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1:56 AM
5 hours later…
7:15 AM
there is some disagreement between me and several people over this answer:
https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/a/44989/50610
Others say that I did not provide enough evidence to meet the standards of this site.
I disagree, and although I am not fully satisfied either I think I was able to add so...
7 hours later…
2:10 PM
So I watched the whole linked video which shows Jordan Peterson rambling about IQ. That there is anything worthwhile in it cannot be said. He apparently is counted as a psychologist? How come he doesn't know squat about what he's talking about?
And why do we discuss IQ tests here when that is true for all SE members as well as the geenral population: almost everyone clicking on internet articles with the word 'intelligence' in the title isn't?
JP talks about a construct that's emerging from statistics. Statistics only comparable if one looks at how they are constructed. Different from test to test as the basic factors to measure are not well defined, the statistical transformations different.
If he refers to a gaussian bell curve normalised/standardised distribution of IQ scores between tests that do no not correlate perfectly between each other, why does nobody pull out the calculator or looks at the very definitions? Compare the numbers he gives (disregarding the quite important fact that he doesn't name the tests used). Nothing in that talk is useful.
He talks about 'intelligence' in a way that should have been discarded long ago. To promote a very distasteful agenda on top. And yet nobody frame challenges that in the answers given. Stickling together abstract numbers that are absolutely meaningless in the way they are used. And incorrect in quite some details. Is "IQ 83" = "1 in 10", is that 'IQ'-level a hard rule in the military?
We do not have very many good questions about 'intelligence' on Skeptics, and even fewer answers. JP presents a theory laced in pseudoscience and errors, distortions and playing on a public fetish that is not very well correlating with anything 'the science' on that subject has to say.
2 hours later…
4:36 PM
JP holds the view that IQ=intelligence and that intelligence is both: well defined, understood,and measureable and that it is heritable. A biologism like every fascists dream. (In the video that is in "you can't train people, it's impossible")
Nature, nurture, criticism of IQ testing, culture-fairness etc All concepts he seems to ignore or has positively never heard of. He takes a theoretical construct and confuses it with reality, present sthat as fact.
Then he takes an overprecise number, from –presumeably– some test. With naimng the test this number is meaningless. Absolutely meaningless. But people here like to hear that and say "IQ-tests are useful". Well, in this case they are useful to abuse.
Hint: if they use one test, that one test does not produce "your IQ". If they would use one test the results from that are not perfectly translatable via calcualation to "corresponds".
In every proper psychology course on report writing that should include some form of 'IQ-test' you should also be told that after test taking and score calculation to then translate in actual writing that to a scale even approaching meaningfulness like "below average", "average" etc.
> The intelligence quotient (IQ) is a parameter determined by an intelligence test to evaluate intellectual performance in general (general intelligence) or within a certain range (e.g. factors of intelligence) in comparison to a reference group. It always refers to the test in question because there is no scientifically recognised, unambiguous definition of intelligence.
Is that test – hypothetically – defined somewhere as a sine qua non condition for entering 'service'?
Or is an equivalent of 'that test' and the scores to achieve somewhere on these tablets Moses brought down the mountain? For the military recruitment scenario?
For this horrible question the real world question boils down to: does the military test abilities of recruits with pen&paper? Trivially: yes.
They do not test that. What they test only roughly compares somewhat to what is claimed. And as correlations go, (in this case the correlation itself is a contestable claim) some will fall below that claimed threshold!
And as to the hardness and inflexibility of that rule? As soon as the need for recruit numbers increases and applicants dwindle, there is only so much possible as a reaction: re-introduce draft or lower requirements. Are thre no soldiers with a measured IQ of some test with a score in that test of 82?
JP generalises left and mainly right. As if the world had never seen imbeciles in thar glorious institution (in the video he claims it to a "useful tool for social mobility")? Reducing the video to the claim as asked is already misleading, if context isn't given in a well written answer.
The above is surely already too long to be read by anyone. And it may lack sources. But since nobody wants o read all the books I read on the subject here, yet still the clamour for "citation needed", let me just close with the main point that illustrates why those damned IQ test and even more so IQ numbers do not say what most here seem to think:
> "Intelligence is what intelligence tests measure, that are designed to predict the level of education as well as possible, or in short: intelligence tests measure the assumed ability to achieve a high level of education." –– Jens Asendorpf
The circularity and restrictions should illustrate how limited the reach of even well designed and well validated tests are.
> “IQ” is a stale test meant to measure mental capacity but in fact mostly measures extreme unintelligence (learning difficulties), as well as, to a lesser extent (with a lot of noise), a form of intelligence, stripped of 2nd order effects — how good someone is at taking some type of exams designed by unsophisticated nerds.
> The concept is poorly thought out mathematically by the field (commits a severe flaw in correlation under fat tails and asymmetries; fails to properly deal with dimensionality; treats the mind as an instrument not a complex system), and seems to be promoted by
> - Racists/eugenists, people bent on showing that some populations have inferior mental abilities based on IQ test=intelligence;
> Psychometrics peddlers looking for suckers (military, large corporations) buying the “this is the best measure in psychology” argument when it is not even technically a measure —
> it explains at best between 2 and 13% of the performance in some tasks (those tasks that are similar to the test itself)[see interpretation of .5 correlation further down], minus the data massaging and statistical cherrypicking by psychologists; it doesn’t satisfy the monotonicity and transitivity required to have a measure (at best it is a concave measure).
5:46 PM
The thing about JP is that his provocative statements often say what we're all thinking. "1 in 10 people are basically worthless". That feels true to a lot of people.
@LangLangC Yes, IQ science is muddled and nuanced, and the idea itself is tastelessly misanthropic and disheartening, but "seems legit" is not even answering those points. The question is merely about u.s. military enlistment requirements. Whether that means anything to JP's conclusions is irrelevant.
But is the military even using a real 'IQ-test'? As stated. scores' convertibility is severly limited, with low reach to begin with.
JP presents 'the IQ', which doesn't exist, and alleges that there is a rule in place that takes this non-existing thing as a hard measure. Ironically claiming circularly at the same time that low-scorers are so worthless that there wouldn't be any sense to test them in the first place. Out of a swamp there glimmers a fata morgana and we delight in shiny shadows.
Let's ignore the surrounding problems and focus on that one fact: where is the IQ<83 rule? Are all people in the mil >83? Unless one mistakes and abuses IQscore I do not see that claim to be true.
The most basic fact is that IQscores have no place in any public debate. Whether I ref statisticians or psychologists who know their turf, in contrast to what we hear in the video, all those Q&As on this site demonstrate how deeply rooted this belief in a fetish is. Seems just too damn nice to take a test that increases your self-efficacy. On this topic the battle is harder than reconverting a prophet on his deathbed?
@fredsbend If you really hold that to be true than not only mine, but a lot of answers here should be a lot shorter. But there is a catch. Without context and interpretation every statistic is utterly worthless.
> Jordan Peterson is peddling IQ myths and fallacies
Jordan Peterson is notorious for his desire to annihilate a liberal arts education, wanting to throw out the humanities and social sciences (except psychology, apparently) as tainted by post-modernism. We’re supposed to fire all those bad professors who teach bad ideas, false facts, and unacceptable interpretations of the evidence.
I guess that means we can fire Peterson, then.
This article correctly identifies him as The Professor of Piffle. In addition to his intolerance and failure to understand modern literary criticism, it turns ou…
Jordan Peterson is notorious for his desire to annihilate a liberal arts education, wanting to throw out the humanities and social sciences (except psychology, apparently) as tainted by post-modernism. We’re supposed to fire all those bad professors who teach bad ideas, false facts, and unacceptable interpretations of the evidence.
I guess that means we can fire Peterson, then.
This article correctly identifies him as The Professor of Piffle. In addition to his intolerance and failure to understand modern literary criticism, it turns ou…
2 hours later…
7:52 PM
Two things stand out: 1) IQ does correlate to better positions in life. Test your average lawyer and your average janitor. They average different results, and this keeps happening no matter how they tweek the testing model. Besides, since when is it not common knowledge that a lawyer is probably smarter than a janitor?
2) Peterson is a heavy critic of overt social causes being passed as truth and science in university classrooms. He's a heavy critic of the currently popular conclusion that men, especially young white ones, are all round shitty. He is not seeking restoration of "authority to those who feel disempowered by the globalism, feminism, and social-justice movements he derides." Or at least, not in the nefarious sexist racist otherwise asshole kind of way that quote wants you to believe.
@fredsbend See, that's the trouble with statistics without context… Being black also correlates with being imprisoned. And with mere correlations. On this topic we see a JP confusing the public in his own profession: wrong on every scale. and level. But on Skeptics we upvote answers that take a detail, otherwise wholly irrelevant, but abused to great effect in his video, declare that with flawed reason and in error for 'somewhat OK'
9:05 PM
@LangLangC To the way JP is using that fact, yes, it may be grossly untrue. But the fact itself, that military testing is a loose proxy for IQ and there is a lower bar to those accepted, is generally true. If you think JP's argument in total needs to be addressed here, I fail to see why. Instead, I think a compromise in a decent answer would be a single line like "However, JP's conclusions from this one point, tenuous as it is, do not necessarily follow logically. Take it with a grain of salt."
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