IQ decline and Piaget: Does the rot start at the top? [pdf](gwern.net)
gwern.net
IQ decline and Piaget: Does the rot start at the top? [pdf]
https://www.gwern.net/docs/iq/2017-flynn.pdf
279 comments
We know selection is against intelligence. We see it in data, for example from Iceland.
Selection against variants in the genome associated with educational attainment: https://www.pnas.org/content/114/5/E727
Selection against variants in the genome associated with educational attainment: https://www.pnas.org/content/114/5/E727
Suppose that in olden-times, only a handful of socially dominant kin networks were wealthy enough for education. And then social and education reform changed things so that a) everyone finished high-school, regardless of birth, and b) higher education resource allocation shifted to merit and motivation from social breeding. Suppose further, that the breakdown of the class system meant that idiosyncratic genetic markers of aristocratic inbreeding declined along with elite endogamy.
Would the results of this study be any different?
Would the results of this study be any different?
> genetic markers of aristocratic inbreeding declined along with elite endogamy
I think this is the flaw in that theory. The genetic markers each come from a single parent, and so wouldn't decline if those carrying them started mating at random rather than within a specific subpopulation.
I think this is the flaw in that theory. The genetic markers each come from a single parent, and so wouldn't decline if those carrying them started mating at random rather than within a specific subpopulation.
We don't see the Habsburg jaw much these days.
Not sure if this is a joke I'm not getting, but the "variants" in the linked study refer to tiny genetic sequences, not phenotypical appearance traits.
Where do you think the Habsburg jaw comes from, if not a combination genetic sequences - a POLYhj if you will?
There's no reason to believe POLYhj is any lower now than during the Habsburg dynasty. Homozygosity is independent of population-level allele frequency.
Charles II was infertile, so there's some reason.
Not to mention that those who have children in competitive fields are not able to nurture their children due to time commitments. The same effect appears to be true for adults in most of the service industries as well albeit for different reasons.
I'm not sure how the government could intervene in these situations except to make these fields less competitive such that employees have more bargaining power.
I'm not sure how the government could intervene in these situations except to make these fields less competitive such that employees have more bargaining power.
In a normally functioning system, intelligent individuals should naturally have more bargaining power, because their skills are more in-demand. However, medical residency is set up in such a way that your bargaining power is delayed until after you finish, because if you leave you are basically blacklisted from the whole field. This benefits the people who have made it out the other side, who are also the people in a position to effect change
There is actually a specific exemption for this system written into anti trust law, so you can be sure it's terrible.
I don't think that matters a lot, since outcome is mostly nature not nurture. Good nurture improves your relationship with children and that's about it.
I think most will agree that there is an evolutionary selection against intelligence (I think the term is "dysgenic mating"). For example, highly educated people (reasonable proxy for intelligence, at least it used to be) have fewer children.
Agree, from a society's point of view (if you believe that intelligence is positive and at least partly hereditary, which I guess is pretty indisputable), one would want to provide incentives to correct this.
Tax reductions per child (scales with income) would be one approach.
Agree, from a society's point of view (if you believe that intelligence is positive and at least partly hereditary, which I guess is pretty indisputable), one would want to provide incentives to correct this.
Tax reductions per child (scales with income) would be one approach.
Like a lot of the comments here, this seems to conflate education and intelligence, when in reality the relationship between the two is tenuous. When talking about the attributes of highly educated people, the most common trait you're likely to find is diligence, which is not at all the same as intelligence though perhaps more important.
Education certainly does seem to decrease family size, particularly rates of female education.
Education certainly does seem to decrease family size, particularly rates of female education.
This study (with more than a thousand citations) of 70,000 school children in the UK measured IQ at age 11 and compared with educational outcome (GCSE; standardized tests) at age 16. The correlation was 0.8.
Deary, I., Strand, S., Smith, P., Fernandes, C. (2007). Intelligence and Educational Achievement. Intelligence
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01602...
I'd also argue that it's plain common knowledge. If you ask 100 people on the street, "Do clever kids have an easier time in school?", I think the answer would be a resounding yes.
Sure, there is a lot of "junk education" out there. Schools that will accept anyone, and give everyone good grades regardless of performance. That's why I wrote "at least it used to be". But Western educational systems hasn't yet regressed to a level where it's all trash.
Deary, I., Strand, S., Smith, P., Fernandes, C. (2007). Intelligence and Educational Achievement. Intelligence
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01602...
I'd also argue that it's plain common knowledge. If you ask 100 people on the street, "Do clever kids have an easier time in school?", I think the answer would be a resounding yes.
Sure, there is a lot of "junk education" out there. Schools that will accept anyone, and give everyone good grades regardless of performance. That's why I wrote "at least it used to be". But Western educational systems hasn't yet regressed to a level where it's all trash.
Your point is totally valid, most high end careers are overtly hostile toward raising a family. I think it's a different tangentially related issue than that of this study. There's a difference between intelligent and ambitious individuals. Granted there's a certain intelligence filter in the capacity for a student to memorize and temporarily retain information, completing a medical residence is much more an act of attrition and perseverance than critical thinking. The tests administered in this study were puzzles like letter matrices and verbal analogies. I'm sure anybody can come up with plenty of anecdotes to the contrary. Under achievers who might smash these logical puzzles but bother with hardly more than what they need to tow the career line. Personally, I studied math and computer science, some of the cleverest people I know were pure math majors. Needless to say, most of which ended up on a different career path. On the other hand I known doctors and executives who, to put it nicely, lack a little spice when it comes to critical thinking. Career accolades have much more to do with a person's capacity to persevere and their priorities in life than with their intelligence.
That said I totally agree with your contention that careers need to be more accommodating of human behavior. The cynic in me has little hope anything of this nature will come from capitalist entities or governments. That said the optimist knows these societal constructs are composed of human beings, and are therefore capable of learning and improving.
That said I totally agree with your contention that careers need to be more accommodating of human behavior. The cynic in me has little hope anything of this nature will come from capitalist entities or governments. That said the optimist knows these societal constructs are composed of human beings, and are therefore capable of learning and improving.
Right now in America there is a strong correlation between IQ and income and strong inverse correlation between income and fertility.
The sperm that is coveted by customers at sperm banks.
Huh, I hadn't thought of this. I suppose pre-natal planning and IVF would also qualify. Reminds me a bit of the Freakonomics piece about abortion and crime [0] [1] I remember it was extremely controversial when it came out
[0] https://freakonomics.com/2005/05/abortion-and-crime-who-shou...
[1] https://freakonomics.com/podcast/abortion-and-crime-revisite...
[0] https://freakonomics.com/2005/05/abortion-and-crime-who-shou...
[1] https://freakonomics.com/podcast/abortion-and-crime-revisite...
Idea that you can select against intelligence would lead to an idea that eugenics == good and that is a taboo. It is a can of worms in the High Status Discussion to bring up the idea that intelligence can be measured and inherited by offspring.
According to many even ITT, intelligence is some transcendental category which can only be divined by Nurture and Education.
According to many even ITT, intelligence is some transcendental category which can only be divined by Nurture and Education.
No the issue is not about whether intelligence exists but whether it can be captured by such crude and simplistic models.
Let’s say I want to measure the potential of someone to be a software engineer. I ask them to solve algorithm questions under time pressure. Those who do them faster and better have an LQ. The leet code quotient.
I have reams of data that show that the higher your leet code quotient the more you earn in salary , the more successful the companies you work in tend to be.
I’m sure many on HN would rail against “LQ” being used to drive policy. Like saying we need to make sure we hire and train more high LQ engineers. Yet this is exactly the tone on discussions about IQ.
The more we believe in hiring based on Leet code the better it makes it look. The same is happening with our education system. What if we measured peoples eye sight and then discriminated against people with low VQ ? You don’t need to do that you can invent glasses so everyone has the same VQ.
All of IQ testing is based on a comically simple assumption. Your score on an IQ test is G + S + N. Where G is the general factor , S is the subject specific factor and N is noise.
Who even said there are only 3 factors ? Modern models add a few more but intelligence may not even be a scalar or a low dimensional vector. It might be a vector with thousands of quantities.
And to those who think that IQ is “real” ponder the following - I give an IQ test to Albert Einstein and a Bedouin from the Sahara desert. Afterwards I drop both of them alone in the desert to survive. Who is more likely to live ?
People need to stop putting faith in crude statistical models that have very weak causal basis. I’m not denying that some people are better at some things than others. But assuming that solving a few puzzles and doing crude statistics allows you to predict that is comical.
IQ is a very crude general prediction. It’s completely possible for a 100 IQ to beat a 140 IQ on many different tasks. Like seducing women or playing football or rapping. We have a very narrow definition of intelligence.
We are barely able to manage our own economies without destroying the entire ecosystem, every country is a mess but we believe that we are able to shape evolution itself towards positive goals when such a process requires tens of thousands of years to even work. The last time this was tried we got one of the worst things in human history. Some people thought they were the “master race” only to get steamrolled by the “inferior” slavs.
Let’s say I want to measure the potential of someone to be a software engineer. I ask them to solve algorithm questions under time pressure. Those who do them faster and better have an LQ. The leet code quotient.
I have reams of data that show that the higher your leet code quotient the more you earn in salary , the more successful the companies you work in tend to be.
I’m sure many on HN would rail against “LQ” being used to drive policy. Like saying we need to make sure we hire and train more high LQ engineers. Yet this is exactly the tone on discussions about IQ.
The more we believe in hiring based on Leet code the better it makes it look. The same is happening with our education system. What if we measured peoples eye sight and then discriminated against people with low VQ ? You don’t need to do that you can invent glasses so everyone has the same VQ.
All of IQ testing is based on a comically simple assumption. Your score on an IQ test is G + S + N. Where G is the general factor , S is the subject specific factor and N is noise.
Who even said there are only 3 factors ? Modern models add a few more but intelligence may not even be a scalar or a low dimensional vector. It might be a vector with thousands of quantities.
And to those who think that IQ is “real” ponder the following - I give an IQ test to Albert Einstein and a Bedouin from the Sahara desert. Afterwards I drop both of them alone in the desert to survive. Who is more likely to live ?
People need to stop putting faith in crude statistical models that have very weak causal basis. I’m not denying that some people are better at some things than others. But assuming that solving a few puzzles and doing crude statistics allows you to predict that is comical.
IQ is a very crude general prediction. It’s completely possible for a 100 IQ to beat a 140 IQ on many different tasks. Like seducing women or playing football or rapping. We have a very narrow definition of intelligence.
We are barely able to manage our own economies without destroying the entire ecosystem, every country is a mess but we believe that we are able to shape evolution itself towards positive goals when such a process requires tens of thousands of years to even work. The last time this was tried we got one of the worst things in human history. Some people thought they were the “master race” only to get steamrolled by the “inferior” slavs.
natded(1)
The reality is neither extreme.
The reality is that psychology has been used, is being used, as a vehicle for racism rather than legitimate science. In lieu of real science, nothing at all is better.
The reality is that psychology has been used, is being used, as a vehicle for racism rather than legitimate science. In lieu of real science, nothing at all is better.
