I'll go on the record to say that IQ is as real as any other social construct like money, God, or nationality. Depending on your predilection that can range from worthless to "party of the fabric of reality itself."
You might be confusing "social construct" with fake. That's not at all what I'm saying.
First off I'm setting aside the argument that intelligence is constructed or not. Ssecondly, social ontologists would say that you're arguing from grounding.
You're arguing that because one thing is grounded in the other and the latter is real that the former is real as well. It also sounds like this is taken as axiomatic, to which I simply say, prove that's how grounding works.
"sociologists use to legitimize their expertise and colonize other fields of inquiry that were traditionally the domains of philosophers and scientists. The whole thing is just repackaged Marxist analysis of everything as a social relation."
There are multitudes; and that’s exactly why such statements are vapid and contain no information. You failed to clarify what you meant and only managed to make a vague reference to Berger.
There are thousand contradictory ways to interpret what “a social construct” means (see The Social Construction of What? by Ian Hacking), but the most important thing about that statement is that it allows a sociologist to say “it’s something I am an authority on”.
> Dismissing the entire subfield as vapid comes across as intellectually immature.
Would dismissing astrology be intellectually immature? I don’t think so.
> "constructivism bad because Marxism bad," is about as thought-limiting cliché as one can get
Indeed. Good that it is not what I’ve said.
Social construction is an lens of interpretation in the toolkit of critical thinking. I like to frame it as an epistemological question that simply asks, "How do you know that?" It's extremely powerful when used against topics where people make claims that are "obvious", "reality", "truth", or even "science".
Science itself is an epistomological framework and subject to interpretation from other (meta-)epistomological frameworks eg: scientific examination of social construction is just as valid a pursuit as the social construction of science. In fact that latter, the social construction of science, is the umbrella from which we can examine the concept of IQ. We can talk about it in terms of constitutiveness, grounding, expert-novice problems, &c.
>There are thousand contradictory ways to interpret what “a social construct” means (see The Social Construction of What? by Ian Hacking), but the most important thing about that statement is that it allows a sociologist to say “it’s something I am an authority on”.
You're describing science. Science "allows" people to say "it's something I am an authority on." This is because it's an epistomological framework independent of the validity of the subject. That's what epistomological frameworks do.
> Would dismissing astrology be intellectually immature? I don’t think so.
We can absolutely talk about the social construction of astrology independent of the truth claims of astrology. I'm sure you can agree with me that there is a profound difference between the two.
It is an extremely powerful rhetorical device, yes. You can equivocate IQ with “the social construct of IQ” and make seemingly profound statements.
> In fact that latter, the social construction of science, is the umbrella from which we can examine the concept of IQ. We can talk about it in terms of constitutiveness, grounding, expert-novice problems, &c.
Scientists that study IQ can study how useful it is as a metric, whether it has predictive power, whether it is biased, how it relates to common notions of intelligence, how it correlates to other traits, whether it should be used for welfare means testing, etc. The framework of social constructivism cannot help much with that: the flow of knowledge mostly runs in the opposite direction.
> You're describing science.
No, I am describing why sociologists like to use that concept.
> Science "allows" people to say "it's something I am an authority on."
Lots of things allow people to claim authority on something. That’s not what makes science science.
> This is because it's an epistomological framework independent of the validity of the subject. That's what epistomological frameworks do.
> We can absolutely talk about the social construction of astrology independent of the truth claims of astrology. I'm sure you can agree with me that there is a profound difference between the two.
I totally agree. That’s why “IQ is a social construct” is a vapid meaningless statement. You can put anything instead of IQ and it will make as much sense.
I am not sure what that cryptic insinuation is supposed to accuse me of.
> Can I ask how you were introduced to the concept?
I don't remember? It was probably 10 years ago or more.
> as any other social construct like cheese, boat races or reading
> as any other social construct like HackerNews, children or milk
> as any other social construct like cars, transgenderism or pencils
> as any other social construct like social, construct or like
Yes, I'm assuming you're familiar with the topic.
HN members on average hold views on these topics that are more apt to view as socially constructed than other topics. By focusing on these topics, we can explore why they might be socially constructed and why those reasons are necessary and sufficient. Once establishing that, we can examine IQ to see if they apply as well.
Don't mistake me bringing them up as an endorsement or critique of them in and of themselves. Besides, bringing up global warning, the holocaust, and gender dysphoria will inevitably attract follow-ons who want to debate the validity of those topics.
I'm not here to do that. What I want to establish is what the salient aspects you think constitute a social construct by using these topics as an example. If you want to switch to a different set, by all means, go ahead and choose them instead. I personally think it will be a less productive discussion, but I'm willing to play along.
I don't know what you mean by that, but to me it gives an impression of run-off-the-mill bashing of "fake" and "bad" things like gender, race, religion, capitalism, nationality that we should re-think and re-make where "social construct" is used as an ambiguous slur by someone who learned about it on Reddit or BuzzFeed. I guess I wasn't the intended audience of that comparison.
> What I want to establish is what the salient aspects you think constitute a social construct by using these topics as an example.
I usually interpret "a social construct" in a way that ranges from being a synonym for "a social contract" to a synonym for something like Kantian appearance (insofar as conception of any object in mind is partly influenced by social institutions) depending on context. But many people seem to make it extremely hard to understand what they mean exactly. So providing examples helps understand what is being asserted. If someone starts talking that X is a social construct just like all that other bad stuff, asking them whether good stuff is a social construct helps ensure that they aren't engaged in agenda-posting or, at least, have far less wiggle room for pushing their rhetoric.