Noam Chomsky is annoying

Economics Economics Questions
121

@Sieben

I’ll have to check out the sources Sowell uses. I’m extremely skeptical however.

Agreed, I was too hasty and for that I apologize. But I deal with leftists on a daily basis and I certainly agree that Cultural Marxism exists, things like ‘critical race theory’ are testament to that.

I know Vernon anticipated Flynn in the late 70s/early 80s, but he was wrong to ignore the effects of an increase to a baseline level of nutrition in some third world countries on IQ as well as practice effect in first world countries (though in his defense there wasn’t much research on such matters at that time).

122

@auctionguy10

The WFP promotes unsustainable birth rates in sub-saharan Africa, beyond the carrying capacity of their agricultural capabilities.

123

From the data I have, it actually works the other way around. For example, leftists in the 1990s claimed that ‘self-esteem’ affects IQ, and that blacks >>have less self-esteem, so they have lower IQ. Studies actually show the opposite, the most intelligent and richest and healthiest grouping, Asian->>Americans, have the least self-esteem and the highest suicide rates in the US for example, then Whites, then Hispanics, then Blacks.

thats great, so can you see from the example that genetic factors influencing ‘happiness,’ won’t render a ‘happiness quotient’ non-arbitrary. a big part of the problem is the not entirely scientific notion of ‘happiness’ that one attempts to understand by ones science.

That you’re intelligent. That you are able to gather your own materials and work from those, inferring your own information from these, it’s what is >>known as the ‘college format’. By contrast, someone with an IQ of 80 requires explicit and ‘hands on’ instruction.

now that you have explained what an IQ of 126 means and 80, i really want to know what ‘I have IQ of 125’ means…

I never said such a thing, I said generally speaking it does - But that external factors can impede this.

we had narrowed the discussion to the particular case of african poverty. perhaps i misinterpreted what you were saying with respect to weighting IQ and institutional (environmental) conditions. In colder reflection I note that I was uncharitable in jumping to conclusions. both ‘some human intelligence’ ans ‘some preponderance of private property rights’ are necessary for a viable and affluent society, since ‘measuring’ either of these factors seems to me almost impossible scientifically (though not perhaps thymologically/with reference to cultural norms and biases) I can only say in my defence that in my mind I was considering ‘a few points of IQ’, ‘a few percent on a university exam’ against freedom from taxation, or some such sweeping and overarching insitutional difference, so my bias (brought about by being primarily interested in economics) led me to construct a strawman. I can perhaps at least save some face by the public admission of this defect, and am able to note that I and not another realised this about my position.

please don’t poo poo institutional environmental factors even as you venerate internal/natural factors, as determinants of human prosperity, and for my part I will try to more consciously do the opposite

I hope we can go on to have a healthy and intellectual to and fro on this and others issues on into the future Germanicus

124

Quote by Germanicus:“The WFP promotes unsustainable birth rates in sub-saharan Africa, beyond the carrying capacity of their agricultural capabilities.”

I didn’t deny that. But I think just throwing massive quantities of birth control won’t work for everyone as if all people’s think of children as an unwanted side effect of sex.

125

@nirgrahamUK

Agreed with most of what you said.

It’s not so much that intelligence is needed to create a private property society, it’s just that between two private property societies, ceteris paribus, the one with a more intelligent population will be more prosperous.

Africa would be more prosperous than it is now under a system of private property - But they’d be mass food producers most likely.

As for an IQ of 125, mostly similar to someone with an IQ of 126, with some statistical differences in life outcome on a macro scale.

126

Cool. I hope we turn up something conclusive. I’m just trying to learn.

127

So a few things: The organs/physical structures determining intelligence are the myelin sheaths around the nerve cell? And also the grey/white matter in the human brain?

Also, can IQ/g be altered by things like nutrition? I recall hearing in this thread that IQ changed as a result of rice eating.

And finally, what other cognitive/behavioral manners does IQ correlate with?

And lastly, a more fundamental question, why is it that there are dumb high IQ people? This is not a statistical question but a question regarding the essence of IQ -if IQ could be a CAUSE of intelligence, then why are there some (like say, lenin) who make these dramatic mistakes in political policy?

128

Yes, but that begs the question. Why does the relatively unintelligent race discover and implement efficient social institutions that better facilitate production and coordination? Why does the relatively intelligent race implement self-defeating and destructive social institutions? Saying that the Asian race is relatively poorer because they fell for socialist fallacies does not support your position; in fact, it supports mine. Natural intelligence, again, is merely one variable amongst many.

