The Bell Curve

[_EAllusion]

What makes a good math teacher "good" is her ability to teach math well. That is the primary purpose of school, in fact. To learn.

When I finished the 11th grade, my IQ may have been 120. I then took Calculus the next year. At the end of the 12th grade my IQ was still 120. Does that mean I wasted a year of my life? No. I didn't take Calculus to improve my IQ. I took it to learn Calculus. I succeeded at my goal, and having a good teacher helped tremendously.

IQ tests are intended to measure "g"--general intelligence--a general ability to think and solve abstract mental problems. They are not intended to test how well you learned any given school curriculum. You don't seem to grasp this basic point.

I had an acquaintance who scored a "1600+" on the SAT at the age of 15 and started studying at Yale that year. His IQ was literally off the charts. Since then I've spent perhaps 15,000 hours studying. Doing so has led to achieving my educational goals. But it hasn't budged my IQ one iota closer to where my friend found himself as a teenager.

IQ, as measured by the AFQT, is your ability to answer questions about Algebra (among other things). It seems that you don't get this basic point. It turns out, according to Murray, that how good your Algebra class is relatively speaking actually has very little to do with how good you are at Algebra relative to others.

My question is then why aren't we cutting the expensive classes so they resemble the cheap ones? Murray does argue for more gifted programming, but that's not what's being talked about here.

America has large disparities in classroom quality that vary by state and local district. If those variances aren't relevant to educational outcomes we are funding them for, why isn't this a case to go with the cheaper options?

(P.S. Studying for IQ tests, even the kind you are referring to, does actually move your IQ.)

[_EAllusion]

You're aware the AFQT score is compiled from several of the subsections of the ASVAB and this is later proxy converted to an IQ equivalent, right? Murray and Hernstein regard this as a great IQ measure and it informs their work throughout.

Those subsections test academic knowledge, so scores are necessarily related to one's academic knowledge.

[_EAllusion]

That is so obvious you must have got his point. Is there another level of this that I'm missing? Are you pretending to miss the point to mess with him?

How seriously am I to take his theory that I'm a 3rd wave feminist social Marxist lying about libertariansim and everything under the sun in order to oppress people (via message board posts)? I got that he reacted to my comment that Murray was a libertarian whose fans largely are on the far right as somehow evidence that I'm not really libertarian which proves his one-man conspiracy theory, but I replied with the question I did because this statement is true or false regardless of whether I'm libertarian or not. Is he not a libertarian whose fans are on the far right? This fact exists independent of whether or not we like him or that. There are libertarians I like a lot where that description would be true of them. Robby Soave, for instance.

My point to you, of course, is that Murray and the people who rely on him as an expert are actually into the implications I'm pointing out that I think you aren't dealing with.

[_EAllusion]

Did Murray say the following? If so, was he lying?

The section under discussion isn't long. It's easy to follow. What he says there is that the legacy of slavery does not explain racial IQ gaps in America well because blacks in Africa weren't in slavery (they were, but whatevs) and black African IQ, throughout the continent of Africa, is even significantly lower than American black IQ. Again, this is to explicitly argue that the social situation of blacks in America as a legacy of slavery does not explain racial IQ gaps and further that racial IQ gaps is what explains social disparities like employment variation, arrest rates, etc. He misreports numbers from already shoddy research for this point, so we have to distinguish what his race science is saying vs. what he is saying it says, but on this point, the general idea remains consistent.

He even points out that South African black IQ is higher than the general continental IQ and is about the same as American black IQ. One, that also misreports what his own citation says, but more importantly, he points this out while also pointing out that both populations have similar white admixture. The only reason you'd say that - the only reason - is to argue a genetic hypothesis for this variance as a contrast to the social situation he is arguing against. Otherwise the comment makes no sense. The reader is left to infer this in an act of brinksmanship, but they walk you right up to the conclusion.

So when you ask if this below quote is lying:

Our view was that the current differences will narrow over time, probably dramatically, as nutrition and the quality of schools for black Africans improve. Changes in black African culture may provide an environment more conducive to cognitive development among young children.

I don't know if I'd say lying. I'd say disingenuous. What I'd also point out is that the "changes in black African culture" line is rich when the data set he's talking about involves blacks under apartheid. Maybe that had something to do with test scores. Radical hypothesis, I know. That doesn't cause him to talk about changes in white culture, though.

[_honorentheos]

Other that because we like metrics, why should one privilege IQ as the measure of performance and how we ought to value education or anything at all? Just curious.

The major point of the book is that IQ does a fantastic job of predicting seemingly every socioeconomic outcome you can think of. The largest sextion of the book, and the least disputed chapters, are dedicated to this. That is shy it matters.

