
Taleb is wrong about IQ - mpweiher
http://www.jsmp.dk/posts/2019-06-16-talebiq/
======
tompccs
This does not address the substance of Taleb's arguments. Read Taleb's
original article:

[https://medium.com/incerto/iq-is-largely-a-
pseudoscientific-...](https://medium.com/incerto/iq-is-largely-a-
pseudoscientific-swindle-f131c101ba39)

He's showing us that psychologists' statistical methods are faulty, that IQ
advocates don't understand the underlying mathematics and blindly plug things
into R. Lo and behold, in rebuttal, psychologists try to prove Taleb wrong by
plugging more things into R.

~~~
Radle
Doesn't mean the psychologists are wrong.

~~~
tompccs
Well, IQ is their measure. They should be able to defend it properly.

And frankly, if there is any doubt that IQ maps to intelligence, then its
abuse over the last half-century has done immesurable harm to individuals and
given considerable fuel to racists.

~~~
horsawlarway
An IQ test is a tool. Just like any other tool the way you use it matters.

IQ tests turned out to be pretty useful when investigating the effects of Lead
in paint/gas/industry/other. See Herbert Needleman's research from the early
80's.

The test itself isn't really good or bad (bearing in mind most modern iq tests
are heavily scrutinized for bias in race/class/income/location/etc) it's just
a tool.

~~~
concinds
> IQ tests turned out to be pretty useful when investigating the effects of
> Lead in paint/gas/industry/other. See Herbert Needleman's research from the
> early 80's.

Taleb argues precisely that IQ is only a good measure of unintelligence, not
intelligence, and that this prevent IQ from being meaningful. He showed that
if you IQ test 10K people, 2K are dead (0 IQ) and then test their performance
on something, you'll still end up with correlations that'll get you published
in prestigious journals, and peddle nonsense conclusions.
[https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1115193783145123840](https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1115193783145123840)

(the point being that in that scenario, 0 IQ perfectly correlated with 0
performance, can make the population correlation look significant even when
"alive" IQ is completely uncorrelated with performance, which, in that
example, it is)

~~~
fvdessen
The problem with Taleb's argument is that, as the linked article shows, IQ
tests are as good measure of intelligence as of unintelligence. There is no
inflection point after which IQ stops correlating with wealth. The slope is
constant across all scales.

Taleb's argumentation relies on fictional scenarios whose conclusion do not
match what he would have gotten looking at raw data instead.

~~~
martin_bech
Thats also what I got from it. It would be very wierd if IQ correlated very
well below the median, and then just stoped..

~~~
papln
It's not weird at all.

Caloric intake in children correlates to height very well below the median(+),
and then it stops. You can't grow arbitarily tall by eating more food, but if
you underfeed a child enough, it will end up shorter than its more-fed
siblings.

In case you need some justificaiton for this intuitive claim, here's some
tangential data: [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-much-of-
human...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-much-of-human-
height/)

" In contrast, in developing countries, nutrition deficits lead to a lower
heritability. The fact that the mean height of the U.S. population has almost
plateaued in the past decade suggests that the nutrient environment has almost
maximized the genetic potential of height, at least in this country. Improved
nutrition elsewhere may have similar benefits in terms of stature."

(+) I use median here to mean some unspeicified percentile, as you did.

------
tw1010
But Taleb is specifically arguing against simple linear correlation measures
like R^2. (See figure 1 in Taleb's article.) Feels like you haven't grasped
the specifics of his argument without taking that into consideration.

~~~
spamizbad
This really needs to be the top post.

It's increasingly acknowledged, even in the "soft" sciences, that r-squared is
not an appropriate analysis tool.

Anyway, wasn't the IQ test originally created to determine whether or not
someone was mentally disabled? It seems like with more modern statistical
methods it still could be useful measurement for that purpose, even if it
doesn't accurately "scale" beyond 80 points. Ultimately, if you just want to
answer the question "Does this person have significant cognitive deficits?" it
still has its place even if it's not a good measure for broader intelligence.

~~~
reasonaway
but it does scale beyond 80 points. why ignore all the available evidence and
trust instead the Taleb's evidence free assumptions?

------
tomp
One of my favourite papers discusses this (and more):

 _> Top 10 Replicated Findings from Behavioral Genetics_

 _> 1\. All psychological traits show significant and substantial genetic
influence_

 _> 2\. No traits are 100% heritable_

 _> 3\. Heritability is caused by many genes of small effect_

 _> 4\. Phenotypic correlations between psychological traits show significant
and substantial genetic mediation_

 _> 5\. The heritability of intelligence increases throughout development_
(from 41% (age 9) to 55% (age 12) and to 66% (age 17); "unlike the other
findings, this one is limited to a specific domain")

 _> 6\. Age-to-age stability is mainly due to genetics_

 _> 7\. Most measures of the ‘environment’ show significant genetic influence_

 _> 8\. Most associations between environmental measures and psychological
traits are significantly mediated genetically_

 _> 9\. Most environmental effects are not shared by children growing up in
the same family_

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4739500/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4739500/)

------
zxcb1
IQ is useful to me. Whenever someone thinks it's important I gain useful
information about that individual

