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Comment by lutusp | Hacker News Reader

> I don't agree.

Evidence trumps opinion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient#Criticism...

> I've never used my IQ as justification for anything, granted, but I had no idea it wasn't considered a solid measurement.

It isn't remotely a "solid measurement", in fact it's a field surrounded by justified controversy on multiple grounds. The two primary objections are that (a) the tests favor certain population groups and discriminate against others for reasons other than intelligence, and (b) existing tests only really measure a person's ability to take intelligence tests.

> You're paying more attention to it than I am.

Yes, but I'm paying exactly the same amount of attention to it as the original poster, with a different perspective.

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>> I don't agree.

> Evidence trumps opinion.

I understood the parent to be saying that they disagreed that "someone that smart would have known IQ is bogus", not that they disagreed that "IQ was bogus".

> I understood the parent to be saying that they disagreed that "someone that smart would have known IQ is bogus", not that they disagreed that "IQ was bogus".

Yes, and because of how the post was worded, we may never know. I suspect (and acted on the idea that) he was disagreeing about my claim about the veracity of IQ testing, but that's just a guess.

I think the wording is reasonably clear, and you are misreading it. "I disagree" alone tells us little, but all of the support below seems to serve much more strongly to justify disagreement with "you should know ..." than with "IQ ..."

No, actually, below the ambiguous "I disagree", we find "I've never used my IQ as justification for anything, granted, but I had no idea it wasn't considered a solid measurement." That seems clearly to point to a disagreement with the presumed objectivity of IQ testing, not its application to the OP.

Well, apparently it is not clear, because it seems "clearly" to me to mean the other. You are taking "I had no idea that X" to be a claim of "not X"; I think it is a claim that they had no idea that X - and the pragmatic purpose of this in the conversation was "... and therefore, I don't think having no idea is crazy". I think your interpretation in this context is - at least - uncharitable.

> Well, apparently it is not clear, because it seems "clearly" to me to mean the other.

Let's look at the original exchange. The person to whom I replied said, "I've never used my IQ as justification for anything, granted, but I had no idea it wasn't considered a solid measurement."

I replied, "It isn't remotely a "solid measurement", in fact it's a field surrounded by justified controversy on multiple grounds" ... and more in this vein.

How is that in any way ambiguous? It's a discussion of the credibility of IQ testing.

> I think your interpretation in this context is - at least - uncharitable.

My interpretation is based solely on the words used in the exchange. Charity has no role.

Again, "I had no idea it wasn't considered a solid measurement" does not mean "I am asserting it is a solid measurement". It is quite obviously not the same statement (use of the past tense, for one - they make no claim about what ideas they have now), "from the words in the exchange". It is true that sometimes "I had no idea that X" is used to mean "I don't believe you that X." It is also frequently used sarcastically to mean "obviously X". But from context, I think the statement was quite literally a statement that they had no idea. This was relevant because, again, you had just asserted to someone else that it was unreasonable to have no idea.

Lastly, charity has a role in any conversation - particularly those involving disagreement. If your conversation partner might be saying something stupid or something reasonable, taking the reasonable interpretation or checking what they meant produces better conversation. I myself would sometimes do well to remember that, in the heat of discussion.

wow.

Yeah. I want everyone give themselves a pat on the back for the quality of this discussion. Jeezas.

You are not being ambiguous. The poster who replied to you did not want to engage in an exchange with you, so he retreated from it - thus his use of the past tense "had" in reference to his prior belief. Given that every argument he provided referred to his not caring about the importance of whether IQ matters, I think this is the only reasonable way to read his post.

from your link: "The American Psychological Association's report Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns stated that in the United States IQ tests as predictors of social achievement are not biased against African Americans since they predict future performance, such as school achievement, similarly to the way they predict future performance for Caucasians."

so the consensus in psychometrics is that iq tests are not systematically biased against particular groups.

and of course it measures a lot more than a person's ability to take intelligence tests". just look at the "social outcomes" section of the wikipedia page...

> The American Psychological Association's report Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns stated that in the United States IQ tests as predictors of social achievement are not biased against African Americans since they predict future performance ...

The flaw in the reasoning should be obvious to anyone but a psychologist -- the test outcome becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, rather than an unbiased predictor of future performance. The contempt for science among psychologists is shocking.

> so the consensus in psychometrics is that iq tests are not systematically biased against particular groups.

Psychologists also came to a consensus among themselves (and, as usual, without any scientific evidence) that Asperger's was a real mental illness, and that Recovered Memory Therapy was a real therapeutic method. Fortunately, and to some extent because of these credibility issues, society is in the midst of dumping psychology as a serious endeavor:

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2013/transforming-dia...

In summary, until there is some science in brain research, all this talk about IQ testing is overreliant on effects without any clue about causes -- on descriptions without explanations.

Notice the name of President Obama's recently announced program -- the "Brain Initiative", not the "Mind Initiative". The handwriting is on the wall.

the point is that they predict future performance equally for different groups, not just that they predict performance. your language is alarmingly exaggerated and pompous for someone who lacks basic reading comprehension skills and is entirely ignorant about the subject of intelligence testing.

> the point is that they predict future performance equally for different groups ...

That is false, and its falsity has been proven repeatedly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient#Test_bias

Quote: "However, IQ tests may well be biased when used in other situations. A 2005 study stated that "differential validity in prediction suggests that the WAIS-R test may contain cultural influences that reduce the validity of the WAIS-R as a measure of cognitive ability for Mexican American students,"[123] indicating a weaker positive correlation relative to sampled white students. Other recent studies have questioned the culture-fairness of IQ tests when used in South Africa.[124][125] Standard intelligence tests, such as the Stanford-Binet, are often inappropriate for children with autism; the alternative of using developmental or adaptive skills measures are relatively poor measures of intelligence in autistic children, and may have resulted in incorrect claims that a majority of children with autism are mentally retarded."

Just one sample from a large literature on this topic.

> your language is alarmingly exaggerated and pompous for someone who lacks basic reading comprehension skills and is entirely ignorant about the subject of intelligence testing.

Nice argument. Do give us more samples of your logically flawed reasoning. The readers of this forum will surely appreciate your credibility sacrifice.

FWIW, you're replying to Paul Lutus: http://www.arachnoid.com/administration/ ; I think you can assume he can read.

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