Epiphany

Karma: 1,350

Epiphany 1 Oct 2013 21:03 UTC
0 points
in reply to: CCC’s comment on: 2012 Survey Results
Ah! Good point! Karma for you! Now I will think about whether there is a way to figure out the truth despite this.

Ideas?

Epiphany 25 Sep 2013 5:05 UTC
1 point
in reply to: private_messaging’s comment on: 2012 Survey Results
While mistakes can of course go in either direction, they don’t actually go in either direction.

I intuit that this is likely to be a popular view among sceptics, but I do not recall ever being presented with research that supports this by anyone. To avoid the lure of “undiscriminating scepticism”, I am requesting to see the evidence of this.

I agree that, for numerous reasons, self-reported IQ scores, SAT scores, ACT scores and any other scores are likely to have some amount of error, and I think it’s likely for the room for error to be pretty big. On that we agree.

An average thirty points higher than normal seems to me to be quite a lot more than “pretty big”. That’s the difference between an IQ in the normal range and an IQ large enough to qualify for every definition of gifted. To use your metaphor, that’s like having a 6-incher and saying it’s 12. I can see guys unconsciously saying it’s 7 if it’s 6, or maybe even 8. But I have a hard time believing that most of these people have let their imaginations run so far away with them as to accidentally believe that they’re Mensa level gifted when they’re average. I’d bet that there was a significant amount of error, but not an average of 30 points.

If you agree with those two, then whether we agree over all just depends on what specific belief we’re each supporting.

I think these beliefs are supported:
- The SAT, ACT, self-reported IQ and / or iqtest.dk scores found on the survey are not likely to be highly accurate.
- Despite inaccuracies, it’s very likely that the average LessWrong member has an IQ above average—in other words, I don’t think that the scores reported on the survey are so inaccurate that I should believe that most LessWrongers actually have just an average IQ.
- LessWrong is (considering a variety of pieces of evidence, not just the survey) likely to have more gifted people than you’d find by random chance.
Do we agree on those three beliefs?

If not, then please phrase the belief(s) you want to support.

Epiphany 22 Sep 2013 1:30 UTC
2 points
in reply to: ygert’s comment on: 2012 Survey Results
Your unintentional lie explanation does not explain how the SAT scores ended up so closely synchronised to the IQ scores—as we know, one common sign of a lie is that the details do not add up. Synchronising one’s SAT scores to the same level as one’s IQ scores would most likely require conscious effort, making the discrepancy obvious to the LessWrong members who took the survey. If you would argue that they were likely to have chosen corresponding SAT scores in some way that did not require them to become consciously aware of discrepancies in order to synchronize the scores, how would you support the argument that they synched them on accident? If not, then would you support the argument that LessWrong members consciously lied about it?

Linda Silverman, a giftedness researcher, has observed that parents are actually pretty decent at assessing their child’s intellectual abilities despite the obvious cause for bias.

“In this study, 84% of the children whose parents indicated that they fit three-fourths of the characteristics tested above 120 IQ. ” (An unpublished study, unfortunately.)

http://www.gifteddevelopment.com/PDF_files/scalersrch.pdf

This isn’t exactly the same as managing knowledge of one’s own intellectual abilities, but if it would seem to you that parents would most likely be hideously biased when assessing their children’s intellectual abilities even though, according to a giftedness researcher, this is probably not the case, then should you probably also consider that your concern that most LessWrong members are likely to subconsciously falsify their own IQ scores by a whopping 30 points (if that is your perception) may be far less likely to be a problem than you thought?

