Very well done. Stigmatizing IQ research means we blind ourselves to a powerful explanatory variable. We are on the verge of a revolution in genetic enhancement and that is threatened by stigma about racism and eugenics. That’s unfortunate because if it is a pathway to increasing human welfare, then we should want to know about it.
I think that the more dangerous attitude is that differences in socioeconomic outcomes is always attributable to an oppressor group. But this attitude cannot be combated unless you talk about taboo things and there is harsh stigma by design. What other purpose does doing up 25+ year old emails serve?
Overall fun essay but I'm not really sure what the overall point is (I think I know the hidden motive but that's beside the point), that is it seems anyone intelligent or reasonable enough to understand the arguments presented in this post would already both believe that Bostrom is not hateful towards blacks and that Bostrom is right about differences in intelligence. And anyone unintelligent and unreasonable enough to not understand the arguments in this post would already believe Bostrom to be a hateful and deny differences in intelligence, and of course would not be capable of being motivated to change their views based off this post.
I should say perhaps the most interesting takeaway from the entire ordeal is Nick Bostrom's response "Are there any genetic contributors to differences between groups in cognitive abilities? It is
not my area of expertise, and I don’t have any particular interest in the question. I would leave to
others, who have more relevant knowledge, to debate whether or not in addition to environmental
factors, epigenetic or genetic factors play any role." Which is almost as ridiculous as suspending judgement on the question of whether their are differences in height between men and women because you don't have a PhD in Biology, one need only open their eyes to perceive reality, this is especially egregious given the fact that Bostrom is obviously familiar with the literature and assuming he is intelligent enough (and he is) to see how intelligence is important for his other beliefs, he obviously has a strong interest in this question.
Furthermore the response or lack thereof from prominent people who clearly agree with the unfiltered Bostrom tells you what kind of people they are, and how easily they are willing to sacrifice the obvious to the irrationality of the mob. Don't get me wrong this is perfectly understandable given how powerful the mob is, but its hilarious nonetheless. I wonder in 5 or 10 years time what the same people will be saying as the Overton window moves further left.
Ignore my previous question I was retarded. Good article.
This is completely unrelated, but did you go to grad school? Your familiarity with all sorts of literature is exceedingly impressive if you went bachelors -> work.
>For example, the standard deviation of the set {1, 2, 8, 9, 3} is 3.65 and the average of the set {6, 8, 2, 4, 9} is 2.86.
I presume "average" should read "standard deviation" here.
(Also, the values given are the _sample_ standard deviations, with Bessel's correction applied, which isn't appropriate for the accompanying explanation.)
Unrelated: you should import your old posts from medium. If you go to settings - basic, it says import posts and you can bring them in from medium. It would be good for people to be able to easily find them!
What are your thoughts to Turkheimer's claims that environmental variables on IQ would be proportional with test complexity:
"He [Rushton] believes that a genetic hypothesis about the origin of the racial IQ gap would predict this pattern of larger differences for more heritable, heavily g-loaded items, and that environmental ones would not. This belief is mistaken. The construct of g would have no significance if it were not a measure of cognitive complexity. If a group is environmentally disadvantaged, its performance in comparison to non-disadvantaged groups will be greater on more complex tasks than on less complex ones."
And Flynn:
"(1) g would be of no interest were it not correlated with cognitive complexity. (2) Given a hierarchy of tasks, a worse performing group (whatever the cause of its deficit) will tend to hit a “complexity ceiling” — fall further behind a better group the more complex the task. (3) Heritability of relevant traits will increase the more complex the task. (4) Thus, the fact that group performance gaps correlate with heritability gives no clue to the origin of group differences."
Very well done. Stigmatizing IQ research means we blind ourselves to a powerful explanatory variable. We are on the verge of a revolution in genetic enhancement and that is threatened by stigma about racism and eugenics. That’s unfortunate because if it is a pathway to increasing human welfare, then we should want to know about it.
I think that the more dangerous attitude is that differences in socioeconomic outcomes is always attributable to an oppressor group. But this attitude cannot be combated unless you talk about taboo things and there is harsh stigma by design. What other purpose does doing up 25+ year old emails serve?
Overall fun essay but I'm not really sure what the overall point is (I think I know the hidden motive but that's beside the point), that is it seems anyone intelligent or reasonable enough to understand the arguments presented in this post would already both believe that Bostrom is not hateful towards blacks and that Bostrom is right about differences in intelligence. And anyone unintelligent and unreasonable enough to not understand the arguments in this post would already believe Bostrom to be a hateful and deny differences in intelligence, and of course would not be capable of being motivated to change their views based off this post.
I should say perhaps the most interesting takeaway from the entire ordeal is Nick Bostrom's response "Are there any genetic contributors to differences between groups in cognitive abilities? It is
not my area of expertise, and I don’t have any particular interest in the question. I would leave to
others, who have more relevant knowledge, to debate whether or not in addition to environmental
factors, epigenetic or genetic factors play any role." Which is almost as ridiculous as suspending judgement on the question of whether their are differences in height between men and women because you don't have a PhD in Biology, one need only open their eyes to perceive reality, this is especially egregious given the fact that Bostrom is obviously familiar with the literature and assuming he is intelligent enough (and he is) to see how intelligence is important for his other beliefs, he obviously has a strong interest in this question.
Furthermore the response or lack thereof from prominent people who clearly agree with the unfiltered Bostrom tells you what kind of people they are, and how easily they are willing to sacrifice the obvious to the irrationality of the mob. Don't get me wrong this is perfectly understandable given how powerful the mob is, but its hilarious nonetheless. I wonder in 5 or 10 years time what the same people will be saying as the Overton window moves further left.
Ignore my previous question I was retarded. Good article.
This is completely unrelated, but did you go to grad school? Your familiarity with all sorts of literature is exceedingly impressive if you went bachelors -> work.
>For example, the standard deviation of the set {1, 2, 8, 9, 3} is 3.65 and the average of the set {6, 8, 2, 4, 9} is 2.86.
I presume "average" should read "standard deviation" here.
(Also, the values given are the _sample_ standard deviations, with Bessel's correction applied, which isn't appropriate for the accompanying explanation.)
Unrelated: you should import your old posts from medium. If you go to settings - basic, it says import posts and you can bring them in from medium. It would be good for people to be able to easily find them!
What are your thoughts to Turkheimer's claims that environmental variables on IQ would be proportional with test complexity:
"He [Rushton] believes that a genetic hypothesis about the origin of the racial IQ gap would predict this pattern of larger differences for more heritable, heavily g-loaded items, and that environmental ones would not. This belief is mistaken. The construct of g would have no significance if it were not a measure of cognitive complexity. If a group is environmentally disadvantaged, its performance in comparison to non-disadvantaged groups will be greater on more complex tasks than on less complex ones."
And Flynn:
"(1) g would be of no interest were it not correlated with cognitive complexity. (2) Given a hierarchy of tasks, a worse performing group (whatever the cause of its deficit) will tend to hit a “complexity ceiling” — fall further behind a better group the more complex the task. (3) Heritability of relevant traits will increase the more complex the task. (4) Thus, the fact that group performance gaps correlate with heritability gives no clue to the origin of group differences."