Going beyond that, is intelligence == good worth debating? To the extent that the increase of mental health issues across the population seems to be happening irrespective of IQ. Or perhaps it isn't- does high IQ correlate with certain mental disorders? And are there other, less quantified measures worth improving for the well-being of society, such as EI.
Insofar that you think that technological progress and man's expansion into the universe are good things, yes intelligence is good.
But the question is if intelligence is the primary determinant. The current social and political crises affecting society seem to do with emotional issues that may be linked to intelligence but not necessarily driven by (only) it. And the seemingly rapid increase in mental health disorders is concerning. How does intelligence correlate with sanity, one wonders.
Intelligence is the primary determinant in the sense that you need intelligence to make the innovations which drive society forward. But of course, social factors are important and to be such as to allow intelligent people to achieve their potential.
It would seem that whenever you engage in any endeavor that involves more than one person, social intelligence immediately becomes relevant. I'm not at all convinced that the solutions to current problems will be solved by intelligence alone. Social factors, group dynamics, teamwork are all vital. There was no single genius behind the Manhattan Project.
I find them neutral, they are what we make it.
Advancements in technology can be detrimental to the environment, lethal, make us dumber, worsen quality of life in several ways, help control and imprison us, and any combination of the previous.
And "expansion into the universe" means little if it's for some lucky few. Why should the rest care, just because if Earth is whiped out those few get to "continue"?
That's even assuming it's doable without something like generation ships - which even at the solar system level is a big if.
Advancements in technology can be detrimental to the environment, lethal, make us dumber, worsen quality of life in several ways, help control and imprison us, and any combination of the previous.
And "expansion into the universe" means little if it's for some lucky few. Why should the rest care, just because if Earth is whiped out those few get to "continue"?
That's even assuming it's doable without something like generation ships - which even at the solar system level is a big if.
High IQ seems to correlate with bipolar disorder, but that's about it. It's the only negative that correlates with intelligence I know about.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3705611/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3705611/
There was also this study of Mensa members, but that's probably an extreme outlier group.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016028961...
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016028961...
Intelligence has trade-offs, costs and other limitations or we would have maxed it out hard (ie. an "intelligence explosion" would have occurred).
Increased mental illness might be one, other one is the brain size being limited by the hips of mother. Brains / intelligence also has energy costs which we might not have been able to optimize for yet.
As such, I would say that intelligence is a cost that you run. It allowed for reproduction and survival for humans when they moved towards colder regions for example, but there's little to no reason to maintain that intelligence if you don't need to adapt anymore. I think you need harsh material constraints (I don't know, space faring) to keep it from shaving itself off in order to optimize the human machine.
Increased mental illness might be one, other one is the brain size being limited by the hips of mother. Brains / intelligence also has energy costs which we might not have been able to optimize for yet.
As such, I would say that intelligence is a cost that you run. It allowed for reproduction and survival for humans when they moved towards colder regions for example, but there's little to no reason to maintain that intelligence if you don't need to adapt anymore. I think you need harsh material constraints (I don't know, space faring) to keep it from shaving itself off in order to optimize the human machine.
it's a pretty funny taboo honestly, nobody questions that genetics contribute to height and it's not controversial at all
the good news is that China is doubling down on research into the genetic basis of intelligence. The West will either adjust their worldview or be left behind
the good news is that China is doubling down on research into the genetic basis of intelligence. The West will either adjust their worldview or be left behind
Height is a good example: nobody thinks you grow taller by playing basketball, but many think you get smarter by going to school.
But you do get stronger by lifting weights. The fact that a comparison can be uttered doesn't automatically mean it's also applicable.
Height isn't a good example, because improved nutrition does lead to increased height in populations:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5811819/
It can even be compared across rapidly developing nations with different rates of food consumption:
https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation.aspx?paperid=...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5811819/
It can even be compared across rapidly developing nations with different rates of food consumption:
https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation.aspx?paperid=...
Because intelligence is a far more complex trait than height.
champagnois(5)
The title of this post and the opacity of the abstract is how you start a tire fire on HN.
My recommendation would be to post some quoted passages from the text to add some momentum to a productive discussion.
I think one of the interesting passages is
> From 1990 to 2012: the “working class” share of jobs has steadily de- clined from 31.4% to 20.5%; the “creative class” share has been pretty stable, rising from 29.3 to 32.0; the “service class” has risen sharply from 39.3 to 48.5. He calls the latter “low-skill jobs”, seeing increases in occupations like nursing assistants, personal care aids (whether at home or in nursing homes), retail sales, and food prep workers (McDonalds). Note that the ratio between low skill and creative has risen in favor of the former: 1.35 to one in 1990; and 1.57 to one in 2012.
I'd really be interested in changes in the resulting economies for where those working class jobs ended up.
Reading a paper is hard, having a discussion about a paper is even harder. And especially when it has aspects of class and intelligence. Everyone is an expert in their own opinions on those two subjects.
My recommendation would be to post some quoted passages from the text to add some momentum to a productive discussion.
I think one of the interesting passages is
> From 1990 to 2012: the “working class” share of jobs has steadily de- clined from 31.4% to 20.5%; the “creative class” share has been pretty stable, rising from 29.3 to 32.0; the “service class” has risen sharply from 39.3 to 48.5. He calls the latter “low-skill jobs”, seeing increases in occupations like nursing assistants, personal care aids (whether at home or in nursing homes), retail sales, and food prep workers (McDonalds). Note that the ratio between low skill and creative has risen in favor of the former: 1.35 to one in 1990; and 1.57 to one in 2012.
I'd really be interested in changes in the resulting economies for where those working class jobs ended up.
Reading a paper is hard, having a discussion about a paper is even harder. And especially when it has aspects of class and intelligence. Everyone is an expert in their own opinions on those two subjects.
I struggle to take seriously sociology papers that mention g. Getting through this one is particularly painful because of careless writing. The second paragraph of the introduction is a grammatical mess, and there are many awkward sentences throughout the paper.
How much confidence should I have in the correctness of the author's analyses, given that the authors can't even make it through the first column of the introduction of a camera-ready version without glaring grammatical mistakes?
I admit, "messy writing portends poor execution" a very general heuristic that definitely isn't causal and might be wrong more often than it's correct. But the authors want me to take "g" seriously, so shrugs.
How much confidence should I have in the correctness of the author's analyses, given that the authors can't even make it through the first column of the introduction of a camera-ready version without glaring grammatical mistakes?
I admit, "messy writing portends poor execution" a very general heuristic that definitely isn't causal and might be wrong more often than it's correct. But the authors want me to take "g" seriously, so shrugs.
General intelligence is a very mainstream concept. It’s not any specific measure of intelligence, but rather a meta observation on a conglomeration of tests.
> General intelligence is a very mainstream concept.
Yes, psychometrics researchers believe in psychometrics.
Yes, psychometrics researchers believe in psychometrics.
I found the article surprisingly easy to read compared to most sociology papers. I did notice a few mistakes, but my understanding is that an "In Press" article is still being edited.
(in any case, if editing were completed on this article, I'd blame the editors and not the authors for leaving these mistakes in).
While I respect good writing, bad writing doesn't reflect on the quality of the methodology or analyses in my opinion — as long as it doesn't get in the way, which I don't think it did in this case. I know many smart, careful people who can't string a complete sentence together to save their lives.
(in any case, if editing were completed on this article, I'd blame the editors and not the authors for leaving these mistakes in).
While I respect good writing, bad writing doesn't reflect on the quality of the methodology or analyses in my opinion — as long as it doesn't get in the way, which I don't think it did in this case. I know many smart, careful people who can't string a complete sentence together to save their lives.
You missed the point I was making.
You seem to have two points, and I was responding to this one:
> How much confidence should I have in the correctness of the author's analyses, given that the authors can't even make it through the first column of the introduction of a camera-ready version without glaring grammatical mistakes?
If I missed something, it would be useful to me if you said what it was.
> How much confidence should I have in the correctness of the author's analyses, given that the authors can't even make it through the first column of the introduction of a camera-ready version without glaring grammatical mistakes?
If I missed something, it would be useful to me if you said what it was.
Read on, where I agree with you and make my actual point:
> I admit, "messy writing portends poor execution" a very general heuristic that definitely isn't causal and might be wrong more often than it's correct. But the authors want me to take "g" seriously, so shrugs.
My point isn't that we should disregard the paper because of some grammatical mistakes. My point is that if we're going to take on face value the notion of "g" then we might as well accept on faith the heuristic "bad writing = bad thinking". Because the latter might be wrong a lot, but it's not nearly as stupid as "g".
Live by the sword [of mentally feeble generalizations], die by the sword [of mentally feeble generalizations].
I also provide a more substantive critique of the paper here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29798887
But, "g" is stupid. It's an ephemeral concept that is so obviously unscientific that the entire field had to standardize on a math-y looking coefficient so as to distract everyone from the prime facie obvious fact that they're all full of shit.
> I admit, "messy writing portends poor execution" a very general heuristic that definitely isn't causal and might be wrong more often than it's correct. But the authors want me to take "g" seriously, so shrugs.
My point isn't that we should disregard the paper because of some grammatical mistakes. My point is that if we're going to take on face value the notion of "g" then we might as well accept on faith the heuristic "bad writing = bad thinking". Because the latter might be wrong a lot, but it's not nearly as stupid as "g".
Live by the sword [of mentally feeble generalizations], die by the sword [of mentally feeble generalizations].
I also provide a more substantive critique of the paper here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29798887
But, "g" is stupid. It's an ephemeral concept that is so obviously unscientific that the entire field had to standardize on a math-y looking coefficient so as to distract everyone from the prime facie obvious fact that they're all full of shit.
what does italicized g allude to?
"g", sometimes shown as "G", in the context of the study of intelligence typically refers to general intelligence or overall intelligence, in contrast to more specific types of intelligence such as EQ or mathematical ability.
It refers to the meta-observation that many intelligence measures are correlated.
A scientistic rhetorical/sophist ploy used by intelligence researchers.
My first thought when I see those statistics is where do jobs such as writing software or approving engineering plans fall into. I suspect that they are both considered "service class" jobs (since neither is attached to manufacturing, nor are they anything that would conventionally be considered creative)--yet they are very much not "low-skill jobs".
It's a good gut reaction since software is often lumped in with "services", but in the context of the quoted article most software jobs are probably in the "creative" bucket.
But the author of the quoted article doesn't bother to share their methodology or data, so who the hell really knows shrugs.
Par for the course in sociology, really :)
But the author of the quoted article doesn't bother to share their methodology or data, so who the hell really knows shrugs.
Par for the course in sociology, really :)
Writing software I think would certainly be considered "creative class". Even when it is just a lot of cut and pasting from Stack Overflow.
A hypothesis is that the impossibility of having open intelligent discussions without walking on eggshells in the past 30 years may be due to this dysgenia
Fairly startling stuff, in my opinion.
> Over several generations, there is no doubt that dysgenic selection lowered the quality of genes for intelligence and increased migration had an adverse effect.
