Then the next step is to put these data in the bell curve, saying: "therefore 23/50 means 0 sigma = 100 IQ" and "therefore 41/50 means 2 sigma = 130 IQ".
This is NOT forcing the outcome to be a bell curve. This is just normalizing to a given mean and standard deviation, a linear operation that does not change the shape of the distribution.
Consider a hypothetical case where an IQ test consists of 100 questions and 100 people take it. These hundred people all get a different number of questions correct -- from 1 to 100: the distribution of the number of correct answers is flat or uniform over [1 .. 100]. Now you normalize the mean to 100 and one standard deviation to 15 -- and yet the distribution remains flat and does not magically become a bell curve.
These hundred people all get a different number of questions correct -- from 1 to 100: the distribution of the number of correct answers is flat or uniform over [1 .. 100].
This is a fact about the test.
Now you normalize the mean to 100 and one standard deviation to 15 -- and yet the distribution remains flat and does not magically become a bell curve.
Maybe it was wrong for me to use the word "normalization" in this context, but no, the distribution of raw scores is not mapped linearly to the distribution of IQs. It is mapped onto the bell ...
A long blog post explains why the author, a feminist, is not comfortable with the rationalist community despite thinking it is "super cool and interesting". It's directed specifically at Yvain, but it's probably general enough to be of some interest here.
http://apophemi.wordpress.com/2014/01/04/why-im-not-on-the-rationalist-masterlist/
I'm not sure if I can summarize this fairly but the main thrust seems to be that we are overly willing to entertain offensive/taboo/hurtful ideas and this drives off many types of people. Here's a quote:
The author perceives a link between LW type open discourse and danger to minority groups. I'm not sure whether that's true or not. Take race. Many LWers are willing to entertain ideas about the existence and possible importance of average group differences in psychological traits. So, maybe LWers are racists. But they're racists who continually obsess over optimizing their philanthropic contributions to African charities. So, maybe not racists in a dangerous way?
An overly rosy view, perhaps, and I don't want to deny the reality of the blogger's experience. Clearly, the person is intelligent and attracted to some aspects of LW discourse while turned off by other aspects.