Are there also sayings “Life is a test of height.”, “Life is a test of immune system efficiency” and “Life is a test of facial symmetry”? We may as well round out the set.
Those may be qualitatively similar but I would suggest they are quantitatively different. I would be surprised if facial symmetry did not correlate with income, health, social status, and so on, but I would expect the correlation to be much lower than the correlation with IQ. The saying means that most metrics of life success are moderately highly g-loaded, and so it makes sense that IQ correlates positively with basically everything good.
Those may be qualitatively similar but I would suggest they are quantitatively different.
I think you either drastically overestimate the impact of IQ or underestimate the predictive value of those other factors of life success—particularly in environments different to those experienced by the white male nerd class of first world countries. Regardless, the paragraph with that alleged saying redacted would be far more persuasive than the one with it included. It strongly undermines the credibility of your point. I currently agree with you despite the opening sentence, not because of it.
I think you either drastically overestimate the impact of IQ or underestimate the predictive value of those other factors of life success
Perhaps we should switch to numbers to make it easier to communicate. I haven’t looked at any numbers recently, so I don’t expect these guesses to be particularly accurate, but I’d guess IQ correlates .2 to .6 with most interesting measures of life success, and height correlates around 0 to 0.1 (after controlling for IQ). I’d guess facial symmetry has correlation >0.3 with other health-related things, a correlation around 0.4 with social things, and a correlation below 0.3 with the rest.
If you have a source handy that estimates these sorts of correlations, I’d like to see it, but I don’t think it’s important enough to spend time hunting something down.
I would be very surprised if IQ correlates at .6 with, say, wealth or income. Parental wealth and income possibly correlate no more than 0.5 to childrens’ incomes, and it would be frankly remarkable for IQ to be (1) transmitted intergenerationally to a large degree, and (2) more closely correlated to financial outcomes than one’s parent’s financial outcomes, since your parents often give you not only your genes, but your inheritance/early support, financial assumptions, and first set of career contacts.
Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns claims that parental SES and IQ are correlated at .33; that parental SES explains one third of social status variance (which implies r=.58) and one fifth of income variance (r=.45); that IQ explains about a quarter of the social status variance (r=.5) and a sixth of the income variance (r=.4), and that also correcting for parental SES reduces the predictive ability of IQ by a quarter. I would expect more recent numbers to be broadly similar.
Thanks for the link. It’s a nice summary of the state of research a few years back, and anybody who’s interested in the topic should read it.
It is probably even more interesting to me because it tacks pretty hard away from the conclusions some people have drawn in this thread. The authors clearly did not believe that the well-attested differences in IQ testing across ethnic groups could be ascribed to genetic factors.
The authors clearly did not believe that the well-attested differences in IQ testing across ethnic groups could be ascribed to genetic factors.
I think that there’s not definitive evidence on the subject, even today. The definitive evidence would be if we knew the specifics of the causal link between genetics and IQ and had representative genetic samples from different racial groups, so we could look at the prevalence of various IQ genes and calculate what we’d estimate the average racial IQ to be for various groups from their genes. That’d give us an estimate of the genetic factors, and the difference between that and measured IQ would give us an estimate of the environmental factors.
My read of the field, though, is that the majority of the evidence points to the majority of the difference between racial groups being explained by genetic factors, and the trend has been that the hereditarian position has been growing more solid over time, especially as more and more people have been sequenced.
For example, African Americans represent a significant observational data source on ancestry and intelligence, since while the average African American has 80% African ancestry, that percentage can vary significantly from person to person. Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns reports that a study that used blood groups to determine ancestry failed to find a correlation between European ancestry and IQ; more recent research claims to have found a correlation between European ancestry and IQ and controlled for the impact of skin color.
I haven’t looked at any numbers recently, so I don’t expect these guesses to be particularly accurate, but I’d guess IQ correlates .2 to .6 with most interesting measures of life success, and height correlates around 0 to 0.1 (after controlling for IQ).
Do you similarly control the IQ finding for height? For obvious reasons that is necessary for consistency.
I’d certainly expect (based on loose memories of studies encountered) height to predict more than ‘0 to 0.1’ and IQ to predict a heck of a lot less than 0.6, especially when considering populations that are not limited to first world nations. I wish it were otherwise, naturally. I’d love the world to be more biased in favour of my own highest stat.
In any case, I would consider it legitimate to readers who encounter “Life is an IQ test” delivered in response to the quoted context to be sufficient evidence that the comment is not worth reading and downvoting and ignoring it. It was only because I was more patient that normal that I bothered to read further and found you had a good point hidden in the detail. Do with that information what you will.