> Looming over all is their message that the pool of those who reach the top level of cognitive performance is being decimated: fewer and fewer people attain the formal level at which they can think in terms of abstractions and develop their capacity for deductive logic and systematic planning.
So, as often as we hear the joke, is Idiocracy actually happening?
> Over several generations, there is no doubt that dysgenic selection lowered the quality of genes for intelligence and increased migration had an adverse effect.
> Looming over all is their message that the pool of those who reach the top level of cognitive performance is being decimated: fewer and fewer people attain the formal level at which they can think in terms of abstractions and develop their capacity for deductive logic and systematic planning.
So, as often as we hear the joke, is Idiocracy actually happening?
My mother-in-law recently retired as a public school teacher. She recently stated that it's her opinion that the quality of teaching has gone to the toilet over the decades. Her explanation is simple: smart women don't go into teaching anymore because they have vastly better options than having to chose between nursing vs teaching. Something to consider since labor can only be as good as the pool of candidates allows.
Perhaps as technology progresses, we'll see the equivalent of Neal Stephenson's Young Lady's Illustrated Primer from his book The Diamond Age. The primer is an AI-backed story interface, designed to teach and entertain a child whilst also becoming more complicated as the child ages.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/827.The_Diamond_Age
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/827.The_Diamond_Age
Idiocracy ignores what happens at the other end of the intelligence scale. Being 4 standard deviations above the norm may be detrimental, but being 4 standard deviations below the norm is a much larger hindrance.
On top of this the ratios change as the environment changes. Studies after WWII found a positive correlation between reproduction and intelligence though that seems to have swapped more recently.
On top of this the ratios change as the environment changes. Studies after WWII found a positive correlation between reproduction and intelligence though that seems to have swapped more recently.
Yes. Some sectors of society argue that this is on purpose. The Coddling of the American Mind talks about a sliver of this. You can find articles [0] that talk about infiltration of ideologies that destroy people's reasoning capabilities. You can find quotes from those in the US education's past [1], [2] that talk about their vision for students of the future. All that to say, there's a sector of the conservative right that sees something sinister and they've been shouting about it for a half century.
[0] https://www.worldviewweekend.com/worldviewpedia/transcript/j...
[1] https://steelonsteel.com/quotes-from-progressive-elites/
[2] https://nwvstore.com/product/weapons-of-mass-instruction/
---
Some quotes for the curious:
From [0]:
[0] https://www.worldviewweekend.com/worldviewpedia/transcript/j...
[1] https://steelonsteel.com/quotes-from-progressive-elites/
[2] https://nwvstore.com/product/weapons-of-mass-instruction/
---
Some quotes for the curious:
From [0]:
John Dewey, Karl Marx, Aldous Huxley, B. F. Skinner, and Benjamin Bloom were interested in a student’s academic achievement only if it would in some way benefit the State. Before a student's cognitive knowledge could be used to its full potential, however, the student's attitudes, values, feelings, and beliefs must conform to that of the State. In his book, My Pedagogic Creed, John Dewey explains:
"I believe the true center of correlation on the school subjects is not science, nor literature, nor history, nor geography, but the child's social activities. . . . I believe that the school is primarily a social institution. . . . The teacher's business is simply to determine, on the basis of the larger experience and riper wisdom, how the discipline of life shall come to the child. . . . All these questions of the grading of the child and his promotion should be determined by reference to the same standard. Examinations are of use only so far as they test the child's fitness for social life."
Education is thus a most powerful ally of humanism, and every American public school is a school of humanism. What can the theistic Sunday schools, meeting for an hour once a week, teaching only a fraction of the children, do to stem the tide of a five-day program of humanistic teaching?
-Charles.F. Potter: (1930)
In the New Order, Socialism will triumph by first capturing the culture via infiltration of schools, universities, churches and the media by transforming the consciousness of society…
-Antonio Gramsci (1915)
John Taylor Gatto’s Weapons of Mass Instruction focuses on mechanisms of familiar schooling which cripple imagination, discourage critical thinking, and create a false view of learning as a by-product of rote-memorization drills. Gatto’s earlier book, Dumbing Us Down, put the now-famous expression of the title in common use worldwide. Weapons of Mass Instruction promises to add another chilling metaphor to the brief against schooling.> there's a sector of the conservative right that sees something sinister and they've been shouting about it for a half century.
And I thought they were nuts the whole time. Until the left started to try to get rid of advanced math classes.
And I thought they were nuts the whole time. Until the left started to try to get rid of advanced math classes.
Why on earth would this have a global impact? US education policy only directly affects 3/8 of a percent of the world population (less really, since this assumes away the existence of private and charter schools) and it also varies by state.
Also, according to the abstract, the US actually sustained positive gains longer than other OECD nations, except South Korea.
Also, according to the abstract, the US actually sustained positive gains longer than other OECD nations, except South Korea.
> Why on earth would this have a global impact?
The United States has been (and will be for another two or three years) the cultural center of the world. We export to everyone. That includes our mode of thinking and the mode of thought we teach our children.
> Also, according to the abstract, the US actually sustained positive gains longer than other OECD nations, except South Korea.
The oldest data presented was from the mid 70s. We'd need data going back to the turn of the last century to get a good feel for how IQ has relative to education policy changes. The time-scale they claim is ~110 years since education policy in the US started changing.
The United States has been (and will be for another two or three years) the cultural center of the world. We export to everyone. That includes our mode of thinking and the mode of thought we teach our children.
> Also, according to the abstract, the US actually sustained positive gains longer than other OECD nations, except South Korea.
The oldest data presented was from the mid 70s. We'd need data going back to the turn of the last century to get a good feel for how IQ has relative to education policy changes. The time-scale they claim is ~110 years since education policy in the US started changing.
The U.S. exports norms in many sectors but not all. How many other nations are using the imperial system instead of metric? How many other nations are following our approaches to education, judging by how they're trouncing us in the PISA scores?
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/02/15/u-s-student...
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/02/15/u-s-student...
To understand the quality of our education system, you have to account for race. https://www.unz.com/isteve/the-new-2018-pisa-school-test-sco...
>US education policy only directly affects 3/8 of a percent of the world population
3/8? not 3/80?
3/8? not 3/80?
Because some people on HN will use any excuse to post right-wing propaganda.
I'm curious as to how quoting people is propaganda? In essence my goal was to say "this is what a sector of the population thinks, here's some quotes showing why they think that".
Surely there is merit in sharing conclusions and reasoning for those conclusions?
Surely there is merit in sharing conclusions and reasoning for those conclusions?
What puts these personages in the same sector other than some superficial correlation in views as illustrated by pithy quotes rather than actual policies advanced? To group Dewey, Marx, and Huxley is completely fatuous, as well as pairing humanism with socialism. And what is the conclusion based on these quotes? This is begging the question. As Voltaire said, "A witty saying proves nothing."
I've been pondering your reply since I saw it yesterday. I'm bothered a great deal by "bumper sticker politics", or the "reducto ad absurdum" that seems to have taken over most political conversations.
Aside from a master's thesis, I'm unsure as to how I ought to address the philosophical claims made by the above authors.
Aside from a master's thesis, I'm unsure as to how I ought to address the philosophical claims made by the above authors.
Then it sounds like there's no point to be made, you're just cherry-picking not only quotes, but cherry-picking random historical figures, in the hopes that the reader will concoct a point. This isn't even bumper sticker politics. This is Rorschach test politics.
This sounds like you are attempting to make me responsible for the conclusions of others. While the thesis sounds interesting, I'm not in a position (either time or interest) to try and expand on the thesis that many others have set forth. I'm not cherry-picking (it wasn't my intent, at the very least), only reporting on the conclusions reported by others.
But there are no conclusions mentioned here at all, only disparate quotes hinting there is some point. You clearly shared these links and quotes to make some point, thus it is on you to elucidate, or otherwise the sharing was for naught.
According to the article, the U.S. is one of the countries where IQ is NOT declining, but continues to increase. South Korea is another example.
Seems like an odd charge to level at Huxley, seeing as how Brave New World's whole dystopia describes a dumbed-down civilization helmed by a totalitarian state.
I'll ignore everyone else here, but the comment on Dewey from that quote is absurd and a total mischaracterization (no doubt to discredit him because of ideological bias). Ironically, Dewey was the champion and creator of child centered, project based, and competency oriented education. Nothing could be further from either destroying people's reasoning capabilities, or deliberately undermining a person's potential, creativity and intelligence in service of the State. Dewey's rolling over in his grave!
> is Idiocracy actually happening?
The way in which things are trending, an Idiocracy is unlikely because of an AGI singularity.
That even if we might all descend into idiots, we won't be running the world much before that happens.
To quote Douglas Adams - "There is another theory which states that this has already happened."
The way in which things are trending, an Idiocracy is unlikely because of an AGI singularity.
That even if we might all descend into idiots, we won't be running the world much before that happens.
To quote Douglas Adams - "There is another theory which states that this has already happened."
The way in which things are trending, an Idiocracy is unlikely because of an AGI singularity.
As discussed in this forum many times, there has been no obvious progress towards AGI.
As discussed in this forum many times, there has been no obvious progress towards AGI.
IMHO there are two distinct paths towards AGI. One is understanding intelligence - I believe that if we "just" knew how to make the "brain software" (and we're really far from that), our current compute power could support many human-or-higher-power AIs at a relatively cheap price. And the second is pure raw brute force, either through simulation-without-understanding of brains, or perhaps it will turn out that sufficient intelligence may be reachable simply through a sufficiently large critical mass of e.g. simulated cortical columns. We're also really far from that, however, one aspect is that the latter approach is progressing even if there's literally zero progress in understanding intelligence and AI; as long as we can sustain an exponential increase of FLOPS/$, we will eventually reach it.
I guess if you think about it like that then you really don't need to think about any problem in the future because the singularity will solve it for us. People also think the rapture is around the corner. I can't predict or discount either but I do notice a similarity.
> The way in which things are trending, an Idiocracy is unlikely because of an AGI singularity.
The way in which things are trending, an AGI singularity is unlikely because of the IQ decline over time.
The way in which things are trending, an AGI singularity is unlikely because of the IQ decline over time.
Someone told that Idiocracy was actually a documentary.
Administering IQ tests to adults is fraught with difficulties, especially when comparing across generations
For example, the WAIS-IV measures "working memory", in part, via orally administered arithmetic word problems. An imminently reasonable thing to associate with intelligence in the pre-pocket-calculator economy!
But today? Kids spend a lot less time drilling arithmetic now than N decades ago. Those drills are more often administered on computer screens than orally in front of a classroom. And almost no one does a non-trivial amount of mental arithmetic in their work life. So this is mostly a useless skill. And, because it's a useless skill, we devote a lot less time to mastery. Even once mastered, the skill atrophies because it's just not very useful.
Question: if scores on these oral arithmetic word problems only barely decline despite significantly less practice -- both in the classroom and in everyday life -- what should we conclude?
Stated differently: if someone with 10K hours of tetris grind drops 2% more blocks than a total newbie, who's likely to be more adept at other forms of spatial reasoning?
