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from the maybe-they-only-surveyed-the-nimnobs dept.
Why can we talk about PISA results, comparing the performance of students in school, but we are not allowed to talk about differences in IQ? Bring this subject up, and you are immediately accused of racism. And yet. And yet, if there are substantial differences in intellectual capability, might this not explain some of the world's problems?
An update of a massive "study of studies" is underway; this article summarizes the work to date, and provides links to the work in progress. A quick summary of the answers to the questions no one dares ask:
- Eastern Asia (Japan, China): IQ around 105
- Europe/North America: IQ around 98
- Middle East: IQ around 85
- Africa: IQ around 70
In the first instance, it doesn't even matter why there are differences. They may be genetic, or disease related, or nutrition related, or something else. If these differences are real (and the evidence is pretty strong that they are), then we need to deal with them. Imagine if the low IQs in Africa turn out to be fixable - what would the impact be, if we could raise the IQ of an entire continent by 30 points?!
Sticking our collective heads in the sand, because the topic is not PC, is not going to solve any problems.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @07:43PM (5 children)
There is no censorship here, just sharing historical information about how these "intelligence tests" have been created and used in the past. The intention of these tests in the past was to create a plausible framework to justify racism and genocide. Practically these tests server no purpose, otherwise MENSA would be a power rivaling the biggest transnational corporation. How come we never here this "many sides" rationale for Codes of Conduct and Affirmative Action? Nope, those are just WRONG so we can't address them. But eugenics lite? Well that just gives some science to the prejudice and we must hear it out. Mhmmm right.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by HiThere on Thursday November 02 2017, @08:24PM
The basic problem is the assumption that there is a unitary measure of intelligence. I believe this is false unless you tailor your definition of intelligence to be the same as some particular unitary measure that happens to exist. And this is what IQ tests do. Note that different tests on the same people will give answers that, while correlated, are significantly different. And that learning skills is always at least partially environmentally determined.
Now there do exist particular measures of certain features that contribute to intelligence. But although these features are usually correlated, they are not necessarily proportional in any one individual, except that certain problems can indeed cause a correlated, approximately proportional, decrease in function.
As one particular example consider facial amnesia. Some people can readily remember a person's face, others have more trouble. And there are specific physical problems that can cause people to suffer total amnesia with respect to faces. Thus this is clearly a separate feature of intelligence. (Granted this isn't often used by intelligence tests, but it's a clinically demonstrated example.)
It is my assertion that what we call intelligence is a combination of a multitude of such faculties that are essentially independent, but which often use the same underlying processing structure, so that there are correlations between some of the measures. These faculties can only generally be readily demonstrated by the sudden occurrence of a physical problem. One interesting exception is a family where about half of the people are unable to learn to speak, but are otherwise of normal intelligence. And the other half of the family speak normally. This allows the tracking of one particular genetic change (FOX P, IIRC) between humans and chimpanzees as crucial for speech. (Note: necessary but not sufficient.)
I believe the evidence generally backs my viewpoint. The problem is there is a huge interaction between basic genetic capabilities, environmental effects, and epi-genetics. Epi-genetic changes are particularly troublesome to disentangle as they can persist for multiple generations, though it's also true that some of them don't even survive the lifetime of the affected person. There's also the problem of parasite load, which decreases most measures of intelligence.
So intelligence tests measure the likelihood that you will succeed in school if not environmental changes occur. This is the normal case, so it appears invariant, but see the Flynn Effect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect [wikipedia.org]
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @08:37PM (3 children)
Dihydrogen Monoxide FAQ [dhmo.org]
A retrospective telepath, in our midst?
Or just a big fat liar?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @09:01PM (2 children)
Nope, just a literate human with a functional memory.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @09:09PM (1 child)
Then prove that functional memory with some functioning links, why don't you? Does your literacy extend anywhere past bullshitting?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @09:16PM
For someone who linked to dihydrogen monoxide you have a lot to prove. No I don't care to find supporting links for some jerkoff AC, go do your own searching.