I’d love the world to be more biased in favour of my own highest stat
You can re-allocate some of that to Charisma if you work really hard (stand-up comedy is a learned skill) and if you have a British or Australian accent you get +1 just by coming to North America and talking. Provided you haven’t already maxed it, Strength is highly trainable, as are Dexterity and Constitution. Even HP, up till about 30 when bone density stops accumulating. Wisdom is extremely trainable, and there’s some evidence the world’s biased that direction, so I’d throw points there when in doubt.
Provided you haven’t already maxed it, Strength is highly trainable
In fact, even those who have reached their maximum strength potential can increase it by using the highly potent Potion of Potential Strength.
Even HP, up till about 30 when bone density stops accumulating.
HPs are primarily determined by Constitution (somewhat trainable) but in many worlds (including the real one) there is also a bonus from Strength stat. Better developed muscles are useful for absorbing damage non-critically.
Perhaps the most important stat is actually Willpower, which is also somewhat trainable and can be buffed with items and hired allies.
You can re-allocate some of that to Charisma if you work really hard (stand-up comedy is a learned skill) and if you have a British or Australian accent you get +1 just by coming to North America and talking.
Well spotted on the ‘favour’ usage! Yes, I’ve noticed a bonus there (my current girlfriend is North American), presumably the accent helped.
Do you similarly control the IQ finding for height? For obvious reasons that is necessary for consistency.
If you do a linear regression with both IQ and height as inputs, this automatically separates their (linear) effects.
But I’m not sure about the general point, because IQ is an estimate of a factor and height is an estimate of a single variable. My impression is that when you are looking for the individual effect of a component of a hidden factor, then you want to control for the factor before measuring the effect of the component, but when measuring the effect of the hidden factor you don’t control for the components. But height isn’t a component of the IQ calculation, though it does appear to be weakly related to intelligence.
I’d certainly expect (based on loose memories of studies encountered) height to predict more than ‘0 to 0.1’ and IQ to predict a heck of a lot less than 0.6, especially when considering populations that are not limited to first world nations.
I’m also having trouble remembering if the 0.05 number I remembered was an r or r^2, which would significantly impact the range. I’m finding rs of about .2 for the correlation between height and intelligence, and rs of about .2 for the correlation between height and income without controlling for intelligence. Haven’t found anything yet that does control for it. (IQ correlation with income, as mentioned in a cousin comment, is about .4.)
In any case, I would consider it legitimate to readers who encounter “Life is an IQ test” delivered in response to the quoted context to be sufficient evidence that the comment is not worth reading and downvoting and ignoring it.
It’s still not clear to me what about the saying you find objectionable. The best guess I have is that you took it to mean that the g-loading of life success was comparable to Raven’s, when I meant that they were g-loaded at all. The heart of that paragraph:
To the extent that a medical condition makes someone test poorly, it generally also makes them live poorly.
seems to me like a fair explanation of the saying, and why it’s confused to think about nurture factors influencing intelligence as separate from actual intelligence.
Those may be qualitatively similar but I would suggest they are quantitatively different. I would be surprised if facial symmetry did not correlate with income, health, social status, and so on, but I would expect the correlation to be much lower than the correlation with IQ. The saying means that most metrics of life success are moderately highly g-loaded, and so it makes sense that IQ correlates positively with basically everything good.
I think you either drastically overestimate the impact of IQ or underestimate the predictive value of those other factors of life success—particularly in environments different to those experienced by the white male nerd class of first world countries. Regardless, the paragraph with that alleged saying redacted would be far more persuasive than the one with it included. It strongly undermines the credibility of your point. I currently agree with you despite the opening sentence, not because of it.
Perhaps we should switch to numbers to make it easier to communicate. I haven’t looked at any numbers recently, so I don’t expect these guesses to be particularly accurate, but I’d guess IQ correlates .2 to .6 with most interesting measures of life success, and height correlates around 0 to 0.1 (after controlling for IQ). I’d guess facial symmetry has correlation >0.3 with other health-related things, a correlation around 0.4 with social things, and a correlation below 0.3 with the rest.
If you have a source handy that estimates these sorts of correlations, I’d like to see it, but I don’t think it’s important enough to spend time hunting something down.
I would be very surprised if IQ correlates at .6 with, say, wealth or income. Parental wealth and income possibly correlate no more than 0.5 to childrens’ incomes, and it would be frankly remarkable for IQ to be (1) transmitted intergenerationally to a large degree, and (2) more closely correlated to financial outcomes than one’s parent’s financial outcomes, since your parents often give you not only your genes, but your inheritance/early support, financial assumptions, and first set of career contacts.
Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns claims that parental SES and IQ are correlated at .33; that parental SES explains one third of social status variance (which implies r=.58) and one fifth of income variance (r=.45); that IQ explains about a quarter of the social status variance (r=.5) and a sixth of the income variance (r=.4), and that also correcting for parental SES reduces the predictive ability of IQ by a quarter. I would expect more recent numbers to be broadly similar.
Thanks for the link. It’s a nice summary of the state of research a few years back, and anybody who’s interested in the topic should read it.
It is probably even more interesting to me because it tacks pretty hard away from the conclusions some people have drawn in this thread. The authors clearly did not believe that the well-attested differences in IQ testing across ethnic groups could be ascribed to genetic factors.
You’re welcome!
I think that there’s not definitive evidence on the subject, even today. The definitive evidence would be if we knew the specifics of the causal link between genetics and IQ and had representative genetic samples from different racial groups, so we could look at the prevalence of various IQ genes and calculate what we’d estimate the average racial IQ to be for various groups from their genes. That’d give us an estimate of the genetic factors, and the difference between that and measured IQ would give us an estimate of the environmental factors.
My read of the field, though, is that the majority of the evidence points to the majority of the difference between racial groups being explained by genetic factors, and the trend has been that the hereditarian position has been growing more solid over time, especially as more and more people have been sequenced.
For example, African Americans represent a significant observational data source on ancestry and intelligence, since while the average African American has 80% African ancestry, that percentage can vary significantly from person to person. Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns reports that a study that used blood groups to determine ancestry failed to find a correlation between European ancestry and IQ; more recent research claims to have found a correlation between European ancestry and IQ and controlled for the impact of skin color.
Do you similarly control the IQ finding for height? For obvious reasons that is necessary for consistency.
I’d certainly expect (based on loose memories of studies encountered) height to predict more than ‘0 to 0.1’ and IQ to predict a heck of a lot less than 0.6, especially when considering populations that are not limited to first world nations. I wish it were otherwise, naturally. I’d love the world to be more biased in favour of my own highest stat.
In any case, I would consider it legitimate to readers who encounter “Life is an IQ test” delivered in response to the quoted context to be sufficient evidence that the comment is not worth reading and downvoting and ignoring it. It was only because I was more patient that normal that I bothered to read further and found you had a good point hidden in the detail. Do with that information what you will.
You can re-allocate some of that to Charisma if you work really hard (stand-up comedy is a learned skill) and if you have a British or Australian accent you get +1 just by coming to North America and talking. Provided you haven’t already maxed it, Strength is highly trainable, as are Dexterity and Constitution. Even HP, up till about 30 when bone density stops accumulating. Wisdom is extremely trainable, and there’s some evidence the world’s biased that direction, so I’d throw points there when in doubt.
In fact, even those who have reached their maximum strength potential can increase it by using the highly potent Potion of Potential Strength.
HPs are primarily determined by Constitution (somewhat trainable) but in many worlds (including the real one) there is also a bonus from Strength stat. Better developed muscles are useful for absorbing damage non-critically.
Perhaps the most important stat is actually Willpower, which is also somewhat trainable and can be buffed with items and hired allies.
Well spotted on the ‘favour’ usage! Yes, I’ve noticed a bonus there (my current girlfriend is North American), presumably the accent helped.
If you do a linear regression with both IQ and height as inputs, this automatically separates their (linear) effects.
But I’m not sure about the general point, because IQ is an estimate of a factor and height is an estimate of a single variable. My impression is that when you are looking for the individual effect of a component of a hidden factor, then you want to control for the factor before measuring the effect of the component, but when measuring the effect of the hidden factor you don’t control for the components. But height isn’t a component of the IQ calculation, though it does appear to be weakly related to intelligence.
I’m also having trouble remembering if the 0.05 number I remembered was an r or r^2, which would significantly impact the range. I’m finding rs of about .2 for the correlation between height and intelligence, and rs of about .2 for the correlation between height and income without controlling for intelligence. Haven’t found anything yet that does control for it. (IQ correlation with income, as mentioned in a cousin comment, is about .4.)
It’s still not clear to me what about the saying you find objectionable. The best guess I have is that you took it to mean that the g-loading of life success was comparable to Raven’s, when I meant that they were g-loaded at all. The heart of that paragraph:
seems to me like a fair explanation of the saying, and why it’s confused to think about nurture factors influencing intelligence as separate from actual intelligence.