The more general critique is that "intelligence research" has ossified around Cargo Cult psychometrics. At one point, "orally administered arithmetic word problems" were a fantastic proxy for economically useful mental faculties. That is no longer true. As the set of useful capacities change, so too should psychometric evaluations. Both because treatment effects are going to make cross-generational comparisons worse than useless, and also because the thing being measured has become irrelevant.
The humble pocket calculator should have taken Sociology by storm half a century ago. But the field hasn't kept up, and the problem is about to get exponentially worse as generative AI tools and other types of advanced automation start to augment every aspect of mental labor.
What it means to be "good at solving hard problems and getting things done" when assisted by GPT-614830 might look entirely different from what it means to be "good at solving hard problems and getting things done" today.
For example, the WAIS-IV measures "working memory", in part, via orally administered arithmetic word problems. An imminently reasonable thing to associate with intelligence in the pre-pocket-calculator economy!
But today? Kids spend a lot less time drilling arithmetic now than N decades ago. Those drills are more often administered on computer screens than orally in front of a classroom. And almost no one does a non-trivial amount of mental arithmetic in their work life. So this is mostly a useless skill. And, because it's a useless skill, we devote a lot less time to mastery. Even once mastered, the skill atrophies because it's just not very useful.
Question: if scores on these oral arithmetic word problems only barely decline despite significantly less practice -- both in the classroom and in everyday life -- what should we conclude?
Stated differently: if someone with 10K hours of tetris grind drops 2% more blocks than a total newbie, who's likely to be more adept at other forms of spatial reasoning?
The more general critique is that "intelligence research" has ossified around Cargo Cult psychometrics. At one point, "orally administered arithmetic word problems" were a fantastic proxy for economically useful mental faculties. That is no longer true. As the set of useful capacities change, so too should psychometric evaluations. Both because treatment effects are going to make cross-generational comparisons worse than useless, and also because the thing being measured has become irrelevant.
The humble pocket calculator should have taken Sociology by storm half a century ago. But the field hasn't kept up, and the problem is about to get exponentially worse as generative AI tools and other types of advanced automation start to augment every aspect of mental labor.
What it means to be "good at solving hard problems and getting things done" when assisted by GPT-614830 might look entirely different from what it means to be "good at solving hard problems and getting things done" today.
Sounds like this is the only comment in this thread to actually examine the content of the tests that these measures rely upon.
Douglas Adams made jokes in his fiction about boiling complex systems down to a number. Stephen Jay Gould pointed out how unscientific the idea of IQ is - it's akin to astrological charts.
Boiling brains down to one number and ranking them, and saying it comes from genes, nutty. When scientists have no idea why a nematode with 302 neurons turns left or right. You can tell it's religious or political or whatever by how people defend it - no one gets that agitated by how many light years away some star is.
Boiling brains down to one number and ranking them, and saying it comes from genes, nutty. When scientists have no idea why a nematode with 302 neurons turns left or right. You can tell it's religious or political or whatever by how people defend it - no one gets that agitated by how many light years away some star is.
I won't say that IQ is a perfect measure of intelligence. But there is something there that people can spot. I don't know if you're familiar with American (public school) gifted programs, but they are typically done by referral- someone identifies a student that they consider "gifted" and the school does an IQ test. If their IQ is above some threshold the student is admitted into the program and they get a different curriculum. While the benefit of gifted programs is sometimes called into doubt, teachers have an incredible hit rate in terms of IQ scores. Teacher referrals have a success rate (the student IQ beats the threshold) far higher than the ~5% that you would expect if there was no link between classroom performance and IQ scores. Source: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ746049.pdf
There's more to intelligence than just classroom performance, but there is definitely something being measured by IQ tests and it's related to intelligence. Just because it's not perfect doesn't mean we need to discount it completely.
There's more to intelligence than just classroom performance, but there is definitely something being measured by IQ tests and it's related to intelligence. Just because it's not perfect doesn't mean we need to discount it completely.
The older I get, the more I think that social intelligence - the ability to know what other people are thinking, the ability to convince other people to your way of thinking - is as important, if not more important, than the analytical intelligence measured by IQ, because it's through social intelligence that things get done in this world. I am not aware of any test or measure which are widely used to judge how socially intelligent someone is.
This isn't quite what you're talking about, but a full-scale IQ test like the WAIS tests a lot more than just the "what is the next symbol in the sequence" kind of IQ test that is associated with Mensa and others.
It contains somewhat open-ended knowledge questions you'd likely have been exposed to in your culture, reaction time tests for finding particular symbols among many others, solving mechanical puzzles, definitions of words you will have encountered, mental arithmetic and others.
This isn't quite the same as measuring one's ability to communicate well, understand others' intentions or influence others. But it does test a much wider spectrum of cognitive skills than what many people believe about IQ.
It's also worth noting that success in the real world also depends on other traits than all the ones we've discussed. Some notable examples which probably aren't talked about so much, is the tendency to stubbornly work through a difficult problem (out of pleasure or innate drive), the capacity to routinely get a lot done or coming up with and thoroughly exploring new (particularly unconventional) ideas.
Beyond a certain point, I'm a bit skeptical that social skills in the absence of other intellectual strengths would generally lead to spectacular success. You won't lead a team to success if you don't know where you're going. Although I suppose you could to a certain degree deduce the right direction from the less eloquently communicated knowledge of others. But that does require the ability to distinguish good ideas from bad.
It contains somewhat open-ended knowledge questions you'd likely have been exposed to in your culture, reaction time tests for finding particular symbols among many others, solving mechanical puzzles, definitions of words you will have encountered, mental arithmetic and others.
This isn't quite the same as measuring one's ability to communicate well, understand others' intentions or influence others. But it does test a much wider spectrum of cognitive skills than what many people believe about IQ.
It's also worth noting that success in the real world also depends on other traits than all the ones we've discussed. Some notable examples which probably aren't talked about so much, is the tendency to stubbornly work through a difficult problem (out of pleasure or innate drive), the capacity to routinely get a lot done or coming up with and thoroughly exploring new (particularly unconventional) ideas.
Beyond a certain point, I'm a bit skeptical that social skills in the absence of other intellectual strengths would generally lead to spectacular success. You won't lead a team to success if you don't know where you're going. Although I suppose you could to a certain degree deduce the right direction from the less eloquently communicated knowledge of others. But that does require the ability to distinguish good ideas from bad.
Yes, social intelligence absent analytical intelligence does not lead well to lasting success, just as vice versa, analytical intelligence absent social intelligence does not lead well to lasting success. In the situation where someone has some social intelligence, and a great deal of analytical intelligence, they might be able to convince someone that their ideas have merit, and might be able to lead others, but there might be difficulties. In the opposite case, where someone has some analytical intelligence, but a great deal of social intelligence, when they recognize good ideas, or recognize that someone is highly competent, then even if they couldn't have come up with those ideas or don't have the competency, they can gather large forces to get the ideas implemented.
Important for what though? Life success? If so there's probably some truth to this, that someone with high social intelligence but low analytical intelligence has a good chance at a successful career, whereas the reverse can be a rocky road.
However, in order to make good decisions and complete good work at an individual level, analytical intelligence is extremely important. Without analytically intelligent people, modern technological society would be impossible.
Of course when someone combines high social and analytical intelligence, their success can be magnified, and they are positioned to lead complex organizations.
However, in order to make good decisions and complete good work at an individual level, analytical intelligence is extremely important. Without analytically intelligent people, modern technological society would be impossible.
Of course when someone combines high social and analytical intelligence, their success can be magnified, and they are positioned to lead complex organizations.
It would appear that many of the current societal problems aren't simply technical issues that can be solved by analytical intelligence, but rather social ones that appeal to the emotions- Keynes' animal spirits, perhaps- of the masses.
It's rather shortsighted to downplay either component at any level.
It's rather shortsighted to downplay either component at any level.
Something as soft as the IQ you described was invented by psuedoscientists to perpetuate race-based classism. If you're on top then your kids are going to be scoring higher on those IQ tests. But yeah, it's nature, or whatever.
> Boiling brains down to one number
IQ does measure something, though, and it tracks pretty consistently with that more ephemeral thing that people refer to as "intelligence": if you, personally, found a dozen people you considered "smart" and another dozen you considered "stupid", you'd almost definitely find that the smart ones had high IQs and the dumb ones had low IQs. You might argue about the fine-grained distinction between the smart ones, but you wouldn't find somebody who you considered smart who somehow still had a 50 IQ.
IQ does measure something, though, and it tracks pretty consistently with that more ephemeral thing that people refer to as "intelligence": if you, personally, found a dozen people you considered "smart" and another dozen you considered "stupid", you'd almost definitely find that the smart ones had high IQs and the dumb ones had low IQs. You might argue about the fine-grained distinction between the smart ones, but you wouldn't find somebody who you considered smart who somehow still had a 50 IQ.
Just because something can be measured does not imply that metric accurately depicts reality. Moreover, all metrics should be criticized as to what part of reality they are depicting and what part of reality they are obscuring. I've yet to be convinced that IQ is anywhere near an accurate depiction of reality.
I like the way you think. Language, similarly, is not an accurate depiction of reality.
But scores that correlate well are still just averages, and are not wise to apply to individuals as you do in your closing statement. IQ tests like progressive matrices are still very particular, specialized mental activities. Over a population of people, yes it tracks well, since general intelligence coefficient tells us all intelligences are correlated. On average a person with high IQ is smart at any other given activity. But for a particular individual, it's still perfectly normal to see large differences in testing one type of intelligence compared to another.
I give an IQ test to a tribal in the Amazon jungle and a PhD in Chemistry.
The PhD in Chemistry will have the superior IQ but ask both to survive in the jungle and the tribal wins hands down.
It’s a very facetious assumption that solving a few puzzle questions captures all the facets of a human beings creativity. This is like saying that the best leet coders are the best software engineers.
The PhD in Chemistry will have the superior IQ but ask both to survive in the jungle and the tribal wins hands down.
It’s a very facetious assumption that solving a few puzzle questions captures all the facets of a human beings creativity. This is like saying that the best leet coders are the best software engineers.
You're fighting a straw man here. Nobody claimed that IQ models all facets of human creativity.
If it captures such a small facet of what it means to be human then its a very poor metric to optimize for. We don’t even know what trade offs we are making.
The statement "You might argue about the fine-grained distinction between the smart ones, but you wouldn't find somebody who you considered smart who somehow still had a 50 IQ." seems to claim that IQ models human creativity- or rather, human intelligence ("smartness")- comprehensively.
I'm not fully convinced of this, and even if I were, it might just say as much about my biases as the test's.
That's true, but that's a bar for an extremely crude instrument.
IQ is an imperfect measure of intelligence. However, it's also the only (objective) measure we have.
Yet depending on the use case, a bad map may be worse than no map at all.
Stephen Jay Gould was actually fairly innumerate. It’s clear he didn’t understand even the rather simple math behind the PCA, which underpins IQ measurement. You might find this instructive:
https://infoproc.blogspot.com/2011/06/high-v-low-m.html?m=1
“ Boiling brains down to one number and ranking them, and saying it comes from genes, nutty.”
