Fair enough. If one holds that there is no (current) reasonable way to measure intelligence, it is indeed unnecessary to pursue any discussion about how to improve what does not exist.
It also seems unfruitful to to engage brazil84 in such a long exchange about national intelligence, except to take a position that intelligence is unmeasurable, though…
As I’ve said, I think that you are not giving enough credit to people who are “slow” or mildly retarded. And you are the one who brought up Rushton and claimed that he has tried to prove that white people are “just right.”
But you still haven’t answered my earlier question:
Are you saying that Lynn is claiming that if you limit the study to nations with an average IQ between 100 and 105, there is still a strong correllation between IQ and GDP?
We’re also a tad bit off the OP.
It was not Lynn, but Vanhanen in a print article after the book came out. Since I have now discovered that in the book they only assign a 0.76 correlation between per capita GDP and IQ, I would guess that his comment was an off-hand one not intended to be taken as literally as I had read it.
On the other hand, the way they fudged their numbers along with their nonsense about Nigeria, Jamaica, Ethiopia, South Africa, and other places being more than half mentally retarded is quite sufficient to get me to dismiss their claims, regardless what they believe about the higher scoring countries.
Like I said before, given that you basically agree that low IQ = low GDP, it’s hard to see why you would be so dismissive.
Anyway, I doubt that they “fudged” their numbers in the sense of falsifying them.
“Low IQ = low GDP” is nothing more than a catchphrase that indicates that if there truly was a people who were truly far less intelligent than anyone else, their GDP would be lower, as well. It is hardly some great point to establish when we have no serious evidence that there are entire nations with low intelligence, (expressed in this conversation as the shorthand “low IQ” even though IQ has never been reliably demonstrated to be meaningful across cultural boundaries).
It also does not establish that lower IQ indicates lower GDP, since, as used, the phrase was meant to indicate a serious lack of intelligence, not fine shadings.
I did not claim that Lynn and Vanhanen falsified anything, so I am not sure where that straw man originated. However, “fudging” the numbers is a very good description of an effort in which:
The question is not “why am I dismissive?” The question should be, when over half of their data is invented, when most of the data they have is based on too small sample sizes, when they compare unlike tests as if they were identical, when they arbitrarily apply their own fudge factor that has no corresponding value in the psychometric literature, and when there are errors of fact in their collated data, why should anyone accept any conclusion they publish?
The real question is why are you so intent on accepting or defending such an obvious example of schlock pseudoscience, regardless whether or not they made a good faith effort that was so horribly flawed?
Maybe not, but I asked you earlier if you thought that GDP would rise steadily from IQ 70 to IQ 100 or if you thought there was some threshold. You indicated that you did not want to speculate. Which is fine, but if the latter possibility is correct, it would largely confirm Lynn’s hypothesis. If it’s the former possibility, it would still confirm the hypothesis as long as a decent number of nations fell below that threshold. In neither case can you dismiss the basic hypothesis.
I wasn’t sure what you meant by “fudging,” which was pretty clear from my post.
I’m not sure I would call it “schlock pseudoscience,” but the analysis, even if flawed, does seem to provide support for the basic hypothesis.
He invented more than half his data. He used figures that were clearly taken from inadequate sources (which he then used to invenmt more data). He published data that was factually in error. And all that in support of the application of an unproven science to a real world situation.
That is clearly schlock pseudoscience and nothing he has provided supports any fantasy he has of a “hypothesis.”
Does “invented” data include data that is transformed from other data?
I think “transmogrify” is a better verb than “transform.”
Lacking data for 104 out of 185 countries, he resorted to all sorts of odd games to invent the data. Of the 81 countries for which he had “data,” many of them had sample sizes that were ludicrously unrepresentative and others had data that he used, raw, when the scaling systems of the tests he quoted were not matched to the Stanford-Binet or the Ravens. To extrapolate from bad information to create new information in over 56% of one’s cases is absurd.
What do you suppose would happen if GDP were compared with his IQ estimates for only those 81 nations?
I have no idea.
Part of the problem is that I do not trust IQ tests, of course.