Epiphany 22 Sep 2013 1:11 UTC
1 point
in reply to: private_messaging’s comment on: 2012 Survey Results
This would be a good point in the event that we were not discussing IQ scores generated by an IQ test selected by Yvain, which many people took at the same time as filling out the survey. This method (and timing) rules out problems due to relying on estimates alone, most of the potential for mis-remembering, (neither of which should be assumed to be likely to result in an average score that’s 30 points too high, as mistakes like these could go in either direction), and, assuming that the IQ test Yvain selected was pretty good, it also rules out the problem of the test being seriously skewed. If you would like to continue this line of argument, one effective method of producing doubt would be to go to the specific IQ test in question, fill out all of the answers randomly, and report the IQ that it produces. If you want to generate a full-on update regarding those particular test results, complete with Yvain being likely to refrain from recommending this source during his next survey, write a script that fills out the test randomly and reports the results so that multiple people can run it and see for themselves what average IQ the test produces after a large number of trials. You may want to check to see whether Yvain or Gwern or someone has already done this before going to the trouble.

Also, there really were people whose concern it was that people were lying on the survey. Your “lie is a strawman” perception appears to have been formed due to not having read the (admittedly massive number of) comments on this.

Epiphany 22 Aug 2013 2:34 UTC
1 point
in reply to: gwern’s comment on: Rationalist sites worth archiving?
I did not intend to imply that you failed to back up your own data. That was intended as an amusing compliment.

Epiphany 21 Aug 2013 8:29 UTC
16 points
on: Rationalist sites worth archiving?
gwern.net

Epiphany 21 Aug 2013 8:21 UTC
3 points
in reply to: Eugine_Nier’s comment on: Why Are Individual IQ Differences OK?
Both of the citations I was given by you guys said clearly that they were uncertain about the connection between race and IQ. That is the reason I don’t agree—because even your citations do not agree. I assume those are the best citations you have, so that your citations do not agree with you makes your belief look very bad indeed.

Also, by arguing that the reason I don’t agree is because I am statistically innumerate and that the reason I don’t agree is because I’m too inept to understand, you have made an ad hominem fallacy. Attacking the person does zilch to support your argument.

I can’t believe I just saw an ad hominem attack on LessWrong. That is the the most obvious behavior that one avoids if one wants to have a rational debate.

Epiphany 21 Aug 2013 4:30 UTC
1 point
in reply to: Eugine_Nier’s comment on: Why Are Individual IQ Differences OK?

Well, seeing an unknown man approaching you at night

Actually, it is far more prudent to avoid a stranger approaching me at night, regardless of his race—depending on the environment I am in.

If he is approaching from a dark alley, I will head away from him, whatever his race. If he approaches me at a party full of friends, I will speak to him.

The crime statistics are not so incredibly different for blacks and whites that you can simply trust all of the whites.

Epiphany 21 Aug 2013 4:22 UTC
2 points
in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: Why Are Individual IQ Differences OK?

You can believe whatever you want to believe, it’s just that such an attitude looks strange here.

That is not my attitude. I have been asking you for research. Did you see what I discovered about “The Bell Curve”? What do you say about that?

Epiphany 21 Aug 2013 4:15 UTC
−3 points
in reply to: Muhd’s comment on: Why Are Individual IQ Differences OK?
Actually, the most useful application for individual businesses in this case would be (in the event that IQ tests are good at predicting who will be a good worker) to request IQ scores as part of a job application, not to discriminate based on race—this is not to say that it would be useful for society as a whole. I am not sure what it would do to society as a whole. On the one hand, if there’s a correlation between race and IQ, more people of each race with a low IQ might find themselves worse off. However, if employers become more willing to hire black people after testing their IQs, it could be a great boon to blacks and actually serve as a way to encourage people to judge each person based on individual characteristics as opposed to rejecting them for being part of a group. Simply tossing away all of the people of whatever race because the others have a low IQ would probably, in practice, not work very well—this is because they’re selecting from a pool of people who are qualified in the first place, and the process of becoming qualified acts as a filter. Most of the people they’re interviewing who are qualified are probably also intelligent enough to do the job—so you’d have too man false negatives this way.

I would say also that if aptitude tests are restricted because of racist connotations, it’s because people tied IQ to race.

Can you think of any applications for tying IQ to race that do not have the above issues?

