HN Books @HNBooksMonth

Genetics is a major driver of intelligence, and more intelligent people tend to earn more money.

Here's a book that covers the basics of what we know about intelligence and its correlation with life outcomes: https://www.amazon.com/Intelligence-That-Matters-Stuart-Ritc...

I want to call out one of the elephants in the room here, one that I'm sure was a major motivator in the development of this article - racial differences in IQ.

Some people take these measured differences as sufficient cause to declare the entire concept of IQ as worthless racist pseudoscience, despite all the evidence to the contrary [1]. But it's also been shown that, for example, the black-white IQ gap is closing in America [2], a process we also observed the Irish go through [3].

If only racists like Richard Lynn did research on race and intelligence, we wouldn't know this. Lynn claims to have investigated this topic and shown that the gap is NOT closing. Discovering the opposite required less biased researchers to engage tenaciously and scientifically with technical issues, questions of measurement, etc., along with the understanding that IQ is a meaningful measurement worth engaging with.

Would we prefer that anti-racists be scared off this research, and have only racists doing it? Wouldn't that feed a narrative that the racists have the truth the Establishment wants to hide?

I don't think this is a simple and straightforward issue. Moralizing a topic like race and IQ and pre-emptively closing it off to inquiry could really be shooting ourselves in the foot. Instead of preventing science from harming marginalized groups, we could be preventing science from protecting marginalized groups.

And I'm not saying the authors of this article are doing that. But I think we all need to grapple with this backfire risk when we go about applying the principles in this article. Which, as I've said elsewhere, are good as far as general principles go.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Intelligence-That-Matters-Stuart-Ritc...

[2] https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/2006061...

[3] https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2019/06/heres-why-the...

It's depressing how conventional it has become for a relatively intelligent population, like the HN audience, to only know about criticisms of IQ and basically nothing about its positive value. But witness the credulous reception for Taleb's slapdash work in these comments, and the hostility to basic technical criticisms of that work.

If you are interested in knowing about the thing itself, and not just criticisms of the thing, I invite you to pick up, for example, Stuart Ritchie's book https://www.amazon.com/Intelligence-That-Matters-Stuart-Ritc...

And before you get upset about the title, the book is from a survey series called "All That Matters". It's not claiming that _intelligence_ is "all that matters".

⬐ jameslk

> It's depressing how conventional it has become for a relatively intelligent population, like the HN audience, to only know about criticisms of IQ and basically nothing about its positive value.

What do you consider it's positive values? All I'm aware of is how it's used to judge people. Unless you consider that a positive thing.

⬐ civilized

Here are just a couple examples:

1. We can quantitatively study environmental factors that influence intelligence. For example, we know that even low concentrations of lead in the blood are linked to lower IQ. Knowing what can hurt our mental abilities allows us to protect ourselves via environmental policy.

2. It's not uncommon that a child who is inattentive at school is high IQ and is understimulated by going at the normal classroom pace. Testing allows identification and targeted enrichment opportunities.

⬐ mcguire

What policy changes does Ritchie recommend? I saw a mention of IQ testing for job interviews (and can imagine the kerfuffle if Google or Facebook a test score of 130 before an initial interview).

⬐ disown

> like the HN audience

I think most of the HN audience is well aware of the positive aspects of IQ. It's just that the power structure here protects the vocal minority who espouse solely the negative side. Like so much of media/social media/politics/culture/etc, it's censorship that tips the scale and skews discourse towards the extreme.

Asking questions that imply you've never bothered to read anything about the topic isn't a good way to try to get other people to engage with you.

But if you're looking for a brief overview, you could read https://www.amazon.com/dp/1444791877/

⬐ ogogmad

Evidence that's built on "statistical correlation" is very weak. A correlation coefficient of 0.6 or less is practically non-predictive. The people in this area need to use better mathematics.

⬐ ogogmad

Evidence that's built on "statistical correlation" is very weak. A correlation coefficient of 0.6 or less is practically non-predictive. The people in this area need to use better mathematics.

Are you familiar with modern intelligence research? IQ test is reliable (get the same score when you test multiple times) and valid (correlate with things we actually care about, not just being good at solving IQ test problems).

Intelligence: All That Matters by Stuart Ritchie is a good summary of modern intelligence research. https://www.amazon.com/Intelligence-That-Matters-Stuart-Ritc... To quote:

"The scientific evidence is clear: IQ tests are extraordinarily useful. IQ scores are related to a huge variety of important life outcomes like educational success, income, and even life expectancy, and biological studies have shown they are genetically influenced and linked to measures of the brain. Studies of intelligence and IQ are regularly published in the world's top scientific journals."

⬐ pron

I'm not sure genius is correlated with income, life expectancy, and even educational success, though. Never mind poor, miserable geniuses like Dostoevsky; even Alan Turing was considered a rather mediocre student (and was also pretty miserable and quite unsuccessful by many measures). I'm pretty sure there is some statistical correlation between IQ and genius, but the correlation is certainly not absolute. In other words, genius and very high IQ are certainly not the same thing.

