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nykos comments on Cynical explanations of FAI critics (including myself) - Less Wrong Discussion

21 Post author: Wei_Dai 13 August 2012 09:19PM

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Comment author: nykos 14 August 2012 06:35:56PM *  -2 points [-]

I concede that, under some really extreme environmental conditions, any genetic advantages would be canceled out. So, you might actually be right if the IQ 80 mother is really bad. Money should be provided to poor families by the state, but only as long as they raise their child well - as determined by periodic medical checks. Any person, no matter the IQ, can do one thing reasonably well, and that is to raise children to maturity.

But I believe you are taking the importance of parenthood way too far, and disregarding the hereditarian point of view too easily. The blank-slate bias is something to be avoided. I would suggest you read this article by Matt Ridley.

Excerpt:

Today, a third of a century after the study began and with other studies of reunited twins having reached the same conclusion, the numbers are striking. Monozygotic twins raised apart are more similar in IQ (74%) than dizygotic (fraternal) twins raised together (60%) and much more than parent-children pairs (42%); half-siblings (31%); adoptive siblings (29%-34%); virtual twins, or similarly aged but unrelated children raised together (28%); adoptive parent-child pairs (19%) and cousins (15%). Nothing but genes can explain this hierarchy.

Comment author: Luke_A_Somers 15 August 2012 09:46:05AM 1 point [-]

IQ, sure. What he does with it? That's another story. I shudder to think what a Feynman could have done in service of some strict agenda he'd been trained into.

Comment author: DaFranker 16 August 2012 03:20:27PM 0 points [-]

Any person, no matter the IQ, can do one thing reasonably well, and that is to raise children to maturity.

This statement is obviously false and obviously falsifiable.

Insert example of vegetative-state life-support cripple "raising a child" (AKA not actually doing anything and having an effective/apparent IQ of ~0, perhaps even dying as soon as the child touches something they weren't supposed to).

At this point, a rock would be just as good at raising a child. At least the child can use the rock to kill a small animal and eat it.

Comment author: nykos 22 August 2012 03:55:58PM 0 points [-]

Is a "vegetative-state life-support cripple" a person at all?

Comment author: DaFranker 22 August 2012 04:36:42PM *  1 point [-]

Is your question/objection rhetorical, or did you just not understand the A Human's Guide to Words sequence?

Taboo "person", and if that doesn't work, taboo "raise children", and if that still doesn't work, taboo "no matter the IQ" or "can do" or "reasonably well" or even the entire list of symbols that is generating the confusion.

I objected and gave a thought experiment to illustrate the falsifiability of one specific assertion, which can be nothing else than what I believed you meant by that list of symbols, based on my prior beliefs on what the symbols represented in empirical conceptspace.

If you question my objection on the grounds of using a symbol incorrectly, then you should question the symbol usage, not the objection as a whole through a straw-manned assertion built with your different version of the symbol.