Epiphany 21 Aug 2013 3:55 UTC
3 points
in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: Why Are Individual IQ Differences OK?

Yes, I’ve read Ioannidis. However you’re using this quote here as a rather blatant aid to your confirmation bias.

I think everyone should consider that published research findings are likely to be wrong each time they are seeking research findings. If you agree that we should be skeptical about research findings, why do you think that asking questions about whether the research controlled for multiple factors, was replicated etc. should be taken as evidence of confirmation bias? Maybe you disagree that we should be skeptical about research findings?

There have been many, many studies which all show the same thing.

Every single one? I would find that hard to believe for any topic, especially one as politically charged and controversial as this one, where both sides have a motive to bias research in their particular direction. If that is true, I would find it surprising. Assuming you were referring to the results of a meta-analysis, would you point to that meta-analysis please?

Precisely because these results are so controversial they have been the subject of very thorough checking, vetting, and multiple attempts to debunk them. The results survived all this. What, do you think that for the last 50 years no one really tried to find holes in the studies showing racial IQ differences? Many highly qualified people tried. The results still stand.

Are you saying that studies used for “The Bell Curve” did take into account the factors I mentioned, were replicated and / or may contain a meta-analysis that states that all the studies that could be found had similar findings?

If you aren’t specific about what measures were taken to ensure quality in the information you’re providing, I have no way to make the distinction between a matter of opinion and a matter of fact when you claim things like “The results survived all this.” Please be specific about what particular quality features the data in The Bell Curve provides.

The Bell Curve

I started checking out this book because of your high praise and was surprised to find this:

On page 270, The Bell Curve clearly states: “The debate about whether and how much genes and environment have to do with ethnic differences remains unresolved”

Can you explain why you seem to be disagreeing with me, when both myself and The Bell Curve agree that we don’t have a good way to tell whether IQ differences are nature or nurture? (Note: In addition to that, my view is also influenced by skepticism about research in general and an understanding that although IQ tests are correlated with various things, they have some limitations.)

Epiphany 20 Aug 2013 17:39 UTC
1 point
in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: Why Are Individual IQ Differences OK?
Ok thanks. However, I am aware that “most published research is wrong” (PLOS Medicine) and know that there are factors that need to be controlled for in studies on race and IQ (in the second numbered list). Do you also claim that these factors were controlled for, that the key study or studies have been replicated, and that this is quality data that generally avoids research pitfalls? That’s what I am looking for.

Epiphany 20 Aug 2013 7:45 UTC
1 point
in reply to: Vaniver’s comment on: Why Are Individual IQ Differences OK?

As the saying goes, “Life is an IQ test.”

As a stand-alone statement, I would probably leave this alone. But as a response to “What about nurture”, the first thing that comes to mind is:

Has Vaniver adequately corrected for the just world fallacy?

The predictive ability of IQ on income (and most other statistics of interest) is very similar for each race, which suggests that differences in measured IQ scores map onto differences in life outcomes.

Ok, that’s interesting, but it does nothing to rule out nurture factors that would impact both IQ and income.

Many people have looked at it, and the consensus answer for individual IQ differences is “somewhere between 50% and 80% of it is genetic”

I agree that IQ is mostly genetic and that IQ does seem to correlate with a lot of factors. I’m not saying IQ does not exist. What I am saying is that, specifically when it comes to black people, there are other factors that are definitely influencing performance and IQ scores. Therefore I reject claims about IQ and race that haven’t controlled for known factors.

Here’s Jason Richwine explaining that all serious scientists have agreed on the basics of IQ for decades

Actually, when I read that section (it starts with “What scholars”), I parsed it like this:

Jason explicitly says that there’s a scientific consensus on many issues that seem controversial to journalists.

Jason states that virtually all psychologists (not scientists) believe there is a general mental ability factor (That he’s not saying is specifically connected to race).