129

Those are two factors that seem to be particularly pronounced, we don’t know everything behind the actual structure of intelligence however. We do know they are directable heritable from numerous studies. One MRI study in 2002 in Nature Neuroscience for example examined 112 extended twin families and found heritabilities of 82% for whole-brain gray matter volume, 87% for whole-brain white matter volume, 86% for IQ, and 100% for the relation between them. Each cubic centimeter of brain tissue contains millions of brain cells and billions of synapses.

It’s more along the lines of: IQ can be negatively affected by malnutrition. There needs to be a baseline level of nutrition effectively. But then again, malnutrition only shows a few IQ points difference anyway.

You seem to be confusing a few points here. That study was basically showing that East Asian dietary changes caused changes to their genome. It had nothing to do with intelligence.

It’s fallacious to say that they are ‘dumb’, Einstein was a socialist - You certainly wouldn’t call him dumb however. He was highly intelligent independent of that.

I think those kinds of opinions have more to do with ivory tower thinking, or on the hand, egotism (I’m the man who can make this plan work! kind of attitude). There’s also just the general lack of understanding a lot of these people have of economics in general. Even physicists have this attitude, because academics and scientists who deal with otherwordly matters tend to have their heads in the cloud.

@Esuric

Did all Chinese collectively believe in Communism in totality then? What about the KMT?

Also:

White Europeans tend to have a higher standard variation as far as IQ goes, despite having a lower average. That means in real terms they’re more likely to produce geniuses. That’s one possible reason. There’s also other genetic reasons, some suggest, including Chinese-American scientist Bruce Lahn, that there were positive feedback loops in Chinese society for subservience and obedience that didn’t exist in European societies in the same top-down way for so long.

130

I’m sorry but there is simply no way to prove that an IQ has anything to do with competency at all. Ones competency is measured subjectively by the benefactor or recipient of said skill. A high IQ doesn’t in any way mean the person will be a good dock foreman. IQ testing is just a poor attempt at quantifying human ability, something that is impossible to do. It’s the same as trying to quantify the value of an object, something that only the subjective appraisal of individuals can accomplish. Ability is appraised subjectively by those who are the benefactors of that ability.

For example, one person may have the ability to light fire from his anus. He may be able to do it very well forming shapes with his skill, but if no one finds that of value his “skill” is essentially worthless beyond pleasing himself.

In the same way many people score incredibly high scores on these tests, proving they are very adequate at following directions, instructions, and taking tests. However that does not prove their abilities to satisfy their peers adequately enough to be a success in life.

There has never been any way to prove that IQ testing proves someones competency in anything. As a result it’s simply been asserted since its inception.

I would argue that at best all testing does is prove that someone is good at following directions, and memorizing or recognizing certain sequences and patterns. I maintain that the age old joke “A students tend to work for C students” may be more of a reality then actually believed. Such was the case in not only my highschool, but in many of my college friends as well. All of the extremely high IQ students are still back at home working for a Casino. :slight_smile:

I seem to think that this method of thinking is a consequence of state-run schools. Where testing is the only way to quantify anyone’s competency, and it consistently shows it’s failure.

131

IQ is the single best measure of job performance actually. As for its ‘impossibility’ - That’s another load of nonsense. First of all, an intelligence test cannot and is not designed to tell you the reasons people score differently. So the fact that the test by itself has nothing to say about genetics is not a failure of the test.

Second, the assertion that cultural marxists make of widespread chaos within science over intelligence is false. The statement that there are a number of theoretical differences about the concept of intelligence is only trivially true. In the practical context of research, provisional understanding, and ‘normal science’ this is rhetorically equivalent to underlining evolution as “only a theory” in media reports.

Intelligence as a working scientific research concept and tool is both widespread (as a search for terms such as ‘IQ’, ‘Intelligence’ or ‘cognitive ability’ on PubMed, Google Scholar, or similar publication databases will show), and broadly consistent in approaches and shared theory, methods, premises, and data. The American Psychological Association’s 11 member ‘taskforce’, assembled for a consensus statement on intelligence research, reported:

[M]uch of our discussion is devoted to the dominant psychometric approach, which has not only inspired the most research and attracted the most attention (up to this time) but is by far the most widely used in practical settings.

Blatant fucking falsehead. Either you’re willfully ignorant or just plain stupid, I’ve cited many studies in this thread showing its predictive qualities, and those several studies are but a fraction of the evidence available.

No it doesn’t. You missed the point about any test, even vaguely cognitive ones, having a positive manifold.

Anecdotal evidence. Probably made up ex nihilo too.

On the contrary, the leftist establishment doesn’t like IQ for the same reasons you probably don’t like it - As it doesn’t tally with racial egalitarianism.

Oh, and by the way, many private companies require cognitive tests as part of their application procedure.