ialdabaoth comments on Rationality Quotes August 2013 - Less Wrong

7 Post author: Vaniver 02 August 2013 08:59PM

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Comment author: wedrifid 04 August 2013 06:54:40PM 7 points [-]

I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.

A proactive interest in the latter would seem to lead to extensive instrumental interest in the former. Finding things (such as convolutions in brains or genes) that are indicative of potentially valuable talent is the kind of thing that helps make efficient use of it.

Comment author: ialdabaoth 04 August 2013 08:07:01PM 15 points [-]

There are surprisingly few MRI machines or DNA sequencers in cotton fields and sweatshops. Paraphrasing the original quote from Stephen Jay Gould: The problem is not how good we are at detecting talent; it's where we even bother to look for it.

Comment author: ChristianKl 06 August 2013 08:46:53PM 6 points [-]

You need neither MRI machines nor DNA sequencers to detect intelligence. IQ test perform much better at detecting intelligence.

Comment author: gwern 06 August 2013 10:20:22PM *  10 points [-]

Yes; at this point with only 3 SNPs linked to intelligence, it's a joke to say that 'poor people aren't being sequenced and this is why we aren't detecting hidden gems'.

Comment author: ialdabaoth 06 August 2013 10:59:01PM 3 points [-]

Yes, but that wasn't the point of my post; I was replying to:

Finding things (such as convolutions in brains or genes) that are indicative of potentially valuable talent is the kind of thing that helps make efficient use of it.

An MRI machine was an example of a device that could detect convolutions ins brains; a DNA sequencer was an example of a device that could detect genes. My point generalized to "it doesn't matter how good you are at testing for <X indicator of a desired trait>, if you don't apply the test." If we look at IQ tests instead, then (again) it doesn't matter how accurately a properly-administered IQ test detects intelligence, if you don't bother properly administering IQ tests to people in cotton fields, sweatshops, or other places where you don't feel like looking because they aren't "under the lamppost", as it were.

Comment author: ChristianKl 06 August 2013 11:29:10PM 1 point [-]

In a country like China there's quite a bit of testing in school. I think it's quite plausible that there are people who went through the Chinese school system working in Chinese sweatshops and cotton fields.

Comment author: ialdabaoth 07 August 2013 12:09:42AM 1 point [-]

Is there IQ test properly designed and administered, or does the test-as-given have hidden correlations with things other than IQ?