Then, without qualifying these statements with anything along the lines of “most x believe”, he states: “In terms of group differences, people of northeast Asian descent have higher average IQ scores than people of European lineage, who in turn have higher average scores than people of sub-Saharan African descent.”

I will not assume that this sequence of claims means that the group differences statement is also something scientists have a consensus about. If I did, that would be a non-sequitur.

Also, below that, he writes:

“It is possible that genetic factors could influence IQ differences among ethnic groups, but many scientists are withholding judgment until DNA studies are able to link specific gene combinations with IQ.”

This is where I stop reading the article because it is clear to me that it does not say “there’s a scientific consensus that there’s a link between race and IQ”. If you have a credible source for that claim, I’ll be curious about it. No more Politico articles please.

It seems pretty relevant to me

It might or might not have been an error. In any case, I’m not going to go digging for that right now because I still think knowing the percentage is irrelevant to the current point. Whether the figure is 50% or 25%, it is still true that a significant proportion of people will have an IQ above average and therefore it would be hasty generalization to assume that a person of a certain group was an idiot. That is one way in which the exact number is irrelevant. However, that point about hasty generalization is much more irrelevant at this particular moment because we haven’t even decided on a prior, let alone have we got a decent posterior—so the step where we have a concern about making a hasty generalization based on our probabilities should be in this disagreement’s future. If it becomes relevant, I will dig around, but not right now.

Epiphany 20 Aug 2013 6:00 UTC
3 points
in reply to: Eugine_Nier’s comment on: Why Are Individual IQ Differences OK?

When you’re deciding what to replace X with in the following statement, it most certainly does matter:

“X have a lower IQ on average.”

You can choose “People of African descent” or you can choose “People from poor backgrounds” or “People with serious health conditions” or “People with drug addictions” or any number of other things.

When attempting to determine how best to help a school in a black ghetto that is failing, and you’re choosing between spending money on remedial courses or on a school nutrition program, you will most certainly benefit from having this knowledge.

Conversely, I can’t think of any applications for which tying IQ to race is useful. Would you name three examples?

Also, I’m still interested in seeing the source that you believe is an accurate prior regarding race and IQ. Do you happen to have that information available?

Epiphany 20 Aug 2013 3:37 UTC
−5 points
in reply to: A1987dM’s comment on: Open thread, July 29-August 4, 2013
Thank you for this, army1987. I am glad to know that others can see appreciation as being a good and necessary thing rather than treating it as spam, and am more glad to see that someone else is willing to show support for encouraging behaviors. +1 karma. The Power of Reinforcement, “What Works”

Epiphany 20 Aug 2013 3:20 UTC
8 points
in reply to: Eugine_Nier’s comment on: Why Are Individual IQ Differences OK?
This reads like a classic case of motivated cognition.

Did you stop to make distinction between me being influenced by motivated cognition and alternate explanations like:
1. Me seeing significant flaws in data that would otherwise support your conclusion. Part of this may be that I’ve spent a significant amount of time reading about IQ and giftedness and I have learned that there are a lot of pitfalls to doing IQ related research.
2. Me simply being unaware of relevant data. (This might be the case in the event that the people who supplied my data were influenced by motivated cognition or confirmation bias.)
3. You seeing motivated cognition in my words because of being influenced by motivated cognition yourself?
The reason I believe the connection between race and intelligence is not just because of the tests but because more or less every relevant aspect of reality (e.g., the statistic on race and crime, the nearly complete lack of blacks in intelligence intensive fields, e.g., math, programing, the state of majority black countries) looks the way one would expect it to look if the connection existed.

