Mon ami Tigers2B1, pardonnez-moi, tu et si mignon, mais semblez si stupide! Have you not been reading the posts here? Can you not count the number of times that hitssquad and Mandrake have given conflicting answers, to the same simple questions??Tigers2B1 said:
This is ALL Nereid ever does for something that she has the inability to disprove. The infamous watermelon tactic as shown here:Tigers2B1 said:
Let's see why this might be important.Mandrake said:
Thank you for your insightful and perceptive contribution to the nature of the scientific method BV.BlackVision said:
Nereid said:
You see this? See this is the difference between you and real scientists. Actual scientists do not expect their opponents to do their research. If you wanted to find out where Cattell did his research, why would you ask your opponent instead of finding out yourself? Now I trust you've read many scientific statements by scientists that attempt to refute one another. Do you ever see them doing this? Or do you see them try to present their own evidence and attempt to counter with statements. Yes statements not questions. I know this is not something you're used to but this is the common way in one carries a debate. Presenting evidence. In which it is something you rarely do. You can not win a debate this way.Nereid said:
BlackVision said:
Nereid said:
Thanks Mandrake, this is helpful.Mandrake said:
Thanks for the comment.Mandrake said:
The request as stated cannot be honored. To my knowledge, techniques have not yet been developed to objectively quantitatively measure in academic material the traits good and neutral.Nereid said:
The most thorough review of the most broadly professionally-accepted findings regarding the g factor is Arthur Jensen's 1998 book The g Factor. It is available online for a subscription fee (monthly, quarterly, and yearly subscriptions are available; the cost for the yearly subscription at the current discount rate works out to 30 cents USD per day).
hitssquad said:
Thanks hitssquad Those are not quantities.Nereid said:
Those also are not quantities.Nereid said:
Since this same question appears in many of your messages, I previously noted that I will not attempt to research it each time it is asked. The value of h^2 has been researched and reported on by psychometricians from various countries. To the best of my knowledge, there are data sets from a number of countries that have been evaluated and reported. The comments in The _g_ Factor have not been restricted to findings reported in the United States, nor to research conducted by US scientists.Nereid said:
The above statement is incorrect. These are micro environmental factors. Macro environmental factors involve social interactions; they have a near zero presence after age 17.
Psychometric data is usually restricted in such a way as to eliminate variations that would skew the data of interest. Age is a factor in many psychometric studies and is almost always discussed in the papers. It would be silly to pretend that age related factors have no relevance to psychometric studies.
Most serious psychometric research is now reported in terms of _g_. Practice can change the _g_ loading of a conventional paper and pencil test, so that variable has to be accounted for. Passive measures of _g_ by RT and electroencephalography do not show a practice effect, but these studies usually include a familiarization phase, in which the test subject becomes familiar with the test procedure. All of this is explained in detail in The _g_ Factor.
The most highly _g_ loaded standard IQ test is the Raven's (there are three tests for different levels). The appropriate method of administering this test is with no time limit. Sometimes time limits are used and do not degrade the test, if the time is generous. When time limited tests are used, the _g_ loading necessarily decreases as the time limit is shortened. This is because _g_ loading is a thinking relation. As time becomes more and more important, the _s_ loading increases. People who already have knowledge of the answer can call it up faster than those who have to think about it.Nereid said:
That could be done with some tests and not with others. Tests administered to one person by one psychologist are not subject to such guessing. The test administrator would quickly determine that the test subject was not being cooperative and would stop the test. Given the high dollar cost of such tests, someone would be very upset with this outcome.
There has been a good bit of study of testing errors and factors that may influence scores. Much of Bias in Mental Testing is devoted to this topic. It was necessary to evaluate this subject in order to demonstrate that it was not the cause of blacks scoring lower than any other population group. Of course the same concern exists with respect to the differences between all other population groups, but political pressure applies only to blacks. Sophisticated analysis of the tests can show such important factors as rank order difficulty. If someone takes a test and answers correctly below a given level of difficulty and then begins to answer incorrectly when the difficulty is higher, the test is probably doing its job. If he misses easy questions with an equal frequency to mid-level or hard ones, he is obviously trying to skew the results downward.