Yeah, except that the number correlates with many things we care about in the real world (educational attainment even at the highest levels, crime), even after controlling for many other things we care about in the real world (conscientiousness, SEC).
“ Boiling brains down to one number and ranking them, and saying it comes from genes, nutty.”
Yeah, except that the number correlates with many things we care about in the real world (educational attainment even at the highest levels, crime), even after controlling for many other things we care about in the real world (conscientiousness, SEC).
> Stephen Jay Gould was actually fairly innumerate. It’s clear he didn’t understand even the rather simple math behind the PCA, which underpins IQ measurement. You might find this instructive: https://infoproc.blogspot.com/2011/06/high-v-low-m.html?m=1
Not sure the blogpost supports Gould being innumerate or not understanding PCA.. also, an aside, I doubt the author Hsu would agree with your take here, considering his hero Feynman had an underwhelming IQ relative to his success.
BTW what do you mean by IQ measurement is underpinned by PCA (principal component analysis? or the requisite math?)?
Not sure the blogpost supports Gould being innumerate or not understanding PCA.. also, an aside, I doubt the author Hsu would agree with your take here, considering his hero Feynman had an underwhelming IQ relative to his success.
BTW what do you mean by IQ measurement is underpinned by PCA (principal component analysis? or the requisite math?)?
“ Not sure the blogpost supports Gould being innumerate or not understanding PCA.. also, an aside, I doubt the author Hsu would agree with your take here, considering his hero Feynman had an underwhelming IQ relative to his success.”
Actually, here’s Hsu on Gould again:
https://infoproc.blogspot.com/2011/06/high-v-low-m.html?m=1
The author does indeed tackle Feynman’s IQ here, and agrees with me (actually Hsu has informed a large part of my worldview):
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/finding-the-next-ein...
“ BTW what do you mean by IQ measurement is underpinned by PCA (principal component analysis? or the requisite math?)?”
Principal component analysis. More here, again from Hsu:
https://www.cog-genomics.org/static/pdf/ggoogle.pdf
Actually, here’s Hsu on Gould again:
https://infoproc.blogspot.com/2011/06/high-v-low-m.html?m=1
The author does indeed tackle Feynman’s IQ here, and agrees with me (actually Hsu has informed a large part of my worldview):
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/finding-the-next-ein...
“ BTW what do you mean by IQ measurement is underpinned by PCA (principal component analysis? or the requisite math?)?”
Principal component analysis. More here, again from Hsu:
https://www.cog-genomics.org/static/pdf/ggoogle.pdf
Well since you are would you like to enlighten us how good PCA is with latent variables?
It's possible for IQ to be a fairly noisy and imperfect measure of cognitive ability, but still a useful signal here to detect a meaningful trend.
Right, and furthermore I think we should welcome other metrics that measure people's abilities, not necessarily among the same axes than IQ tests.
IQ is certainly not a perfect metric, but for all the criticisms of it, I haven't seen any reason that psychometrics should not aim to improve.
Yet people don't seem to discuss IQ with the intent to improve the metric. Accepting and rejecting it are not the only two options, we could also discuss ways to do better.
IQ is certainly not a perfect metric, but for all the criticisms of it, I haven't seen any reason that psychometrics should not aim to improve.
Yet people don't seem to discuss IQ with the intent to improve the metric. Accepting and rejecting it are not the only two options, we could also discuss ways to do better.
Seems to me that people have become allergic to anything that seems elitist or undemocratic. The only acceptable opinion is that anyone with a minimum of privilege and hard work can do anything. I was just talking about this with my therapist, and she noted that people don't seem to have the same problem with admitting top athletes have a genetic advantage.
It has always vexed me how people recognize both the genetically athletically gifted and the intellectually 'disadvantaged'[0] but stumble over the concept of intellectually gifted individuals.
[0]E.g. those afflicted with autism spectrum disorders, or dyslexia for two trivial examples.
[0]E.g. those afflicted with autism spectrum disorders, or dyslexia for two trivial examples.
Is that necessarily true? I think it's common to speak highly of talented individuals as being blessed with "raw intelligence" and the like. The more unseemly thing is to characterize entire groups of individuals with that.
>Is that necessarily true? I think it's common to speak highly of talented individuals as being blessed with "raw intelligence" and the like.
In some circles, but in others there is a lot of push that 'it's hard work' or 'privilege' that makes some students test better. Along with lots of excuses like '<Student> doesn't test well' instead of 'maybe <student> just isn't that smart'. Recent pushes by groups in CA (and elsewhere) to remove advanced math tracks and remove SAT requirements for college are examples I'd consider emblematic. See also the amount of consternation and hand-wringing over IQ[0] as a metric in other sub-threads.
>The more unseemly thing is to characterize entire groups of individuals with that.
Most definitely agree: imo a lot of harm has been done to rational discourse by persons trying to justify and enforce their pet views of ethnic superiority.
[0]Hardly the be-all and end-all of intelligence, but people don't seem to have nearly the same hang-ups when discussing e.g. athlete's 40-yard dash times and the implications thereof for their performance in a higher dimensional environment like a football game.
In some circles, but in others there is a lot of push that 'it's hard work' or 'privilege' that makes some students test better. Along with lots of excuses like '<Student> doesn't test well' instead of 'maybe <student> just isn't that smart'. Recent pushes by groups in CA (and elsewhere) to remove advanced math tracks and remove SAT requirements for college are examples I'd consider emblematic. See also the amount of consternation and hand-wringing over IQ[0] as a metric in other sub-threads.
>The more unseemly thing is to characterize entire groups of individuals with that.
Most definitely agree: imo a lot of harm has been done to rational discourse by persons trying to justify and enforce their pet views of ethnic superiority.
[0]Hardly the be-all and end-all of intelligence, but people don't seem to have nearly the same hang-ups when discussing e.g. athlete's 40-yard dash times and the implications thereof for their performance in a higher dimensional environment like a football game.
There's ample conversation in the linked paper about how the many demands of society and changing culture influence IQ.
The reality is that its one of the few psychometrics with strong correlations to a number of long term outcomes like income, wellbeing, crime, fertility, etc., and which is responsive to changes in the environment and demographics of a nation.
That said there is a point to be made that IQ is clearly not 1:1 with everything we think of as 'intelligence'. Trivially, most significant accomplishments take place over months or years as opposed to the minutes or hours of an IQ test. However, using it as a useful tool isn't as reductive as dismissing it entirely simply because it isn't a completely perfect or comprehensive metric.
The reality is that its one of the few psychometrics with strong correlations to a number of long term outcomes like income, wellbeing, crime, fertility, etc., and which is responsive to changes in the environment and demographics of a nation.
That said there is a point to be made that IQ is clearly not 1:1 with everything we think of as 'intelligence'. Trivially, most significant accomplishments take place over months or years as opposed to the minutes or hours of an IQ test. However, using it as a useful tool isn't as reductive as dismissing it entirely simply because it isn't a completely perfect or comprehensive metric.
Imagine you evaluated the performance of all a human's muscles, and gave an overall 's' score to individuals based on the aggregate.
It would be a vast simplification, it would be combining slow and fast twitch muscle fibers, it would be combining heart and legs and torso muscles... you would want to be far more precise when dealing with an individual and evaluating how to benefit or correct their musculature.
But still, you could probably take any group of ten people and quickly arrange them in a line from lowest to highest 's' score. You would find a huge correlation between 's' and various professions.
Equating it with astrology is silly, a rhetorical flourish that nobody sensible could believe.
It would be a vast simplification, it would be combining slow and fast twitch muscle fibers, it would be combining heart and legs and torso muscles... you would want to be far more precise when dealing with an individual and evaluating how to benefit or correct their musculature.
But still, you could probably take any group of ten people and quickly arrange them in a line from lowest to highest 's' score. You would find a huge correlation between 's' and various professions.
Equating it with astrology is silly, a rhetorical flourish that nobody sensible could believe.
I don’t know if Jeff Hawkins would agree, but it seems to me that if his ideas involving cortical columns are true, intelligence is indeed capable of being compressed to a single number with statistical significance, due to underlying efficiency differences in the base components which are replicated across the whole neocortex.
That seems easily testable. Strength sports and fine motor skills have a huge neural component. You can look at people at the top of their fields in lifting in lower weight classes, gymnastics, MLB pitchers, anything that isn't being totally confounded by sheer muscle mass, and see if their success in any way correlates with IQ. Something that makes the entire brain more efficient should have a positive impact on both purely cognitive tasks as well as motor tasks with a large neural component.
A decent amount of work has already been done in this area. One common experimental apparatus is a "Jensen box" which is basically a whack-a-mole game, and it turns out that performance does correlate with common general psychometric measures of intelligence, even though it's really not the sort of task you'd think of as requiring intellect.
I wasn’t aware of this. Wouldn’t the Jensen Box imply a correlation between intelligence and simple reaction time, which seems to be a contentious point?
I’m also reminded of the lack of correlation between the Wonderlic Test and NFL performance, although perhaps that speaks more about the test than it does about any correlation with intelligence.
I’m also reminded of the lack of correlation between the Wonderlic Test and NFL performance, although perhaps that speaks more about the test than it does about any correlation with intelligence.
Not necessarily I think. As I understand, Hawkins envisions motor skills as involving a kind of “system call” to the old brain, and the fact that the cortical columns are more efficient does not seem to necessarily imply that old brain structures are similarly more efficient. So, I’m not sure there would have to be a clear correlation between professional sports and general intelligence.
Would you rather choose a pool of low IQ members or a pool with members above the mean if tasked with achieving some goal?
I would look for a concrete test of their ability to perform the goal.
If you’re given a choice of one group vs the other, which one would you choose?
It could be : build a house, a bridge, design a flying machine, a colony on Mars.
If IQ does not have any significance with respect to intelligence then you could choose either and be served just as well. On the other hand…
It could be : build a house, a bridge, design a flying machine, a colony on Mars.
If IQ does not have any significance with respect to intelligence then you could choose either and be served just as well. On the other hand…
I would reject the false dichotomy and look for signals I trust.
Is your claim that the groups are a tossup?
You may not like the dichotomy, that’s a fair objection, but I think claiming the groups are a tossup is a pretty big claim.
You may not like the dichotomy, that’s a fair objection, but I think claiming the groups are a tossup is a pretty big claim.
I think "intelligence" is a squishy, complex thing, and if I have a specific job to do, I'm going to look for more concrete, trustworthy signals than IQ to see who I want helping me do it.
People so desperately want a way to objectively rank themselves against each other that they'll believe IQ is a good way to measure intelligence because their ego needs it to be true.
I suspect the opposite - people who consistently score poorly want so desperately to believe that they're special that they insist that they have some innate, untestable brilliance.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilyn_vos_Savant#Rise_to_fam...
> Savant sees IQ tests as measurements of a variety of mental abilities and thinks intelligence entails so many factors that "attempts to measure it are useless".
> Savant sees IQ tests as measurements of a variety of mental abilities and thinks intelligence entails so many factors that "attempts to measure it are useless".