There is an alternate explanation for those which does not have the same issues that IQ tests and studies have: The effects of slavery and prejudice. We are certain that slavery and prejudice has influenced them, and that it has existed for a long time. To know this, one must only look at the KKK or investigate the history of black enslavement. Imagine a third world country. Imagine that an equal proportion of those inhabitants are removed and used as slaves. Imagine an equal proportion of them dying. Imagine that they’re freed, but all of them—not some but all—are freed into a situation of extreme poverty where they don’t even own a home or have the ability to read. Many still aren’t being taught to read. Consider also that even though there have been advances in medicine, poverty means you can’t afford health insurance or medical treatments. Don’t think that disability and chronic illness are uncommon—they’re not. Not even in America. They’re probably especially common for the poor. Don’t think that severe worker abuse ended with slavery, either—do some research on sweatshops in America sometime. Now take into account the effects of stress, and the human element—how those effects can compound into things like mental illnesses and drug addictions. Would you predict that the majority of these people who started out with literally nothing and without even the education to read would manage to avoid pitfalls like disability, mental illness, drug addiction and sweatshops and carve an opportunity to excel out of poverty and ignorance over the course of 150 years? I would not expect that. I would expect most of them to have fared poorly.

I don’t see a good way to tell the difference between a low IQ score due to actually being less intelligent versus a low IQ score due to nurture-related reasons such as the following:
1. Improper nutrition due to poverty.
2. Lack of education.
3. The effects of extreme stress (How are you supposed to focus on an IQ test when you’ve just been threatened by a gang?)
4. Suffering from medical conditions (these can cause memory symptoms, brain fog, and fatigue), mental conditions or drug addictions.
5. Having been parented by people that were mentally or physically ill, severely stressed, or addicted.
6. Cultural differences that cause arbitrary communication issues during testing.
7. The psychological effects of prejudice (may influence things like self-esteem and locus of control or result in learned helplessness, etc.)
If you want to attribute the IQ scores to race, not poverty or circumstances, then there needs to be a good way to distinguish between nurture and nature as a cause for low IQ scores. Do you have one?

Yes there is. You just don’t want to believe it exists.

If it’s true I want to believe it. However, it’s hard to believe it exists without a citation. Do you have one?

Actually the chance of this particular black being above the African average is 50% (more if I condition on the fact that he is in the USA).

I respect you more for being able to say something that supports my view better than it does yours. +1 karma for that. I still think the number is 25%, however I do not view this as a key point in our disagreement, so I will leave it at that.

This is a general argument against using evidence of any kind.

You appear to have taken that statement as an argument regarding what to believe. It was not. I deliberately put that part after the section where I was discussing deciding what to believe, and put it under “if one wants to behave rationally”.
What links here?
- Epiphany's comment on Why Are Individual IQ Differences OK? by Eliezer Yudkowsky (20 Aug 2013 17:39 UTC; 1 point)

Epiphany 20 Aug 2013 1:35 UTC
−6 points
in reply to: Vladimir_Nesov’s comment on: Open thread, July 29-August 4, 2013
Since we’re supposed to use karma votes for weeding the garden, then I assume they are supposed to mean “you’re acting like a weed”. If you press the “you’re acting like a weed” button for anything other than a weed-like act, then you’re essentially crying wolf with the karma button which will result in people becoming indifferent just like they do when any other false alarm is raised often.

I like you Vladimir. I have observed that you’ve made an effort to be friendly and fair to me in the past. Since you have been honest with me, I’ll be honest also: It’s the fact that people use karma to express minor preferences like this one that keep me from taking most karma votes seriously.

I am also surprised to discover that people are communicating minor preferences using down votes. Look at it from my point of view: there are over 1000 people who regularly use this site. We don’t even have a consensus on things like Newcomb’s problem, free will or dust specks, let alone stylistic preferences. Were I to hypothesize about all the possible reasons why one of 1000+ people might down vote me that are not obvious in the way a Schelling point would be and calculate the probabilities of each, I would be spending an incredible amount of time just to figure out that you didn’t like a particular turn of phrase.

This might be Expecting Short Inferential Distances. (I have this problem as well, though it comes out in different places.) I still like you, but I hope you will try not to communicate minor preferences to me via karma votes in the future.