I spent a fair bit of time searching the internet for results of good research into the size of the 'family size' and 'birth order' effects on _g_ (or intelligence).Mandrake said:
Literacy is presumably intended to mean "education." I have not found anything that suggests that education can raise or lower _g_. The _s_ loading of some tests is probably increased by education and may cause some measurable increase in IQ.Nereid said:
Within any society, there are people who get more or less education as a matter of circumstance. Not every high _g_ person is highly educated. We have discussed the cases of the people who were featured by Esquire as being among the smartest in the US. Two of the 4 hold doctorates. Two (to the best of my knowledge) hold no college level degrees. At least two are living at a level that may be fairly categorized as impoverished. Among those not listed, I know a good number (in Hi-Q societies -- way above Mensa) who have not earned college degrees. My point is that intelligence is not caused by education.
If one is studying sub-Saharan Africans, the cultures will be have little literacy and will be non-industrial. What are the "heavy biases" that you have found in their work?
I don't know how much work has been done with respect to language. It is something to study and may have been studied. Brand has written a number of comments about deaf people, which I think may be related. For example:
This conflicts with what hitssquad posted earlier, at least as far as Jensen is concerned. Also, in my (limited) online research, I've found that the well-controlled, lab-based, large-scale work seems to have been done almost exclusively in just a few countries, and that none come remotely close to the US in terms of quantity. Further, there are few, if any, pieces of in-depth research done in countries which are predominantly agricultural, or even industrial.Mandrake said:
I looked; no one seems to have attempted to study how estimates of _g_ would vary if the subjects were (for example) drunk (and quantify the effects by time and quantity of grog consumed).
This statement seems to reflect research done in the US; there doesn't seem to be anything on these effects for people who reach adolescence at significantly different ages than US kids, nor who remain living with family (or an institution, e.g. priests, nuns) beyond adolescence.
Quite. However, to repeat, my interest at present is systematic effects on estimates of an individual's _g_ obtained from a single test (or a series of tests done in one sitting). In this sense, your comment, while it may be accurate, is irrelevant.
Jensen's? or Brand's?
Jensen is a US scientist and has done most of his work in California, presently under the rule of an Austrian.Nereid said:
The United States leads all countries in scientific research. Look at the Nobel Prizes in the sciences before and after WW2. There was a sudden shift from Germany to the US. I can't think of any reason to expect another country to do more research in psychometrics than would be the case in astronomy or particle physics.
Huh? What is the point of that comment? It applies quite well to magnetic data storage, DNA research, space travel, and lasers. I don't get it. I think you have made similar comments before. Why?
Is there some reason why psychometricians should be looking at temporary phenomena? If someone goes to sleep, I would bet that his score on an IQ test would not be high, but that it would not be meaningful either. My prior comment was in reference to permanent environmental factors that relate to the micro environment. I could not believe that you were really asking about temporary impairment. Do you think that there is scientific research concerning human running ability? I assume there is. If so, would it be your concern that they should study runners with broken legs, drunk runners, and runners who have not eaten for six days?
As a convention, I assume that the reader understands that Jensen, A. R. (1998). The g factor: The science of mental ability. Westport, CT: Praeger, is the standard textbook in the field of psychometrics. When I wish to reference Brand's book, I do it by writing The _g_ Factor: General Intelligence and Its Implications.
This comment is not correct. Passive testing has been done in the US, Australia, New Zealand, England, and probably Germany and other countries. The IQ ranges of subjects reported by Jensen starts at around 40. Since retardation starts at 70, I do not agree that all of these subjects were literate. The service based economy thing is spurious. If you must keep including it, please explain your reason each time. Science is not dependent on whether the researchers live in a service based economy or not. I should add that you have not established that your claim is even true. I doubt that some of the contributing countries have service based economies. Would you please give us a complete list of the countries that have service based economies and some sound and verifiable information that shows your list is correct?