I have the non conventional idea that some of the biggest opponents of any form of innate talent are the already privileged.
Thus they can pay lip service to the idea of ending privilege all the while explaining why for now they should be our natural enlightened rulers
I've never taken a formal IQ test.
I've taken informal ones on the net and came out in the 135 - 140 range, IIRC.
I expect I'd do noticeably worse on a real test.
I share that as context for the fact that I'm skeptical of IQ as a useful measure of intelligence.
I don't think that skepticism is because I'm embarrassed by my lack of an official score or that my unofficial one is too low.
I've taken informal ones on the net and came out in the 135 - 140 range, IIRC.
I expect I'd do noticeably worse on a real test.
I share that as context for the fact that I'm skeptical of IQ as a useful measure of intelligence.
I don't think that skepticism is because I'm embarrassed by my lack of an official score or that my unofficial one is too low.
Yes. Funny how you never hear the "IQ is BS" argument when the news is about some pollutant that lowers IQ's.
The topic has moved on quite a bit since 2002 when Gould died. For instance: "Childhood intelligence is heritable, highly polygenic and associated with FNBP1L". Molecular Psychiatry (2013), 1–6. Lots more titles like that these days. It's not nature or nurture; it's a question of how much of each & the nature part is definitely significant.
At the time, Gould's comments about intelligence were widely discussed and accepted in the popular press (NYT, NY Review of Books, etc.,) but subject to a lot of criticism in the science journals which did not get much coverage.
At the time, Gould's comments about intelligence were widely discussed and accepted in the popular press (NYT, NY Review of Books, etc.,) but subject to a lot of criticism in the science journals which did not get much coverage.
You could say the same for BMI. e.g. most NFL running backs are considered "morbidly obese." But if the BMI of the population increases by 5 points, that's very significant. In the same way, I take population IQ measures a lot more seriously than individual.
What's your opinion, then? Is "intelligence" incapable of being measured? Or do we need a "suite" of numbers? (Or something else?)
Even a suite of numbers for human brains sounds more social scientific than scientific, but it makes more sense than one number.
Let's take visuo-spatial ability. Men do better in testing than women generally. So for arguments sake let's say they are correctly measuring a deficiency.
So now the question is, is this for cultural reasons or genetic reasons? Laszlo Polgar was a psychologist who raised his daughter to train on visuo-spatial thinking, mostly with chess. She became the youngest grandmaster ever, the youngest person to break into the FIDE 100. She became the 8th best chess player in the world. It's anecdotal, but if she is capable of this, presumably other women are genetically capable of this level of visuo-spatial thinking, so the tested deficiencies might point to culture over genetics.
As Gould said, it's not just IQ but the blanket if assumptions around it - it is genetic not cultural, it is not remedial etc. As I said, people don't get this worked up over light year measurements.
Let's take visuo-spatial ability. Men do better in testing than women generally. So for arguments sake let's say they are correctly measuring a deficiency.
So now the question is, is this for cultural reasons or genetic reasons? Laszlo Polgar was a psychologist who raised his daughter to train on visuo-spatial thinking, mostly with chess. She became the youngest grandmaster ever, the youngest person to break into the FIDE 100. She became the 8th best chess player in the world. It's anecdotal, but if she is capable of this, presumably other women are genetically capable of this level of visuo-spatial thinking, so the tested deficiencies might point to culture over genetics.
As Gould said, it's not just IQ but the blanket if assumptions around it - it is genetic not cultural, it is not remedial etc. As I said, people don't get this worked up over light year measurements.
I'm not an expert in any way. But my understanding is that they did/do test on a lot of different axes. But what they found was that people tend to have strong correlations between those scores. As in: if you are good at one, you are good at others. Not exactly as good, of course. But a strong correlation. So that's how they arrived at using a "single number".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Grs_jJ5U6w
Here's a monologue from someone with an IQ of 75. Do you expect the problems he describes in his life to be more or less common among people with his IQ than in the general population?
Here's a monologue from someone with an IQ of 75. Do you expect the problems he describes in his life to be more or less common among people with his IQ than in the general population?
Related,
Flynn effect and its reversal are both environmentally caused: https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/115/26/6674.full.pdf
Flynn effect and its reversal are both environmentally caused: https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/115/26/6674.full.pdf
Nature always wins
The interesting part for me was the suggestion that over time, the lower demands of school, family and workplaces can lead to lower IQ although the time frame seems pretty short to be genetically significant.
My own experience (in the UK) is that younger people perhaps seem less bothered about grammar, history, philosophy (the classics?) perhaps because they have learned that all information is on the internet and have subconciously assumed therefore that they do not need to learn the application of such knowledge. When I was young I remember my schoolmates lamenting that learning maths was pointless because "calculators", maybe that is coming home to roost now.
My own experience (in the UK) is that younger people perhaps seem less bothered about grammar, history, philosophy (the classics?) perhaps because they have learned that all information is on the internet and have subconciously assumed therefore that they do not need to learn the application of such knowledge. When I was young I remember my schoolmates lamenting that learning maths was pointless because "calculators", maybe that is coming home to roost now.
I'd love to see the distribution of IQs over time, instead of just the average.
For example, a distribution that becomes increasingly bimodal tells a very different story than a distribution shifting to the left.
For example, a distribution that becomes increasingly bimodal tells a very different story than a distribution shifting to the left.
We would need to normalize the number against changes in standard IQ tests. I have no idea how to do that, but we would need to account for test result drift due to changes in the tests.
This ignores the fact that while intelligence, however measured, has a large hereditable component, that inheritance is environmental, not genetic.
The Flynn effect, which showed widespread gains in IQ scores without any alteration in population genetics is the clearest indication that very significant variations in IQ can occur as a consequence of environmental effects.
The Flynn effect, which showed widespread gains in IQ scores without any alteration in population genetics is the clearest indication that very significant variations in IQ can occur as a consequence of environmental effects.
James Flynn of Flynn effect fame is one of the authors of the paper, which makes the weakness of the conclusions all the more surprising. We've got paper showing rises in scores in the US, falls in Scandinavia and a sharp rise and fall over the space of of dozen years in Estonian boys and we're worrying about the possibility of 'dysgenic mating' and loss of those capable of higher level deductive reasoning abilities and not just concluding that comparing different cohorts taking the test isn't telling us very much?
The most logical conclusion of the data presented in paper is that the test results is unstable between dissimilar environments to the extent we shouldn't really bother using it for comparisons between populations (as opposed to an extremely crude measure of relative abilities within a cohort, where it is generally better than other crude proxies for actual human capability), still less mourning real world losses of reasoning ability. Tbh I thought doubting the tests was the page Flynn was already on.
The most logical conclusion of the data presented in paper is that the test results is unstable between dissimilar environments to the extent we shouldn't really bother using it for comparisons between populations (as opposed to an extremely crude measure of relative abilities within a cohort, where it is generally better than other crude proxies for actual human capability), still less mourning real world losses of reasoning ability. Tbh I thought doubting the tests was the page Flynn was already on.
Agreed. Admittedly I only scanned the paper, however it did appear to attempt to compare a large number of disparate measures in different countries which makes teasing-out the valid comparisons quite a taxing task....
Nevertheless, from other reports in the past few years, it appears that the rises in IQ widely observed during the 20th century (the Flynn effect) have not continued into the 21st. This would possibly argue that improvements in childhood and general health were large contributors to the Flynn effect.
Nevertheless, from other reports in the past few years, it appears that the rises in IQ widely observed during the 20th century (the Flynn effect) have not continued into the 21st. This would possibly argue that improvements in childhood and general health were large contributors to the Flynn effect.
I agree. I think, just as Flynn effect was due to environment and not eugenics, loss of Flynn effect reported here is due to environment and not dysgenics.
On the other hand, if you take Flynn effect seriously, you also should take loss of Flynn effect seriously.
On the other hand, if you take Flynn effect seriously, you also should take loss of Flynn effect seriously.
Using IQ as a concept to enshrine intelligence is a terrible mistake IMHO because it encourages this toxic RPG-enshrined idea that intelligence is a number that goes up. That makes it only slightly better than it being just a bool. We don't even begin to know how to measure intelligence or what is in or out of scope when we use the term "intelligence". So to use such a study as a short hand to suggest a country is getting "stupider" or "smarter" just feels like shamanic rune throwing.
We could suggest that IQ is a measure of intelligence but I would argue that IQ only matters if you're applying to university which also gives it this correlative value of "wealthy" and "parents that care" if you're cherry picking economic outcomes which makes it hard to pick apart as a vacuumed characteristic. It also is a very narrow measure given that the breadth of human endeavour requires a lot more types of intelligence than just shit-hot pattern matching.
We could suggest that IQ is a measure of intelligence but I would argue that IQ only matters if you're applying to university which also gives it this correlative value of "wealthy" and "parents that care" if you're cherry picking economic outcomes which makes it hard to pick apart as a vacuumed characteristic. It also is a very narrow measure given that the breadth of human endeavour requires a lot more types of intelligence than just shit-hot pattern matching.
All IQ research should be taken with a grain of salt: https://medium.com/incerto/iq-is-largely-a-pseudoscientific-...
The article tries to discredit IQ hard without saying things that are outright false, but for that reason had to admit IQ's reliability and validity.
> Correlation is 80% between test and retest, meaning you being you explains less than 64% of your test results.
As if that's bad? 80% is a very good reliability.
> If you renamed IQ, from "Intelligent Quotient" to FQ "Functionary Quotient" or SQ "Salaryperson Quotient", then some of the stuff will be true. It measures best the ability to be a good slave confined to linear tasks. "IQ" is good for @davidgraeber's "BS jobs".
I get it, you have negative valence towards IQ. Still, even if IQ measures "the ability to be a good slave" (it doesn't, but let's assume it does), that's an outcome we care about, proving IQ's validity. It dismisses IQ's correlation with academic success as "just another test", but no, it doesn't work that way. IQ also correlates with research success and research is not test.
> Correlation is 80% between test and retest, meaning you being you explains less than 64% of your test results.
As if that's bad? 80% is a very good reliability.
> If you renamed IQ, from "Intelligent Quotient" to FQ "Functionary Quotient" or SQ "Salaryperson Quotient", then some of the stuff will be true. It measures best the ability to be a good slave confined to linear tasks. "IQ" is good for @davidgraeber's "BS jobs".
I get it, you have negative valence towards IQ. Still, even if IQ measures "the ability to be a good slave" (it doesn't, but let's assume it does), that's an outcome we care about, proving IQ's validity. It dismisses IQ's correlation with academic success as "just another test", but no, it doesn't work that way. IQ also correlates with research success and research is not test.
> IQ also correlates with research success and research is not test.
We should define research success and test. Research is definitely a fitness function that is intertwined with lots of dependent and independent variables no?
Most of the Taleb argument is that you can't compress a high dimensional space down to one dimension is it not?
We should define research success and test. Research is definitely a fitness function that is intertwined with lots of dependent and independent variables no?
Most of the Taleb argument is that you can't compress a high dimensional space down to one dimension is it not?
