But the difference is smaller than for the median black person and the median Jewish person. (I said “even just knowing what their job is would screen off much of it”, not “all of it”.)
The bell curve has both the mean and the deviation, you can have a ‘race’ with lower mean and larger standard deviation, and then you can e.g. filter by reliable accomplishment of some kind, such as solving some problem that smartest people in the world attempted and failed, you may end up with situation that the population with lower mean and larger standard deviation will have fewer people whom attain this, but those whom do, are on average smarter. Set bar even higher, and the population with lower mean and larger standard deviation has more people attaining it.
Also, the Gaussian distribution can stop being good approximation very far away from the mean.
edit: and to reply to grand grand parents: I bet i can divide the world into category that includes you, and a category that does not include you, in such a way that the category including you has substantially higher crime rate, or is otherwise bad. Actually if you are from US, I have a pretty natural ‘cultural’ category where your murder rate is about 5..10x of normal for such average income. Other category is the ‘racists’, i.e. the people whom use skin colour as evidence. Those people also have substantially bad behaviour. You of course want to use skin colour as evidence, and don’t want me to use your qualities as evidence. See if I care. If you want to use the skin colour as evidence, lumping together everyone that’s black, I want to use ‘use of skin colour as evidence’, lumping you together with all the nasty racists.
The bell curve has both the mean and the deviation, you can have a ‘race’ with lower mean and larger standard deviation
IIRC, no substantial difference was found in the standard deviations among races. (Whereas for genders, they have the same mean but males have larger sigma, so there are both more male idiots than female idiots and more male geniuses than female geniuses.)
Also, the Gaussian distribution can stop being good approximation very far away from the mean.
Isn’t IQ defined to be a Gaussian (e.g. IQ 160 just means ‘99.99683rd percentile among people your age’), rather than ‘whatever IQ tests measure’? If so, a better statement of that phenomenon would be “IQ tests are inaccurate for extreme values.”
See if I care. If you want to use the skin colour as evidence, lumping together everyone that’s black, I want to use ‘use of skin colour as evidence’, lumping you together with all the nasty racists.
I want to use ‘use of “use of skin colour as evidence” as evidence’ as evidence, but I’m not sure what that’s evidence for. :-)
IRC, no substantial difference was found in the standard deviations among races
Even a small difference translates into enormous ratio between numbers of people, several standard deviations from the mean...
Isn’t IQ defined to be a Gaussian
Yes, and it is defined to have specific standard deviation as well. That definition makes it unsuitable measure. The Gaussian distribution also arises from sum of multiple independent variables. The statement was about intelligence though, which is different thing from both “what IQ tests measure” and “how IQ is defined”.
Another huge failing of IQ is the non-measure of ability to build and use a huge search-able database of methods and facts. Building such database is a long-term memory task and can not be tested in short time span; the existing knowledge can’t be tested without massive influence by the background. Likewise, the IQ test lacks any problems that are actually difficult enough to have some solution methods that some people would know before the test, and some won’t.
Effectively, the IQ tests do not test for heavily parallel processing capability.
For example, I do believe that it would be possible to build ‘superhuman AI’ that runs on a cellphone and aces IQ tests, and could perhaps deceive a human in brief conversation. The same AI would never be able to invent a stone axe from scratch, let alone anything more complicated; it’d be nothing but a glorified calculator.
I want to use ‘use of “use of skin colour as evidence” as evidence’ as evidence, but I’m not sure what that’s evidence for. :-)
Well, the people who use skin colour as evidence, i would guess, are on average less well behaved than rest of society… so you can use it to guess someone’s criminality or other untrustworthiness.
Likewise, the IQ test lacks any problems that are actually difficult enough to have some solution methods that some people would know before the test, and some won’t.
Indeed, when I last took a few IQ tests I felt like I was being tested tested more for familiarity with concepts such as exclusiveOR, cyclical permutations, and similar basic discrete maths stuff than for processing power. (Of course, it does take insight to realize that such concepts are relevant to the questions and processing power to figure out the answer within the time frame of the test, but I think that if I had never heard about XOR or used Sarrus’ rule I would have scored much worse.)
