[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!

[wutbrodo]

This is getting closer to making a reasonable claim, but unfortunately, an unsupported assertion is the _beginning_ of making an argument, not the end.

Most of the relevant scientific community disagrees with your assertion that IQ is purely pseudoscience. From Wikipedia:

> Clinical psychologists generally regard IQ scores as having sufficient statistical validity for many clinical purposes.[25][68][69] ... "On the whole, scholars with any expertise in the area of intelligence and intelligence testing (defined very broadly) share a common view of the most important components of intelligence, and are convinced that it can be measured with some degree of accuracy." Almost all respondents picked out abstract reasoning, ability to solve problems and ability to acquire knowledge as the most important elements.

There's plenty more on the topic, and as always, Wikipedia is a great place to start your search for sources.

In what way is your blanket dismissal of the scientific consensus different from anti-vaxxers ("the only use of vaccines is support for Illuminati mind-control!!) or flat-earthers ("the only use for a round earth theory is support for, uh, the globe industry!")? Or for that matter, what makes you different from IQ essentialists like neo-Nazis, that take a nuanced scientific concept and flatten it into an all-or-nothing perfect predictor of outcomes? Hell, at least they're _directionally_ in agreement with the scientific establishment about the validity of the concept.