What of all of the other areas of psychology? If IQ was found to be completely spurious, we'd still have other psychological research. IQ is not foundational like he claims.
It's like Peterson has never read the criticisms[1] of the Bell Curve and believes it in its entirely. His lectures and interviews on the subject are really just a rehashing of the same, mostly discredited arguments. Even Charles Murray has stepped back from a single number determinant of a single kind of intelligence[2].
[1]: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~chance/course/topics/curveball.htm...
[2]: https://web.archive.org/web/20050205010706/http://www.skepti...
I'll try to summarize his position on IQ without doing him a disservice.
* IQ is highly correlated to intelligence (what is called technically g). Highly enough that you can use it as a measure of general intelligence. * IQ is the only test we have that accurately measures intelligence and that is not a self-report test. * IQ has been shown to be the highest predictor for success in life. Highest does not mean only. In fact, its correlation is .35. Conscientiousness is the second best predictor, but amounts to half of IQ. * There is no way to raise IQ, which is genetically determined. But there are many ways to lower it.
It also very important to consider that a) he made a lot of highly cited research on the topic, b) he is very knowledgeable on the literature and c) he says many times that the results of these studies are disheartening and nobody likes them (him included).
He never implied, for example, that there is an inverse relationship between IQ and crime, quite the opposite. IQ is related to the Opennes personality trait.
Crime is caused by low Agreableness, which is another personality trait. He also cites often the work of Martin Daly, which studied how crime is correlated to a too steep inequality, where the social ladder is too hard to climb, which makes people turn to crime as the only alternative.
So I don't know where you got that idea.
Can you link to (or synthesize) a criticism of something the man has said himself?
Also, would you consider that it's all right to ask questions about correlations between race/ethnicity and the incidence of heart disease / hypertension / sickle-cell anemia etc., but not about correlations between race/ethnicity and IQ?
(I don't have a dog in this fight, and I understand that IQ measurement is a very unreliable and culturally predicated way of measuring intelligence; I am just curious about the way that people who are indignant about such inquiries think.)
What gives you the idea that it is unreliable?
It is one of the most consistent and reliable measurements in psychology.
> culturally predicated way of measuring intelligence
In what sense?
In the sense that it is only a good indicator for success because of the way our society is currently setup?
Quite possibly. But I don't see that as a criticism of IQ.
It is really a criticism of the disturbed individuals using "intelligence" as the key driver of human worth.
By the way that kind of thinking is more prevalent with the intellectual elite who visit hacker news than it is of the average alt-right supporter.
IQ is BS and is just a stand in for implying inferiority.
That's unfortunate. Results of scientific inquiry should not depend on who is asking the questions.
So... where did you get the idea that this is a credible takeaway from his work?
(Also, he'd probably be the first person to agree with the assessment that university employment or credentials doesn't necessarily mean that your claims or research are any good...)
Do you have any evidence?
You should convert some of that politically biased 'skepticism' into dispassionate inquiry.