Hi Analytics,

It sounds like you might not get back to this soon. That said, perhaps I wasn't making my question clear as to what I was asking.

As noted throughout this thread, no one seems to be arguing that the value of education is tied to improving IQ. Nor should anyone expect that raising IQ would be the target of education. We've also discussed that there are varied views as to how much IQ really measures general intelligence and how much it represents ability to perform to a standard defined by a particular cultural background. We can say that Murray favors viewing IQ as measuring something more universal but that's merely noting his position. Whether one is skeptical of IQ or favorable, no one would be surprised to see high IQ's correspond with high levels of success in western cultures, in particular in the US. Like the cartoon, it's like someone saying monkeys perform very well on average compared to other species when it comes to climbing trees. There's something almost tautological to this type of claim.

So, again, what's the actual argument here that matters?

Now, there are both cultural and other factors known to affect IQ testing performance over time. One includes peer group composition, where having higher performing peers puts upward pressure on one's IQ testing performance. There's the not-yet-discussed reality that the most critical activity in fostering changes in genetic success is partnering with someone who has better genes. We could talk about how socio-economic status is tied to health which is influenced by geography as much as by genes and culture. We could talk about all sorts of things that honestly matter. But right now it seems that the book wants us to talk about a cultural construct we term race and say people of certain races have certain genetic disadvantages when it comes to IQ which to me just sounds like a confused statement even without digging into the data behind it.

Now, I also have to admit to being skeptical of the use of the ASVAB as the primary test behind Murray's data if that is in fact true. I went to a high school where we had to take the ASVAB as males where we were all more or less forced to take the test as a class. Females could choose to take it but most chose not to. I only recall one out of our entire class though I may be misremembering. I have to assume that the data set probably reflects similar gender disparities even among all-volunteer cohorts. I also scored incredibly high on it (99th percentile) and I am in no way a genius. The reality was the test was almost made for me and I took it seriously as I had every intention of joining the armed services to pay for college. I do pretty well with basic math calculations in my head, worked at a full service gas station, and have an affinity for books and literature. A test with simple math, language and comprehension questions, and questions about mechanical knowledge couldn't have been more tailored to my life experience as a high school student. I would suggest that any test that relies on a person being able to bust out simple math answers very quickly, ability to find ones way around the inside of a car's engine compartment, and have more or less general reading comprehension ability probably isn't narrowly measuring something inherent to one's genetics. I'm not a genius and practically aced the ASVAB because of circumstance. So...

[_EAllusion]

Parts of the ASVAB. The AFQT is a portion of it. It specifically includes the quick arithmetic and reading comprehension ability you refer to, but not the mechanical part.

http://official-asvab.com/understand_coun.htm

The subsections the AFQT is derived from this word knowledge, paragraph comprehension, arithmetic reasoning, and (high school) math knowledge.

Analytics says that IQ is just a measure of g, not your specific aptitude based on academic knowledge. But the AQFT is testing your aptitude as a proxy for g. The Bell Curve relies heavily on AFQT. If you do a word search on the text, it appears about 200 times and is a major part of the overall text. Perhaps most succintly stated is this quote:

h
The measure of cognitive ability extracted from this test battery was
the Armed Forces Qualification Test, the AFQT. It is what the psychometricians
call "highly g-loaded," meaning that it is a good measure of
general cognitive ability."he AFQT's most significant shortcoming is
that it is truncated at the high end; about one person in a thousand gets
a perfect score, which means both that the test does not discriminate
among the very highest levels of intelligence and that the variance in
the population is somewhat understated. Otherwise the AFQT is an excellent
test, with psychometric reliability and validity that compare well
with those of the other major tests of intelligence. Because the raw
scores on the AFQT mean nothing to the average reader, we express
them in the 1Q metric (with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of
15) or in centiles. Also, we will subsequently refer to them as "IQscores,"
in keeping with our policy of using IQ as a generic term for intelligence
test scores.

My point to Analytics is that if what the AFQT is measuring is not impacted by differences in quality of schooling, then this argues in favor of cheaper schooling.

[_honorentheos]

Parts of the ASVAB. The AFQT is a portion of it. It specifically includes the quick arithmetic and reading comprehension ability you refer to, but not the mechanical part.

http://official-asvab.com/understand_coun.htm

The subsections the AFQT is derived from this word knowledge, paragraph comprehension, arithmetic reasoning, and (high school) math knowledge.

