the neoliberal vision of the future

[onarchy]

Cult members tend to be the ones who have different definitions of words from the rest of society.

Judging me by statistics, are we? Typical collectivists.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

Can you explain to me why IQ is so well-correlated with mental chronometry (mental reaction times)?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_chronometry

What does it matter, unless you are about to claim that mental chronometry scores correlate with intelligence...measured by IQ. But you weren't going to say that were you?

Louis MacNeice

 

[invisibleplanet]

How much do you earn, onan? It can't be very much, if what you're saying is true. Unless of course it's the result of an unintelligent political system.

You spoke my thoughts

 

[audiotech]

How do you account for the fact that identical twins reared apart have nearly identical IQs, much more similar than two dizygotic twins reared together?

As an identical twin myself my experience doesn't support your claim.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

A properly rigorous twin study showing the effects of nature/nurture would have to separate the twins not at birth but at conception.

But nobody has denied a heritable factor to intelligence, and if you are effectively clones of each other, you share the identical genetic starting point to life. Bernie's quote from Gould covers this completely and adequately with regards to its implications for the 'Bell Curve'.

 

[SpineyNorman]

Judging me by statistics, are we? Typical collectivists.

Since there's no organic link between words and their definitions - ie. words are undeniably social constructs, there is no other way of determining the definitions of words other than what the consensus deems them to be. In certain academic contexts words have more complex or slightly different definitions than the mainstream definition gives us but we still determine them via consensus - this time the academic consensus. I've explained this to you before - if you want a word that represents your conception of "fascism" you need to first identify the unique character combinations of all relevant cases, then you need to come up with a word to describe them - a higher level abstraction than fascism, since fascism is a very specific term, and although it is a contested concept all experts in the field agree most of the character traits and the cases to which it applies. I have no problem with you using a word that encompasses all that you consider to be "fascist" but that word should not be fascism, since it will confuse and distort the argument, which is exactly your intention - your intention is to redefine fascism to include all politics you don't like, thus using the fear and emotion that rightly comes with that word in place of a real argument. We've been through this before and you refused to listen then. If you think the definitions of words are not "objective" you need to come up with your own terms to apply to your "objective" concepts. It's not difficult to understand, so I must assume your blind faith in your political dogma is a barrier for you.

By the way, I'm genuinely fucking livid now, I'm not joking.

 

[goldenecitrone]

As an identical twin myself my experience doesn't support your claim.

And speaking as an only twin, neither does mine.

 

[invisibleplanet]

Judging me by statistics, are we? Typical collectivists.

Onar Åm, I think it's more likely that you have completely misunderstood individualism-collectivism. I meant that most sincerely. Already it seems clear that your thought processes are susceptible to cognitive, perceptional and motivational biases towards extreme righwing political positions, with your value of The Bell Curve by Herrnstein and Murray being but one concrete example of your bias towards extreme right-wing thinking (and disreputable scholarship) However, as our repeated requests to you for citations are not yet forthcoming, and one wonders why you failed to provide them, it's difficult to make a judgement overall about the nature of your source material, but one suspects at this point that a large proportion of your reading material is drawn from rightwing conservative US-based 'think tanks'.

 

[onarchy]

Here's Stephen Jay Gould from his classic review of 'The Bell Curve'

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~chance/course/topics/curveball.html

I don't find Gould's attack on the Bell Curve to be very convincing. First anyone who has actually read The Bell Curve will know that the authors acknowledge that environmental factors play an important role, and that while IQ is important, research shows that education is more important for social success. The Bell Curve shows that IF a person of low IQ is able to complete a higher degree education, then there is no measurable difference in income compared to a person of high IQ with a similar education. In other words, education closes the income gap. That's a HUGE point made in the book, and Gould is being dishonest when he just chooses to ignore it.

