Taurus_Londono comments on 2013 Survey Results - Less Wrong
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Comments (558)
Have you read Correspondence Bias?
I said that I "lied" when answering the IQ question because while I used the best available sources that I had, namely tests taken casually in non-official contexts, such as the Mensa Denmark Raven's test available at iqtest.dk as I mentioned above (similar in some regard to your own European Mensa test?), doing so constitutes knowingly violating the survey instructions. However closely the accuracy of such scores may approximate to your own is not relevant to the fact that my response did not conform to the survey instructions; it is extremely unlikely that I am the only individual who chose to do this. That is worth knowing.
What in my post gives the impression that I was twirling my mustache and rubbing my hands together like a devious little scamp with nothing better to do than to provoke hyperbole from someone in an online discussion?
I am not currently in a position to take an officially administered test of the kind specifically mentioned in survey (and have no desire to join Mensa), yet I preferred to give an answer using the closest available sources of information for the reasons stated above (bias).
The purpose of my post was to provide factual evidence towards a more complete assessment of the assertion that the IQ results are robust. Providing factual evidence (however small) relevant to this issue is not a personal assault on your character or an inference about whether or not you, personally, are a liar (I didn't know that you existed until you posted now).
Feeling bad that the survey results may not be accurate is one thing (you should feel at least a little bad, if you care at all about Less Wrong or the individuals that had to comb through and work with the results), but confusing your personal indignation with the reality of the results (either the IQ results are valid or not) is a mistake....one against which I'd thought this place tried to inculcate its participants.
"We are careless readers or careless typists"...? Are you sure that I am the only one whose bias is rarer than I imagine it to be? At the very least, I didn't go so far as to use the pronoun "we" when I said only that I "suspect I am not alone."
Also, given the results detailed above, what "sabotaged" the survey more? My IQ response or your carelessness?
The survey was not meant to include non-official tests. If you respond to a question about official tests with the result of a non-official test, not only have you lied, you have lied in an important way. Certainly you could argue that the non-official test is as good as measuring IQ as the acceptable tests, but that argument's not up to you to make--the creator of the survey obviously didn't think so and it's his survey The design of the survey reflects his decision about what sources of error are acceptable, not yours. He gets to decide that, not you, regardless of whether you can argue for your position or not.