains) if it is perfectly possible to have a brain on around the size of early erectus? In any event, these anomalies need an explanation, and Skoyles (1999) hypothesizes that people with smaller heads but normal IQs may have a lower capacity for expertise. This is something that I will look into in the future, as it may explain these anomalies, along with the true reason why our brains began increasing around 3 mya.
Sells (1977)—using the criteria of 2 SD below mean head size—showed that 1.9 percent of the children he tested (n=1009) had IQs indistinguishable from their normocephalic peers. Watemberg et al (2002) studied 1,393 patients. They found that almost half of their patients with microcephaly (15.4% of their patients studies had microcephaly) had IQs within the normal limits, while among those with sub-normal intelligence, 30 percent had borderline IQs or were mildly mentally retarded (it’s worth noting that l-glutamate can raise IQ scores by 5-20 points in the mild to moderate mental deficiency; Vogel, Braverman and Draguns, 1966 review numerous lines of evidence that glutamate raises IQ in mentally deficient individuals). Sassaman and Zartler (1982) showed that 31.9 percent of microcephalics had normal intelligence, 6.9 percent of them had average intelligence.
Head circumference does not directly correlate with IQ in microcephalic patients (Baxter et al, 2009). Dorman (1991: 268) writes: “Decreased head size may or may not be associated with lowered intelligence, indicating that small head size by itself does not affect intelligence. The presence of subgroups of microcephalic persons who typically have normal intelligence is sufficient to rule out a causal relationship between head size and intellect. … It can be added that reduction in brain size without such structural pathology, as mayvoccur in some genetic conditions or evenvas a result of normal variation, does not
affect intelligence. ”
Tenconi et al (1981) write: “We were able to examine five other members of this family (1-3; 11-1; 11-4; 11-5; 11-8) and found no abnormalities: they were of normal intelligence, head circumference, and ophthalmic evaluation. Members of the grandmother’s family who refused to be examined appeared to be of normal intelligence and head appearance and did not have any serious eye problems.”
Stoler-Poria et al (2010) write: “There was a K-ABC cognitive score < 85 (signifying developmental delay) in two (10%) children from the study group and in one (5%) child from the control group: one of the children in the study group (the one with HC below − 3 SD) scored significantly below the normal range (IQ = 70), while the other scored in the borderline range (IQ = 83); the child from the control group also scored in the borderline range (IQ = 84).” Whereas Thelander and Pryor (1968) showed that individuals with head circumferences 2-2.6 SDs below the mean had average IQs, though the smaller their HC, the lower their IQ. Ashwal et al (2009: 891) write: “The students with microcephaly had a similar mean IQ to the normocephalic group (99.5 vs 105) but had lower mean academic achievement scores (49 vs 70).” So it seems that microcephalics can have normal IQs, but have lower academic achievement scores.
Primary microcephalics have higher IQs than secondary microcephalics (Cowie, 1987). Primary microcephaly is microcephaly that one is born with whereas secondary microcephaly is acquired.
There is one case study of a girl with microcephaly where Tan et al (2014) write: “Most recent measures of general intelligence (performed at 6½ years of age) reveal a below average full scale IQ of 75 with greatest impairment in processing speed. On the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence III Revised (for children 2 years 6 m – 7 years 3 m), she obtained a Verbal IQ of 83, Nonverbal IQ of 75, and Processing speed 71. On the Wechsler Individual Achievement Testing (WIAT) she showed significant struggles in secondary language on tasks of early reading (SS 60), word reading (SS 70), reading comprehension (SS 69) and struggles in math on the task of numerical operations (SS 61) (WPPSI – R and WIAT mean = 100 and SD = 15). Parents report subjectively that differences in development relative to her sisters are becoming more apparent with time.”
It is not a foregone conclusion that if an individual has microcephaly that they will have a low IQ and be mentally retarded, as reviewed above, there are numerous cases of individuals with microcephaly and normal IQs, with this even being seen in families—that is, multiple families with normal IQs yet have microcephaly. Numerous people with Nijmegen breakage syndrome (a type of microcephaly) can have normal IQs. Rossi et al (1987) reported that for 6 Italian families (n=21 microcephalics) with autsomally inherited microcephaly, for those administered psychometric tests (n=12), all had normal IQs but one, with an IQ range of 99 to 112 for a mean of 99.3.
In conclusion, microcephalics can have normal IQs and live normal lives, despite having heads, on average, that are 2 SDs below the mean. These anomalies (and there are many, many more) need explaining. This is great evidence that a larger brain does not always mean a higher IQ, as well as yet more evidence that it was possible for Homo erectus to have an IQ in our range today, which means that we may not need brains our current size for our intellect and achievements. To conclude, I will provide a quote from Dorman (1991):
The normal intelligence found by SELLS in school children with small head size also militates against any straightforward relationship between diminished head size and lowered intelligence.
With the correlation between brain size and IQ being .4 (Gignac and Bates, 2017), this does not rule out the ‘outliers’ reviewed in this article. These cases deserve an explanation, for if large brains lead to high IQs, why do these people with heads significantly smaller have IQs in the normal range? (See Skoyles, 1999: 8, para 31 for an explanation for the brain size/IQ correlation.)
My Response to Jared Taylor’s Article “Breakthroughs in Intelligence”
1300 words
Here is my reply to Jared Taylor’s new article over at AmRen Breakthroughs in Intelligence:
“The human mind is not a blank slate; intelligence is biological”
The mind is not a ‘blank slate’, though there is no ‘biological’ basis for intelligence (at least in the way that hereditarians believe). They’re just correlations. (Whatever ‘intelligence’ is.)
“there is no known environmental intervention—including breast feeding”
There is a causal effect of breast feeding on IQ:
While reported associations of breastfeeding with child BP and BMI are likely to reflect residual confounding, breastfeeding may have causal effects on IQ. Comparing associations between populations with differing confounding structures can be used to improve causal inference in observational studies.
Brion, M. A., Lawlor, D. A., Matijasevich, A., Horta, B., Anselmi, L., Araújo, C. L., . . . Smith, G. D. (2011). What are the causal effects of breastfeeding on IQ, obesity and blood pressure? Evidence from comparing high-income with middle-income cohorts. International Journal of Epidemiology, 40(3), 670-680. doi:10.1093/ije/dyr020
Breastfeeding is related to improved performance in intelligence tests. A positive effect of breastfeeding on cognition was also observed in a randomised trial. This suggests that the association is causal.
Horta, B. L., Mola, C. L., & Victora, C. G. (2015). Breastfeeding and intelligence: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Acta Paediatrica, 104, 14-19. doi:10.1111/apa.13139
“before long we should be able to change genes and the brain itself in order to raise intelligence.“
Which genes? 84 percent of genes are expressed in the brain. Good luck ‘finding’ them…
These results corroborate with the results from previous studies, which have shown 84% of genes to be expressed in the adult human brain …
Negi, S. K., & Guda, C. (2017). Global gene expression profiling of healthy human brain and its application in studying neurological disorders. Scientific Reports, 7(1). doi:10.1038/s41598-017-00952-9
“Normal people can have extraordinary abilities. Prof. Haier writes about a non-savant who used memory techniques to memorize 67,890 digits of π! He also notes that chess grandmasters have an average IQ of 100; they seem to have a highly specialized ability that is different from normal intelligence. Prof. Haier asks whether we will eventually understand the brain well enough to endow anyone with special abilities of that kind.”
Evidence that intelligence is not related to expertise.
“It is only after a weight of evidence has been established that we should have any degree of confidence in a finding, and Prof. Haier issues another warning: “If the weight of evidence changes for any of the topics covered, I will change my mind, and so should you.” It is refreshing when scientists do science rather than sociology.”
Even with the “weight of evidence”, most people will not change their views on this matter.
“Once it became possible to take static and then real-time pictures of what is going on in the brain, a number of findings emerged. One is that intelligence appears to be related to both brain efficiency and structure”
Patterns of activation in response to various fluid reasoning tasks are diverse, and brain regions activated in response to ostensibly similar types of reasoning (inductive, deductive) appear to be closely associated with task content and context. The evidence is not consistent with the view that there is a unitary reasoning neural substrate. (p. 145)
Nisbett R. E., Aronson J., Blair C., Dickens W., Flynn J., Halpern D. F., Turkheimer E. Intelligence: New findings and theoretical developments. American Psychologist. 2012;67:130–159. doi: 10.1037/a0026699.
“Early findings suggested that smart people’s brains require less glucose—the main fuel for brain activity—than those of dullards.”
Cause and correlation aren’t untangled; they could be answering questions in a familiar format, for instance, and this could be why their brains show less glucose consumption.
“It now appears that grey matter is where “thinking” takes place, and white matter provides connections between different areas of grey matter. Some brains seem to be organized with shorter white-matter connections, which appear to allow more efficient communication, and there seem to be sex differences in the ways the part of the brain are connected. One of the effects of aging is deterioration of the white-matter connections, which reduces intelligence.”
Read this commentary (pg. 162): Norgate, S., & Richardson, K. (2007). On images from correlations. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 30(02), 162. doi:10.1017/s0140525x07001379
“Brain damage never makes people smarter”
This is wrong:
You would think that cutting out one-half of people’s brains would kill them, or at least leave them vegetables needing care for the rest of their lives. But it does not. Consider this striking story. A boy starts having seizures at 10 years of age when his right cerebral hemisphere atrophies. By the time he is 12, the left side of his body is paralyzed. When he is 19, surgeons decide to operate and remove the right side of his brain, as it is causing gits in his intact left one. You might think this would lower his IQ or leave him severely retarded, but no. His IQ shoots up 14 points, to 142! The mystery is not so great when you realize that the operation has gotten rid of the source of his fits, which had previously hampered his intelligence. When doctors saw him 15 years later, they described him as “having obtained a university diploma . . . [and now holding] a responsible administrative position with a local authority.”
Skoyles, J. R., & Sagan, D. (2002). Up from dragons: the evolution of human intelligence. New York: McGraw-Hill (pg. 282)
“Prof. Haier wants a concerted effort: “What if a country ignored space exploration and announced its major scientific goal was to achieve the capability to increase every citizen’s g-factor [general intelligence] by a standard deviation?””
Don’t make me laugh. You need to prove that ‘g’ exists first. Glad to see some commentary on epigenetics that isn’t bashing it (it is a real phenomenon, though the scope of it in regards to health, disease and evolution remains to be discovered).
As most readers may know, I’m skeptical here and a huge contrarian. I do not believe that g is physiological and if it were then they better start defining it/talking about it differently because I’ve shown that if it were physiological then it would not mimick any known physiological process in the body. I eagerly await some good neuroscience studies on IQ that are robust, with large ns, their conclusions show the arrow of causality, and they’re not just making large sweeping claims that they found X “just because they want to” and are emotionally invested in their work. That’s my opinion about a lot of intelligence research; like everyone, they are invested in their own theories and will do whatever it takes to save face no matter the results. The recent Amy Cuddy fiasco is the perfect example of someone not giving up when it’s clear they’re incorrect.
I wish that Mr. Taylor would actually read some of the literature out there on TBI and IQ along with how people with chunks of their brains missing can have IQs in the normal range, showing evidence that most a lot of our brain mass is redundant. How can someone survive with a brain that weighs 1.5 pounds (680 gms) and not need care for the rest of his life? That, in my opinion, shows how incredible of an organ the human brain is and how plastic it is—especially in young age. People with IQs in the normal range need to be studied by neuroscientists because anomalies need explaining.
If large brains are needed for high IQs, then how do these people function in day-to-day life? Shouldn’t they be ‘as dumb as an erectus’, since they have erectus-sized brains living in the modern world? Well, the human body and brain are two amazing aspects of evolution, so even sudden brain damage and brain removal (up to half the brain) does not show deleterious effects in a lot of people. This is a clue, a clue that most of our brain mass after erectus is useless for our ‘intelligence’ and that our brains must have expanded for another reason—family structure, sociality, expertise, etc. I will cover this at length in the future.
Doctors, IQ and Job Performance
1650 words
Job performance is supposedly one measure that validates the construct of IQ tests since they correlate so highly with IQ tests (Schmidt et al, 1986). However, there are problems with the methods used to get the high correlations (sometimes doubling correlations, there are also questions to the robusticity of the studies meta-analyzed); corrections used have to make a number of assumptions; uncertainty of the interpretation of what the supposed IQ and job performance correlations mean; other non-cognitive factors may also explain differences in job performance. Most surprisingly, intelligence test scores did not predict promotion to senior doctor and intelligence does not predict careers.
Job performance and IQ
Does IQ really correlate around .5 with job performance like is so commonly stated? There are a number of problems citing such the commonly used meta-analyses for evidence that IQ does indeed predict job performance.
Richardson and Norgate (2015) show that one should use caution when interpreting the results of IQ and job performance on the basis of numerous criteria. It is important to note that job performance is rated by supervisors, which is, of course, a problem since supervisors tend to be subjective in their ratings. Further, supervisor ratings have low correlations with work performance, while work knowledge has a correlation of around .3 (Richardson and Norgate 2015; Richardson, 2002). So, one of the main things that the correlation hinges upon is strongly subjective.
However, one of the most important things to note here is that the validation of IQ tests is relied on with correlations with other tests. For instance, blood alcohol and level of consumption are valid constructs. The higher your blood alcohol is, the more alcohol you consumed. There is no such validity for the construct of IQ—except correlations with other tests—which is a huge problem. This goes back to the fact that there is no individual theory of intelligence differences (Deary, 2001: 14) and no neurophysiological theory of g (Jensen, 1998: 257).
So IQ tests don’t have the same construct validity that other models that describe biologic/physiologic functions do; hundreds of studies before the 70s showed low correlations between IQ and job performance; corrections for error make a lot of assumptions; the common claim that the IQ/job performance correlation increases with more complex jobs is not observed in more recent studies; and there is great uncertainty in the interpretation of the IQ and job performance correlation, due to the fact that there is no construct validity to IQ tests. This goes back to the question: What is it that IQ tests test (Richardson, 2002)? Is it the ever-elusive general factor of intelligence? I’m skeptical there.
