Posted on 03/30/2006 12:04:14 PM PST by LibWhacker
"'It would be interesting to see how those trajectories evolve in kids with dyslexia or other learning disorders,' Gabrieli adds. 'Perhaps you could identify children at risk for learning disorders much earlier than we now do.'"
And garner additional state and federal funding "much earlier than we do now" for special needs kids, while the average kids are dumbed down and medicated into complacancy.
Smart, talented, handsome people tend to have smart, telented, handsome kids, while stupid, untalented, ugly people tend to have stupid, untalented, ugly kids, and THE LIBERALS CAN'T STAND THAT! Nya-Nya-Na-NYA-Nya!
Carefully selected on the basis of performance... exactly. You're making my point in an obverse sort of way. Everyone at Oxford is selected on the basis of high performance - those whose innate abilities, developed habits, parental expectations, reward structure (and a long list of other "et ceteras") have resulted in their achieve admission. No inferences about the race-innate ability connection can be inferred, because of all the other factors.
Applying the same logic, groups of persons perform, on average, worse or better on IQ tests in public schools, than others. A whole bunch of other factors are thrown in the mix, with no attempt to factor them out separately: preparation, home stability, behavior habits, early childhood malnutrition/trauma, cultural and parental expectations, emotional state (another long list of et ceteras).
Part of science is to draw out cause and effect. Every item in the list above needed to be studied and factored out carefully before any "analysis" could be done. And the quantity "IQ" is still an ill-defined measure of innate ability.
A very good book on this subject is Stephen Jay Gould's "The Mismeasure of Man", in which he explores in depth the fallacy of making "linear" extrapolations from a multidimensional system such as human intelligence.
Both of you are wrong! I assume that what you mean to say is the Normal curve not "the bell curve". It is EXTREMELY useful just so many people don't understand and misuse it. Like "the relationship...is .8 of a standard deviation" makes absolutely NO sense. Perhaps you meant a .8 correlation? Perhaps you'd like to join my students in stats class so you can sound smarter too.
I sincerely hope you're not teaching kids statistics.
Welcome to FR!
Right, which is why I put "racial differences" in quotes. He argues that because those who have a social agenda which mandates equal results between races, use statistics like this to measure racial differences, their goals are invalid.
I never read the "Bell Curve", so I wont pass judgement on it, but this particular defense of it (I don't know how much of the criticism of his book he answered, however) was very convincing.
The whole concept of racial grouping is pretty weak these days anyway, but then thats exactly what social liberals do. That sword can cut many ways...
And I suppose they are good lookin for the same reason ? ;-)
Lol! Flattery will get you everywhere! P.S get those eyes checked, Pronto!
They compare identical twins raised apart with fraternal twins raised apart. IIRC, about half of the difference between people's IQs is due to genes.
That opinion is getting harder and harder to defend with studies coming fast and thick like the instant one. No matter how much the lefties don't like it, if IQ correlates to definite, measurable, objective biological differences then it is stupid to maintain it's not a real phenomenon.
Thousands of identical twin studies. Raised together, raised apart, they have the same IQ +/- 5 points. When there is a significant deviation, the problem is usually correlated with a lower birth weight in the twin with the lower IQ. A shared placenta can lead to one of the twins getting less nutrition and oxygen. The lighter twin sometimes gets the "used" blood and waste by-products as well.
What does an IQ point measure? What definite, measurable, objective biological quantity does it represent?
Synapse speed?
Neurons firing/second?
Brain current?
What does it measure? Well, in the case at hand, it is a statistical measure of the growth function of the cerebral cortex in children.
The import of your post is that we must have a reductionist explanation of IQ or it isn't real. That is a misconception. If we were to accept your requirement, temperature wasn't real until we had a reductionist explanation in terms of the atomic theories of matter and all those guys with their thermometers were deluded.
In fact, if we were to accept your requirement of reductionist explanations, there could be no science. Every scientific theory must have undefined terms.
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