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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   29848 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 19, 2024

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This is just a straight up gish-gallop. None of these arguments address the central HBD thesis (individuals and groups differ in personality and intelligence, and these differences are at least partly genetic). Most of them are non-sequitors, some are just straight up lies.

To address just one randomly selected point, 'Africans have greater genetic diversity than the rest of the world'. This is entirely meaningless because genetic diversity does not guarantee phenotypic diversity on any one trait within an ethnic or racial group. For example, all SSAfrican ethnic groups have darker skin than every ethnic group in Europe. Their genetic diversity doesn't provide a range of skin tones matching the breadth that we see in humanity as a whole, so why should we assume that same genetic diversity would provide a range of IQs matching humanity as a whole.

The Ashkenazi Jews obviously have less genetic diversity than the whole of Subsaharan Africa, but that doesn't stop them having the highest IQs in the world.

I guess a question I would put to a HBD-skeptic would be:

Why do IQ scores correlate with brain size, academic achievement, income and criminality? What is the cause of these correlations if not intelligence?

The obvious anser to me would seem to be that academia is not a particularly rigorous field and that especially at the highest levels it's primary role is to sort aspiring members of the chattering class into "winning" and "loosing" buckets rather than to educate, hence why so many professors grade on a curve rather than against knowledge of the material.

As such I think claims made based on anything produced by academia in the last half-century or so it should be taken with a grain of salt. Anecdotally the sort of naive symbol manipulation that seems to be measured by IQ tests and academic achievement seems to be only tangentially related to conscientiousness, foresight, and ability to take-on/integrate new information. In fact, there seems to be a tipping point +1 or 2 SD where it actually becomes negatively correlated with outward signs of intelligence as the Higher IQ/Symbol-Manipulation Quotient gets turned towards rationalizing previously held opinions/beliefs rather than updating one's model to reflect changing circumstance or generating accurate theories of mind.

Meanwhile correlation to income and criminality is easily explained by academia's role as a means of sorting aspiring members of the chattering class into "winning" and "loosing" buckets, though I would question the "criminality" claim. Are we certain that the Bidens are less crooked than the median family "unlicensed pharmacist" living in the projects? Or are "the elite" just looking out for their own? Personally, my money would be on the latter.

I think claims made based on anything produced by academia in the last half-century or so.

You should be happy to know that the US military’s use of standardized testing goes back more than a century. For college too actually.

And you not accepting low IQ levels of criminals and trying to blame this on academia is frankly just an impressive way to think.

You’re a rare flower that hates academia but also agrees with it on race and IQ being made up and used by bad people for bad purposes.

All this makes a good springboard for you to express your disdain for academia and rationalists, if it were true, but it's not. IQ correlates with achievement in the general case, up to +2 SD at least (I haven't seen good studies beyond that). It also correlates below the level you'd expect academia to have an effect. And there's certainly no evidence of a tipping point at which people start to appear dumber.

IQ correlates with achievement in the general case

What part of "it's primary role is to sort aspiring members of the chattering class into 'winning' and 'loosing' buckets" did you not understand?

What part of "general case" did you not understand? It is true even for non-members of the chattering class.

Why is that its primary role?

Why does the US military use it so heavily?

Even if that’s how it was being used, you’re not invalidating the massive amount of evidence that IQ correlates with performance.

And well beyond the things the “chattering class” have any direct interest in.

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