Richardson (2017) writes:
The committee described the differences as “puzzling and somewhat worrisome.” But they noted how the quality of the data might explain it. For example, the 264 newer studies have much greater numbers of participants, on average (146 versus 75). It was shown how the larger samples produced much lower sampling error and less range restriction, also requiring less correction (with much less possibility of a false boost to observed correlations). And there was no need to devise estimates to cover for missing data. So, even by 1989, these more recent results are indicative of the unreliability of those usually cited. But it is the earlier test results that are still being cited by IQ testers. (pg. 89)
IQ and job performance correlations are also substantially weaker in other parts of the world, such as the Middle East and China, where motivation and effort explain school and work performance and not cognitive ability (Byington and Felps, 2010). So, again, caution is to be taken when interpreting any IQ and job performance correlation, as well as—most importantly—asserting that higher IQ means better job performance.
In his 2015 book Intelligence in the Flesh, Guy Claxton wrote:
We saw earlier that Google is not impressed by people’s track records of success, but is equally sceptical of high IQs. Laszlo Bock, the senior vice-president in charge of ‘people operations’ – the head of HR – says: ‘For every job the No. 1 thing we look for is general cognitive ability, and it’s not I.Q. It’s learning agility. It’s the ability to process on the fly.‘ Behind the ability to learn quickly lies what Bock calls ‘intellectual humility.’ You have to be able to give up the knowledge and expertise you thought would see you through, and look with fresh eyes. People with a high IQ ofen have a hard time doing that. They are certainly no better than average at tolerating uncertainty or being able to adopt fresh perspectives.
Now that we know to take caution when speaking about the IQ and job performance correlation, what do IQ tests say about success as a doctor?
Doctors and IQ
Since becoming a doctor is so demanding and takes a lot of time and motivation to complete a doctoral degree, most rightly assume that it takes a higher than average intelligence to acquire these accolades and become a medical doctor. However, reality is more nuanced.
McManus et al (2003) put forth three hypotheses: 1) the achievement argument: A-levels ensure maximum competence on sciences which are basic to medicine (biology and chemistry); 2) the ability argument: Academic success depends mainly on cognitive ability; and 3) the motivation argument: Using A-levels is effective because it University education not only reflects intelligence but motivation and good, consistent study skills.
There is evidence that IQ is irrelevant to becoming a doctor and that it did not predict dropping out of the program, career outcome, amount of research publications published, or stress, burnout and satisfaction with taking a career in medicine (McManus et al, 2003). Diplomas, higher academic degrees, and research publications were significantly correlated with personality.
McManus et al (2003) write:
Intelligence did not independently predict dropping off the register, career outcome, or other measures.
…
Intelligence does not predict careers, thus rejecting the ability argument. A levels predict because they assess achievement, and the structural model shows how past achievements predict future achievement.
And on the causes for dropping out:
All 511 students registered with the General Medical Council, but only 464 were on the 2001 Medical Register. The 47 doctors who left the register (a mean of 11.1 years after qualifying; SD 5.9; range 2-23) had lower A level grades but not lower AH5 scores (table A, bmj.com); see http://www.bmj.com for ROC analysis. Two doctors subsequently returned to the register. Of the remainder, three had died, contact details were available for 35, and no information was available for seven.
So lower intelligence scores were not the cause for dropping out.
McManus et al (2003), however, could not distinguish between the motivation and achievement argument, but falsified the intelligence argument (Hypothesis 2 was falsified, but not 1 and 3).
This was also replicated by McManus et al (2013), where they should that IQ scores did not predict promotion to senior doctor. A-level scores, yet again, predicted success better when it came to doctoral success.
Conclusion
The relationship between IQ and job performance is not as clear-cut as most would like to believe. One of the most important factors there, in my opinion, is the subjectivity of supervisors on the performance of their workers. Numerous factors could influence a supervisors’ view of an individual, biasing the supervisor to a high rating. Furthermore, the corrected correlations are a problem. More recent analyses show a correlation of .25 (Richardson, 2017: 89).
Perhaps more importantly, two studies show that there is no predictive effect on job performance when it comes to IQ for doctors (McManus et al, 2003; McManus et al, 2013). They show that A-level scores predict success better, with personality variables mediating other relationships—not IQ scores.
The fact of the matter is, job performance and IQ is on shaky ground since IQ tests are not constructed valid, and the job performance ratings are based on supervisor ratings which are highly subjective. Analyses in other locations around the world show that IQ does not predict job performance, however, motivation and effort do. IQ does not predict a doctor’s job performance; job performance tests do not prove the validity of IQ tests.
IQ does not predict a doctor’s job performance; job performance tests do not prove the validity of IQ tests.
[Edit: I have come across more data on doctors IQ. Some studies show that complaints by patients on their doctors are related to infractions. Perry and Crean (2005) show that the average IQ for a doctor is 125. They also state that neurocognitive impairment may be responsible for 63% of all physician related adverse events. This same observation is also noted in other studies (Pitkanen, Hurn, and Kopelman, 2008; Lauri et al, 2009; Kataria et al, 2014). Also of note is that these papers—to the best of my knowledge—do not explore the role of stress in cognitive decline. Though Pitkanen, Hurn, and Kopelman (2008) note that depression, PTSD, amnesia, transient global amnesia, alcoholic brain damage, frontotemporal dimentia, dimentia, alzheimer’s disease, vascular dimentia, and post-traumatic amnesia (PTA) influence cognitive decline in doctors.
Veena et al, (2015) show that 88 percent of medical students had near average intelligence, putting in 6 hours a day of studying, while 10 percent of students had above average IQ, spent less time studying but were sincere in their classes.
Veena et al (2015) conclude:
Students with near average IQ work hard in their studies and their academic performance was similar to students with higher IQ. So IQ can`t be made the basis for medical entrance; instead giving weight-age to secondary school results and limiting the number of attempts may shorten the time duration for entry and completion of MBBS degree.
So students with average intelligence work just as hard (if not harder) than people with above average IQ and have similar educational achievement. This shows that IQ can’t be the basis for medical school entry.
This is a really interesting matter and I will cover it more in the future. I’ve been wondering for years if there is data on physician/doctoral malpractice and race I have yet to come across any papers on the matter. If anyone knows of any, please leave some citations.]
HBD and Sports: Baseball and Reaction Time
2050 words
If you’ve ever played baseball, then you have first-hand experience on what it takes to play the game, one of the major abilities you need is a quick reaction time. Baseball players are in the upper echelons in regards to pitch recognition and ability to process information (Clark et al, 2012).
Some people, however, believe that there is an ‘IQ cutoff’ in regards to baseball; since general intelligence is supposedly correlated with reaction time (RT), then those with higher RTs must have higher intelligence and vice-versa. However, this trait—in a baseball context—is trainable to an extent. To those that would claim that IQ would be a meaningful metric in baseball I pose two question: would higher IQ teams, on average, beat lower IQ teams and would higher IQ people have better batting averages (BAs) than lower IQ people? This, I doubt, because as I will cover, these variables are trainable and therefore talking about reaction time in the MLB in regards to intelligence is useless.