Yes, but dimensionality reduction is a thing. IQ is just PCA. Intelligence is multidimensional, but it happens to have one large principal component. It could have been otherwise, but it is just not so, here on Earth with Homo sapiens.
Dimensionality reduction isn't reversible function. Video and one channel of audio is at least 10 dimensions, arguably IQ is more, you are going to project that to a single scalar?
The sample size, the experimental design and control are all out of whack in these papers, I was trying to PCA Taleb's argument.
I don't think you are measuring what you think you are measuring.
The sample size, the experimental design and control are all out of whack in these papers, I was trying to PCA Taleb's argument.
I don't think you are measuring what you think you are measuring.
There was a now deleted insightful comment, by another author which I will paste below and then reply to.
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No. That would be a pat objection. He is saying the value of IQ as a measure of intelligence-explained performance for anything that isn’t isomorphic to an IQ test is low. The reason IQ looks like a good measure or produces any correlation with anything outside of itself is because it is predictive on the low-side of the distribution. When you include the low-side data you get correlations on the high-side because of the correlation on the low-side. However, its predictive power on the high-side is mostly noise (a stick in the mud gets its support from the mud, not the wind). He demonstrates this by clipping the low-side data and comparing to salary (which he argues is a ‘real-world’ set not isomorphic to an IQ test).
In other words, a low IQ (very low) suggests lack of intelligence but, above some fuzzy point, a higher IQ does not suggest more intelligence (and could even be anti-correlated).
He is not saying some people aren’t smarter than other people or that dimension reduction is always bogus. He is saying that IQ is a bogus way to measure intelligence because intelligence is supposed to explain performance and when the clip the low tail it simply does not.
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reply inline since I am out of post karma.
Thanks for that explanation.
Let me paraphrase from down here, to put it bluntly, the supposedly predictive value of this continuous variable (IQ) should really be replaced with a high, medium and low or a binary value. That the predictive power of IQ is much more coarse grained, and it doesn't do what it is commonly used for.
Slight defense, I wasn't trying to say dimensionality reduction was bogus either, nor was I advocating for pat objection. I was trying to reduce the argument down to something manageable so it could be pulled back into a discussion.
I do think we should always focus on the predictive power of any theory, value or mathematics. It is easy for one to intentionally or unintentionally go off into the weeds. How quickly does the measure become the goal? :)
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No. That would be a pat objection. He is saying the value of IQ as a measure of intelligence-explained performance for anything that isn’t isomorphic to an IQ test is low. The reason IQ looks like a good measure or produces any correlation with anything outside of itself is because it is predictive on the low-side of the distribution. When you include the low-side data you get correlations on the high-side because of the correlation on the low-side. However, its predictive power on the high-side is mostly noise (a stick in the mud gets its support from the mud, not the wind). He demonstrates this by clipping the low-side data and comparing to salary (which he argues is a ‘real-world’ set not isomorphic to an IQ test).
In other words, a low IQ (very low) suggests lack of intelligence but, above some fuzzy point, a higher IQ does not suggest more intelligence (and could even be anti-correlated).
He is not saying some people aren’t smarter than other people or that dimension reduction is always bogus. He is saying that IQ is a bogus way to measure intelligence because intelligence is supposed to explain performance and when the clip the low tail it simply does not.
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reply inline since I am out of post karma.
Thanks for that explanation.
Let me paraphrase from down here, to put it bluntly, the supposedly predictive value of this continuous variable (IQ) should really be replaced with a high, medium and low or a binary value. That the predictive power of IQ is much more coarse grained, and it doesn't do what it is commonly used for.
Slight defense, I wasn't trying to say dimensionality reduction was bogus either, nor was I advocating for pat objection. I was trying to reduce the argument down to something manageable so it could be pulled back into a discussion.
I do think we should always focus on the predictive power of any theory, value or mathematics. It is easy for one to intentionally or unintentionally go off into the weeds. How quickly does the measure become the goal? :)
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Even if you agree with Taleb's arguments in that article, he still admits that low IQ is correlated with low wealth, low income and other such social measures of low success. So the hypothesis that IQ may be declining should still be concerning, since more and more people will be in that low IQ range predictive of low success.
I don't see the relevancy. Hassim Talim (author of black swan, statistician, finance) argues all of psychology is unscientific.
In your link he even states IQ is a weak measure for some tasks. That the trend is reversing - people are now getting worse at "test taking" - is notable and interesting.
Whether IQ should be used as a proxy for expected real world success doesn't seem relevant to this study.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nassim_Nicholas_Taleb
In your link he even states IQ is a weak measure for some tasks. That the trend is reversing - people are now getting worse at "test taking" - is notable and interesting.
Whether IQ should be used as a proxy for expected real world success doesn't seem relevant to this study.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nassim_Nicholas_Taleb
The analysis of all the sources of data and the test methodologies is kinda what the paper is about. Thanks for staying skeptical!
Damn I like Taleb, don't always agree with his results or means.
> Note the online magazine Quillette seems to be a cover for a sinister eugenics program (with tendencies I’ve called “neo-Nazi” under the cover of “free thought”.)
I'd love to see Taleb and Zizek spar, or riff, either one.
> Note the online magazine Quillette seems to be a cover for a sinister eugenics program (with tendencies I’ve called “neo-Nazi” under the cover of “free thought”.)
I'd love to see Taleb and Zizek spar, or riff, either one.
Taleb is just coping for his audience in this post, it is sad that he lowers himself to such status games. OTOH, winning at status games is lindy so.
I think it's worth asking if intelligence tests are even keeping up with a fast changing social environment. For example, young people are extremely adept at communicating with memes or a few seconds of video. Are these new skills even measured?
Not necessarily related but I would like to bring up this and hope it's something to consider:
Do what you're told, go home, come back next day. Repeat.
That is not 100% correct but good enough to summarize modern life.
Why learning abstract stuff in school if your career is stuck in call center jobs or you're the warehouse guy?
You don't really need math at home. There is few demand for intelligent problem solvers. There is a very high demand for "just do what you're told".
I see that everyday in my corporate setup. It is sad but I see it.
Do what you're told, go home, come back next day. Repeat.
That is not 100% correct but good enough to summarize modern life.
Why learning abstract stuff in school if your career is stuck in call center jobs or you're the warehouse guy?
You don't really need math at home. There is few demand for intelligent problem solvers. There is a very high demand for "just do what you're told".
I see that everyday in my corporate setup. It is sad but I see it.
The main purpose of school is just that: to train people into obedience and routine. The particular subjects are incidental really.
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IQ is supposed to be a measure of inherent intelligence. This study has studies going a mere 40 years back, an utterly insignificant evolutionary time. What they are measuring seems to be mostly changes in pseudoscience IQ tests.
Have you even looked at the number of kids had by people with college degrees and people who dropped out of high school?
That sounds like a decision that is shaped by an immense number of socioeconomic and cultural factors rather than inherent intelligence.
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There was a theory floating about on Twitter about apparent European noble practices regarding child birth.
Basically, nobles that failed out of society for whatever reason (drunkards, second borns, etc.) would intermix with the lower classes. This would propagate out "superior" genes that may have aided increases in intelligence over time.
This is quite controversial but it is thought provoking.
Basically, nobles that failed out of society for whatever reason (drunkards, second borns, etc.) would intermix with the lower classes. This would propagate out "superior" genes that may have aided increases in intelligence over time.
This is quite controversial but it is thought provoking.
Why in the world would nobles have superior genes in the first place? Since being noble is merely hereditary by "blood," there's no genetic pressure that would select for intelligence. If anything due to intermarriage they'd be more likely to have birth defects leading to low intelligence, I would imagine.
Quick speculation: It could simply come down to being better fed over time. There is evidence of negative multi-generational effects on descendants from malnourishment suffered by progenitors. If nobles had better access to food (which makes sense, given power differences), that could propagate down the generations (and promote increased reproduction) not due to a stronger gene pool, but rather through improved gene expression and general health.
Yes, if they selected for anything at all it would be for a willingness to carry around a long sharp knife and push it into people who don't do what the knife-wielder says.
Or, to be fair, the ability to get other people with pointy sticks to do it for you. That's also an important skill for nobles.
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The implication I think is a missing a point. Before the advent of mechanization people were subject to the whims of nature.
When nature ravaged them, they were forced to seek developed resources elsewhere and this’d who had those resources normally would not want to share them with others as all resources were meager and most people lived on the edge of existence where one bad summer meant winter was bare and people starved or died by disease taking advantage of weakened systems.
Thus people had to fight of they’d die themselves. So it wasnt always, let’s make war so we can subjugate more; though that did happen too Vikings. Huns and Ottomans among others.
Of course there were petty rivalries that also just produced unproductive wars.
When nature ravaged them, they were forced to seek developed resources elsewhere and this’d who had those resources normally would not want to share them with others as all resources were meager and most people lived on the edge of existence where one bad summer meant winter was bare and people starved or died by disease taking advantage of weakened systems.
Thus people had to fight of they’d die themselves. So it wasnt always, let’s make war so we can subjugate more; though that did happen too Vikings. Huns and Ottomans among others.
Of course there were petty rivalries that also just produced unproductive wars.
Let's assume the opposite - that success is not correlated with fitness (intelligence amongst other things). Is that a rational position to take?
That's not the opposite; success can be correlated with fitness (i.e., success) in disparate social strata without necessitating the correctness of the strata themselves. The strata themselves can be the product of pressures unrelated to individual fitness, like our individual propensity for selfishness.
We're talking royals here, not some entrepreneur. Unless of course what you're suggesting is that royal families gain and maintain power due to intelligence.
Perhaps not, but the most successful individuals are generally not the most talented. Rather, they tend to be the luckiest. See, e.g. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/the-rol...
That was certainly the position of the eugenicist monsters of the 20th century, who saw themselves as supremely rational, yet they believed that only by sterilization could they prevent the "marching morons" of the lower classes from overwhelming the elite with their sheer fecundity.
On a less controversial note, I'm thinking of lions, believed by some to be the smartest of all cats [0], yet in terms of population and habitat spread much less successful than the lowly housecat.
[0] https://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/super-cats-a-nature-miniseri...
On a less controversial note, I'm thinking of lions, believed by some to be the smartest of all cats [0], yet in terms of population and habitat spread much less successful than the lowly housecat.
[0] https://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/super-cats-a-nature-miniseri...
Depending how you define success, absolutely.
The worst thing about pseudo-Darwinism is the fact that so few people really understand that "success" just means reproductive success. It has absolutely no moral or ethical dimension, and is partly circular.
Averagely intelligent sociopaths who are charming and pathologically unfaithful can generate a large number of kids. So - in historical times - could travelling bandits who were also rapists. That's what Darwinian success looks like.
Meanwhile someone with a PhD who dies childless is a Darwinian failure.
The problem is the usual one - evolution is stupid and selects for shallow local minima.
So the "Darwinian success" continues - until the species as a whole fails.
The worst thing about pseudo-Darwinism is the fact that so few people really understand that "success" just means reproductive success. It has absolutely no moral or ethical dimension, and is partly circular.