~~~
saas_sam
Pretty cruel to ignore IQ and leave millions of mentally disadvantaged people
in the lurch.

~~~
runarberg
You’re not wrong. IQ (or more generally intelligence tests) are very useful to
diagnose people with some mental disabilities. That said: a) the IQ part of
the intelligence test is sort of unnecessary for that purpose, and b) That’s
usually not what people are (righfully) criticizing IQ for and you know it.

~~~
Retric
The difference between IQ at 20, 60, 100, 140, and 180 are all noticeable.
However, the gaps become less impactful as you go up the scale. Simply because
fewer activities are really impacted. Digging a ditch with a shovel for
example is only so difficult.

~~~
MagnumOpus
> because fewer activities are really impacted ... Digging a ditch with a
> shovel

Yes, and that is why over time this is becoming more important. To put out
some arbitrary numbers, you can use a shovel with an IQ of 70, you can operate
a backhoe with an IQ of 90, you can engineer the backhoe with an IQ of 120.
Manual shoveling disappeared as an occupation 50 years ago apart from niches,
driving as a profession might disappear in the next 15 -- and it does matter
whether the people made unemployed by technology can be upskilled to be
repairmen/engineers/programmers. If IQ is >50% genetic, they can't and you
have to figure out how to deal with 10-20% of the population being permanently
unemployed or employed in extremely-low-skilled jobs.

~~~
runarberg
> you can engineer the backhoe with an IQ of 120

I think this requires rephrasing: The fact you _can_ engineer the backhoe,
means you have a higher then average IQ. The fact you have the engineering
degree and education required gives you a higher likelyhood of having an above
average IQ.

I’m sure you _can_ engineer a backhoe with an IQ of 90. But it is going to be
harder for you to get the degree and education required. Whether it is harder
because of some lack of some mental capabilities or because the whole
education system is stacked against you because of your socio-economic status
(which is predicted to be low given a lower then average IQ) is debatable.

------
jedberg
The problem is, it has been show time and again that most IQ tests are socio-
economically biased. And every "proof" in this paper is a correlation that
would also hold true is you replaced "high IQ" with "had rich parents".

~~~
tw1010
That's not true. There are definitely papers that tries to control for
socioeconomic factors.

~~~
mc32
Studies with twins could offer some form of either repudiation or
confirmation.

------
mrandish
Taleb is, as usual, a bit over-wrought and goes too far but this area has been
a long-time interest of mine and I think he's directionally correct in that IQ
is too often misapplied or misunderstood in practice. In general, laypeople
tend to think IQ represents things it doesn't.

------
mattnewton
I’m pretty unconvinced by this, the author makes a number of leaps that lost
me. For instance, at the end of the article, the author says that Taleb’s
claim that IQ only measures unintlelligence well isn’t true because at higher
IQ, income continues to increase. This could be easily explained by numerous
other third factors, like (hypothetically) IQ being a test for WASP culture
and knowing WASP culture being correlated with better job opportunities.

~~~
liability
> _" like (hypothetically) IQ being a test for WASP culture and knowing WASP
> culture being correlated with better job opportunities."_

These sort of arguments always ring hollow for me, because I am not a WASP and
the test I took didn't resemble a WASP-culture test in the slightest. The test
I took was all _" given this series of abstract geometric patterns, which
comes next,"_ not, _" During which season is the weather at Martha's Vineyard
the most temperate"_

Maybe wrapping your mind around abstract geometry is something WASPs are good
at and, say, people from the Islamic world suck at, but I really _really_
doubt that considering the relatively elevated roll geometric patterns have in
Islamic culture compared to WASP culture.

Of course I am neither a Muslim nor a WASP, but even so I am pretty sure I
didn't struggle too hard on that test.

~~~
mattnewton
That’s what the “hypothetically” was for- it was meant as an illustration that
there could easily be a third effect loosely correlated with both. For this to
dispute Taleb’s claim, you have to think that income is also correlated with
intelligence and not more strongly correlated with other things that IQ could
be measuring.