⬐ lainon

http://www.pnas.org/content/109/2/425.full.pdf (Schooling in adolescence raises IQ scores)

⬐ sanxiyn

Summary: "The quasiexperimental results suggest that the reform increased the average IQ score for Norwegian men by a statistically significant 0.6 IQ points."

This paper shows two things, although only one is surprising enough for publication. The surprising part is that "schooling in adolescence raises IQ scores", which is the title of the paper. Another is that IQ is so reliable that increase of 0.6 IQ points is statistically significant.

⬐ paulpauper

agree...IQ correlates with a lot. It's not just a measure of "how well someone does on IQ tests".

⬐ DamonHD

My mum, after getting her PhD (and having taught herself through A-levels because her Yorkshire school stopped at O-levels, and got into Oxford) decided to take her first-ever IQ test. She rated mentally subnormal.

Astonished, she thought about what it was trying to test and took another test: now genius.

None of us think that either was right...

⬐ None

None

⬐ hinkley

Up until I was eight they thought I might be deficient. So they poked and prodded and eventually some people came to school and took me to the library and gave me an IQ test. Then they came back and gave me another one. And I believe another one after that, by which point I was a little disgruntled. Didn't I already take one of these? Did you lose my answers?

Turns out that the test can be tuned to a range. If you take the wrong one it loses some accuracy at the low and high end of the range, so they had to retest me. They had assumed I might be dim and gave me the wrong one. The real problem was that I was so insufferably bored all the time that I wouldn't engage. But I liked puzzles and the test had a bunch I'd never seen before, so by the last one I was taking it in the spirit it was given.

My guess is in two parts. Either your mother took the wrong one(s), or took a bogus one, or you're thinking of elements of a successful adult that the test can't measure, like common sense and social graces.

In any group of peers at that level there are bound to be people who can certainly do the work, possibly better than you, but who are painfully, even cringingly, bad at certain other life skills. It gets a little uncomfortable to acknowledge these people as geniuses. And there are people who seem not to be all that, but on occasion surprise the hell out of you by coming through in a clutch.

The research promoting a growth mindset hasn't proven to be nearly as robust as many had hoped. It's starting to look like there's a very real possibility it's spread so far merely because it's something people want to be true.

Psychology research has had a pretty dismal track record in terms of reproducibility (http://www.vox.com/2015/8/27/9216383/irreproducibility-resea...) and the growth mindset dogma in particular has been facing more and more robust criticism. Carol Dweck's work is far from the final word on the matter that this blog post portrays it to be.

http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/04/08/no-clarity-around-growt... http://www.amren.com/news/2014/04/yes-iq-really-matters/ http://www.amazon.co.uk/Intelligence-That-Matters-Stuart-Rit...

Ironically, focus on a growth mindset may actually distract people from doing things that actually do have reproducible research showing they lead to more mental horsepower (e.g. regular aerobic exercise).

⬐ tracker1

I do strongly feel that people have varying natural aptitudes. Some types of problems or challenges will come easier to some than others... I think the key is not being afraid to lose/fail. To get back up, dust yourself off and keep going.

There's also knowing when something really isn't right for you... Some people really can't grasp certain types of concepts essential for certain jobs... Given, these are mostly outliers, they do exist.

Just the same, drive and effort count for more in life in terms of actual results than anything else, next in line probably being chance/luck.

⬐ collyw

Programming is one place where I think some people just won't get it no matter how much drive. I studied information technology during the dot com boom (graduated in the bust). My course started with a four week intensive Java course with an exam at the end. People who failed at the exam were not excluded from taking the course but were advised against it. A few of them stayed on, but they really struggled.

⬐ loupeabody

Fwiw, Carol Dweck recently wrote about how the surge of interest in and promotion of a growth mindset approach to teaching and learning came with false positives [0]

[0] http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2015/09/23/carol-dweck-rev...

⬐ tbrownaw

Yep, saw that go by earlier. It's not working as well as advertised, which obviously means everyone's doing it wrong. o_O

⬐ JamesBarney

There are a lot of links in the parent's comment. But check out http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/04/08/no-clarity-around-growt...

I just read it, and highly recommend it. If you're interested in someone putting forth a very thoughtful critique of growth mindset you will find it there.

P.S. He's also a great writer. Reading him reminds me of reading Kalzumeus. Just a treat :)

⬐ henrik_w

Another critique of the growth mindset: http://www.salon.com/2015/08/16/the_education_fad_thats_hurt...

⬐ KurtMueller

> Ironically, focus on a growth mindset may actually distract people from doing things that actually do have reproducible research showing they lead to more mental horsepower (e.g. regular aerobic exercise).

Can you point me to you resources regarding research-backed activities/exercises? Thanks!

⬐ xiaoma

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=google+scholar+exercise...