What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[HVC]

Go Canada! We're good at a marginally useful test!

[Jacob]

China has a culture of studying for the test that goes back centuries if not millenia, and which is still prevalent. No surprise they do well in any kind of test like this.

[The Minsky Moment]

Go Canada! We're good at a marginally useful test!

Raz is reporting results from the new IQ tests that include curling and ice hockey.

As for China and Mongolia, everyone knows they dope on the IQ tests.

[Valmy]

So it's not impossible to imagine that some of the difference in IQ rates is based on race.  I'm not saying it is or it isn't.

I mean there is. Asians do best, followed by white people, followed by Hispanics, followed by black people. But in the United States these are often very arbitrary labels, there is no DNA test you take to be considered a race.

And the differences are small. Easily explained away by cultural and other issues. And in any case the point of a IQ test to help treat children who might have special educational needs, not to rank the world's people.

[Valmy]

Do they even score lower or this is one of those self-affirming BS that somebody reads or hears about and since it confirms their worldview take it on face value and then spread it?

Yes.
Honestly, it looks like it is tied to wealth.  China is an outlier.

I am highly skeptical this is an accurate test. Are these IQ tests really identical and done on a measurable basis throughout the world? And below 65 is special needs. I don't think the majority of Africans need special care for their mental deficiencies. That is ridiculous.

But that is the claim.

Under 65 is supposed to be less than 1% of the population. Like a person with a score that low would need very specialized care. Color me skeptical that is actually the average person in the Congo.

[The Minsky Moment]

Also just the return of race science is grim.

It never really goes away.  It's like the cockroach of the social sciences. It can be exposed to nuclear level blasts of truth and still survive and come out of hiding when conditions are more hospitable. It survived the defeat of Nazism, it survived the Jensen/Shockley controversy and it survived the debunking of Murray and the Bell Curve.  It will never die as long as they are large numbers of people who want to believe it and enough shamelessness to promote it publicly.  The former sadly has always been true and as for the latter, we are living through a moment of peak shamelessness in public life.

[Sheilbh]

Blame Twitter.  Elon doesn't want to censor it.  As a result I see a fair bit of scientific racism BS on that platform.  Maybe not so much the kind posted above, but more about IQ rates or college admissions based on race.

Agreed.

Although I think also race is so key to anything about America. I've mentioned before but I've read a story from a British left wing education policy wonk speaking at a conference in the US and having people really struggle to accept the fact that on average Black British students are more likely to go to university than White British students. In the UK class and place play a bigger factor than race which in his experience these progressive American experts really struggled to believe.

Obviously that's not because race actually matters but because of how important race has been in American society for its entire history (I think it's also why, for example, the US went so far and no further in building a welfare state). Which isn't to say that race doesn't have an impact in the UK or elsewhere but that it's different than in the US, there are other potential cleavages (like class and place) that it interacts with and that in each case all of those are consequences of social construction.

It never really goes away.  It's like the cockroach of the social sciences. It can be exposed to nuclear level blasts of truth and still survive and come out of hiding when conditions are more hospitable. It survived the defeat of Nazism, it survived the Jensen/Shockley controversy and it survived the debunking of Murray and the Bell Curve.  It will never die as long as they are large numbers of people who want to believe it and enough shamelessness to promote it publicly.  The former sadly has always been true and as for the latter, we are living through a moment of peak shamelessness in public life.

True. Although - which is possibly tied to Twitter and Musk - the current version does seem bound up in some way with the Silicon Valley/Thiel conservatism. Which I think could make it more of a risk.

Edit: But it is another of the turn of the twentieth century echoes. A period that didn't end well.

[Barrister]

Don't minorities tend to score lower on IQ tests because a lot of the questions have a particular cultural bias, and the very concept of test taking being something more priveleged people tend to be more used to?

So there are tons of confounding variables if you're trying to measure IQ.  Absolutely culture and education, or just the idea of how important writing a test is, all matter.  I mean you might be a genius, but if nobody ever taught you how to read it's going to be tough for you to do an IQ test.

As I understand it (and like this is not something I've spent much time looking at) is even when they try to account for those other factors they still see a difference based on "race".  The question is whether they just haven't accounted enough for those confounding variables or not.

[garbon]

I think Musk learned liberal are all talk but ultimately too selfish. Supposedly Twitter was going to be abandoned but they mostly stuck around.

[Valmy]

As I understand it (and like this is not something I've spent much time looking at) is even when they try to account for those other factors they still see a difference based on "race".  The question is whether they just haven't accounted enough for those confounding variables or not.

And again, why does it matter? The point of an IQ test is to find and treat special needs people. A few points difference based on class or some other factor might mean you have to interpret the results a little carefully but it doesn't mean all society should be structured around it. That is not what an IQ test is designed to do, at least as a diagnostic tool.

[The Minsky Moment]

America has always had a class system, but Edmund Morgan helped break the code on how race has been used to conceal its realities. You convince working class whites and poor farmers to accept the short end of the stick by convincing them they are really part of "in crowd" because they aren't Black.  Any impulse toward a more egalitarian social structure is countered by race baiting. Any impluse towards greater racial inclusion is countered by appeals to the working class to rally to status quo to maintain their tenuous position in the hierarchy. All of American history has seen variations on this same theme for centuries.

[Valmy]

I think Musk learned liberal are all talk but ultimately too selfish. Supposedly Twitter was going to be abandoned but they mostly stuck around.

It offers the ability to group think and persecute people who transgress on a very efficient level. That is hard for people who enjoy being in angry mobs to walk away from.

[Barrister]

As I understand it (and like this is not something I've spent much time looking at) is even when they try to account for those other factors they still see a difference based on "race".  The question is whether they just haven't accounted enough for those confounding variables or not.

And again, why does it matter? The point of an IQ test is to find and treat special needs people. A few points difference based on class or some other factor might mean you have to interpret the results a little carefully but it doesn't mean all society should be structured around it. That is not what an IQ test is designed to do, at least as a diagnostic tool.

I mean I literally said

The thing is - so what?

I agree.

I mean I don't like the idea that just because this is something that racists might use it should be totally forbidden to research, but also nothing I've ever said this is a particularly meaningful topic either.

[Valmy]

I agree.

I mean I don't like the idea that just because this is something that racists might use it should be totally forbidden to research, but also nothing I've ever said this is a particularly meaningful topic either.

I was just commenting, not disagreeing. Most people do not even seem to know what an IQ test is and what its purpose is. It is a diagnostic tool for psychologists to help people, not a way to find out which rocket scientist is more brilliant or whatever.

[The Brain]

I've never taken an IQ test. Do they require any reading skill?