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Re:Intelligence and radical economic attitudes by openfuture on Tuesday September 20, 2022 @05:35PM (#32918113)
My hot take is that people who believe in IQ have low IQ.
Re:Intelligence and radical economic attitudes by JamesBarney on Tuesday September 20, 2022 @05:58PM (#32918352)
What does it mean to not believe in IQ?

Does that mean these high IQ people don't think IQ exists. It obviously exists. It's a real measure that people use.

It's not like midichlorian count which is a measure from Starwars. Which doesn't exist because it only exists in the movies and doesn't measure something real (the force).

Re:Intelligence and radical economic attitudes by altruios on Tuesday September 20, 2022 @06:21PM (#32918572)
I would say (it has been a while), the common complaint that I've heard is the tests for IQ are not standardized - there are a million snake-oil pitches for free and paid online IQ tests - or that the real tests have a bunch of cultural bias that might skew the results... Or that IQ is inadequate as a measure of general intelligence (if IQ measures pattern matching effectively and it misses other kinds of reasoning entirely)...

lots of complaints I've heard - can't say one way or the other if there is any salt to them.

I haven't heard the complaint before that IQ is imaginary, that's a new one... I think through reading the exchange I see where the semantics shifted between people's thoughts, I doubt that's what the the poster above you meant - likely they meant a combination of the many complaints to dismiss the general usefulness of IQ tests as a predictor of intelligence.

Re:Intelligence and radical economic attitudes by solveit on Tuesday September 20, 2022 @06:29PM (#32918647)
That sounds like a complaint that online IQ tests are bad, which is obviously correct but also not really relevant to IQ as studied in psychometrics.

The complaints I hear about IQ are completely opposite! People dislike standardized exams, including IQ tests, because of their standardization! That is, the need to assess everyone the same way precludes assessment specific to the individual being assessed. Detractors of IQ, insofar as they would like assessment at all, would prefer a more holistic procedure where the characteristics and capabilities of the assessee are analysed with due attention paid to the specific life history of said assessee.

Re:Intelligence and radical economic attitudes by colinmhayes on Tuesday September 20, 2022 @06:34PM (#32918677)
There are certainly a lot of valid complaints about IQ. The lack of standardization is obviously a problem, and the cultural understanding of it is severely lacking. But study after study have shown that IQ is highly correlated with financial success, and at this point the confounders have been controlled well enough to say it’s hard for me to deny that pattern recognition, which is what well made iq tests measure, is a cause of success.
Re:Intelligence and radical economic attitudes by hirvi74 on Tuesday September 20, 2022 @10:40PM (#32920291)
I am not sure what is defined as "financial success," since it appears to be something one can be born into regardless of IQ.

In regards to income, I briefly skimmed the Wikipedia section for IQ and Income, which can be found here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient#Income

"Highly correlated" would not be the choice of words I use to describe correlations between (0.23 - 0.5).

We, as people, should cherish the contributions of one's intelligence instead of obsessing over an arbitrary, qualitative value painted as a qualitative value like one's potential intelligence.

Re:Intelligence and radical economic attitudes by political12345 on Wednesday September 21, 2022 @01:21AM (#32921083)
> Highly correlated" would not be the choice of words I use to describe correlations between (0.23 - 0.5).

lol, this range is 0.5 to 0.7 variance explained (R squared) which is an insane value. in typical social studies a correlation of > 5% is considered a major improvement. In finance a correlation or > 1% is considered amazing.

You are either a hyper-intelectual drinking Taleb's kool-aid or simply don't know what you are talking about :D

Re:Intelligence and radical economic attitudes by disgruntledphd2 on Wednesday September 21, 2022 @03:29AM (#32921806)
If the correlation is 0.2 then it explains 4% of the variance. If it's 0.5, then 25%. I'm not sure how you got your numbers, can you clarify?

Also 10% variance explained in social science is considered pretty good (which is depressing, but such is life).

Re:Intelligence and radical economic attitudes by hirvi74 on Wednesday September 21, 2022 @02:24PM (#32929156)
> a hyper-intelectual

Very far from it. I'm just an idiot with Internet access.

> drinking Taleb's kool-aid

I do agree with some of what he has said about IQ, but I am not well-versed in any of his other writings.

> simply don't know what you are talking about

Perhaps, but I am still not convinced.

Re:Intelligence and radical economic attitudes by marketerinland on Tuesday September 20, 2022 @11:33PM (#32920564)
Maybe you’re not familiar with how correlation is reported, but 0.23-0.5 is very high.
Re:Intelligence and radical economic attitudes by hirvi74 on Wednesday September 21, 2022 @02:21PM (#32929109)
I think I am hung up on semantics.

If 0.23-0.5 correlation is "very high" then what is 0.7-0.9? Would r >= 0.7 be literal causation at that point for psychologist? (I'm kidding, of course)

Again, I am not saying that a correlation of 0.23-0.5 is statistically insignificant by any means. I just think I needed "very high" to be coupled with "for psychology."

Re:Intelligence and radical economic attitudes by rizzom5000 on Tuesday September 20, 2022 @10:54PM (#32920350)
Pattern recognition is an interesting way to describe what is being measured. I've always heard that IQ tests are really good at predicting the ability to understand complexity, or perform complex tasks; such as in the way the military has traditionally used intelligence tests to match recruits. I wonder if being really good at advanced math just means 'really good at pattern recognition'.

Anyway, I saw an interesting theory once that suggested IQ simply measures motivation and highly motivated people will tend to do better on standardized tests as well as more generally in life.

Re:Intelligence and radical economic attitudes by autoexec on Wednesday September 21, 2022 @01:24AM (#32921107)
> What does it mean to not believe in IQ?

I believe that IQ exists, but I don't believe it's an effective measure of the things people typically expect from it once you get into average or above average scores.

Leaving aside the problem of the tests themselves and how they're conducted, I suspect that even a "perfect" test wouldn't predict how well a person would manage their life, perform in their job, or contribute positively to society.

At the low end, IQ testing can identify individuals with problems that will certainly cause them difficulties, but a person with a high IQ won't necessarily outperform someone with an average IQ in tasks that aren't IQ tests.

Re:Intelligence and radical economic attitudes by j0hnyl on Wednesday September 21, 2022 @08:29AM (#32924046)
I think you are making assumptions here:

> effective measure of the things people typically expect from it once you get into average or above average scores.

But I don't think that's what IQ is, it's just a measure of a type of assessment relative to other participants. Beyond that, there are strong correlations at various IQ levels on how people perceive certain spatial and logic questions/tasks. IQ does not measure your personality or job performance.

Re:Intelligence and radical economic attitudes by oreally on Wednesday September 21, 2022 @12:32AM (#32920822)
IQ is an indicator of how fast one learns at the job/skill, not how long they stick in it.

This is something social psychologists have authority in and not the opinions of techbros.

Re:Intelligence and radical economic attitudes by SamPatt on Wednesday September 21, 2022 @01:02AM (#32920973)
Some people are better problem solvers than others. IQ is an attempt at measuring this. Why is this (admittedly imperfect) method so foolish?