Post: #1

...and for his "offensive" comments about women and obese people.

http://dailycaller.com/2016/09/09/new-yo...offensive/

88-year-old Nobel Prize winner James Watson, who co-discovered DNA, has had his planned lecture at New York University canceled.

In lieu of Dr. Watson's address, a "diversity in science" forum was substituted for it!

The triggered snowflakes were actually from the School of Medicine, so future doctors and graduate students, not your expected sociology undergrads.

The medical students' gripe in 2016 goes back to a 2007 interview Watson made, for which he had to later apologize:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/19/scienc....html?_r=2

It is unequivocal that in terms of averages African-Americans and blacks in general have scored lower on IQ tests compared to Asians and whites. Though certainly not the only way of measuring intelligence, and sometimes a pretty limited tool, IQ has its uses in assessing basic cognitive abilities.

For example, if your IQ is below 115 and perhaps 125, it is very hard to see you getting through an even half-vigorous university degree without struggling.

I wonder how NYU would reconcile any GPA differences based on race, especially as it can be assumed they think average members of all races work and study equally hard, too.

Still, this is all pure madness.

Imagine how much the Chinese and Russians laugh at these sorts of Western messes when they plot to undermine and supplant the United States.

Post: #2

This thread can only end well.

Post: #3

I don't know why people are offended by aggregated data. It has no effect whatsoever on one's life. If you are xyz group and read this study you should not be offended. It does not mean you as an individual Asian are smart.

You still have to live your life, made good decisions, find a way to be productive etc.

Post: #4

Thing is, while admitting IQ is a limited tool, you really don't admit to how REALLY the hell it is limited.
There are at least 9 different types of that shit, with IQ being the least important and effective as a measure of success in life.
As Senor Roosh once said on ROK, 'work is the great equalizer in life'.
Get to work on building something great dude, stop gloating over a stupid number.

Post: #5

As I know this thread has great potential to devolve into mania, I must admit that I'm fascinated by this type of research. As a person of a mixed background (though I "look" of African descent), I don't understand the outrage people get over these topics. These tests tend to look at scores based on averages. So for that reason alone, I know it isn't referring to me.

The problem with studies like this is that it can lead to certain amounts of confirmation bias and rampant over-intellectualism. The human mind immediately sees data that comes to a certain conclusion and thinks "blacks = less intelligent", when that isn't necessarily the case. What metric are we using to evaluate whether someone is more or less intelligent? A written test? Okay, fair enough. Now we have the data that garners a certain result. What of it? There is no solution outside of providing the data itself.

Secondly, if a group of people score higher or lower on an IQ test, it doesn't mean they do not have "intelligence" in other areas. A guy like Mike Tyson may not get the highest score on an IQ test (then again, who knows?) but the way he mentally breaks down a fighter and knows at the precise moment when he has intimidated his opponent is absolutely clever in the arena of combat. Is that not a form of "intelligence"?

Human beings are comprised of many skill sets. Just because the majority of a group of people on a bell curve possess certain characteristics, doesn't mean it applies wholeheartedly across the board.

Like always, I'd love to find the counter research to these findings and let the data do the talking. However, I am afraid that as long as human beings are not willing to put objectivity at the forefront, we will continue to have the circular debates that divide people with emotion, instead of uniting them based on an understanding of facts. It seems as if too many individuals put their own personal skin in the game.

Post: #6

I will just drop these two here:

(09-05-2016 06:00 PM)zigZag Wrote:  ...... Some people just need to feel that they're superior to be happy / content

(09-02-2016 12:37 PM)zigZag Wrote:  What i've seen with the "Alt-Right" and white nationalists, makes me think that this movement is just feminism but for white guys.

.
Just needed to add this:

Post: #7

IQ is the second leading predictor of individual wealth, behind raw mathematical ability, and ahead of impulse control.

People who acknowledge the validity of IQ, but then talk about individuals, "being smart on other ways", and "over-intellectualism" are making their scientific ignorance.

Large scale studies are supposed to help us determine how we treat large scale groups. Such as, "Is it a good idea to mass import IQ 70 Syrians?", and "Is it a good idea to spend billions of dollars educating low IQ Blacks, with the expectation that they perform as well as High IQ Asians?"

