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You aren’t wrong, and yet you get downvoted.

SAT tests are rooted in eugenics theory. IQ testing, despite the original developer warning of incorrect application, was weaponized in that direction.

Yet here you find yourself getting voted down.

https://via.library.depaul.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=h...

https://owlcation.com/social-sciences/Intelligence-Testing-a...

https://www.apa.org/monitor/2009/01/assessment



So, hypothetically, if objective measures of intelligence show correlations with ethnicity, we should just ignore them because they're inconvenient? Isn't that a little irrational? How can you make any use of intelligence measures if you cherry pick according to your preconcieved notions of what you want them to show? What then is the point in practicing any sort of psychology or sociology at all, if your conclusions are so unscientific?


We don't even know if ethnicity and IQ are the common factors here. I have a hunch is it's far more weighted on culture than genetics but I don't have any evidence to back that up.


Tend to agree and here's some telling evidence. https://youtu.be/SzHd5bmEdU4


The danger many people see is that some might start to value human life by intelligence. Ironically, that would be pretty dumb.

But still a danger and probably the core of the antipathy towards a closer look at data about intelligence.


Well because it confuses causation and correlation in addition to being a fertile ground for confirmation bias. Not to mention the rich history of "last time".

Even if group X is lower it telks you nothing about Y and allows the jump to justification for travesties like eugenics if it is "clearly their genes", wiping out culture and engaging in mass child theft "if it is their culture" and whatever other sick and twisted rationalizations occur.

Except oops - it was comparing subsistence farmers in a disease ridden area to vaccinated and well fed and educated upper middle class! Or the tests are based upon preconceived notions themselves and they did worse because the "neutral" puzzles assumed left to right as associated with temporal flow.


>Well because it confuses causation and correlation in addition to being a fertile ground for confirmation bias

How do you already know this a priori? We know intelligence is strongly heritable, there's no reason to prematurely conclude that there are no variations among ethnicity tied to genes.

>Even if group X is lower it telks you nothing about Y and allows the jump to justification for travesties like eugenics

Nonsense. Slippery slope fallacy. Acknowledging that people have different levels of intelligence does not imply that we should deny them rights to life. But it would, for example, potentially explain certain discrepancies in socioeconomic outcome, which is critical when considering efficient allocation of resources to combat inequities.

>Except oops - it was comparing subsistence farmers in a disease ridden area to vaccinated and well fed and educated upper middle class

You seem to imply that all IQ studies are and will be poorly constructed. This does not have to be the case.

There is an unfounded presumptive bias in society currently that all people are born with identical potential IQ and that all discrepancies arise from socioeconomics. Moreover, we've been strongly conditioned not to question this assumption, lest we be shamed with accusations of racism. But this is a fundamentally unproven assumption and denying evidence to the contrary will likely lead to worse outcomes for society.


They get called racist because they /are/ racist. They don't spend their time looking at genes and interactions but the cosmetics and tautological assumptions that potential = outcome. I have never seen them find intelligence in a place that didn't align with their prejudices.

Look at the complete lack of a shitstorm over actual science - MAO-A should be by all rights far more controversial given the areas delved in. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monoamine_oxidase_A

That should help bury and put to rest the persecution complex.


Read the research. Read the links. Study sociology. When you invent a metric and model, you imbue it with bias.

“Objective” is something that has been up for debate since the dawn of epistemology. It hasn’t been solved yet. It’s also worth understanding the Demarcation Problem.


Lots of things are “rooted” in dark places. Rocket technology developed in wartime Germany. Some pesticides came out of gas chambers. Agent orange is a herbicide now. Should we throw out everything developed by someone who holds a bad idea by today’s standards?


I have yet to be convinced that comparisons of IQ between cohorts have as much practical utility as rockets or pesticides (on the contrary, the sole utility of intergenerational comparisons of IQ tests seems to be in highlighting the limitations of IQ as an objective measure of intellectual capacity...)




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