Analytics says that IQ is just a measure of g, not your specific aptitude based on academic knowledge. But the AQFT is testing your aptitude as a proxy for g. The Bell Curve relies heavily on AFQT. If you do a word search on the text, it appears about 200 times and is a major part of the overall text. Perhaps most succintly stated is this quote:

h
The measure of cognitive ability extracted from this test battery was
the Armed Forces Qualification Test, the AFQT. It is what the psychometricians
call "highly g-loaded," meaning that it is a good measure of
general cognitive ability."he AFQT's most significant shortcoming is
that it is truncated at the high end; about one person in a thousand gets
a perfect score, which means both that the test does not discriminate
among the very highest levels of intelligence and that the variance in
the population is somewhat understated. Otherwise the AFQT is an excellent
test, with psychometric reliability and validity that compare well
with those of the other major tests of intelligence. Because the raw
scores on the AFQT mean nothing to the average reader, we express
them in the 1Q metric (with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of
15) or in centiles. Also, we will subsequently refer to them as "IQscores,"
in keeping with our policy of using IQ as a generic term for intelligence
test scores.

Interesting. It's been quite a while since I took the test and my recollection of the questions comes down to the section of timed responses to see how many single digit math problems a person could answer accurately before time ran out, and a picture of a U-joint with a question about what it was. I've never taken an IQ test but I have to imagine they don't spend significant concern with those questions.

My point to Analytics is that if what the AFQT is measuring is not impacted by differences in quality of schooling, then this argues in favor of cheaper schooling.

Yeah, I got that. My question regarding IQ tends to the opposite side of this point. Rather than taking the immutability of IQ as just cause to keep education lean, it seems critical to ask why IQ is the preferred metric to use if we all already acknowledge that education is impacting something other than IQ and we collectively value the positive impacts education has on these as-yet mysterious targeted outcomes.

[_honorentheos]

Japan is a fascinating country. As-of the year 1870, Japan had the same basic culture and technology that it had had for thousands of years. They were militantly opposed to outsiders interfering with their way of life.

Then, an American battleship pulled into Tokyo harbor, showed off its modern technology, and essentially said the United States would invade Japan if they didn't start trading with us. Japan complied and allowed Americans to create a trading outpost in Yokohama. A couple of decades later, Japan decided it needed to absndon the Shogun system and embrace the modrtn world. In just a few decades they transformed themselves from a medieval society to a modern, first-world society.

Since World War II, most Asian countries have pulled up themselves by their own bootstraps, and most African countries have not. What is Jared Diamond's explanation for this?

I had to come back to this comment because it bothers me at multiple levels.

China was the heavy weight champion of human technological and social development for millennia. That's millennia not centuries. There are countless reasons to point to the history of China as one of world dominance in which the last few centuries have been an anomaly punctuated by periods of European colonial intrusion and communist sidetracks acting as temporary governors that appear to be coming off as we progress in the 21st Century.

Japan has largely remained a sovereign and sophisticated nation without outside European occupation until the post-WWII reconstruction efforts of the US.

But it's a completely different story when one starts to compare Asian countries that were subject to colonialism such as Vietnam or the Philippians. Singaporeans are notoriously prejudice towards Malay people for reasons that track with some of our western prejudices such as towards Hispanics.

One could play around with this website and compare countries that gained their independence more recently with those who were the players during the era of European colonialism and not likely see the story your comment suggests is completely true.

https://countryeconomy.com/countries/co ... hilippines

Africa and South America as well as the Middle East and parts of Asia were the battlegrounds of the Cold War where instability was the weapon of choice of the super powers. There is continued fallout all over the world from this manipulation and oppression that resulted.

This is also a bad comment in the same vein as the comment about the lack of diversity among actuaries being due to the difficulty in the test keeping minorities out because...well, we won't say it because Murray said to be nice and we're not saying whites are more intelligent so...

[_Gadianton]

I like Diamond's way of thinking and believe he is right about many things. A major difference between GG&S and TBC is that GG&S is making inferences about global history based on scant and subtle evidence that is buried in the historical and geographical record. In contrast, TBC is based on a ridiculously rich amount of data--hundreds and hundreds of reproducible scientific studies.

I'm short on time this and next week too so I'll come back to this one.

I'm running out of time for several days, so this might be last post. As a conclusion, it's curious what EAllusion has NOT done. He has NOT shown how you can take a group of Americans with an IQ one standard deviation below average, throw some money at the problem and/or bus them to better schools, and magically cause their IQ to raise to 100. And he has NOT shown that after controlling for racism, blacks and whites have equal IQs.

If American blacks with an IQ of 1 SD below average are at that range because of racism and American whites at that range are at that range because they are intrinsically dull, then it should be a lot easier to increase the IQ of this group of blacks than this group of whites. EAllusion has NOT shown that this is the case.

My biggest complaint with EA's contributions here is I think he could be a little more charitable. I had no idea there is/was a group of self-described "scientific racists" and he could have assumed we might not know that, and offered a parenthetical here and there that "Analytics might not have been aware..." etc.

