Opinion of The Bell Curve

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

I vote option 2, of course, but I'd be interested to know the perspectives of certain folks here.

[Rhodie]

I both agree and disagree. Intelligence does vary across the classes and races, but this is more to do with environmental factors than genetic factors. Also the curve doesn't really count the 'anomalies'.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Intelligence does vary across the classes and races

Define "intelligence."

[Rhodie]

Intelligence does vary across the classes and races

Define "intelligence."

Knowledge, capacity to act in unusual situations, ability to think outside the box.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I'm going to have to stop you there.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Intelligence does vary across the classes and races

Define "intelligence."

Knowledge, capacity to act in unusual situations, ability to think outside the box.

That definition goes far beyond what IQ measures, or even tries to measure. While IQ does seem to vary by race and class, you can't measure intelligence in its totality in a way that you could even start to compare it across groups.

[opebo]

Never read it, but I don't care for such things.  I grade people mostly 'in context' - partly based on what they 'seem like' in class, partly based on 'their work', and finally partly based on their academic record (there is no way I'm giving a C to someone with an A average).  In a larger sense most of these things are all derived from the student's class background with perhaps a very few rare exceptions.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

It's intellectual basis is complete and utter nonsense - and until someone gives me a coherent definition of "intelligence" which is furthermore testable, I will continue to hold this view.

Also, Cyril Burt.

[Hash]

Intelligence does vary across the classes and races

But you're not a racist!

[Rhodie]

Intelligence does vary across the classes and races

But you're not a racist!

I know, and don't take me too seriously, it's not as if I actually know anything about science

[Person Man]

Could intelligence simply be the ability to do what you seek to do?

[Oldiesfreak1854]

Inaccurate study by a bunch of kooks trying to justify racism.  Intelligence is not inherently race-based.

[So rightwing that I broke the Political Compass!]

Intelligence does vary across the classes and races

Define "intelligence."

Doesn't need to be defined. We're not aliens from another planet, we're exposed to people on a daily basis. No-one with such exposure can deny that some peoples minds work quicker/more effectively then others.

Now this is somewhat muddied by the fact that most people's capacity varies from one subject to another. But their is a meaningful correlation between competence in any given field and competence(or the capacity for compotence) in another. For example if you have 2 people and you only know one thing about them: one is more musically talented then the other; statistically speaking the more musically talented  is the more likely of two to have an advantage in any other field. Not just those involving intellect, but also physical attractiveness, fitness and healthiness. Almost all percieved "positive" traits correlate with the possession of other positive traits.

IQ is an imperfect measure of mental vigour, but it does at least correlate with capacity/application of one's mind. If someone wants to propose an alternative measuring system then that's not unreasonable. But to reject the idea of measuring it because any measurement will be imperfect is simply ridiculous- perfection is not a condition of utility.

As to the matter of race? Any geneticist will tell you the traditional division of humanity into cauasoids, negroids and mongoloids was retarded. At the same time their are distinguishable genetic clusters(the most atomized example is one's immediate family, the overarching one is probably the identified split between the Khoisan(+related groups) and everybody else(everybody being the African populations clearly representing a branch distinct from the Khoisan+non-African populations whom are descended mostly from that branch of Africans along with a little Neanderthal and Denisovan admixture).

It is now beyond dispute that personality traits are in part genetic on an individual level. If their are individual deviations based on genetics, then simple random chance will have led to some degree of variation between groups(however arbitrary those groups might be) in the frequency of personality-relevant genes. Theirs also epigenetics, and other complexities within human biology that we do not fully understand.

So theirs really no room for disputing the existence of biologically derived variations in the frequency of various personality traits between groups. The points open for debate are:
1)How substantial is the variation?
2)As said variation is increasingly revealed by science, should this knowledge inform our individual or collective actions?

I'm not sufficiently informed to hazard a guess on 1). As for 2), I prefer the individualist ethos of our current culture to genetic caste-ism.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Is there even any definitive evidence that success in life is directly linked to IQ and standardized test scores?  I've been reading more on this the past few days; obviously, I am still very skeptical of the outward claim that genes is such a determining factor in one's intelligence, especially by group.  I'm not denying the validity of IQ tests completely, but I've come to believe that a lot of what those scores show is how good at someone is at finishing patterns or doing simple arithmetic under the pressure of time -- not so much for how prepared someone is for life.  Correlation does not imply causation of course and the Flynn effect has, to a great extent, repudiated the link between genetics and IQ.

It's also worth mentioning that one study pointed out IQ differences between races varying by region in the United States as well as political ideologies.  Many "studies," of course, have been called out for fraud or abuse of statistics (which is why it's so difficult to determine which ones to trust), but it obviously goes to show that people who believe in this "science" and only look at numbers are flat out wrong.

[Link]

Is there even any definitive evidence that success in life is directly linked to IQ and standardized test scores?

There probably is some correlation simply because people who are better off can be coached for such things and then the situation is reinforced by people giving out academic admissions and and scholarships based on those things.  I know plenty of doors opened up for me when I showed them my standardized test scores.  That doesn't mean I was any better at those jobs/academic pursuits than someone with lower standardized test scores.  That is one of the reasons I support affirmative action.  SAT scores don't tell the whole story.  Saying someone is better qualified simply because they have a higher SAT score is basically saying the SAT score sums up the total of this human being academically.  That is absurd.