ETA: This is also why I suspect that the correlations between race and IQ aren’t entirely genetic. If Einstein’s twin brother had grown up in a very poor region with no education...
Even a small difference translates into enormous ratio between numbers of people, several standard deviations from the mean...
A distribution with mean 100 and st. dev. 14 will exceed one with mean 90 and st. dev. 16 for all x between about 93 and about 170, and there aren’t that many people with IQs over 170 anyway.
But can we detect such a tiny difference as between std dev 14 and std dev 16 ? After we have to control for really many factors that are different between groups in question?
Also, that was my point, at the level of very high (one in million) intelligence, i.e. actual geniuses, the people you’d call genius without having to detect them using some test. I have a pet hypothesis about the last biological change which caused our technological progress. Little mixing with Neanderthals, raising the standard deviation somewhat.
The IQ test I think get useless past some point, when the IQ test savants that solve it at such level (but can’t learn very well for example, or can’t do problems well that require more of parallel processing), start to outnumber geniuses.
Well, the people who use skin colour as evidence, i would guess, are on average less well behaved than rest of society… so you can use it to guess someone’s criminality or other untrustworthiness.
You have the neonazis among those who use skin colour as evidence of criminality, but not among those who don’t. I don’t know of other differences that were demonstrated, my expectation for other effects is zero. I should expect the overall effect on order of at least the proportion of race motivated violence to overall violence; my expectation is somewhat higher than this though because I would guess that the near-neonazis are likewise more violent, including within-race crime.
I want to use ‘use of “use of skin colour as evidence” as evidence’ as evidence, but I’m not sure what that’s evidence for. :-)
Doh, missed the extra nesting. I doubt it’ll be evidence for much… both neonazis and liberal types use that as evidence, the former as evidence of ingroup-ness and the latter as evidence of badness, so I don’t see for what it would be discriminating.
I can’t remember whether I read this from someone else or came up with it on my own, but when people ask “do you oppose homosexual marriage” in questionnaires to find out political orientations, people answering “yes” will include both those who oppose homosexual marriage but are OK with heterosexual marriage, and those who oppose all marriage, and those groups are very different clusters in political space (paleo-conservatives the former, radical anarchists the latter). (Of course, the latter group is so much smaller than the former than if you’re doing statistics with large numbers of people this shouldn’t be such an issue.)
But the difference is smaller than for the median black person and the median Jewish person. (I said “even just knowing what their job is would screen off much of it”, not “all of it”.)
The bell curve has both the mean and the deviation, you can have a ‘race’ with lower mean and larger standard deviation, and then you can e.g. filter by reliable accomplishment of some kind, such as solving some problem that smartest people in the world attempted and failed, you may end up with situation that the population with lower mean and larger standard deviation will have fewer people whom attain this, but those whom do, are on average smarter. Set bar even higher, and the population with lower mean and larger standard deviation has more people attaining it. Also, the Gaussian distribution can stop being good approximation very far away from the mean.
edit: and to reply to grand grand parents: I bet i can divide the world into category that includes you, and a category that does not include you, in such a way that the category including you has substantially higher crime rate, or is otherwise bad. Actually if you are from US, I have a pretty natural ‘cultural’ category where your murder rate is about 5..10x of normal for such average income. Other category is the ‘racists’, i.e. the people whom use skin colour as evidence. Those people also have substantially bad behaviour. You of course want to use skin colour as evidence, and don’t want me to use your qualities as evidence. See if I care. If you want to use the skin colour as evidence, lumping together everyone that’s black, I want to use ‘use of skin colour as evidence’, lumping you together with all the nasty racists.
IIRC, no substantial difference was found in the standard deviations among races. (Whereas for genders, they have the same mean but males have larger sigma, so there are both more male idiots than female idiots and more male geniuses than female geniuses.)