Discussions of individuals and "being smart in other ways" prevents us from using solid, generations-long observations to answer those questions.

Post: #8

Guys,

I think a few people are already missing the point.

A guy greatly responsible for the single biggest breakthrough in biology during the 20th century has been banned from delivering a university lecture because people did not like what he said. That's the crux of this.

Someone can start another IQ thread somewhere else and have a group of people, which will certainly not include me, haggle over what IQ test distributions and averages really mean. Enjoy the masochism if you do decide to participate.

What's most important: Everyone on this forum is liable to be included in the James Watson category for being "offensive" and then blacklisted, even if we were to only enunciate 10% of what we believed socially, politically and culturally.

Free speech is dying and being progressively criminalized. This is what concerns me and should concern all of us.

If by a stroke of bad luck any of you are ever uncovered as supporters of Roosh and users of this forum, you will face consequences ten times worse than what Watson, who will likely die soon, is experiencing now for comments he made nine years ago, for which he apologized for nine years ago.

Post: #9

(09-11-2016 11:22 AM)david.garrett84 Wrote:  For example, if your IQ is below 115 and perhaps 125, it is very hard to see you getting through an even half-vigorous university degree without struggling.

Disagree, I think the average university IQ is as low as around 105 or so, even lower in some arts and humanities. Engineering mean would be higher maybe around 120, but only physics, math, economics, philosophy would score above 125. Consider that there are only 2% of a population with 2 standard deviations above mean (100).

Post: #10

MMX2010, i disagree wholeheartedly. IQ is an indicator of TECHNICAL ability NOT a predicator of success.

This is common sense as I see it. Chances are that airheaded Aunt Sally would blitz a stupid IQ test that Chapo, Pablo or Senor Gates, Carlos Slim or you will flunk.

Senor Bobby Fischer was prolly the greatest chess player who ever lived, but look at how he lived his life(conscious decision making)

David's little stone did as good a job as a nuke on Goliath.

Look at your own successes in life, what has your IQ had to do with it? A well incentivized man will run circles around an high IQ flunky.

In any case, what is 'success'? Is it anything more than goal achievement? And who the hell determines what your goals are but you? What the hell does executing excellently on the steps to achieve your goals have to do with IQ?

Go build something great buddies, incentivize yourself, and you'll sit in the halls of the great. Your IQ is irrelevant.

Post: #11

El Padrone, Then you are disagreeing with multiple scientifically-verified studies. The only (somewhat) reasonable way to do so us to re-define "success" so as to be non-measurable.

Quote: In any case, what is 'success'? Is it anything more than goal achievement? And who the hell determines what your goals are but you? What the hell does executing excellently on the steps to achieve your goals have to do with IQ?

If "success" is nothing more than "goal achievement", are the dictators who kill the most innocent people, and stay in power the longest, the most successful? Or are the benevolent leaders who help the greatest number of citizens achieve the most wealth and happiness really the most successful?

If you can't pick one of those over the other, you appear sociopathic. And if you can't accept that scientists define "success" by measurable things, so that they can be scientifically studied, then you're against ALL scientific findings (not just the ones concerning race differences in intelligence).

Post: #12

(09-11-2016 01:03 PM)El Padrone Wrote:  MMX2010, i disagree wholeheartedly. IQ is an indicator of TECHNICAL ability NOT a predicator of success.

This is common sense as I see it. Chances are that airheaded Aunt Sally would blitz a stupid IQ test that Chapo, Pablo or Senor Gates, Carlos Slim or you will flunk.

Senor Bobby Fischer was prolly the greatest chess player who ever lived, but look at how he lived his life(conscious decision making)

David's little stone did as good a job as a nuke on Goliath.

Look at your own successes in life, what has your IQ had to do with it? A well incentivized man will run circles around an high IQ flunky.

In any case, what is 'success'? Is it anything more than goal achievement? And who the hell determines what your goals are but you? What the hell does executing excellently on the steps to achieve your goals have to do with IQ?

Go build something great buddies, incentivize yourself, and you'll sit in the halls of the great. Your IQ is irrelevant.