I have no idea what you are reading. The Intelligence 32-4 and 32-5 arrived in my mailbox today. A quick look through them (and any past issues) shows that your observation is false. Since you think that the US is alone in this area of science, you might be interested in the article in 32-5 by a large team of Chilean scientists who studied brain volumes, IQ, and SES. The paper includes a detailed description of the methodology and a massive presentation of the data collected, along with brain images. The subjects included both high and low SES people of both sexes. "Independently of sex, brain volume was the only brain parameter that contributed to explain IQ variance."
Sorry I wasn't clear; I meant basic literacy, as opposed to 'illiteracy'; I specifically do not mean 'education'. IOW, basic literacy means being able to read simple signs (e.g. "STOP", "Walk"), numbers, and in the western tradition is what most kids reach by kindergarten. AFAIK, there are hundreds of millions, possibly billions, of adults who are illiterate; for example, despite years of propoganda, it seems that a significant proportion of the adult population in China's 'countryside' are illiterate or barely literate.Mandrake said:
It's not only there; the majority of such folk are in Asia, particularly in China and India. In fact, it's probably less than 50 years - not even two generations - since the vast majority of Homo sap. were living in economies that were primarily agricultural (of course, it's much longer for the US and western Europe, but they comprise <15% of the world's people).
If all that you have is stamps (correlations), and the only stamps you have collected are from a few countries, how do you know that the rest of the world has stamps, or that they aren't made of diamond and not paper? How can you be confident that the biological correlates are the same for people whose life experiences are significantly different from those who you have studied?Mandrake said:
To reiterate the point about correlations, if you have no idea how 'temporary phenomena' affect the arbitrary constructs you are studying, how can you tell that there aren't 'temporary phenomena' which are systematically biassing your results? Further, if you hypothesise that _g_ is something to do with brain processes, don't studies of impairment tell you a great deal? AFAIK, this is just how much progress has been made into the neurophysiology (?) of language.
All of which are service-based economies (see below)
That's not my point (again, apologies for not being clear); the subjects have included few, if any, 'average' adults who just happened to be illiterate.
Au contraire, mon ami! As I said above, extrapolating *correlations* found in one set of circumstances is contraindicated in good science; if all you have is correlations (and our discussion of the state of play wrt neuroscience and theory certainly seems to indicate that we've little else today), you need extremely good reasons to declare validity beyond the domains within which you obtained them.
It's not where the researchers live so much as where the *subjects* live.
How about The World Bank? The link is to a page from which you can get employment by sector ('primary' = agriculture, fishing, animal husbandry, and mining; 'secondary' = industry; 'tertiary' = services), and also gives breakdowns by gender. The panel at the left allows you to navigate through a huge wealth of data.
First, let me note that you did not address the issue of why it is significant, from your perspective, that the US leads all other nations in psychometric research. It does the same in most fields of science. Now, let's look at your comment above:Nereid said:
Scientists study closed groups to eliminate variables. Within group studies were used to establish every point made in the first 12 chapters of The Bell Curve and the group in question was a single population group. When identical results are found between groups, there is a very high probability that the item being observed is not following different mechanistic processes in each group. You seem to be imagining how psychometric data has been collected and analyzed. I would like to suggest that a better approach would be to read what has been done, instead of guessing.
You are making the presumption that temporary impairment is not understood. You are wrong. I would expect that there are pertinent studies that address some forms of impairment. I have read studies that address stress as it applies to IQ testing. If you read discussions of testing procedures, you will see many discussions of factors that can adversely affect test results. Some of these are small effects and some are large. There is also a matter of common sense. It does not take a complex scientific study to determine that drunk people are not suitable for research on topics other than as they relate to drunkenness. You are imagining a bias that you have not bothered to study. The most detailed text on the subject is Jensen, A.R. (1980). Bias in mental testing. New York: Free Press. I have pointed you to this reference on several occasions.
Yes. The literature is rich with papers that address permanent impairment from disease and injury. Animal studies are important with respect to injury, since they include the intentional destruction of various brain regions, as I described to you in an earlier message. There may be literature on temporary impairment that extrapolates to some useful conclusions, other than that the person soul not be included in a psychometric study.