That example probably popped into my head first, because of the long
controversy around IQ tests cultural effects and the history of using those
tests to make arguments that race determines intelligence

~~~
liability
Oh, I don't claim to refute Taleb's claim because reading too much of what
Taleb writes makes my head spin in a rather uncomfortable manner, and it would
be unfair of me to try refuting Taleb's claims without first coolly
considering them. Maybe my IQ is low after all, or maybe I just have a low
tolerance for self promotion... either way, my intention is only to speak
about my personal experience, which is that the IQ test I happened to take did
not seem culturally biased, except perhaps to some woodsman who's never seen a
straight line before (but even then I'm skeptical.)

------
cljs-js-eval
One of his repeated criticisms of analysis like this is using regression to
fit datasets that don't necessarily follow a straight trend line.

His larger point with respect to IQ is that it only predicts substandard IQs.
Measures like the variance are largely influenced by the effects of IQs below
the average, not above the average.

A second point which I don't see addressed is that IQ measures share features
with testing. If how you test in school affects future income, and testing
well in school predicts testing well on IQ, then more robust analysis is
needed. A sample space of people in a wide band of IQ ranges who all got about
the same grades in school would be a true test of the predictive value of IQ
on income.

~~~
reasonaway
it is all unfounded speculation based on mathematica simulations and his own
assertions. there is no empirical support for his arguments.

------
dekhn
IQ arguments are the most boring thing I've seen hackers engage in. Even worse
than blockchain and genetic engineering in terms of poor scientific quality,
immediate jump-to-conclude-my-personal-pet-theory-is-right-because-anecdote,
ignoring social factors.

~~~
macspoofing
They are boring, and I'm not even sure what the argument is. On the edges, I
think there's a general agreement that low IQ is correlated with mental
disability, and on the upper end high IQ is correlated with a certain type of
cognition that makes you a good professional Mathematician or Physicist. I'm
not sure what the big middle really says about anything.

If I were to guess why this IQ debate keeps coming up is that it is a bit
taboo now (which makes it very tantalizing in and of itself). There is also
some gaslighting going on with certain segments claiming IQ is completely junk
and has no genetic basis (even partially). This triggers the contrarians, who
then themselves may overstate the science, prompting responses that may
understate the science ... and so on.

------
Will_Parker
Some things become clearer once you understand: a lot of people who say "X is
invalid" really mean "We are better off not talking about X".

------
sampo
_" The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the
easiest person to fool."_

[https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman)

~~~
arethuza
Feynman's IQ was only 125 - what would he know? ;-)

~~~
wwarner
Wow [https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/finding-the-next-
ein...](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/finding-the-next-
einstein/201112/polymath-physicist-richard-feynmans-low-iq-and-finding-
another)

------
olliewagner
I believe his biggest issue with IQ—one that worries me greatly as well—is
that it is being used to create a feeling of "otherness" towards populations
that can be demarcated out using a single dimensional property: IQ. History
shows us this as a strategy to subjugate using other "scientific" methods of
classifying people, phrenology being a fairly recent example.

------
dennis_jeeves
Analogy (sarcasm):

-Height differences do not exist because the measuring scale used to measure height is inaccurate.

-Height differences are not dependent on hereditary because height depends on nutrition.

-Assuming that height differences between the races are inherent tantamounts to racism because height differences are clearly depend on nutrition.

-Bad nutrition is caused by discrimination, since bad nutrition results in shorter heights it's clearly discrimination that indirectly causes shorter height.

-Height is not hereditary because short parents can have tall children and vice-versa.

-Person X measures very short using a 'height' scale, but he's a great basketball player. Hence obviously height is not a factor in being a great basket ball player.

------
sunseb
This is the elephant in the room that explains why IQ is such a controversial
topic:

[https://brainstats.com/average-iq-by-
country.html](https://brainstats.com/average-iq-by-country.html)

[https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-14/nobel-prize-winner-
ja...](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-14/nobel-prize-winner-james-watson-
stripped-title-race-comments/10712588)

~~~
fastball
Yeah, I'm honestly not sure how to interpret this.