Meden et al (2012) tested athlete and non-athlete college students on visual reaction time (VRT). They tested the athletes’ VRT once, while they tested the non-athletes VRT two times a week for a 3 week period totaling 6 tests. Men ended up having higher VRTs in comparison to women, and athletes had better VRTs than non-athletes. So therefore, this study proves that VRT is a trainable variable. If VRT can be improved with training, then hitting and fielding can also be trained as well.
Reaction time training is the communication between the brain, musculoskeletal system and spinal cord, which includes both physical and cognitive training. So since VRT can be trained, then it makes logical sense that Major League hitting and fielding can be trained as well.
David Epstein, author of The Sports Gene says that he has a faster reaction time than Albert Pujols:
One of the big surprises for me was that pro athletes, particularly in baseball, don’t have faster reflexes on average than normal people do. I tested faster than Albert Pujols on a visual reaction test. He only finished in the 66thpercentile compared to a bunch of college students.
It’s not a superior RT that baseball players have in comparison to the normal population, says Epstein, but “learned perceptual skills that the MLB players don’t know they learned.” Major League baseball players do have average reaction times (Epstein, 2013: 1) but a far superior visual acuity. Most pro-baseball players had visual acuity of 20/13, with some players having 20/11; the theoretical best visual acuity that is possible is 20/8 (Clark et al, 2012). Laby, Kirschen, and Abbatine show that 81 percent of the 1500 Major and Minor League Mets and Dodgers players had visual acuities of 20/15 or better, along with 2 percent of players having a visual acuity of 20/9.2. Baseball players average a 20/13 visual acuity with the best eyesight humanly possible being 20/8. (Laby et al, 1996).
So it’s not faster RT that baseball players have, but a better visual acuity—on average—in comparison to the general population. Visual reaction time is a highly trainable variable, and so since MLB players have countless hours of practice, they will, of course, be superior on that variable.
Clark et al (2012) showed that high-performance vision training can be performed at the beginning of the season and maintained throughout the season to improve batting parameters. They also state that visual training programs can help hitters, since the eyes account for 80 percent of the information taken into the brain. Reichow, Garchow, and Baird (2011) conclude that a “superior ability to recognize pitches presented via tachistoscope may correlate with a higher skill level in batting.” Clark et al (2012) posit that their training program will help batters to better recognize the spot of the ball and the pitcher’s finger position in order to better identify different pitches. Clark et al (2012) conclude:
The University of Cincinnati baseball team, coaches and vision performance team have concluded that our vision training program had positive benefits in the offensive game including batting and may be providing improved play on defense as well. Vision training is becoming part of out pre-season and in season conditioning program as well as for warmups.
Classe et al (1997) showed that VRT was related to batting, but not fielding or pitching skill. Further, there was no statistically significant difference observed between VRT and age, race or fielding. Therefore, we can say that VRT has no statistical difference on race and does not contribute to any racial differences in baseball.
Baseball and basketball athletes had faster RTs than non-athletes (Nakamoto and Mori, 2008). The Go/NoGo response that is typical of athletes is most certainly trainable. Kida et al (2005) showed that intensive practice improved the Go/NoGo reaction time, but not simple reaction time. Kida et al (2005: 263-264) conclude that simple reaction time is not an accurate indicator of experience, performance or success in sports; Go/NoGo can be improved by practice and is not innate (but simple reaction time was not altered) and the Go/NoGo reaction time can be “theoretically shortened toward a certain value determined by the simple reaction time proper to each individual.“
In baseball players in comparison to a control group, readiness potential was significantly shorter for the baseball players (Park, Fairweather, and Donaldson, 2015). Hand-eye coordination, however, had no effect on earned run average (ERA) or batting average in a sample of 410 Major and Minor League members of the LA Dodgers (Laby et al, 1997).
So now we know that VRT can be trained, VRT shows no significant racial differences, and that Go/NoGo RT can be improved by practice. Now a question I will tackle is: can RT tell us anything about success in baseball and is RT related to intelligence/IQ?
Khodadi et al (2014) conclude that “The relationship between reaction time and IQ is too complicated and revealing a significant correlation depends on various variables (e.g. methodology, data analysis, instrument etc.).” So since the relationship is too complicated between the two variables, mostly due to methodology and the instrument used, RT is not a good correlate of IQ. It can, furthermore, be trained (Dye, Green, and Bavelier, 2012).
In the book A Question of Intelligence, journalist Dan Seligman writes:
In response, Jensen made two points: (1) The skills I was describing involve a lot more than just reaction time, they also depended heavily on physcial coordination and endless practice. (2) It was, however, undoubtedly true that there was some IQ requirement-Jensen guessed it might be around 85- below which you could never recruit for major league baseball. (About one-sixth of Americans fall below 85).
I don’t know where Jensen grabbed the ‘IQ requirement’ for baseball, which he claims to be around 85 (which is at the black average in America). This quote, however, proves my point that there is way more than RT involved in hitting a baseball, especially a Major League fastball:
Hitting a baseball traveling at 100 mph is often considered one of the most difficult tasks in all of sports. After all, if you hit the ball only 30% of the time, baseball teams will pay you millions of dollars to play for them. Pitches traveling at 100 mph take just 400 ms to travel from the pitcher to the hitter. Since the typical reaction time is 200 ms, and it takes 100 ms to swing the bat, this leaves just 100 ms of observation time on which the hitter can base his swing.
This lends more credence to the claim that hitting a baseball is more than just quick reflexes; considerable training can be done to learn certain cues that certain pitchers use; for instance, like identifying different pitches a particular pitcher does with certain arm motions coming out of the stretch. This, as shown above in the Epstein quote, is most definitely a trainable variable.
Babe Ruth, for instance, had better hand-eye coordination than 98.8 percent of the population. Though that wasn’t why he was one of the greatest hitters of all time; it’s because he mastered all of the other variables in regards to hitting, which are learnable and not innate.
Witt and Proffitt (2005) showed that the apparent ball size is correlated with batting average, that is, the better batters fared at the plate, the bigger they perceived the ball to be so they had an easier time hitting it. Hitting has much less to do with reaction time and much more to do with prediction, as well as the pitching style of the pitcher, his pitching repertoire, and numerous other factors.
It takes a 90-95 mph fast ball about 400 milliseconds to reach home plate. It takes the brain 100 milliseconds to process the image that the eyes are taking in, 150 milliseconds to swing and 25 milliseconds for his brain to send a signal to his body to swing. This leaves the hitter with 125 milliseconds left to hit the incoming fastball. Clearly, there is more to hitting than reaction time, especially when all of these variables are in play. Players have .17 seconds to decide whether or not to hit a pitch and where to place their bat (Clark et al, 2012)
A so-called ‘IQ cutoff’ for baseball does exist, but only because IQs lower than 85 (once you begin to hit the 70s range, especially the lower levels) indicate developmental disorders. Further, the 85-115 IQ range encompasses 68 percent of the population. However, RT is not even one of the most important factors in hitting; numerous other (trainable) variables influence fastball hitting, and all of the best players in the world employ these strategies. People may assume that since intelligence and RT are (supposedly) linked, that baseball players, since they (supposedly) have quick RTs. Nevertheless, if quick RTs were correlated with baseball profienciency—namely, in hitting, then why are Asians 1.2 percent of the players in the MLB? Maybe because RT doesn’t really have anything to do with hitting proficiency and other variables have more to do with it.
