[harry8]

Terence Tao's intelligence is not predicted by IQ. Plenty have higher IQ and achieve less. Some lower and achieve more.

IQ is total pseudoscience nonsense of zero value to anyone or anything.

It's one genuine use is as a fig leaf for the very worst kind of racism. Treat it and anyone touting IQ an indicator of anything with extreme suspicion. Nazis love IQ. Goodwin's. /Thread

[tyho]

Why do you consider IQ to be pseudoscience? It's the bedrock of psychometrics. Just because some people use some IQ data to justify racism doesn't mean the measure is unscientific. Nazis loved nuclear physics too, it doesn't mean the field is pseudoscience.

[brennanpeterson]

Take any large multivariate problem and look for a regressor against some dimension. Say, car speed. You will find that there is a good variable that links that. But that variable won't be explanatory or even correct.

A much better explanation here, from the fairly wonderful blog of cosma shalizi http://bactra.org/weblog/523.html

And most importantly, it won't be predictive.

[ben_w]

I know this isn’t your main point, and I might just be remembering British wartime propaganda (my parents told me several things that later turned out to have been that), but…

Wasn’t the Nazi nuclear program severely delayed by their race-based hatred of Einstein for being Jewish?

[wutbrodo]

This is an argument against doing physics the way the Nazis did (ie deriding certain theoretical paths as "Jewish physics"), not an argument against doing nuclear physics at all because the Nazis did.

The latter is what this thread is talking about: it's obvious that we shouldn't be studying psychometrics the way the Nazis did, but it's not obvious that we shouldn't be doing it at all because they did (as with nuclear physics).

Hilariously, even harry8's complaint that the Nazis loved IQ is precisely backwards: Hitler banned IQ testing for being "Jewish" too.

EDIT: I actually was curious about this last claim, so I checked the source that the Wikipedia article points to. While this text was written by one of the most-cited psychologists in history, there's little else out there to concretely corroborate or refute that IQ testing was _banned_ by the Nazis. The evidence indicates that their attitude was somewhere between apathy and hostility towards the tests.

[harry8]

No you're a bit too literal. Nazis sadly are not dead and gone, not limited to 1930-45 Germany.

IQ is loved by Nazis as proof of master race bullshit. Really.

Treat IQ with contempt. It's an indicator of idiocy in a discussion. (All of us are capable of idiocy in discussions, including me, don't fall for the IQ trap. You're above it. We all are).

[wutbrodo]

Environmentalism is an important part of neo-Nazism (and other strains of fascism) too. Do you think that automatically tars anybody who thinks we should pollute less? I appreciate the point you're trying to make, but you're letting labels do the thinking for you (or as I've heard it put recently, "engaging in idiocy").

I don't personally believe that racial IQ differences are significant or salient to differences in population outcomes, nor am I convinced that claims are well-founded that IQ determines individual outcomes to a significant degree. But I don't advise treating it like a magic word that shuts off the thought centers of your brain. If you think it's a useless concept, you should be able to articulate why by pointing to the science (or lack thereof), not by letting Nazis tell you what you're allowed to think critically about.

[harry8]

Support for Nazism is the only use of IQ. It's magic bs pixiedust nonsense that needs to be called out loudly as such.

It's not only that it is used by Nazis. It's that it is used for literally nothing else of positive value to anyone. It's a disgrace.

Sorry for dancing around it not not starting it as plainly as possible.

"Anyone quoting IQ scores as justification for anything at all is talking bullshit. The end."

And they are using a technique of bullshit argument support favoured by goddamn Nazis.

The jury is back. IQ is guilty. Put it right there next to lobotomy as a gift from psychology to the world. Stamp it out. NOW!