Isn’t IQ defined to be a Gaussian (e.g. IQ 160 just means ‘99.99683rd percentile among people your age’), rather than ‘whatever IQ tests measure’? If so, a better statement of that phenomenon would be “IQ tests are inaccurate for extreme values.”
I want to use ‘use of “use of skin colour as evidence” as evidence’ as evidence, but I’m not sure what that’s evidence for. :-)
Even a small difference translates into enormous ratio between numbers of people, several standard deviations from the mean...
Yes, and it is defined to have specific standard deviation as well. That definition makes it unsuitable measure. The Gaussian distribution also arises from sum of multiple independent variables. The statement was about intelligence though, which is different thing from both “what IQ tests measure” and “how IQ is defined”.
Another huge failing of IQ is the non-measure of ability to build and use a huge search-able database of methods and facts. Building such database is a long-term memory task and can not be tested in short time span; the existing knowledge can’t be tested without massive influence by the background. Likewise, the IQ test lacks any problems that are actually difficult enough to have some solution methods that some people would know before the test, and some won’t.
Effectively, the IQ tests do not test for heavily parallel processing capability.
For example, I do believe that it would be possible to build ‘superhuman AI’ that runs on a cellphone and aces IQ tests, and could perhaps deceive a human in brief conversation. The same AI would never be able to invent a stone axe from scratch, let alone anything more complicated; it’d be nothing but a glorified calculator.
Well, the people who use skin colour as evidence, i would guess, are on average less well behaved than rest of society… so you can use it to guess someone’s criminality or other untrustworthiness.
Indeed, when I last took a few IQ tests I felt like I was being tested tested more for familiarity with concepts such as exclusiveOR, cyclical permutations, and similar basic discrete maths stuff than for processing power. (Of course, it does take insight to realize that such concepts are relevant to the questions and processing power to figure out the answer within the time frame of the test, but I think that if I had never heard about XOR or used Sarrus’ rule I would have scored much worse.)
ETA: This is also why I suspect that the correlations between race and IQ aren’t entirely genetic. If Einstein’s twin brother had grown up in a very poor region with no education...
A distribution with mean 100 and st. dev. 14 will exceed one with mean 90 and st. dev. 16 for all x between about 93 and about 170, and there aren’t that many people with IQs over 170 anyway.
But can we detect such a tiny difference as between std dev 14 and std dev 16 ? After we have to control for really many factors that are different between groups in question?
Also, that was my point, at the level of very high (one in million) intelligence, i.e. actual geniuses, the people you’d call genius without having to detect them using some test. I have a pet hypothesis about the last biological change which caused our technological progress. Little mixing with Neanderthals, raising the standard deviation somewhat.
The IQ test I think get useless past some point, when the IQ test savants that solve it at such level (but can’t learn very well for example, or can’t do problems well that require more of parallel processing), start to outnumber geniuses.
What sort of effect size do you expect here? Why?
You have the neonazis among those who use skin colour as evidence of criminality, but not among those who don’t. I don’t know of other differences that were demonstrated, my expectation for other effects is zero. I should expect the overall effect on order of at least the proportion of race motivated violence to overall violence; my expectation is somewhat higher than this though because I would guess that the near-neonazis are likewise more violent, including within-race crime.
Doh, missed the extra nesting. I doubt it’ll be evidence for much… both neonazis and liberal types use that as evidence, the former as evidence of ingroup-ness and the latter as evidence of badness, so I don’t see for what it would be discriminating.
I can’t remember whether I read this from someone else or came up with it on my own, but when people ask “do you oppose homosexual marriage” in questionnaires to find out political orientations, people answering “yes” will include both those who oppose homosexual marriage but are OK with heterosexual marriage, and those who oppose all marriage, and those groups are very different clusters in political space (paleo-conservatives the former, radical anarchists the latter). (Of course, the latter group is so much smaller than the former than if you’re doing statistics with large numbers of people this shouldn’t be such an issue.)