People may assume that since intelligence and RT are (supposedly) linked, that baseball players, since they (supposedly) have quick RTs then they must be intelligent and therefore there must be an IQ cutoff because intelligence/g and RT supposedly correlate. However, I’ve shown 2 things: 1) RT isn’t too important to hitting at an elite level and 2) more important skills can be acquired in hitting fastballs, most notable, in my opinion, is pitch verification and the arm location of the pitcher. The Go/NoGo RT can also be trained and is, arguably, one of the most important training systems for elite hitting. Clearly, elite hitting is predicated on way more than just a quick RT; and most of the variables that are involved in elite hitting are most definitely trainable, as reviewed in this article.
People, clearly, make unfounded claims without having any experience in something. It’s easy to make claims about something when you’re just looking at numbers and attempting to draw conclusions based on data. But it’s a whole other ballgame (pun intended) when you’re up at the plate yourself or coaching someone on how to hit or play in the infield. These baseless claims would be avoided a lot more if only the people who make these claims had any actual athletic experience. If so, they would know of the constant repetition that goes into hitting and fielding, the monotonous drills you have to do everyday until your muscle memory is trained to flawlessly—without even thinking about it—throw a ball from shortstop to first base.
Practice, especially Major League practice, is pivotal to elite hitting; only with elite practice can a player learn how to spot the ball and the pitcher’s finger position to quickly identify the pitch type in order to decide if he wants to swing or not. In conclusion, a whole slew of cognitive/psychological abilities are involved in the upper echelons of elite baseball, however a good majority of the traits needed to succeed in baseball are trainable, and RT has little to do with elite hitting.
(When I get time I’m going to do a similar analysis like what I wrote about in the article on my possible retraction of my HBD and baseball article. Blacks dominate in all categories that matter, this holds for non-Hispanic whites and blacks as well as Hispanic blacks and whites, read more here. Nevertheless, I may look at the years 1997-2017 and see if anything has changed from the analysis done in the late 80s. Any commentary on that matter is more than welcome.)
Do Physiologists Study General Intelligence?
1100 words
The general factor of intelligence (g) is said to be physiological. Jensen (1998: xii) states that “Students in all branches of the behavioral and social sciences, as well as students of human biology and evolution, need to grasp the essential psychometric meaning of g, its basis in genetics and brain physiology, and its broad social significance.” There are, furthermore, “a number of suggestive neurological correlates of g, but as yet these have not been integrated into a coherent neurophysiological theory of g” (Jensen, 1998: 257). I personally don’t care for correlations too much anymore, I’m interested in actual causes. Jensen (1998: 578) also states “Although correlated with g [size of the brain, metabolic rate, nerve conduction velocity, and latency and amplitude of evoked electrical potentials], these physiological variables have not yet provided an integrated explanatory theory.”
This seems suspiciously like Dreary’s (2001: 14) statement that there “is no such thing as a theory of human intelligence differences – not in the way that grown-up sciences like physics or chemistry have theories.” If g is physiological, then where is the explanatory theory? On that same matter, where is the explanatory theory for individual intelligence differences? That’s one thing that needs to be explained, in my opinion. I could muster something up off the top of my head, such as individual differences in glucose metabolism in the brain, comparing both high and low IQ people (Cochran et al, 2006; Jensen, 1998: 137), however, that is still not good enough.
In physiology there is sliding filament theory which explains the mechanism of muscle contraction (Cooke, 2004). Why is there no such theory of why individuals differ in intelligence and why have these “suggestive neurological correlates of g” not been formulated into a coherent neurophysiological theory? There are numerous theories in physiology, but a theory of g or why individuals differ in intelligence is not one of them.
It’s like Darwin only saying “Species change“, and that’s it; no theory of how or why. He’s just stating something obvious. Similarly, saying “Person A is smarter or has a higher IQ than person B” is just an observation; there is no theory of how or why for why individuals differ in intelligence. There are theories for group differences (garbage cold winter theory), but no individual differences in intelligence? Hmmm… Sure it’d be a ‘fact that species change over time’, but without a theory of how or why, how useful is that observation? Similarly, it is true that some people are more intelligent than others (score higher on IQ tests), yet there is no explanatory theory as to why? I believe this ties back to the physiological basis for g: are physiologists studying it, and if not, why?
Reaction time (RT) is one of the most talked about physiological correlates in regards to IQ. However, as a fitness professional, I know that exercise can increase reaction time, especially in those with intellectual disabilities (Yildirim et al, 2001). I am now rethinking the correlate between reaction time and IQ, since it can be trained in children, especially those with intellectual disabilities. Clearly, RT can be trained by exercise, participating in sports, and even by playing video games (Green, 2008). So since RT can be trained, I don’t think it’s a good physiological measure for g.
Individuals do differ in individual physiology, however, I have never heard of a physiologist attempting to rank individuals on different traits, nevermind attempting to say that a higher level of one variable is better than a lower variable, say blood pressure or metabolic rate. In fact, individuals with high blood pressure and metabolic rates would need immediate medical attention.
There are also wide variations in how immune systems act when faced with pathogens, bacteria and viruses. Though, “no one dreams of ranking individual differences on a general scale of immunocompetence” (Richardson, 2017: 166). So if g is physiological then why don’t other physiological traits get placed on a rank order, with physiologists praising certain physiological functions as “better”?
Richardson (2017: 166-167) writes:
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.
…
A preoccupation with ranking variations, assuming normal distributions, and estimating their heritabilities simply does not figure in the field of physiology in the way that it does in the field of human intelligence. This is in stark contrast with the intensity of the nature-nurture debate in the human cognitive domain. But perhaps ideology has not infiltrated the subject of physiology as much as it has that of human intelligence.
This is all true. I know of no physiologist who would suggest such a thing. So does it make sense to compare g with physiological variables—even when classic physiological variables do not have some kind of rank order? Heritabilities for BMR are between .4 and .8, which is in the same range as the heritability of IQ. Can you imagine any physiologist on earth suggesting a rank order for physiological traits such as BMR or stroke volume? I can’t, and if you knew anything about physiological variables then you wouldn’t either.
In sum, I believe that conflating g with physiology is erroneous; mostly because physiologists don’t rank physiological traits in the same ways that human intelligence researchers do. Our physiology is intelligent in and of itself, and this process begins in the cell—the intelligent cell. Our physiological systems are intelligent—in our bodies are dynamic systems that keenly respond to whatever is going on in the environment (think of how the body always attempts to maintain homeostasis). Physiology deals with the study of living organisms—more to the point, how the systems that run the organisms work.