On the other hand, we already know that many of the 81 nations were identified by inadequate tests of only a few individuals of narrow age and wealth groups. We know that some of the tests from those countries were administered decades ago and may have no bearing on the current situation. We also know that some of the tests used a scale that had nothing in common with Stamford-Binet or Ravens and I would be leery of any attempt to reconcile them.
Given that, I certainly would not trust Lynn or Vanhanen to be involved.
Aftert that, we go back to my general mistrust of IQ testing that, I suspect, does a better job of testing wealth and education than it ever will of testing intelligence.
Let real scientists go out and discover a genuine definition of intelligence (if they are able) and we can come back to the question in thirty years and try it again.
I object to IQ tests, generally, because I suspect they are only capable of very gross analyses at the level of an individual.
I object to the Lynn and Vanhanen publication, specifically, because it is pseudoscience.
Separate objections to separate issues that happen to converge when someone attempts to use their hocus-pocus to support IQ testing, in general.
Well, as it turns out, the Wikipedia page on IQ and the Wealth of Nations has a scatterplot of GDP versus national IQ for 81 countries. I would assume it’s the same 81 countries you referred to in your earlier post.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/92/IQatWoN_GDP_IQ.png
Even without doing any math, you can see that there is a strong positive correllation between IQ (as estimated by Lynn) and GDP.
This also illustrates my earlier point. Even if we assume that Lynn “invented data,” as you claim, his hypothesis seems quite robust when you drop the “invented data” out of the picture.
If you want to link to Wiki, you might as well link to the actual article as well, which has all sorts of debunking included in it. If you want to prove that Lynn sees a correlation between the two (hell, his fellow Pioneer Fund buddy Rushton sees a correlation between penis size and IQ), then I don’t think we need a debate. We all know that the scumbag sees one. What I’d like to see proven is first, is that the numbers reflect reality. Then, and only then, can we further determine whether there is a correlation. If you have some evidence that Africa is “Retards-R-Us” that doesn’t have “eugenics freaks” written all over it, I’d like to see it.
Which of the following researchers would you put in the category of “eugenics freaks” and why?
A. Ombredane
F. Robaye
E. Robaye
H.N. Nkaya
M. Huteau
J.P. Bonnet
J.L. LaRoche
M. Boisiere
J.B. Knight
R.H. Sabot
V. Costenbader
S.M. Ngari
M. Wober
E.D.Fahrmeier
J.W. Berry
R.A. Ahmed
E.L. Klingelhofer
S.P. Heyneman
D.T. Jamison
F. Zindi
I have zero desire to go through the references section of the asshat’s book for you, as I’ve already demonstrated that your original reference was craptastic (at your request, if I recall) and you continue to use it as if it’s gospel. If you have something, other than Pioneer Funded “research”, that demonstrates that the average IQ of the entire population of Equatorial Guinea is 59, I’ll happily look at it. If it happens to be from one of the above persons, I’ll let you know if they are a “eugenics freak” or not.
Suit yourself. But my assumption will be that most or all of the researchers listed are not “eugenics freaks” until you show me otherwise.
Have you ignored everything that does not support your desire to pretend IQ has this wonderful relationship?
Look at what I have already pointed out that the Wikipedia article says about data in the 81 countries:
I have no idea why you are so devoted to pretending their nonsense numbers have any bearing on reality, but when you start ignoring information that has already been posted just to say that you still like their ideas, we are into the realm of the kid that just keeps repeating “Why?” as something has been explained to him ad nauseam. Barring some serious input, I’m outta here.
Exactly what “wonderful relationship” do you think I would like there to be between IQ and GDP? Please spell out your charge.
How exactly were these test subjects chosen?
I don;t know. Despite pretty overwhelming evidence that Lynn and Vanhanen’s “research” is worthless and lacking any other similar study, you keep coming back to say it looks good to you. You seem pretty desperate that there be a relationship despite nothing resembling valid supporting data.
Ask Lynn and Vanhanen. They are the ones who wrote the book that used such data as though it meant anything. I have no idea why anyone would actually include silly numbers unless they were desperate to show that they had actually looked outside Europe and North America and really did not care whether their study made any sense.
I will refrain from speculating that they just might have deliberately looked for the worst scores they could find, but I will admit the thought has crossed my mind.