tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7225373.post1996842739578534217..comments2024-02-29T03:34:23.190-05:00Comments on Who Were the Sea Peoples?: The accomplishments of our forebearsgcallahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10065877215969589482noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7225373.post-28124584607962977372015-01-15T08:53:48.261-05:002015-01-15T08:53:48.261-05:00Well sure but the main point, which I didn't m...Well sure but the main point, which I didn't make, is that causation runs more from IQ to economic/educational success than the other way around. Of course this is more true in Western societies that have reached the point of diminishing returns on clear environmental improvements. In contrast much of West Africa(around 70) would probably have IQ's much closer to African-Americans(around 85) if they fortified the food with iodine and iron for example.<br /><br />"My theory about people banging on about IQ all the time: they aren't much in the IQ department themselves. But their ethnic group scores high on these tests"<br />Sure there is a bit of an ethnic pride parade going on in various sites(mostly blog commentsections) dealing with these issues.* These sort of fringe themes do attract a lot of weirdos. But that doesn't deter from the fact that Gregory Cochran, Henry Harpending, Arthur Jensen, Richard Lynn, Heiner Rindermann are first rate scholars and have made contribution on IQ and in other cases IQ and economics which have been much to ignored by the economic profession(among others to be fair).<br /><br />*I'm East African(Eritrea) and simply interested in these issues because they help illuminate some of the questions that are asked in economics and development that conventional economics give inadequate answers to.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7225373.post-13331031454712736432015-01-12T10:22:42.026-05:002015-01-12T10:22:42.026-05:00Wow, IQ tests, designed by people who have been su...Wow, IQ tests, designed by people who have been successful in Western, industrialized societies, correlates with success in those societies! Can you imagine that!<br /><br />And your listing of "other" things IQ correlates with is hilarious: as if education, crime and health don't ALREADY correlate directly with economic success. It is like saying "Not only do people who measure high on factor X get into the NBA more often, it turns out that they ALSO score more points in the NBA, and get more rebounds in the NBA..."<br /><br />My theory about people banging on about IQ all the time: they aren't much in the IQ department themselves. But their ethnic group scores high on these tests... so maybe they can be smart by proxy!gcallahhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10065877215969589482noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7225373.post-42600478749358793172015-01-12T07:09:14.120-05:002015-01-12T07:09:14.120-05:00No they do a pretty good job given that IQ, as mea...No they do a pretty good job given that IQ, as measured by IQ tests, is the best predictor we have in the social sciences and not just on economic success but also other social outcomes(education,crime,health,institutional quality).<br /><br />-http://www2.ku.edu/~kuwpaper/2010Papers/201206.pdf<br />-http://iratde.org/issues/1-2009/tde_issue_1-2009_03_rindermann_et_al.pdf<br />-http://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/-underclass-revisited_141758407046.pdf<br /><br />IQ isn't everything of course but rather the best of a bunch as James Thompsons calls it.* The next frontier is personality traits but we are unlikely to be able to measure that accurately for the foreseeable future.<br /><br />*The best blog on the science of IQ http://drjamesthompson.blogspot.dkAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7225373.post-70633121520453894762015-01-11T10:02:21.475-05:002015-01-11T10:02:21.475-05:00"IQ tests try to measure the underlying intel..."IQ tests try to measure the underlying intelligence(g factor) but that isn't highly correlated with the stuff hunters do."<br /><br />In other words, they try, but fail. gcallahhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10065877215969589482noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7225373.post-56752332856987713882015-01-11T08:45:08.024-05:002015-01-11T08:45:08.024-05:00"I suspect most of us educated Westerners wou..."I suspect most of us educated Westerners would score very poorly on these IQ tests."<br />IQ tests try to measure the underlying intelligence(g factor) but that isn't highly correlated with the stuff hunters do.<br />https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvJeasyBJZw<br />That is Gregory Cochran in the video and he is kind of a Gene Callahan of genetics if you will. He doesn't suffer fools lightly and is probably of genius level IQ. He has a great blog(and book)<br />http://westhunt.wordpress.com<br /><br />Ken<br />That is not even the position of James Flynn today and nor do scientists in the field think that a smart guy like Einstein would be stupid by IQ standards of today. The issue is more complex than that.<br /><br />Here is a good article that summarizes the Flynn Effect according to Flynn:<br />"Strikingly, Flynn has changed his mind. He now sees the Flynn Effect not as undermining IQ testing, but as validating it."<br />http://www.vdare.com/articles/flynn-flips-iq-tests-do-matterAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7225373.post-23424443230399446672015-01-08T14:16:04.877-05:002015-01-08T14:16:04.877-05:00Ask Bryan Caplan and anyone born before 1960 was m...Ask Bryan Caplan and anyone born before 1960 was mired in bigoted ignorance. <br /><br />One of the things I most liked about The Decameron when I read it was seeing so clearly that temporal prejudice of the type you identify was completely unjustified. <br /><br />As for IQ tests. IMHO the Flynn effect shows that what IQ tests measure isn't intelligence. I accept it measures something, some socially conditioned mental capacity, just not all of it. And that what it measures IS affected by environment and upbringing. It is completely ridiculous to think that the average person in 1900 had the intelligence of someone who today would score under 70 on a modern IQ test.Ken Bhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12976919713907046171noreply@blogger.com