IQ is poor to predict individual outcome, but very good at predicting group outcome.

In addition, I don't get why people are so afraid of IQ, unless you yourself think that dumb people are less valuable. I consider every human to have value in themselves, or at least the right to life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And I consider personal qualities of personality much more important than intelligence. People who rage against using IQ on the other hand, must subconsciously believe that intelligence makes people more valuable than others.

Post: #13

A civilized mind is one that evaluates statements based on their merits, not on emotional reflexes. Correct, incorrect, or somewhere in between. That's all that matters.

People who believe Watson is incorrect about race-IQ correlation should rebut the idea the same way they'd rebut the statement "2+4=7". Obviously, the logical rebuttal would not be "that's sevenist!", it would be to explain that 2+4 is actually 6, and maybe demonstrate on your fingers. I always respect someone making a good-faith attempt at a rational argument, no matter what position they're taking.

To me, suppressing certain ideas and tossing around meaningless criticisms like "horrible" and "racist" looks just as primitive as the medieval Catholic Church suppressing different ideas and tossing around meaningless criticisms like "blasphemous." Which is extremely disturbing if you think about it; the level of discourse at our top universities is comparable to that of the medieval Catholic Church.

Relevant: http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html

Post: #14

Agree with you David. The major point is that a crowd of people whose combined careers won't equal what James Watson accomplished, see themselves as superior to him because of their political views. Sacrificing scientific truth to make minorities feel better weakens the entire country.

Post: #15

Quote:IQ is poor to predict individual outcome, but very good at predicting group outcome.

This kind of statement annoys me every time. It's like saying "Gasoline isn't good at putting out fires." or "Oven temperatures of 150° aren't good for barbecuing steaks." Of course they're not, because that's not what they're for.

Scientific studies are meant to tell us how to handle large groups of people. That's it. Saying it doesn't work in individuals means you don't understand what science is for.

Quote:In addition, I don't get why people are so afraid of IQ, unless you yourself think that dumb people are less valuable. I consider every human to have value in themselves, or at least the right to life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And I consider personal qualities of personality much more important than intelligence.

I absolutely love how no one in this thread has stated that "dumb people are less valuable". Nor has anyone implied that dumb people are less "valuable".

You're the only one who brought it up, so you're the only one who sees it. And you can't grasp the difference between "being successful" (which science can measure, and is correlated with IQ), and "being valuable".

If more people understood science, science would have more bodyguards to enforce its strengths and limitations. Instead, people who don't understand science have too much influence, and project their non-understanding onto science.

Post: #16

(09-11-2016 01:36 PM)MMX2010 Wrote:  

Quote:IQ is poor to predict individual outcome, but very good at predicting group outcome.

This kind of statement annoys me every time. It's like saying "Gasoline isn't good at putting out fires." or "Oven temperatures of 150° aren't good for barbecuing steaks." Of course they're not, because that's not what they're for.

Scientific studies are meant to tell us how to handle large groups of people. That's it. Saying it doesn't work in individuals means you don't understand what science is for.

No, I think it is a good statement to make it easier to understand and soften up the harshness of scientific wording. I understand science, but even journalists frequently get things like correlations and predictiveness wrong.

Post: #17

Correlation is the same thing as predictiveness. Highly correlated variables are more likely to appear together (like studying and understanding).

Post: #18

(09-11-2016 12:21 PM)Wealth of Spirit Wrote:  As a person of a mixed background (though I "look" of African descent), I don't understand the outrage people get over these topics. These tests tend to look at scores based on averages. So for that reason alone, I know it isn't referring to me.

Because people identify with their 'tribe' and take it as an attack on their group.

Also, because it runs against their narrative that "the man" is holding someone down. They never respond by saying "so what, IQ doesn't determine worth" because they themselves buy into the inferiority claim. Ironically, college professors are the leading opponents of IQ-based arguments but are themselves obsessed with it among their colleagues.

Although an above-average IQ is a requirement for professional success in most fields, most people are not successful. A really high IQ is only useful in certain technical fields.

Like many on the forum, I have a moderately high IQ. I haven't done shit with my life (yet). Many smart people believe they can get by by doing less work. That's a serious error.

