My Thoughts On the Heritability of Intelligence and Eugenics

[Nereid]

And the rest?

Originally posted by Nachtwolf
Haven't we already laughed at those details? Seriously, Nereid, you simply have no case here. Can you see why the details you raise which we haven't already refuted aren't even relevant to the situation?

Here's just an example of why I don't feel like addressing every single point you raise:

Someone with an IQ of 50 has a mental ability roughly corresponding to an eight-year-old white child. A five year old child could do the CPM or SPM. And get a very small number of correct answers.

None. And if you think about it briefly, you'll realize that if such people were excluded from the sample, this would only result in inflated IQ scores for these nations, thus implying that they are even dumber than Lynn finds. And since Ghana and other African nations actually make more money than the straight-up linear correlation predicts, this would only strengthen Lynn's case.

None was necessary.

That's some (partial) answers to a few questions, thanks for that.

May we expect answers to the others? After all, seeing as how important Lynn and Vanhanen's conclusions are to your program, I'd've thought you'd be only too pleased to explain in excruciating detail why and how their work is sound.

IMHO, arrogant dismissal of serious questions tends to heighten a reader's suspicion that the aggression is a debating tactic to divert attention from topics the speaker would rather not have exposed.

 

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by hitssquad
What did you have in mind?

Yeah seriously, Russ, what "scientific flaws" are you talking about?

Nereid has it covered pretty well - and you guys are pretty much dodging all of her questions/objections. Like she said - all that does is make people more skeptical of your claims.

 

[hitssquad]

Voyage of the Questrist

Originally posted by russ_watters

Originally posted by hitssquad

Originally posted by russ_watters
there is so much here that is questionable

What did you have in mind?

Nereid has it covered pretty well

Russ Watters' opinion of Nereid's coverage has not been questioned.

The question in question spoke to what Russ Watters had in mind when he said there is so much here that is questionable .

What was it that you found questionable, Russ?





-Chris

 

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by hitssquad
What did you have in mind?

Nereid has it covered pretty well

Russ Watters' opinion of Nereid's coverage has not been questioned.

The question in question spoke to what Russ Watters had in mind when he said there is so much here that is questionable .

What was it that you found questionable, Russ?

-Chris

Sorry, I'm not going to play your games. You can't use me as an excuse to dodge Nereid's questions. She's put an enormous amount of energy into debunking your claims, something I'm not willing to do. You have my opinion, and its based on what you have already read from Nereid. Your next comeback of course is "don't you think for yourself?" I do: I read two sides of an argument and made a choice. One side is far stronger than the other.

edit: removed foot and lower leg from throat.

 

[Nereid]

(this exchange has been edited; I believe the key points are retained, but the original is earlier in this thread if the reader wishes to see the whole exchange).

[Nereid] Would people with such low IQs [/color][~40-50] – of whom there must have been at least 100 in the [/color][Ghana] sample which lead L+V to their determination - to be able to do CPM or SPM?[/color]

[Nachtwolf, sans the gratuitous arrogance] Someone with an IQ of 50 has a mental ability roughly corresponding to an eight-year-old white child. A five year old child could do the CPM or SPM. And get a very small number of correct answers. [/color]

[Nereid] Would the test protocol have to be changed to administer either test to such people? [/color]

[Nachtwolf] None. [/color]

[Nereid] What sort of sampling technique was used to ensure that such severely retarded people (if indeed they were) could be included as test subjects? [/color]

[Nachtwolf] None was necessary. [/color]

[Lynn and Vanhanen] It has been suggested by a referee that the mean IQs of sub-Saharan African countries are so low that they cannot be valid and that they spuriously inflate the correlations between the national IQs and the measures of per capita income and economic growth. [/color]

[a hitssquad quote, Nereid’s emphasis] ”The greater B-W differences on the RT and RTSD components of the ECTs in the South African study is best explained by the fact that this group of South African blacks scored, on average, about 2ó below British (or South African) whites, while there is only about 1ó difference between American blacks and whites. 59 In the Lynn and Holmshaw study, the W-B difference on Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices (SPM) was about 2.5ó. But we cannot be very confident of this value, because the SPM appeared to be too difficult for the African blacks. Their mean raw score on the SPM was only about three points above the chance guessing score, which casts doubt on the reliability and validity of the SPM as a measure of individual differences in g for this sample." [/color]

So, the Ghana study (according to Nachtwolf) produced OK results; the South African study produced questionable results (at least for the blacks in the sample). The mean IQs for the two?

Ghana: 62
South African blacks: 66

It would seem that the study’s flaws include systematic ones.