Epiphany 20 Aug 2013 1:02 UTC
5 points
in reply to: Eugine_Nier’s comment on: Why Are Individual IQ Differences OK?
If you intend to use an African prejudgment heuristic like 1 (below) rather than reacting as if you’ve done an equation that takes into account other relevant data like 2 (below), then I think your probability equation needs an upgrade.

1) African prejudgment heuristic: “The IQ test(s) said African’s IQs are lower than those of whites, therefore this specific African individual is likely to be relatively stupid compared to my white friends.”

2) Reasoning that Takes Relevant Data Into Account: “The IQ test(s) said African’s IQs are lower than those of whites. However, there are known flaws with IQ tests such as cultural bias, so that figure might be wrong. Most published research findings are false (PLOS Medicine), so I should apply healthy skepticism to all the research I read. This is not likely to be an accurate piece of data to use as a Bayesian prior. Once I’ve decided on a prior to use, I should then adjust for other relevant data (things I know about the specific individual).

Then, if one wants to behave rationally after one has decided what to believe, I think one must continue by thinking something like this:

“Considering things like...

A. …the fact my prior is likely to be inaccurate (there isn’t an accurate one for this subject as far as I’m aware)...

B. …the fact that even if the IQ study is correct and the IQ test it used was accurate, there’s a decent chance (25%) that this specific individual has an IQ above the African average—meaning I need to avoid the logical fallacy called hasty generalization...

C. …the risk of lost utility via damaging this individual’s reputation, emotional health or opportunities for success by pre-judging them...

D. …the risk that this makes for bad social signaling and witnesses may retaliate against me with one or more forms of social rejection if I pre-emptively treat an African like an idiot...

…do I really want to treat this person as if they are less intelligent?”

I think you may have reacted to my “I hope it is false.” statement or my “it’s ethically wrong to prejudge individual Africans” statement—but that shouldn’t matter to your probability calculation. What should matter is to get an accurate idea of reality. Along with saying other things, I also provided other factors which are relevant, as credible sources can confirm. If one wants to be a good Bayesian probabilist, after one specifies some prior probability, one must then update it in the light of new, relevant data. [1] This situation where you focused on one part of my comment and ignored the rest reminds me of those math problems where there’s an irrelevant statement thrown in just to distract you. I of course did not intend to distract you, but since you seem to think that Bayesian reasoning in this case means ignoring all the other data I presented, it appears that you have skipped the parts of the process where you ensure an accurate prior and update your prior with new, relevant data.

Life is really, really complicated. I doubt it’s ever wise to just grab a prior and run with it and I certainly hope that you do not reason this way.
1. Paulos, John Allen. The Mathematics of Changing Your Mind, New York Times (US). August 5, 2011; retrieved 2011-08-06
What links here?
- Vaniver's comment on Why Are Individual IQ Differences OK? by Eliezer Yudkowsky (21 Aug 2013 9:05 UTC; 4 points)

Epiphany 6 Aug 2013 17:52 UTC
−4 points
in reply to: NancyLebovitz’s comment on: Open thread, July 29-August 4, 2013
Thank you. +1 karma.

Epiphany 6 Aug 2013 17:51 UTC
0 points
in reply to: Jiro’s comment on: Why Are Individual IQ Differences OK?

There isn’t prejudice against people with a high IQ.

Perhaps you intended that within a specific context from the comment above like “These introduction examples don’t cause a problem because of prejudice, but because they sound like claims to superiority”, in which case I’d agree with you. However, I disagree about whether there exists prejudice against people with high IQs in the broader context. If that’s truly what you meant, I’d be happy to elaborate, but please specify so I am not accidentally arguing with a strawman.

And no, you can’t state your IQ without claiming you’re superior, since you can’t escape the social context.

I am very interested in this concept of superiority, because “superiority” seems to be an important key here. What does it mean to you? If a person is superior, is it okay to treat them differently? What sort of differently and why? If someone makes a claim to superiority, how do you think people should react, and why?