Averagely intelligent sociopaths who are charming and pathologically unfaithful can generate a large number of kids. So - in historical times - could travelling bandits who were also rapists. That's what Darwinian success looks like.
Meanwhile someone with a PhD who dies childless is a Darwinian failure.
The problem is the usual one - evolution is stupid and selects for shallow local minima.
So the "Darwinian success" continues - until the species as a whole fails.
Either claim would be wrong if it assumed perfect correlation or lack thereof. Correlations are floats not booleans. There is going to be some correlation, but there are lots and lots of factors like luck, network effects, heritable wealth, etc.
Right, and it would seem to be silly to argue that all else being equal, someone more intelligent isn't more likely to be successful than someone less intelligent. It's more that in the real world, all else rarely is equal.
Yes. Being second-born is not a heritable trait.
Nobles were far more likely to be healthy with better diets and less disease which would certainly be correlated with better offspring outcomes. We can discard better genetics (have fun proving that lol) entirely and still be somewhat on board with this theory.
To become a noble you would generally have to have done something of great note. I'd think someone of higher intelligence would have a higher likelihood to do that.
> To become a noble you would generally have to have done something of great note
This might be arguably true for the 1st generation, the one who becomes a noble. Maybe this noble marries another 1st or 2nd generation noble and they have children who are also pretty great. But regression to the mean indicates that, at best, future generations will inevitably be average, and half will be below average. Especially, and this cannot be over emphasized, when they interbreed.
Add into the mix that nobility is conferred via political maneuvering, and it's not guaranteed that even the 1st generation was all that notable
This might be arguably true for the 1st generation, the one who becomes a noble. Maybe this noble marries another 1st or 2nd generation noble and they have children who are also pretty great. But regression to the mean indicates that, at best, future generations will inevitably be average, and half will be below average. Especially, and this cannot be over emphasized, when they interbreed.
Add into the mix that nobility is conferred via political maneuvering, and it's not guaranteed that even the 1st generation was all that notable
Just to note that regression to the mean doesn't apply here. Nobles back in the day most of the time married only other nobles. A kid of 2 extremes is not a new sample of the same random variable the 1st gen noble was taken from. If that were the case evolution would never work, your more fit specimens would regress to the mean. Which is obviously not the case.
Plus I would also argue that successful political maneuvering is a sign of superior fitness.
Plus I would also argue that successful political maneuvering is a sign of superior fitness.
> "Just to note that regression to the mean doesn't apply here"
Ok? You didn't really explain why. Surely by extreme you don't mean "being noble". You're asserting that 2 nobles will have a child who is "extremely noble"?
Do you also believe that 2 rich people will have a child who is, genetically, "extremely rich"? That over generations, these descendents will just be inherently richer and richer?
Ok? You didn't really explain why. Surely by extreme you don't mean "being noble". You're asserting that 2 nobles will have a child who is "extremely noble"?
Do you also believe that 2 rich people will have a child who is, genetically, "extremely rich"? That over generations, these descendents will just be inherently richer and richer?
Is there any backing to this? As I recall feudal societies in both Europe and Japan had the origin of "nobility" in land ownership/control. If you could successfully hold a piece of land as your own you were a noble.
You can imagine this as a form of de facto rule.
You can imagine this as a form of de facto rule.
Holding into a piece of land is not a given. The fact that one could hold into that could mean that individual was smarter than the individuals that did not.
It's pretty easy to hold onto a piece of land if you're the only one who is well-fed, literate, and capable of hiring and feeding personal guards.
Isn't that the point? A person with superior genes is more likely to have those qualities.
Your ancestors were probably above average in either intelligence or physical ability. That doesn't mean you are after a century or two of noble inbreeding.
The point is that inbreeding while having some bad outcomes can also have the good outcome of the nobility having higher intelligence. You can't just argue when someone says: "this is A", with: "No this is B". At least put some substance behind it.
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The only thing of great note most nobles did to become noble is to emerge from the right vagina.
> If anything due to intermarriage they'd be more likely to have birth defects leading to low intelligence, I would imagine.
It's widely speculated that the demise of the Hapsburg empire was due to centuries of inbreeding eventually producing rather... simple monarchs.
It's widely speculated that the demise of the Hapsburg empire was due to centuries of inbreeding eventually producing rather... simple monarchs.
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If you cast out the "inferior," you don't have to start out superior to end up so.
Why would you assume nobles have superior genes, especially the ones who "flunked out." If anything the inbreeding practices of the nobility were dysgenic. Unprecedented levels of outbreeding has been suggested as a possible source of IQ increase over the past 100-200 years.
You can argue that today's somewhat-meritocracy is going to sort people by social class in a way that roughly overlaps with IQ if you zoom out very far. I don't see why this would be true at all in an autocratic caste system society.
This sounds like a made up just-so theory that belongs on a neoreactionary Reddit group.
You can argue that today's somewhat-meritocracy is going to sort people by social class in a way that roughly overlaps with IQ if you zoom out very far. I don't see why this would be true at all in an autocratic caste system society.
This sounds like a made up just-so theory that belongs on a neoreactionary Reddit group.
You might be conflating nobility with Gregory Clark's thesis in "A Farewell to Alms". There never would have been enough nobles for their failsons to have any kind of measurable genetic impact on the wider society; plus nobles were never really selected for intelligence in the first place - they were the descendants of successful warlords.
If you believe in general intelligence, successful warlords are more likely to be intelligent.
Are successful warlords likely comparable in intelligence to landless peasants?
Are VCs likely comparable in intelligence to competent engineers?
> There never would have been enough nobles for their failsons to have any kind of measurable genetic impact on the wider society;
I'm not sure if this is true - I seem to recall studies that can clearly see a genetic impact of just a single particular noble (Gengis Khan), so it seems plausible that the genetic impact of nobles would be oversized as high-status males can have many children from the society in which they have violent power, and their children (even if bastards) have less issues with childhood malnutrition and early death.
I'm not sure if this is true - I seem to recall studies that can clearly see a genetic impact of just a single particular noble (Gengis Khan), so it seems plausible that the genetic impact of nobles would be oversized as high-status males can have many children from the society in which they have violent power, and their children (even if bastards) have less issues with childhood malnutrition and early death.
The proposed hypothesis though is that unsuccessful nobles spread their "favorable genes" by descending into the lower classes. To fall that far you'd have to be deeply in debt and not particularly high status.
There are a number of literally insane monarchs who didn't "fail out of society." In general, nobility tended to select not for intelligence or strength but political connections.
I think many people are confused about this post. There is no need to believe that nobles were initially "superior", and that their initial superiority was the reason they became nobles in the first place. The increase in "gene quality" at the top, and its diffusion to the bottom, can be understood as the simple result of Malthusian constraints, and high survival rates for nobles (as compared to the harsh conditions of the lower classes).
Imagine you start a society where nobles have the same "gene quality" as everyone else. Some nobles are pretty smart, others not so much. As nobles would have more children surviving into adulthood (due to better nutrition and living standards) compared to the amount of land/titles they could distribute, some of the children of the nobility would be cast aside. The assumption, and I agree it's an assumption (although a rational one in my opinion), is that the smarter children would tend to inherit, and the less capable children would be dispossessed.
Over time, this constant churn would lead to a concentration of "good genes" among the aristocracy, which would trickle down into the lower classes when every generation some of the nobility lost their position.
I believe that this "trickling down" phenomenon has been proven to have occurred in England during the second millennia by Gregory Clark using census data, although I'll admit I've only heard of his work, not read it.
Imagine you start a society where nobles have the same "gene quality" as everyone else. Some nobles are pretty smart, others not so much. As nobles would have more children surviving into adulthood (due to better nutrition and living standards) compared to the amount of land/titles they could distribute, some of the children of the nobility would be cast aside. The assumption, and I agree it's an assumption (although a rational one in my opinion), is that the smarter children would tend to inherit, and the less capable children would be dispossessed.
Over time, this constant churn would lead to a concentration of "good genes" among the aristocracy, which would trickle down into the lower classes when every generation some of the nobility lost their position.
I believe that this "trickling down" phenomenon has been proven to have occurred in England during the second millennia by Gregory Clark using census data, although I'll admit I've only heard of his work, not read it.
Ignoring the other blatant problems with this interpretation (e.g. that social class was highly correlated with fitness) I suspect that the nobility were intermixing their genes quit successfully via coercion & violence.
I am not a geneticist or a historian or even more than barely literate
I am not a geneticist or a historian or even more than barely literate
IANAGOAHOEMTBL
Be wary of any talk of “superior” genes. We have no way to judge one set of genes relative to another even if we did understand genetics a lot better than we do. A genetic trait’s advantage can change depending on environmental factors, so any attempt to do so is effectively retreading debunked eugenic theory (a favorite pastime among some reactionary groups, particularly on social media).
This can be true of things like personality traits and beliefs too - useful in one situation but not another. Society still punishes people who don't conform or rewards those who do. I think society will accept, or even push for, some level of genetic discrimination. I believe there was a recent article on HN about fetal genetic defect testing being used to make abortion decisions. The question is where should the line be, as it seems to already exist.
It's not so much 'superior genes' as an absence of deleterious mutations. The brain requires the cooperation of the greatest number of genes (compared with other organs) in order in the develop in embryo.
Since the industrial revolution infant death has thankfully dropped but it seems likely this improvement has had the side-effect of increasing the number of deleterious mutations and therefore also of decreasing the average IQ in Western populations.
Since the industrial revolution infant death has thankfully dropped but it seems likely this improvement has had the side-effect of increasing the number of deleterious mutations and therefore also of decreasing the average IQ in Western populations.
natded(2)
That is plot of Starwars.
Highly doubtful considering their recessive traits. Evidently intelligence doesnt correlate with social dominance , its the same today or in roman times
I don't know if you're read a little bit about European aristocracy, but one can easily say they were pretty dumb.
I don't know about this article. I read a sentence that suggested that immigration might be linked to dysgenic effects on IQ. I refuse therefore to give attention to this document for the simple reason that it might be used by racist people to justify bad things... I am an immigrant. I refuse to consider views that might, even indirectly, question my presence on this country.
Regardless of whether they're true or not? That doesn't factor in?
Anecdotally, my wife is applying for surgical medical residencies, a field which generally attracts intelligent, ambitious individuals. The whole system seems downright hostile to having children. It obviously wasn't designed with women in mind, and the entire system has been intentionally ossified to prevent it from responding to the desires of residents, for the benefit of attending physicians. I imagine there are a large number of similar industries. This has definitely impacted our plans for children, and it wouldn't be an issue if she were considering a less competitive specialty. In fact, it seems that the very selectivity which ensures that the program is filled with intelligent people is used as justification for intense hours and lack of maternal support.
In my opinion this is the sort of externality that would benefit from government intervention in some way. However, I don't think financial support would be very good at targeting such cases. I think the reason that tech companies have done a better job of providing child care support is that the field doesn't have the same sorts of institutional barriers to responding to employee demands that medicine does - specifically demand by employees in their prime child-rearing ages.