The problem is educators and employers are functioning in a market with imperfect information.  They simply do not have the tools to be able to say which kid or potential hire will be the most benefit to their organization.  So they have cobbled together all these imperfect tools.  Some work better than others.  But to say I can look at a piece of paper and 100% tell you who is going to be the better candidate is baloney.

[So rightwing that I broke the Political Compass!]

Is there even any definitive evidence that success in life is directly linked to IQ and standardized test scores?

Yes. Among other things:

- Brain scans have shown a meaningful correlation between IQ and the efficiency of connections in our brain, the quantity of gray matter tissue in the cerebral cortex/sub cortical zone and  various other neurological features that wouldn't mean anything to most of us.(http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627541.700-picking-our-brains-why-are-some-people-smarter.html,  http://today.uci.edu/iframe.php?p=/news/release_detail_iframe.asp?key=1187)

-Statisical analysis(of 11000 pairs of twins) shows an increase in general cognitive heritability as one ages- from 41% at 9 years, to 55% at 12 years, to 66% at 17 years. This increase is compelling evidence for the validity of the evidence, since children become less exposed to their siblings and parents as they age(therefore you would have expected a decline if heritability was a consequence of nurture).(http://www.nature.com/mp/journal/v15/n11/abs/mp200955a.html)

 

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IQ tests are highly unreliable when it comes to comparing groups, that goes without saying. Their effectiveness is strongly correlated with how similar the environments of the persons being tested have been. So they're at their best when comparing twins, preferably in late adolescence(as previously mentioned, the impact of genes on our faculties seems to increase as we mature). This is highly convenient as far as statistical proof is concerned, because identical twins share all their genes whilst fraternal twins share only 50%. This makes it possible to discern mathematically contribution of genes to any given trait- it reaches 66% for "general cognitive ability" at age 17.

Now obviously if you put one twin into a Amazon tribe they're going to end up with completely different personalities. It is precisely this adaptability that has enabled the success of our species. But how any given person will develop in a given situation is substantially influenced by our genes.

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? You don't think that resilience under time pressure or willingness to engage with meaningless make-work are important measures of how prepared someone is for life? The latter(make-work) is particularly compelling to my mind- no one can fail to observe that young children(including children from the very same family) vary in how they respond to that sort of crap. So it's surely at least partly genetic... and that's a trait that's(perhaps sadly) a key factor in how successful you are at life.  

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Not at all. Flynn shows that using IQ to compare between groups is flawed. It doesn't reflect on using it to compare within groups(and it especially doesn't militate against comparisons between twins).

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Why wouldn't it? If we accept that genes are partly responsible for personality, then they would surely be a factor in people's ideologies, likelihood to immigrate from one place to another, etc. Not to mention that simple random chance would lead to drift over time.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

My point is this: while IQ tests have merits to them, it is still a single factor in determining how "successful" (depending on one's definition of the word) will be -- gray matter tissue correlations or not.  I, personally, have not been professionally tested for my IQ level (other than a couple online quizzes, which gave me varying results), but what I still don't quite understand is how, exactly, knowing the answer to a question like this...



...dictates whether or not someone could be a rocket scientist if they had the desire to and put their heart into mastering aerospace engineering, rather than becoming a low-paid high school janitor?  If you have an IQ of 70, then I'd say that the latter occupation is, unfortunately, probably a much more suitable choice.  However, if we're comparing someone with an IQ score of 100 to someone with a score of 120, then I wouldn't automatically disqualify the person with the lower score or assume that they are any less capable of accomplishing certain tasks than the other.  The IQ tests themselves only measure a variety of skills, ranging from basic arithmetic to putting images together.  Intelligence encompasses many varieties of capabilities, which is why it's so difficult to assign it a single definition and rank someone's own intelligence on a simple linear scale.  It's still a bit of a dispute in the scientific community as to what intelligence is defined as; IQ and gray matter are only some factors.

For what it's worth, Andy Warhol supposedly had an IQ of 86 (or at least, that is what the so-called experts estimated it to be... things get a little fuzzy when it comes to formulating mere guesses for people who aren't on record as having taken the test).

Furthermore, let's not forget that each IQ test is different.  Some questions are easy, others are hard.  Some tests may be longer, some may be shorter.  This leads me to think that it's very difficult to take the IQ of an individual and compare it to other scores that are represented by the curve when the tests aren't uniform -- and even if they were uniform, I don't know how far that would get us.  But in all honesty, I'm not sure what strategy the sociologists use to select what kind of questions, and how many of them, to include on a fair and legitimate IQ test.

We should also keep in mind that people change their political views (and sometimes even their entire ideologies) quite often.  It's not uncommon to hear of a lifelong liberal who one day decides to become a conservative, or vice-versa, so that also makes me question just how absolute these scores are after mental development.  It also goes without saying that there are dumb liberals and smart conservatives just as there are dumb conservatives and smart liberals.  I'm not one of those folks who label all right-wingers as 'dumb' just because they see the issues from a different perspective than liberals do.

From my understanding, the Flynn effect further underlines the difficulty of correlating genes with IQ for the fact that it shows a gradual increase of the average IQ -- which has been happening, I believe, at a rate of three points per decade.  Genes simply don't change this quickly.

As for the subject of twins, I suppose I can agree that IQ should logically be similar among the pairs, but that still leaves the question of to what extent -- great or small -- genes factor into overall intelligence, not just the prerequisites for it.

Sorry for sounding like a contradictory dumb in explaining what I know of this.