(09-11-2016 12:55 PM)david.garrett84 Wrote:  Free speech is dying and being progressively criminalized. This is what concerns me and should concern all of us.

Good point. Maybe we're enthusiastic to debate the IQ issue on the forum because we can't do so in real life.

Post: #19

(09-11-2016 01:45 PM)MMX2010 Wrote:  Correlation is the same thing as predictiveness. Highly correlated variables are more likely to appear together (like studying and understanding).

Something can be correlated but not predictive at all.

Post: #20

(09-11-2016 01:45 PM)MMX2010 Wrote:  Correlation is the same thing as predictiveness. Highly correlated variables are more likely to appear together (like studying and understanding).

I understand what you mean, but most people don't get what those terms mean. Witness the general confusion between correlation and causation in the public.

When you say high IQ is a strong predictor of success, you may be right technically, but what people actually hear is "High IQ = success" and infer that low IQ must mean failure. They just filter out the fact that predictions aren't prophesies.

This sort of thing is why I think statistics should be heavily emphasized in primary school. Even most college educated people don't understand statistics well, in my experience, unless they went into a discipline that requires it. And few disciplines do.

Post: #21

MMX, goal achievement IS the most measurable thing in the universe. You don't need a 'scientist' to do that for you.

You aim to earn 20k from your side hustle a year, and by careful planning and execution, you did. THAT is measurable, you did it, no 'scientist' needed. Then you're successful.

Within reason, everybody measures their own life.

The point about the dictator murdering innocents and a good ruler is mute and misses the whole point. Success in life has nothing to do with the morality (or lack of it) of the OBJECTIVE.

If you set it consciously as a goal, and you achieve it, then you're successful. There's no hard rule setting out 'morality' or 'success'.

Was Gadaffi a bad ruler? Has Obama done better for Libya? Under Gadaffi, Libyans had a quality of life and benefits exceeding that of MANY Europeans. You can google the benefits Libyans had under him. Was he perfect? No. But Who ever is perfect?
Democracy IS NOT the ultimate form of govt. Hell, RVF is not a democracy!!

So considering what Obama has done for Libya and Iraq, who was more 'successful'? Unless of course, America's objective in the first place was making Libya into a shithole. Then Obama is more successful BECAUSE of his goal achievment.

Post: #22

Quote:Something can be correlated but not predictive at all.

Yes, but most examples given are nonsensical, such as, "Is Gary Sanchez's batting average correlated to my sexual attractiveness?" Among reasonable examples of correlated variables that aren't predictable, scientists have to worry about how their conclusions are implemented by the public, so they remind people that "correlation is not causation" to prevent people from too quickly and too enthusiastically implementing scientific findings. Individuals, however, don't have to be so concerned.

Post: #23

Quote:If youset it consciously as a goal, and you achieve it, then you're successful.

There are multiple funny things to say.

First, you're saying this to defend low IQ brownskins from scientific studies correlating IQ to success.

Second, not even ONE scientist would say, "Success is nothing more than goal-achievement", because they can anticipate the Trump versus Hitler question, and don't want to be sociopathic.

Third, by appearing sociopathic, you demolish your own credibility, and make everyone suspect you're a low IQ brownskin.

Lastly, you post no videos of you arguing your point in public that success in nothing more than goal-achievement. If you suffered great rejection (or worse) for promoting an obviously wrong position, I'd ironically respect you more. (At least I would know that you're being sincere.)

Post: #24

Post: #25

A) It's absurd to ban such an extremely esteemed scientist for anything but a very serious and tangible crime (i.e. violent rape, mass fraud, reckless driving resulting in manslaughter...). These people deserve extra leeway and an acknowledgement of the fact that genius is often mixed with negative traits.

B) There's nothing hurtful or insulting about citing objective scientific studies showing the results of large groups on IQ tests. It doesn't say anything about individuals in those groups or insult anyone.

C) Even if saying that a certain group has low IQ were hurtful and wrong, their low IQ would still be balanced by other positive traits or the self-destructiveness of high-IQ people (whom we lovingly refer to as "spergs"). No one except a very small minority would look down upon someone just for having low IQ, but more likely for being evil or hypocritical.