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Epiphany comments on Why Are Individual IQ Differences OK? - Less Wrong
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Comments (526)
"X have a lower IQ on average."
You can choose "People of African descent" or you can choose "People from poor backgrounds" or "People with serious health conditions" or "People with drug addictions" or any number of other things.
When attempting to determine how best to help a school in a black ghetto that is failing, and you're choosing between spending money on remedial courses or on a school nutrition program, you will most certainly benefit from having this knowledge.
Conversely, I can't think of any applications for which tying IQ to race is useful. Would you name three examples?
Also, I'm still interested in seeing the source that you believe is an accurate prior regarding race and IQ. Do you happen to have that information available?
The Bell Curve book is a standard source. Otherwise a quick look at Wikipedia provides this:
Ok thanks. However, I am aware that "most published research is wrong" (PLOS Medicine) and know that there are factors that need to be controlled for in studies on race and IQ (in the second numbered list). Do you also claim that these factors were controlled for, that the key study or studies have been replicated, and that this is quality data that generally avoids research pitfalls? That's what I am looking for.
Yes, I've read Ioannidis. However you're using this quote here as a rather blatant aid to your confirmation bias. There have been many, many studies which all show the same thing. These are findings which have been confirmed, re-confirmed, and confirmed once again.
Precisely because these results are so controversial they have been the subject of very thorough checking, vetting, and multiple attempts to debunk them. The results survived all this. What, do you think that for the last 50 years no one really tried to find holes in the studies showing racial IQ differences? Many highly qualified people tried. The results still stand.
I think everyone should consider that published research findings are likely to be wrong each time they are seeking research findings. If you agree that we should be skeptical about research findings, why do you think that asking questions about whether the research controlled for multiple factors, was replicated etc. should be taken as evidence of confirmation bias? Maybe you disagree that we should be skeptical about research findings?
Every single one? I would find that hard to believe for any topic, especially one as politically charged and controversial as this one, where both sides have a motive to bias research in their particular direction. If that is true, I would find it surprising. Assuming you were referring to the results of a meta-analysis, would you point to that meta-analysis please?
Are you saying that studies used for "The Bell Curve" did take into account the factors I mentioned, were replicated and / or may contain a meta-analysis that states that all the studies that could be found had similar findings?
If you aren't specific about what measures were taken to ensure quality in the information you're providing, I have no way to make the distinction between a matter of opinion and a matter of fact when you claim things like "The results survived all this." Please be specific about what particular quality features the data in The Bell Curve provides.
I started checking out this book because of your high praise and was surprised to find this:
On page 270, The Bell Curve clearly states: "The debate about whether and how much genes and environment have to do with ethnic differences remains unresolved"
Can you explain why you seem to be disagreeing with me, when both myself and The Bell Curve agree that we don't have a good way to tell whether IQ differences are nature or nurture? (Note: In addition to that, my view is also influenced by skepticism about research in general and an understanding that although IQ tests are correlated with various things, they have some limitations.)
Sigh.
I don't believe you're listening and really have no inclination to play the "yes, but" game. Neither do I feel the need to prove anything to you.
You can believe whatever you want to believe, it's just that such an attitude looks strange here.
That is not my attitude. I have been asking you for research. Did you see what I discovered about "The Bell Curve"? What do you say about that?
Did you read the two paragraphs following your quoted sentence? It seems to me that they more or less settle the matter, and resolve your grayness regarding environment and genetics.
What I suspect is going on is that Epiphany is statistically innumerate (as suggested by her rather hilarious statement about 25% of Africans being above average), but doesn't want to loose status by admitting she doesn't understand the arguments.
Both of the citations I was given by you guys said clearly that they were uncertain about the connection between race and IQ. That is the reason I don't agree - because even your citations do not agree. I assume those are the best citations you have, so that your citations do not agree with you makes your belief look very bad indeed.
Also, by arguing that the reason I don't agree is because I am statistically innumerate and that the reason I don't agree is because I'm too inept to understand, you have made an ad hominem fallacy. Attacking the person does zilch to support your argument.
I can't believe I just saw an ad hominem attack on LessWrong. That is the the most obvious behavior that one avoids if one wants to have a rational debate.
I don't think you're correctly distinguishing between multiple related claims.
Claim A is that IQ distributions vary by race. This is supported by mountains of evidence. This alone is sufficient to justify using race as a factor when predicting IQ. This is the original point under discussion, as you argued against using race as a factor when predicting IQ both here and here.
Claim B is that differences in measured IQs overestimate the actual differences in intelligence or life outcomes between races. There is substantial evidence against this claim, and it is only weakly related to the original point under discussion. (Were it true, it would suggest that estimating IQ is not as important when doing between-race comparisons as other estimations, but does not impact IQ estimation.)
Claim C is that X% of difference in racial average IQ is due to genetic factors. It is currently not clear what X is for any particular between-race comparison, which the citations reflect. This is unrelated to the original point under discussion.
Not quite. The arguments you've made recently are mostly social arguments- "you say Y, but your citation says Z, how do you account for that!"- rather than technical arguments.
The arguments seem vacuous to a technical expert, because Y and Z turn out to be totally compatible, but may still seem impressive to a non-expert who is unfamiliar with the relationship between Y and Z. Similarly, a non-expert doesn't know what sort of claims do and don't need citations, and so may see a virtuous skeptic against credulous believers, rather than a crank who defends their perpetual motion machine by insisting on a citation for the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. (This is not to say that the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is taken on faith; what it means is that there are some issues where ignorance, confusion, or denial is solid evidence against being a curious and open-minded scholar.)
An effective social response is to poke at the technical content of your claims at a much more basic level (i.e. charges of innumeracy). If you aren't familiar with means and medians, and disengage when someone presses you on a basic statistical point, then anyone who is familiar with statistics can use that to gauge your level of technical ability. (And if you aren't familiar with stats 101, why have a confident opinion on an inherently statistical topic?)
Contrast this with Epiphany's comment earlier on
I guess it mostly comes down to "race" being such a charged term. Epiphany seems to be fighting "Someone being an African American predicts a lower than US-average IQ" because that has a lot of negative connotations, whereas you may reply "Well, but it's technically correct, even if did turn out (unlikely/no idea) the correlation only exists because race predicts/includes poverty/culture/social customs, which in turn causally [e|a]ffect IQ", while she would say "But then it's not race!".
Maybe something like "I refuse to use race as a predictor (even if I could) because that's mindkilling/misleading, unless poverty/culture/social customs have all been controlled for. Since there is no scientific consensus on race when poverty/culture/social customs have all been controlled for, we shouldn't speculate and rather work on the latter confounders, which can probably be improved with socially acceptable policies." would capture most of her point and be more palatable?
Sorry for the verbosity.
Because for Epiphany it's not a statistical topic, it's an issue of fairness and equality -- she fights for Great Justice!
That there are population level differences in IQ is not controversial (except in the sense that evolution is controversial because more than 30% of Americans don't believe in it).
That IQ is a useful proxy for general intelligence and a useful tool in determining life outcomes is not controversial.
That IQ is heritable is not controversial.
That the differences are genetic is controversial but the data does seem to suggest that much of the difference is indeed genetic and another portion is biological (pre-natal care, early nutrition).
http://occidentalascent.wordpress.com/2012/06/10/the-facts-that-need-to-be-explained/
Every objection you've listed so far has been addressed in exhaustive detail in the above link.