Either you assume that IQ is 100% not genetic, or you have to admit that race
seems to be correlated.

~~~
ajross
So, here's a reasonably rational response to a hotbutton claim like that: I
think most numerate folks would look at that data and view a "race/IQ
correlation" as at least a reasonable hypothesis.

But come on, it's weak. The relationship that chart shows clear as day is
wealth. _Wealth_ is super correlated. The top of the chart are exlusively
industrialized democracies. The bottom are exclusively impoverished (and
mostly unstable) backwaters.

And within those cohorts, sure, you can kinda/sorta say that east asians sit
above europeans, maybe. Or maybe not. Four points of IQ are nothing -- it's
like three decades of development per the Flynn effect, or maybe one decade of
really focused investment in education.

There are counteless other good hypotheses for a weak signal, and this isn't
an area amenable to direct experiment, so realistically we're never really
going to know.

And the same stuff is true of the linked article. It's poking holes in
specific statements by finding rigorous numbers that "disprove" it, but only
very weakly. Basically, the point to the article isn't that "IQ is solid
science", it's that Taleb's paper was too aggressive in its conclusion. Which
is sort of a yawner, and not really a good excuse to bring race into the
discussion.

But yeah. It's possible that darkies are dumber or that the gooks are smarter.
It's possible. What drives those of us on the left absolutely bonkers isn't
the possibility that you might be right, it's the fact that you look at messy
data like this _and immediately go to the least tolerable conclusion_ as if
that's what you _want_ to be true. And... yeah, yuck.

( _Edit: and right on cue three quick responses about "but that doesn't prove
race isn't correlated, here's another hypothesis for why race might be
correlated!", which sounds to me suspiciously like "I really want race to be
correlated with IQ!" The truth is we just don't know, we might never, even if
it is it's weak, and I for one would rather live in a world where people don't
want this to be true than the one I'm stuck in. _)

~~~
fastball
Sure, wealth is correlated as well. But perhaps wealth comes from
intelligence? That seems reasonable, does it not? Wealth creation, at its most
fundamental, is all about doing things more efficiently than they were done in
the past. Who would be best equipped to tackle invention if not people with
good problem-solving skills, as measured by IQ?

Honestly, this could be put to rest fairly "easily" (obviously this wouldn't
be that easy and is never going to happen) if you took 1000 expectant mother's
who have just become pregnant from Equatorial Guinea and transplanted them to
various wealthy countries. Then measure the children's IQ as they grow up and
compare them to the rest of the local population.

I have a feeling the difference in IQ would be negligible, and that the vast
divide can be attributed almost wholly to nutrition/etc in early development,
but you can't maintain that this is the case until you've actually tested the
hypothesis, which as far as I'm aware has not been done.

I'm not entirely sure how the Flynn effect is relevant, unless the claim is
that certain countries (African ones mostly) are not being retested at all,
but European countries are. Is that the idea?

~~~
bitcurious
>Perhaps wealth comes from intelligence? That seems reasonable, does it not?

Trivially disprovable by looking at children adopted into wealthy families.
Spoilers: they stay wealthy.

~~~
fvdessen
> Spoilers: they stay wealthy.

But not as much as their non-adopted siblings. Correlation of 0.23 vs 0.33

[https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/07/rich-
pe...](https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/07/rich-people-raise-
kids-family-wealth/399809/)

~~~
ajross
That's not a finding about race, though. It's saying IQ is highly heritable,
which everyone accepts. The question is whether whole "races" (which are
populations with vastly higher genetic diversity than a nuclear family!)
actually correlate like that, not whether smart people tend to have smart
kids.

------
freetobesmart
Im curious what people will get out of determining measurable IQ. What are
their end goals.

1) You dont get smarter. Its not like knowing you are 120 vs 100 IQ changes
anything about your ability to solve a problem

2) IQ is more of a speed of learning not an ability to understand. With enough
time you can learn anything (challenge placed) the biggest barrier is
discipline and desire.

3) IQ is abstract and is very useless within any context. If you want to know
if someone is good at math give them a math test. If they are a good writer
look at their portfolio. IQ is like determining someone is good at being a
chef by only asking them questions. IQ is very far from any specific field of
knowledge.

IQ is like space knowledge. Its only important/useful subject for a select few
people.

~~~
nshepperd
IQ was important to determine the effect of lead exposure on cognitive
function. Without it we probably wouldn't have nearly as stringent laws
banning it (eg. in paint, and gasoline), and would still be suffering from
endemic lead poisoning.

It's not particularly important to know your own IQ as an individual (you
probably already have an idea of your abilities) but it's very useful for that
sort of public health purpose. If there are other neurotoxins floating around
which we don't know about, IQ will be important to identify and justify
banning them.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8162884](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8162884)

------
mcguire
Taleb: " _“IQ” is a stale test meant to measure mental capacity but in fact
[measures] to a lesser extent (with a lot of noise), a form of intelligence,
stripped of 2nd order effects — how good someone is at taking some type of
exams designed by unsophisticated nerds._ "

Well, _that_ statement is clearly false. The exams are designed by very
sophisticated nerds.