Looking at physiological variables and attempting to detangle environmental and genetic effects is a daunting task—especially the way our physiological systems run (responding to cues from the environment, attempting to maintain homeostasis). So if general intelligence—g—had a true biological underpinning in the body, and if physiologists did study it, then they would not have a rank ordering for g like psychologists do; it’d just be another human trait to study.
So the answer to the question “Do physiologists study g?” is no, and if they did they would not have the variable on a rank order because physiologists don’t study traits in that manner—if a true biological underpinning for g exists. Physiology is an intelligent and dynamic system in and of itself, and the process begins in the intelligent cell, except it is on a larger scale, with numerous physiological variables working in concert, constantly attempting to stay in homeostasis.
r/K Selection Theory: A Response to Truth-Justice
1700 words
After the publishing of the article debunking r/K selection theory last week, I decided to go to a few places and provide the article to a few sites that talk about r/K selection theory and it’s (supposed) application to humans and psychometric qualities. I posted it on a site called ‘truthjustice.net‘, and the owner of the site responded to me:
Phillippe Rushton is not cited a single time in AC’s book. In no way, shape or form does the Theory depend on his opinions.
AC outlines a very coherent theoretical explanation for the differing psychological behavior patterns existing on a bell curve distribution in our population. Especially when it comes to the functioning of the Amygdala for which we have quite a lot of data by now.
Leftists are indeed in favor of early childhood sexualization to increase the quantity of offspring which will inevitably reduce the quality and competitive edge of children. They rank significantly lower on the moral foundations of “loyalty”, “authority” and “purity” as outlined by Jonathan Haidt’s research into moral psychology. Making them more accepting of all sorts of degeneracy, deviancy, and disloyalty to the ingroup.
http://people.stern.nyu.edu/jhaidt/
They desire a redestribution of resources to the less well performing part of our population to reduce competitive stress and advantage while giving far less to charity and being significantly more narcissistic to increase their own reproductive advantage.
https://anepigone.blogspot.com/2008/11/more-income-more-votes-republicans_13.html
Their general mindset becomes more and more nihilistic, atheistic, anarchistic, anti-authority and overall r-selected the further left you go on the bell curve. A denial of these biological realities in our modern age is ridiculous when we can easily measure their psychology and brain functionality in all sorts of ways by now.
Does that now mean that AC is completely right in his opinions on r/K-Selection Theory? No, much more research is necessary to understand the psychological differences between leftists and rightists in full detail.
But the general framework outlined by r/K-Selection Theory very likely applies to the bell curve distribution in psychological behavior patterns we see in our population.
I did respond, however, he removed my comment and banned me after I published my response. My response is here:
“Phillippe Rushton is not cited a single time in AC’s book. In no way, shape or form does the Theory depend on his opinions.”
Meaningless. He uses the r/K continuum so the link in my previous comment is apt.
“AC outlines a very coherent theoretical explanation for the differing psychological behavior patterns existing on a bell curve distribution in our population. Especially when it comes to the functioning of the Amygdala for which we have quite a lot of data by now.”
No, he doesn’t.
1) Psychological traits are not normally distributed,
2) even if r/K were a valid paradigm, it would not pertain to within species variation,
3) it’s just a ‘put these traits on one end that I don’t like and these traits at the other end that I like and that’s my team while the other team has all of the bad traits’ thing,
4) his theory literally rests on the r/K continuum proposed by Pianka. Furthermore, no experimental rationale “was ever given for the assignment of these traits [the r/K traits Pianka inserted into his continuum] to either category” (Graves, 2002: 135), and
5) the r/K paradigm was discredited in the late 70s (see Graves 2002 above for a review)
“Leftists are indeed in favor of early childhood sexualization to increase the quantity of offspring which will inevitably reduce the quality and competitive edge of children. They rank significantly lower on the moral foundations of “loyalty”, “authority” and “purity” as outlined by Jonathan Haidt’s research into moral psychology. Making them more accepting of all sorts of degeneracy, deviancy, and disloyalty to the ingroup.”
I love Haidt. I’ve read his book and all of his papers and articles. So you notice a few things. Then see the (discredited) r/K paradigm. Then you say “oh! liberals are bad and are on the r side while conservatives are K!!”
Let me ask you this: where does alpha-selection fall into this?
“They desire a redestribution of resources to the less well performing part of our population to reduce competitive stress and advantage while giving far less to charity and being significantly more narcissistic to increase their own reproductive advantage.”
Oh.. about that… liberals have fewer children than conservatives. Liberals are also more intelligent than conservatives. So going by Rushton’s r/K model, liberals are K while conservatives are r (conservatives are less intelligent and have more children). So the two cornerstones of the (discredited) r/K continuum show conservatives breeding more and also are less intelligent while it’s the reverse for liberals. So who is ‘r’ and ‘K’ again?
“Their general mindset becomes more and more nihilistic, atheistic, anarchistic, anti-authority and overall r-selected the further left you go on the bell curve. A denial of these biological realities in our modern age is ridiculous when we can easily measure their psychology and brain functionality in all sorts of ways by now.”
‘r’ and ‘K’ are not adjectives (Anderson, 1991: 57).
Why does no one understand r/K selection theory? You are aware that r/K selection theory is density-dependent selection, correct?
“Does that now mean that AC is completely right in his opinions on r/K-Selection Theory? No, much more research is necessary to understand the psychological differences between leftists and rightists in full detail.”
No, he’s horribly wrong with his ‘theory’. I don’t deny psych differences between libs and cons, but to put them on some (discredited) continuum makes no sense in reality.
“But the general framework outlined by r/K-Selection Theory very likely applies to the bell curve distribution in psychological behavior patterns we see in our population.”
No, it doesn’t. Psych traits are not normally distributed (see above). Just like Rushton, AC saw that some things ‘fit’ into this (discredited) continuum. What’s that mean? Absolutely nothing. He doesn’t even cite papers for his assertion; he called Pianka a leftist and said that he tried to sabotage the theory because he thought that it described libs (huh? this makes no sense). AC is a clear ideologue and is steeped in his own political biases as well as wanting to sell more copies of his book. So he will not admit that he is wrong.
Let me ask you a question: where did liberals and conservatives evolve? What selective pressures brought about these psych traits in these two ‘populations’? Are liberals and conservatives local populations?
I’ve also summarily discredited AC and I am waiting on a reply from him (I will be surprised if he replies).
However, unfortunately for AC et al, concerns have been raised “about the use of psychometric indicators of lifestyle and personality as proxies for life history strategy when they have not been validated against objective measures derived from contemporary life history theory and when their status as causes, mediators, or correlates has not been investigated” (Copping, Campbell, and Muncer, 2014). This ends it right here. People don’t understand density-dependent/independent selection since Rushton never talked about it. That, as has been brought up, is a huge flaw in Rushton’s application of r/K theory to the races of Man.