Second, I am most uncomfortable with Gould's false dichotomy of environment vs heritability, because the truth is that we must largely distinguish between sociality vs biology, where biology = physiological factors + heritability. Gould measures nutrition as a well-known factor that strongly influences IQ, and that's no coincidence, because that is more or less the ONLY major factor other than heritability that influences IQ. That is, the social/educational component of IQ is very close to zero. That's a HUGELY important point, that Gould dishonestly glosses over. Sure, if you place a child in a dark room and directly obstruct the child from acquiring language and interact normally with his surroundings he WILL be intellectually stunted, but in biology there are threshold behaviors. Above a certain threshold of stimulation the effect wears off and approaches zero. "Enough" is good enough to make education irrelevant to a child's IQ. The same is in fact true of nutrition. It is especially MAL-nourishing or undernourishing that seriously reduces a chilld's mental capacities, but again above a certain threshold the effect of food wears off.

Now, if you compare blacks in Africa with genetically similar blacks in the US, the difference is more than 20 IQ points in favor of the African-Americans. This huge difference is no doubt due to nutritional differences between poor Africa and wealthy America. But are whites in America better nourished? And is the effect very noticable on IQ? The evidence indicates that there exists no significant nutritional gap between black and white Americans and hence cannot explain the IQ gap.

HOWEVER, being a liberal I always have a liberal angle on things. Studies show that while national IQ is a significant factor in the wealth of nations, there is one factor that is hugely more important than IQ and that can be much more easily affected than IQ: economic freedom. I mentioned the difference between North-Korea and South-Korea earlier, but I should definitely also mention a gigantic African success story: Barbados. Sure, it's in the Carribean, but it's population is mainly black. The country has been independent for more than 200 years and has been based on British Law throughout this period. As a consequence Barbados is peaceful and has the prosperity level of Greece or Portugal, i.e. European living standards.

http://heritageDOTorg/index/Country/Barbados

Another "black" country that is worth mentioning is St Lucia:

http://heritageDOTorg/index/Country/SaintLucia

It too is in the Carribean and is doing quite well economically. They provide data points that show that while IQ matters, economic freedom matters much more.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

The funding of the "scientific racist" movement, including most of the sources used by "The Bell Curve", is an interesting topic in its own right.

Murray: Funding of Scientific Racism

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Did you check that Solar: The Gas Model Crumbles! thread I linked earlier onarchy? Seems like it might be right up your street.

 

[SpineyNorman]

Heritage Foundation

 

[ViolentPanda]

Well, I'm not sure "fan" is the right word, but I value the book "The Bell Curve" yes...

On what terms? What part(s) of it's thesis do you find valuable or informative?

and I do acknowledge that IQ is a valid biological concept and that there are statistical differences between races (a race can be defined as a mildly inbred group of people and is defined by their common ancestry. E.g. whites are people with mostly ancestors living in Europe ~40.000 years ago, blacks are people with mostly ancestors living in Africa ~90.000 years ago etc.). Acknowledging biological reality, however, is NOT the same as being a racist. As a liberal I am anti-collectivistic, and therefore obviously anti-racist. I don't judge people by the color of their skin.

IQ isn't a "valid biological concept" at all, and measurement of IQ isn't even a valid concept per se, given that none of the determinant factors currently used are universalisable across cultures. In other words, an IQ test will inform you only of the "intelligence" of people within the particular culture the test was developed in.

BTW, what is this "biological reality" you refer to? Please expand.

My primary reason for studying this topic is because it strongly relates to the differences between right-wing socialists and left-wing socialists. (if you want to caricature it: Nazis vs Commies) Left-wing socialists believe that all humans are equal mentally.

I've never met a socialist who's made such a claim. Perhaps Norwegian socialists are especially stupid, or (more likely) you're mistaken?

All humans are very obviously not "equal mentally". Cognitive and developmental issues see to that.

I suspect that you're conflating a social-democratic position that cultures have equal worth with a reductive assumption that socialists believe "that all humans are equal mentally".

IQ is a social construct, they claim, and the mind is infinitely moldable and smartness is learnt. (This is the archetype leftwing position)...

No, it's your assumption, based on who knows what evidence, because you source nothing), hardly an "archetype".

BUT it is a fact that there are great social differences in the world. Some are rich, some are poor. Since all people are equal in abilities and IQ is a myth then there must be EXTERNAL causes to these observed social differences. And so capitalism is identified as the great culprit. It is capitalism that causes social differences.

Reductio ad absurdum. These simplistic arguments that you attribute to nebulous "socialists" are fictions.
Yes, there are "social differences" (thanks for that searing insight ).
No, socialists don't claim that all people are equal in abilities, but rather that most people, barring those unfortunates with cognitive issues, have equal potential.
IQ is a myth. It's a culturally-loaded form of measurement of factors, it does not measure "intelligence". Nobody denies that some people manifest intellect in a more meaningful and/or practical and/or remunerative way than others, but that has little to do with "IQ", which is snake oil, a fantasy created to make sexually-unappealing men seem attractive.

Right-wing socialists (Nazis being the extreme version) accept that people are born with different abilities and that there may be biological racial differences.

There are no biological racial differences. You, I, an Australian Aborigine, a Wolof tribesman from Gambia and a Tierra del Feugan are indistinguishable biologically. We all share the same genetic material, the same chemical constituents, the exact same internal and external topography. Our only differences are climactic and environmental adaptions that are, quite literally, skin-deep.

They just don't like it. They want everyone to be equal and hence the deviants will have to go. In Nazi Germany this meant extermination of the disabled and the mentally handicapped. This was an extreme version of social equalization, right-wing style.

It was nothing to do with "social equalisation", it was the removal of "bad" material from the bloodstock. "Social equalisation" would require "levelling down" as well as "levelling up", not one rather than the other.

The more moderate version of this is not to actually kill the disabled or the intelligent, but to try to make the differences between them invisible in society.

Whoever is doing so cannot be trying very hard, then.

You're not supposed to see that someone is smarter than someone else, and this is done by redistribution of wealth. Money is taken from the wealthy smart ones and given to the poor not so smart so as to disguise the fact that there are differences. Similarly in school the able students are held back and the slow students are given extra resources so as to exterminate social deviants at an early age. This could be called Nazism with a human face.

Perhaps it hasn't occurred to you (you don't strike me as a thinker, more of an "ideas man") that the reason "the able" are held back (and this happens in all schools, regardless of their public or private status, or the quality of teaching staff, is because it is a function of not having a one-to-one teaching system? Any time a teacher is teaching more than one student, "the able" will always be held back.
Now, prove to me that such a thing happening exerts a meaningful effect on the intellectual development of "the able", and you might have a point, but the proof I require is referenced data, not a flight of Onarchistic rhetoric.

Notice that the moderate left socialists and the moderate right socialists pursue the exact same policies but for different reasons. Left-wing socialists also want redistribution of wealth, not to hide the deviants but because they don't believe in the deviants and that differences in wealth is caused by an injustice. Left wing socialists also want to give more resources to the slow students and hold the smart ones back, because they believe that people are smart because they have rich parents that are able to educate their children better, and so being smarter is a sign of a social injustice and that's why the lefties want to exterminate the smart and disabled. The moderate left does not actually kill anyone, but exterminates the deviants from public view by redistribution. The left doesn't believe they are covering up biological differences. The left believes it is undoing an injustice caused by the wicked capitalism.

There are no socialists in government. There are neo-liberals who attempt to disguise the worst effects of their policies, and neo-liberals that don't. That is all.

Now, as a liberal I am interested in biological differences in IQ because if IQ differences are largely biological and hereditary and IQ is at the same time very important in wealth creation then I can PROVE that the Marxist conception of economics is false.

You're basing your hypotheses on predicates that don't exist.

Define IQ.