------
arendtio
Actually, I don't care much about if the IQ can measure the mental capacity
precisely or just find those who are mentally disabled. I think the core
problem is, that our society thinks of an IQ as some magical figure to
determine the value of a human being.

I think an IQ is much closer to what the clock rate is for computers. Just
because a computer runs at a higher frequency, doesn't mean that it is
computing more important calculations.

In fact, there is no advantage in having 3 times the processing power if you
are just running a word processor. Equally, there is no advantage in having 3
times the IQ if you are just going to shop groceries.

Yes, there are a few use-cases where having more processing power is relevant
(e.g. when you have a limited time to make a good and impactful choice), but I
think those cases are not a frequent as most people think they are.

------
concinds
[https://twitter.com/UntergrundmannG/status/11558354759463813...](https://twitter.com/UntergrundmannG/status/1155835475946381313)

"Taleb has an updated post up at medium that takes care of most of this. You
could take the time to weigh that in against this all over again.

And if you come back here in a few days, I may have a post up about how this
is a trivial misunderstanding of NNT's case. Quantitatively."

Anybody who understands Taleb's argument realizes that these
"counterarguments" are missing the mark. The fact that they spend more time
obsessing his "meanness to them" than on his arguments, without understanding
that his meanness is never directed at people who disagree, only people who
bullshit, proves that point.

~~~
jamesmadison66
Completely misunderstanding NNT's arguments' basic premises in rebuttals to
him seems pretty common.

~~~
pennaMan
That's because he tends to go after things that are widely misunderstood in
the first place.

------
zajio1am
The most fascinating thing for me in the article is bimodal distributions in
the last grap, where lower peak is ~same as the peak for low-iq distribution.
I wonder what is the cause for this.

------
b1gtuna
Off topic, but how does one go about to measure his/her IQ?

~~~
zazaraka
You can find free online tests. They should take at least 30 min. Do 3-4
different ones to confirm you get about the same score (less than 5 points
difference).

If you live in a big city, you can probably find a place to do it for less
than $100.

~~~
b1gtuna
It looks like there is general distrust on the online tests (searching Reddit
posts). Can you recommend a few if you know any?

~~~
zazaraka
I can't recommend any, but that it's why I mentioned doing a bunch of them and
not just one.

------
chabes
Tl;dr from the article:

> All the claims from the article that I looked at, that can be interpreted as
> something specific and tested in a real data set, turned out not to be
> correct. If Taleb hadn’t blocked everyone who disagrees with him, perhaps he
> would have found out about this, and not published a post with all these
> incorrect claims.

------
squirrelicus
Can we please agree that recognizing the rigorous science on the heritability
of IQ does not imply racism?

------
yters
The 2000 SAT is supposedly an IQ test, and I boosted my score by 100 points by
doing 10 practice exams. So, IQ probably tests some objective human faculty,
but insofar as the 2000 SAT is an IQ test, it is clearly the case the IQ tests
can be studied for (hence all the expensive SAT prep tutors).

------
mistrial9
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligenc...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligences)

there are versions of this, but is anyone surprised that an attempt of big-S
Science to put a single number on humans, has fundamental challenges ?

------
commandlinefan
Being somebody who was always labelled as “smart” growing up - I was in the
“gifted” program in elementary school, so there’s that - in a way, I want
intelligence to be something that can be quickly, easily, and objectively
measured, even if it turns out I'm actually not as smart as I’ve been led to
believe I was. I can understand why this would make a lot of people
uncomfortable, though. If IQ tests were ever shown to be perfectly correlated
with that nebulous quality we label “intelligence”, it’s also not something
you can improve. Your IQ, and likely your income level, are going to stick
with you forever, just like your height will. Still, from what I can tell
about this Taleb guy (other than that he seems like a difficult personality)
is that he’s just trying to figure out how accurately IQ tests correlate with
actual intelligence; he’s not railing against the concept of trying to measure
it in the first place, as many others do.

~~~
js8
> I want intelligence to be something that can be quickly, easily, and
> objectively measured

I don't think it can be. I think (at least, important part of) intelligence is
ability (or speed) to learn (patterns in the data?). So it can only be
measured on something you haven't learned yet. Since as humans, we cannot
"unlearn" things, the result will always be skewed by your previous
experience.