Liberals are, on average, more intelligent than conservatives (Kanazawa, 2010; Kanazawa, 2014) Lower cognitive ability has been linked to greater prejudice through right-wing ideology and low intergroup contact (Hodson and Busseri, 2012), with social conservatives (probably) having lower IQs. There are also three ‘psychological continents’—Europe, Australia, and, Canada and are the liberal countries whereas Southeast Asia, South Asia, South America and Africa contain more conservative countries with all other countries including Russia, the US and Asia in the middle and “In addition, gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, cognitive test performance, and governance indicators were found to be low in the most conservative group and high in the most liberal group” (Stankov and Lee, 2016). Further, economic liberals—as a group—tend to be better educated than Republicans—so intelligence is positively correlated with socially and economically liberal views (Carl, 2014).
There is also a ‘conservative baby boom‘ in the US—which, to the Rushtonites, is ‘r-selected behavior’. Furthermore, women who reported that religion was ‘very important to them’ reported having higher fertility than women who said that it was ‘somewhat important’ or ‘not important’ (Hayford and Morgan, 2008). Liberals are more likely to be atheist (Kanazawa, 2010), while, of course, conservatives are more likely to be religious (Morrison, Duncan, and Parton, 2015; McAdams et al, 2015).
All in all, even if we were to allow the use of liberals and conservatives as local populations, like Rushton’s erroneous use of r/K theory for human races, the use of r/K theory to explain the conservative/liberal divide makes no sense. People don’t know anything about ecology, evolution, or neuroscience. People should really educate themselves on the matters they speak about—I mean a full-on reading into whatever it is you believe. Because people like TIJ and AC are clearly idealogues, pushing a discredited ecological theory and applying it to liberals and conservatives, when the theory was never used that way in the first place.
For anyone who would like a look into the psychological differences between liberals and conservatives, Jonathan Haidt has an outstanding book outlining the differences between the two ideologies called The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion. I actually just gave it a second read and I highly, highly recommend it. If you want to understand the true differences between the two ideologies then read that book. Try to always remember and look out for your own biases when it comes to your political beliefs and any other matter.
For instance, if you see yourself frantically attempting to gather support for a contention in a debate, then that’s the backfire effect in action (Nyhan and Reifler, 2012), and if you have a knowledge of the cognitive bias, you can better take steps to avoid such a heavy-handed bias. This, obviously, occurred with TIJ. The response above is airtight. If this ‘continuum’ did exist, then it’s completely reversed with liberals having fewer children and generally being more intelligent with the reverse for conservatives. So liberals would be K and conservatives would be r (following Rushton’s interpretation of the theory which is where the use of the continuum comes from).
Height and IQ Genes
1100 words
Genes account for about 80 percent of the variation in height and IQ, with both height and IQ correlating at .2. Therefore, genes must contribute largely to population variances in height. However, finding certain genes that contribute largely to these two traits is a problem, largely because both traits are polygenic in nature. Recent research has shown that most—or all–genes are height genes. If this is the case, are most—or all—genes IQ genes?
Height is around 80-90 percent heritable (Peeters et al, 2009). What this means is that the difference between the tallest and shortest 5 percent of the population is 11 inches, with 10 inches being accounted for by genes and 1 inch being accounted for by environment (Heine, 2017: 30). The gene that contributes the most to human height has been found to give 1/6th of an inch (Weedon et al, 2007). However, a recent meta-analysis shows that certain rare alleles give as much as 8/10ths of an inch (Hirschhorn, Deloukas, and Lettre, 2017). Furthermore, thousands of gene variants combined explain about 50 percent of human height (Yang et al, 2010). Yang et al (2010) also found 294,831 SNPs related to people’s height, which is—more or less—12 times the number of genes in our genome (Heine, 2017: 30; the number of genes in our genome is in the range of 19,000-20,000; Ezkurdia et al, 2014). Another meta-analysis found that 697 genetic variants explain about 20 percent of the genetic variation (Wood et al, 2014). Furthermore, according to geneticist David Goldstein, “most genes are height genes” (Goldstein, 2009).
Author of the book DNA is not Destiny and cultural and social psychologist Steven J. Heine writes:
“This means if you wanted to genetically engineer a designer baby who you would like to grow up to be tall, you would have to make almost 300,000 genetic alterations to the genome and you still would only be half way there. When the genetic evidence suggests that almost all genes are related to height, then in a way, we learn close to nothing about the genetic basis of height.” (Heine, 2017: 30)
Hirschhorn, Deloukas, and Lettre, (2017) found 83 rare and low-frequency genes that explain 1.7 percent of the adult heritability of height, along with newly identified and novel variants that explained 2.4 percent, “and all independent variants, known and novel together explained 27.4% of heritability. By comparison, the 697 known height SNPs explain 23.3% of height heritability in the same dataset (vs. 4.1% by the new height variants identified in this ExomeChip study)” (pg 7). So 27.4 percent of the variance is explained by known common variants and these new variants discovered.
Americans who drink more milk are, on average, half an inch taller than Americans who don’t recall drinking as much milk, even after controlling for race, income, and education (Wiley, 2005). This shows the importance milk has on skeletal muscle growth. This increase has even been noticed in Japan, where they increased their milk intake using school lunch programs (Takahasi, 1984), which increased their height by 4 inches (Funatogawa et al, 2009).
We also grow more in the spring and summer than in the fall and winter. This is due to ultraviolet radiation from the sun’s rays that synthesize some of the vitamin D we drink that is in the cow’s milk. Clearly, environmental factors (UV rays, milk consumption, overall nutrition, etc) all have a part to play in human height variation (Heine, 2017: 30). However, if all genes may be height genes, may all genes be IQ genes?
In regards to IQ, 3 genetic variants explain .3 IQ points (Rietvald et al, 2014):
After adjusting the estimated effect sizes of the SNPs (each R2 ∼ 0.0006) for the winner’s curse, we estimate each as R2 ∼ 0.0002 (SI Appendix), or in terms of coefficient magnitude, each additional reference allele for each SNP is associated with an ∼0.02 SD increase in cognitive performance [or 0.3 points on the typical intelligence quotient (IQ) scale].
This is the gene with the highest known effect that we currently know of. No “but undiscovered X means Y!!”, because science isn’t based on ‘what ifs’.
To predict one’s intelligence, you would need all genes on an SNP chip—which contains about 500,000 SNPs—to be able to predict half of the individual variation in IQ (Davies et al, 2011; Chabris et al, 2012; Heine, 2017: 175). Just as is the case with height, it seems that it’s possible that most—if not all—genes are IQ genes.
So, clearly, intelligence is highly polygenic, and, contrary to what Plomin says, it’s doubtful that we’ll be able to genotype one to guesstimate their intelligence level.
This is because you need more than 500,000 SNPs on a gene chip and even still, that would only explain half of the variance. So it’s reasonable to assume—as is the case with height—that all genes are IQ genes.
Chabris et al (2012) write:
One SNP, rs2760118 in SSADH (also known as ALDH5A1), exhibited a nominally significant association with g (t = 2.01, p = .04), but this association did not survive a Bonferroni correction. The mean g values (transformed to the IQ scale) by genotype for this SNP were 98.3, 99.7, and 100.6 for genotypes TT, TC, and CC respectively.
So it seems that all genes are height genes and all genes could possibly be IQ genes (that is, having a small effect). If most genes are height genes, and height is linked to IQ, then most genes should be IQ genes as well. Therefore, it is plausible that all genes are IQ genes.
Finally, I need to talk about the study that everyone is talking about, the study that found 52 new genes for intelligence (Sniekers et al, 2017). However, Razib Khan cautions: “My plain words are this: do not trust, and always verify“. A Google search for “gene found for” brings up 26,300,000 hits. As can be seen with the study that was published the other day on the supposed ‘new hominin’ found in Europe, science journalists use fancy and catchy headlines. “Genes for ___ and ___” is a bad way to put it—few traits are caused by a single gene, and most traits are highly polygenic, height and IQ included.
Do I think we’ll disentangle the intricacies involved with height and IQ? One day. But since at the moment, 500,000 SNPs need to be loaded on a gene chip to explain half of the variation in individual IQ.
Since most—or all—genes are related to height and the same may be so for IQ, we don’t really learn anything knowing the genes that control for these two traits. In regards to Heine’s (2017) example of genetic engineering 300,000 SNPs for height and you’d only be halfway there, I’d assume the same would be true for IQ. Both traits are highly polygenic, with thousands of genes controlling these traits. Genetic engineering a human for high intelligence or height looks to be a long shot—at least until far into the future.
Heritability, the Grandeur of Life, and My First Linkfest on Human Evolution and IQ
1100 words
Benjamin Steele finally replied to my critique of his ‘strong evidence and argument’ on race, IQ and adoption. He goes on to throw baseless ad hominem attacks as well as appealing to motive (assuming my motivation for being a race realist; assuming that I’m a ‘racist’, whatever that means). When I do address his ‘criticisms’ of my response to him, I will not address his idiotic attacks as they are a waste of time. He does, however, say that I do not understand heritability. I understand that the term ‘heritable’ doesn’t mean ‘genetic’. I understand that heritability is the proportion of phenotypic variance attributed to genetic variance. I do not believe that heritability means a trait is X percent genetic. 80 percent of the variation in the B-W IQ gap is genetic, with 20 percent explained by environmental effects. Note that I’m not claiming that heritable means genetic. All that aside, half of his reply to me is full of idiotic, baseless and untrue accusations which I will not respond to. So, Mr. Steele, if you do decide to reply to my response to you this weekend, please leave the idiocy at the door. Anyway, I will tackle that this weekend. Quick note for Mr. Steele (in case he reads this): if you don’t believe me about the National Crime and Victimization Survey showing that police arrest FEWER blacks than are reported by the NCVS, you can look it up yourself, ya know.
I’m beginning to understand why people become environmentalists. I’ve recently become obsessed with evolution. Not only of Man, but of all of the species in the world. Really thinking about the grandeur of life and evolution and what leads to the grand diversity of life really had me thinking one day. It took billions of years for us to get to the point we did today. So, why should we continue to destroy environments, displacing species and eventually leading them to extinction? I’m not saying that I fully hold this view yet, it’s just been on my mind lately. Once a species is extinct, that’s it, it’s gone forever. So shouldn’t we do all we possibly can to preserve the wonder of life that took so long to get to the point that we did today?
Some interesting articles to read:
Study: IQ of firstborns differ from siblings (This is some nice evidence for Lassek and Gaulin’s theory stating why first-born children have higher IQs than their siblings: they get first dibs on the gluteofemoral fat deposits that are loaded with n-3 fatty acids, aiding in brain size and IQ.)
Why attitude is more important than IQ (Psychologist Carol Dweck states that attitude is more important than IQ and that attitudes come in one of two types: a fixed mindset or a growth mindset. Those with a fixed mindset believe ‘you are who you are’ and nothing can change it while those with a growth mindset believe they can improve with effort. Interesting article, I will find the paper and comment on it when I read it.)
Positively Arguing IQ Determinism And Effect Of Education (Intelligent people search for intellectually stimulating things whereas less intelligent people do not. This, eventually, will lead to the construction of environments based on that genotype.)
A scientist’s new theory: Religion was key to humans’ social evolution (Nicholas Wade pretty much argues the same in his book The Faith Instinct: How Religion Evolved and Why It Endures. It is interesting to note that archaeologists have discovered what looks to be the beginnings of religiousity around 10kya, coinciding with the agrigultural revolution. I will look into this in the future.)
Galápagos giant tortoises show that in evolution, slow and steady gets you places (Interesting read, on tortoise migration)
Will Mars Colonists Evolve Into This New Kind of Human? (Very interesting and I hope to see more articles like this in the future. Of course, due to being a smaller population, evolution will occur faster due to differing selection pressures. Smaller populations incur more mutations at a faster rate than larger populatons. Will our skin turn a reddish tint? Bone density will decline leading to heavier bones. The need for C-sections due to heavier bones will lead to futher brain size increases. This is also going on on Earth at the moment, as I have previously discussed. Of course differences in culture and technology will lead the colonizers down different paths. I hope I am alive to see the first colonies on Mars and the types of long-term effects of the evolution of Man on the Red Planet.)
Evolution debate: Are humans continuing to evolve? (Of course we are)
Did seaweed make us who we are today? (Seaweed has many important vitamins and minerals that are imperative for brain development and growth—most importantly, it has poly-unsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) and B12. We are only able to acquire these fatty acids through our diet—our body cannot synthesize the fatty acid on its own. This is just growing evidence for how important it is to have a good ratio of n-3 to n-6.)
Desert people evolve to drink water poisoned with deadly arsenic (More evidence for rapid evolution in human populations. AS3MT is known to improve arsonic metabolism in Chile and Argentina. Clearly, those who can handle the water breed/don’t die while those who cannot succumb to the effects of arsenic poisoning. Obviously, over time, this SNP will be selected for more and more while those who cannot metabolize the arsonic do not pass on their genes. This is a great article to show to anti-human-evolution deniers.)
Here Are the Weird Ways Humans Are Evolving Right Now (CRISPR and gene editing, promotion of obesity through environmental factors (our animals have also gotten fatter, probably due to the feed we give them…), autism as an adaptation (though our definition for autism has relaxed in the past decade). Human evolution is ongoing and never stops, even for Africans. I’ve seen some people claim that since they never left the continent that they are ‘behind in evolution’, yet evolution is an ongoing process and never stops, cultural ‘evolution’ (change) leading to more differences.)
‘Goldilocks’ genes that tell the tale of human evolution hold clues to variety of diseases (We really need to start looking at modern-day diseases through an evolutionary perspective, such as obesity, to better understand why these ailments inflict us and how to better treat our diseases of civilization.)
Understanding Human Evolution: Common Misconceptions About The Scientific Theory (Don’t make these misconceptions about evolution. Always keep up to date on the newest findings.)
Restore Western Civilization ( Enough said. As usual, gold from Brett Stevens. Amerika.org should be one of the first sites you check every day.)
I guess this was my first linkfest (ala hbd chick). I will post one a week.
NotPoliticallyCorrect 