What is "this?" You previously told us that neuroscience was "cool" to intelligence research. That is not true. So, I must conclude that your research into this topic should continue.
This is a good topic for you to research. I have not read any studies about it. What data have you seen that suggests intelligence impairment from smoking?
The information you presented didn't list all of the countries where scientists are presently studying psychometrics. There is nothing to suggest that the science of psychometrics is actually a variable that is dependent on the number of people working in one sector or another. Psychometrics has been around for about a century. In that time the economic demographics of most advanced countries have changed. So what?
You have a great imagination. Populations have been studied from all over the world. Interestingly, there are studies of population groups that have lived together for centuries and studies of the same groups (genetically) within other countries (no admixture).
You have not understood the discussions. We have studies based on chronometrics, electroencephalography, MRI, PET, fMRI, autopsy, and the measurement of biological parameters (such as brain pH).
Yes. As we know, researchers have not confined themselves to their homelands, nor have they confined themselves to any particular type of economy.
With the exception of Chile (population ~16 million) and Estonia (population ~1 million), but both of which are highly urban, all these are service-based economies, with near universal literacy, very low numbers of children per adult female, very low infant mortality, highly urbanised living, and so on. These conditions pertain to ~<15% of Homo sap.Mandrake said:
Nereid said:
This seems to imply that you have familiarized yourself with the literature to the point that you know this to be true. When you insert terms, such as "biological hypotheses," you imply that there is some definition of this term that excludes the various biological hypotheses that have appeared in the literature and which have been discussed here. Are you trying to play tricks with words? I have previously discussed Miller's myelination hypothesis. Why do you dismiss it? There are also various hypotheses that pertain to working memory, nerve conduction velocity, T1 and T2 relaxation times, and brain volume.
The above comment is a good stimulus for a discussion about the total body of evidence. Nereid's comment would lead an unsuspecting, uninformed person to the conclusion that the heritability of intelligence is based on one category of study (twins). If this were so, then her comment might merit attention. But, those who are familiar with the big picture know that the heritability of intelligence has been established and quantified by various independent means. When all vectors are pointing the same way and have the same magnitude and are determined by different categories of study, the combined certainty of the total observation is greater than even the sum of the components.Nereid said:
There is good reason to conclude that the same factors that relate to intelligence in the US or Europe also relate in other nations. Within the US, we have large populations of the major population groups and they have been studied for nearly a century. Most of the research has been within-group. When a mechanism is found in group A and in group B and both are seen to act identically, it is not an unfair extrapolation to conclude that the differences in mean values between the groups is subject to the same factors as the differences that are found within group.Nereid said:
Much? How much do you define as "much?" My impression is that you have not yet read enough to even connect the dots on a single psychometric issue, such as heritability. Have you read "much" of the literature on intelligence?
I would like to suggest that you use quotes from the literature (you have read "much" of it) instead of making assertions that are actually your thoughts. It is impossible to discuss specific issues when one is offering only vague and unsupported assertions. Just tell us what some respected psychometrician has written, tell us his name, and then let us discuss whether or not that person has been scientifically naïve, or not.
There are three major racial groups and a number of identifiable population groups. The major groups have been studied extensively and are well understood with respect to the parameters that consistently appear within and between groups. It is, as you should know, not true to imply that groups in various parts of the world have been studied, but it is correct that they have not been studied as extensively as has been the case for population groups within Europe and the US. If one simply writes off all groups that have not been extensively studied, nothing changes with respect to the knowledge of psychometrics.
Hmm, I'm not sure what a 'human science' is, but fMRI ... 'race' (biological definition (whatever that is), not a social construct) ... frequency of alpha brain waves ... ECT ... latency and amplitude of evoked brain potentials ... hereditability (genetic, not social or cultural) ... rate of brain glucose metabolism ... brain volume ... are not terms one commonly finds in sociology texts I would guess. PF members Moonbear and Phobos have commented on how 'hard' biology is.selfAdjoint said: