The Bell Curve

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Strong rec AgentME · 2020-01 · on “Life Is Driven by Network Effects”

This video about the problems with The Bell Curve (a book about IQ and other things) does a lot to explain a lot of the problems with IQ: [this video] . The video is well-researched; I've been a long-time fan of the creator for putting out quality stuff. >and it definitely has a large genetic component There's a number of studies showing that IQ is "heritable", but this is different from saying it's genetic. The video above (around the 39:00 mark) and [LINK] both get into this point. Wearing earrings is highly "heritable" despite being an arbitrary social custom, and having 10 fingers is not "heritable". It's also important to avoid falling into the conclusion that many people take about IQ that

Strong rec tjnaylor · 2023-04 · on “American IQ Scores Have Rapidly Dropped, Proving the 'Reverse Flynn Effect'”

[this video] It's a 2 hour video essay that covers psychometry generally as a lens to understanding a book called the Bell Curve that was a flashpoint for questions about the validity of IQ science generally (but most especially how it applies to race). It took a good chunk of my Sunday to get through it, but it was really enjoyable and gave me a ton of insight into a ton of buzzwords and studies I had heard of but couldn't really dig my teeth into. I think with this topic, getting a briefer, less nuanced summary than something like this would be a mistake because of how much misunderstanding of these topics permeates popular culture. The video also provides a number of studies and books to keep

Recommends wdbbdw · 2020-01 · on “'Cancel Culture' Comes to Science?”

'Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, said that most experts on intelligence “consider any black-white differences in I.Q. testing to arise primarily from environmental, not genetic, differences.” Dr. Collins said he was unaware of any credible research on which Dr. Watson’s “profoundly unfortunate" statement would be based.' [0] I think this video [1], does a good job of attacking a lot of race science and intelligence, though at 2.5 hours long it may be a bit too thorough. [0] [LINK] [1] [this video] edited for formatting

Recommends sascha_sl · 2022-07 · on “University Profs' Criticism Led to Retraction of Math Paper on Gender (2018)”

>Ironicaly this is never mentioned, they just see this is a "many more men can have a higher iq distrubution wise due to the male gauss tail stretching out further than womens, so this is sexist to say that men are smarter". Because many advocates of GMVH are only interested in justifying the gender imbalance in leadership positions biologically, dismissing any well known social factors (e.g. competence rating on double blind fake CVs)? "Feminists say GMVH means men are all smarter" is a gross oversimplification of the situation. If you have 2.5 hours to spend on a video essay, I'd very much recommend "The Bell Curve"[1], a breakdown of the book of the same name. Not so much for the racism p

Recommends geraldalewis · 2023-04 · on “American IQ Scores Have Rapidly Dropped, Proving the 'Reverse Flynn Effect'”

I think this video by `Shaun` is informative and well-researched (articles and books are cited). It's long; the creator isn't especially succinct, but it's as entertaining as the material allows, and the subject's complex enough to warrant a video that's a couple of hours long. [this video]

Recommends geraldalewis · 2023-04 · on “American IQ Scores Have Rapidly Dropped, Proving the 'Reverse Flynn Effect'”

> For most people, performance on one type of cognitive task (e.g. verbal reasoning) is highly correlated with performance on the other types of cognitive tasks. It's cool that that's your understanding, but you're wading into territory that gets people sterilized and killed. I have a lot of trust in science, but not here. This video was informative for me: [this video] For example, here's an IQ test; let's say its given to 5,000,000 Canadians, and 3,000 Texans (1): * What is the capital city of Canada? * Which Canadian province is the largest by land area? * Who is considered the "Father of Medicare" in Canada? * Name the two official languages of Canada. * Which Canadian team won the Stanley Cu

Recommends pfooti · 2024-11 · on “Hey, wait – is employee performance Gaussian distributed?”

Those two assumptions are not particularly well-supported by data or modern thought on capabilities. Even the construct of "IQ" is probably a post-hoc explanation of data rather than a predictive thing. If you want an hours-long discussion of that in the context of the book, The Bell Curve, have a look at: [this video]

Cites mcguire · 2023-07 · on “We're Not Platonists, We've Just Learned the Bitter Lesson”

Some notes: " Variation in IQ during adulthood is about 70% genetic. " The proviso "during adulthood" is important: "The heritability of IQ increases with the child's age and reaches a plateau at 18–20 years old, continuing at that level well into adulthood." (Is it just me or is that a weird thing for it to do.) That being said, the Wilson Effect paper goes on to say, "It is important to specify the populations to which any results can be generalized and not misinterpret what they mean. The samples were drawn almost exclusively from Western industrial democracies. These settings have characteristic environments. Only a few of the participants were raised in real poverty or by illiterate par