I don't see how it makes sense to "increase an IQ" which is supposed to be innate (okay, what it's measuring is supposed to be innate). Could money be thrown to improve education and environment quality and raise ASVAB or similar test scores, and thereby increase the Murrayian estimated IQ? Would certainly be worth looking into the existence of such a study. I should point out that among the libertarian positions, a more conventional one is that policies miss due to difficulty instilling the right incentives or agents gaming the policy. If you ever watch Freakonomics on netflix, you can see some controversial research skits done from a New Classical bent. One of their segments is actually going to an inner city school and trying to get the kids more engaged. It doesn't work out very well, but for a different set of reasons.

I ____ hate The Bell Curve and its implications about race. I really do. I get the racial implications. They ____ suck. I don't like them. But if we weren't talking about such a sensitive and difficult topic as race and racism in America, the statistical validity of what Murray is attempting to do is undeniable. Why do blacks with low IQs have social outcomes similar to whites and Asians with low IQs? There are two possibilities:

1- Blacks with low IQs have low IQs and bad social outcomes because of racism. In contrast, whites and Asians with low IQs have low IQs and bad social outcomes because they are mentally dull.

blacks, whites, and asians have bad social outcomes primarily due to poverty and bad homes. Likewise, they may score lower on standardized tests that are extrapolated into intelligence assessments. there are more blacks in poverty.

One last thing. By definition, a very large number of people are one standard deviation below the mean or lower in intelligence as they are in height or anything else. Even if we were to add 20 points to everyone, then a very large number of people would still be a standard deviation below the mean or lower. At what point is a person smart enough to live a moral life? Is there an absolute level of attainment, or is it relative? How many ASVAB questions does a kid have to get right before we predict he will act with integrity? If the problem isn't an absolute number of ASVAB questions, but a relative one compared to what other kids get, then we have a problem.

[_Physics Guy]

IQ researchers may have published a lot of studies but this does't necessarily mean very much. Flat earthers have published studies. One of the basic problems with peer review is that peers are all people working in the same field. So peer review is fairly good at assessing quality of work according to the collective standards of the field but it's lousy at assessing the quality of the field as a whole. In my view it's quite plausible that IQ testing is really a pseudo-science based on mis-applying statistical criteria in cases where the assumptions on which the criteria are based do not hold.

That's not an expert judgement on my part. I don't have enough time or interest to get into the question deeply enough to be sure whether it's really all crap or not. Really confirming that kind of thing is quite hard because pseudo-fields may be hollow but it can take a long time to wade through all the fluff of obfuscation with which enthusiastic proponents have deluded themselves for a generation or more. Life is too short for me to decide I'm going to take down IQ—or satisfy myself that it's serious after all.

I'm still skeptical because the people who should be convincing me that IQ is real, people like Murray and Herrnstein, have done such a bad job. Their statements have raised obvious basic questions for me, which they themselves don't seem even to have noticed. Obvious basic questions sometimes do have good answers, but then competent workers in serious fields hurry to point out the questions and deliver their answers; they don't evade or ignore them.

One basic question concerns the innateness of IQ—its supposed un-trainability. In fact one can improve one's IQ score significantly by practicing the specific kinds of questions that appear on the tests. The only reason that IQ can be said not to improve with education in that way is that people just don't practice for IQ tests, because they would really have to go out of their way to do that. The questions on IQ tests are weird challenges that never come up in normal life. If there were any cross-training effect on IQ tests from real-world intellectual tasks, the claim that IQ is unaffected by education could never be made. Given this lack of influence of real-world intellectual skills on IQ, the converse claim that IQ nonetheless contributes generally to all intellectual tasks is eyebrow-raising.

Another basic pronblem for me is that reification is a much subtler issue than the IQ literature I've read seems to realize. As an analogy for what they're saying about intelligence, consider wealth. Some people are rich and some are poor, and it's arguably possible to determine a net financial worth for a person in order to quantify just how rich or poor they are. In that sense okay, wealth is a thing. And it's an important thing precisely because it is a general thing. One's ability to buy a yacht, or an election, doesn't depend much on what particular form one's wealth takes. The bottom line net worth is what matters.

And if you hear someone say all that about wealth, then so far, so good. Wealth is like that. If someone starts talking about the difficult issues involved in carrying your wealth around, though, or in storing it, then you have to do a double take. Do they imagine that wealth is gold coins? Bales of hay? Just because wealth is real, in a sense, doesn't mean that it's real in the way that gold coins or hay are. In some ways it's a thing but in other ways not, and if you casually treat it as a thing in one way just because it's a thing in the other, you're going to have a bad time.