Once you've done that, have a skim through the literature on IQ tests. There's about 70 years worth (50 if you measure it from Eysenck). Even if you just select a single paper for each year that IQ has been a subject under study (by the hard sciences as well as the soft), you'll find very little academic consensus about what IQ is, what functions and abilities should be measured, how it should be scored, how to cross-reference and equate scores between different IQ tests, and so on.

Lefties observe social differences and claim that it is CAUSED by capitalism because we're all born equal in ability. But what if that's not true? What if we're born EXTREMELY different in abilities and that these differences in ability tend to reflect themselves in the form of social inequality? What then? Well, if that's true then we should expect to see EXTREME differences in wealth in capitalist societies, but we don't. There are differences, some even quite large, but nowhere near what we would expect if the left's conception of capitalism is correct. (their view is that capitalism AMPLIFIES differences, and generates a positive wealth feedback: the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.) In fact, even if capitalism was entirely NEUTRAL with respect to creating social differences (i.e. zero amplification) then the observed differences in wealth are still too small. So the only scientific conclusion to draw is that capitalism does not amplify social differences, it dampens them. Capitalism is an equalizer. It is dominated by negative wealth feedbacks. What is this negative feedback? Competition. Competition between the able forces them to undercut some of the value their intelligence has provided for them. Competition causes redistribution of wealth from the able to the less able. It causes a race to the middle.

You're shaping the evidence to fit your predetermined outcomes. It's the sort of thing I expect a less able person to do, quite frankly.

 

[invisibleplanet]

Heritage Foundation

Yes. Only the largest rightwing thinktank in USA, conservative of course.
http://www.powerbase.info/index.php?title=Heritage_Foundation

 

[yield]

Did you check that Solar: The Gas Model Crumbles! thread I linked earlier onarchy? Seems like it might be right up your street.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Did you know that you get better at IQ tests if you practise them, Onarchy?

 

[butchersapron]

Bigfish is/was a Bolshevik mind.

 

[Blagsta]

I don't find Gould's attack on the Bell Curve to be very convincing. First anyone who has actually read The Bell Curve will know that the authors acknowledge that environmental factors play an important role, and that while IQ is important, research shows that education is more important for social success. The Bell Curve shows that IF a person of low IQ is able to complete a higher degree education, then there is no measurable difference in income compared to a person of high IQ with a similar education. In other words, education closes the income gap. That's a HUGE point made in the book, and Gould is being dishonest when he just chooses to ignore it.

Second, I am most uncomfortable with Gould's false dichotomy of environment vs heritability, because the truth is that we must largely distinguish between sociality vs biology, where biology = physiological factors + heritability. Gould measures nutrition as a well-known factor that strongly influences IQ, and that's no coincidence, because that is more or less the ONLY major factor other than heritability that influences IQ. That is, the social/educational component of IQ is very close to zero. That's a HUGELY important point, that Gould dishonestly glosses over. Sure, if you place a child in a dark room and directly obstruct the child from acquiring language and interact normally with his surroundings he WILL be intellectually stunted, but in biology there are threshold behaviors. Above a certain threshold of stimulation the effect wears off and approaches zero. "Enough" is good enough to make education irrelevant to a child's IQ. The same is in fact true of nutrition. It is especially MAL-nourishing or undernourishing that seriously reduces a chilld's mental capacities, but again above a certain threshold the effect of food wears off.

Now, if you compare blacks in Africa with genetically similar blacks in the US, the difference is more than 20 IQ points in favor of the African-Americans. This huge difference is no doubt due to nutritional differences between poor Africa and wealthy America. But are whites in America better nourished? And is the effect very noticable on IQ? The evidence indicates that there exists no significant nutritional gap between black and white Americans and hence cannot explain the IQ gap.

HOWEVER, being a liberal I always have a liberal angle on things. Studies show that while national IQ is a significant factor in the wealth of nations, there is one factor that is hugely more important than IQ and that can be much more easily affected than IQ: economic freedom. I mentioned the difference between North-Korea and South-Korea earlier, but I should definitely also mention a gigantic African success story: Barbados. Sure, it's in the Carribean, but it's population is mainly black. The country has been independent for more than 200 years and has been based on British Law throughout this period. As a consequence Barbados is peaceful and has the prosperity level of Greece or Portugal, i.e. European living standards.

http://heritage.org/index/Country/Barbados

Another "black" country that is worth mentioning is St Lucia:

http://heritage.org/index/Country/SaintLucia

It too is in the Carribean and is doing quite well economically. They provide data points that show that while IQ matters, economic freedom matters much more.

reference?

Here's a study
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3373185
which shows a link between attachment and IQ

and here's a meta-analysis showing a link between secure attachment and language ability
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9507.1995.tb00055.x/abstract

 

[invisibleplanet]

Is Onar Åm really a liberal, or is he a rightwing conservative pretending to be liberal?

 

[SpineyNorman]

Judging me by statistics, are we? Typical collectivists.

And this from someone who considers The Bell Curve to be serious scholarship. It doesn't get much more than that.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Bigfish is/was a Bolshevik mind.

A Boshevik? Not just a communist, but specifically a Bolshevik?

 

[butchersapron]

Yep.

 

[ViolentPanda]

That's not an argument, you know. I forgot to mention that the reason the left is so afraid of the concept of IQ is because if it is generally accepted that IQ has a strong biological component...

And right there we have a major problem for you.

It isn't generally accepted, and never will be, that IQ has a strong biological component.

Why?

Because (outwith a small volume of people with physical pathological issues of brain development) everyone has the same structural development of brain. Don't take my word for it, I only ever studied biology at an undergraduate level. Read the literature. The only biology linking intellectual development to structure, except in the most gross and obvious way (i.e. for intellectual development a brain must be fully developed) is speculative, and likely to remain so for the foreseeable future, given that we can map very little of mind to brain.

 

[Mrs Magpie]

Just a reminder of the FAQs onarchy. No more linking to sites like that please without breaking the link. Yellow card. You have been warned.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Is Onar Åm really a liberal, or is he a rightwing conservative pretending to be liberal?

His political and economic views correlate fairly strongly with those on the wingnut welfare circuit in the US, but apart from being a climate contrarian which they also are, he's a bit further off the edge than most of them on science issues (e.g. the ether stuff earlier)

 

[chazegee]

Getting better.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

The evidence indicates that there exists no significant nutritional gap between black and white Americans

This is tiresome now. Stop making stuff up. There is a significant nutritional gap between the classes in the US. Poor people in the US are far more likely to be obese, to smoke, to drink a lot, not to take a huge amount of exercise, to die younger etc. Given that different races are represented unequally in different social classes, there is a significant nutritional gap between black and white Americans.

Here's a study on obesity in the US.

Black men in the US are a little more likely to be obese than white men. Black women in the US are far more likely to be obese. Unfortunately that study doesn't include an analysis by socio-economic class. I would expect the difference between the races to mostly or entirely disappear in such an analysis.

 

[Dillinger4]

the evidence the evidence the evidence 95% of the evidence.

 

[Blagsta]

Just a reminder of the FAQs onarchy. No more linking to sites like that please without breaking the link. Yellow card. You have been warned.

The Heritage Foundation are not like Stormfront, they are a "legitimate" think tank, albeit one that has supported overthrow of democratic governments.

 

[yield]

His political and economic views correlate fairly strongly with those on the wingnut welfare circuit in the US, but apart from being a climate contrarian which they also are, he's a bit further off the edge than most of them on science issues (e.g. the ether stuff earlier)

I'm sure he's pitching for astroturfing.

The Heritage Foundation are not like Stormfront, they are a "legitimate" think tank, albeit one that has supported overthrow of democratic governments.

Mrs M is still smarting from onarchy calling her a socialist. You're right though.