On Sat, 19 Apr 2014 08:52:33 -0700, Jim "Gym" Clark wrote: >Hi
Howdy. >I'm having trouble understanding Mike P's reluctance to accept >the evidence linked to in Miquel's posting. Quien es miquel? Well let me see if can make things clearer. But let me start off by saying that one should always be cautious about claims made in mass media sources because (a) they are not peer reviewed, (b) contrary opinions are often not given equal time to respond to the points made by the author (as is the case here; one has to remember that "Slate" is not "Behavioral and Brain Sciences"), and (c) the authors have a built in bias to provide evidence that IQ/"g"/SATs are good predictors of academic success because, well, they *are* academics. Do you really think they would support a perspective that undermines their jobs, tenured or not? >1. Mike questions the credibility of the authors in a somewhat >back-handed way ... he doesn't know if they are experts (while >admitting that he is not an expert). You do not give me props for being honest. >If being editor of JEP: General does not grant some credibility, Submission to author is a bad intellectual activity and given the number of crappy studies and retractions these days, being an editor of a psychological journal is not such an impressive thing. >a few minutes on google would have revealed that the first author >is indeed an expert on skilled performance and has published >in Intelligence and numerous other relevant journals. First, having published *anything* in the journal "Intelligence" should activate one's skepticism, given how often J.P. Rushton has published there. Does an article like the following lend the journal credibility? Rushton, J. P. (1994). The equalitarian dogma revisited. Intelligence, 19(3), 263-280. Abstract Henry Garrett (1961), a president of the American Psychological Association, claimed that "the equalitarian dogma," the belief that Blacks and Whites are genetically equal in cognitive ability, was the "scientific hoax of the century." Since then, the dogma has become more ingrained, despite increased contrary evidence. The dogma has been perpetuated by intimidation as well as by pious thinking. Its long endurance is a scandal of great proportion and illuminates how science works, and sometimes does not. I discuss (a) current international data on race differences; (b) their genetic and evolutionary origins; (c) political fallout from my presentations; (d) corruption of scholarship that has occurred, illustrated partly by the example of Cyril Burt; and (e) what should be done to improve matters. Getting back to "Jim's" comments on the "first author", David Z. Hambrick: his area of expertise appears to be on working memory as an examination of his publication list on scholar.google.com will confirm: http://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=S2gh4RMAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&pagesize=100 Now, I know that some might uncritically claim that working memory and general intelligence may be the same thing or at least highly correlated but I'd like to quote a 2012 review paper published in the American Psychologist: Note: g(F)= fluid intelligence, g(C)= crystallized intelligence |The argument about whether working memory explains |individual differences in g(F) is important because of |the close association of g(F) with g. Following from this |association, as we noted earlier, scientists have recently |shown that g(F) can be markedly enhanced by training |people to increase the capacity of their working memory. |However, the research establishing this fact provides no |indication that training of these functions influences g(C). |Thus the case for identifying either working memory or |g(F) with g is rendered implausible. Nevertheless, the relations |among working memory and other executive functions, |g(F), and g are clearly complex, and much remains to |be learned. Ref: Nisbett, R. E., Aronson, J., Blair, C., Dickens, W., Flynn, J., Halpern, D. F., & Turkheimer, E. (2012). Intelligence: new findings and theoretical developments. American psychologist, 67(2), 130. So, how does expertise in working memory translate into being able to predict academic and life long success especially if one has not done any research on this? >2. Then Mike does not think that there is any misrepresentation >in the article, but he wants to read the cited papers before >accepting its conclusions, since authors must be selective and >students BS on papers all the time (relevance not clear). You seem to confuse or conflate two different issues: (1) A meta-analysis or review is a secondary source because it is a synthesis of primary sources. One needs to examine what criteria was used to include/exclude articles, what effect size measures were used and how appropriate they were, and other considerations. It should be pretty clear that if one accepts a meta-analysis solely on "faith" one is likely to get burned in the long run (e.g., meta-analyses of studies on SSRI antidepressants using only the published literature shows that they are highly effective; however, since the studies showing no effect were unpublished and kept from the public, the meta-analysis was misleading). Given that the Hambrick & Chabris article is a summary of summaries, that makes it a secondary source or secondary sources or secondary^2 source. Do you really want to rely on such a source? (2) If we don't want to treat this subject seriously or with the seriousness that it deserves, if we are only BS'ing about the topic and not really serious about it (which might actually require looking up research studies, reading them, and thinking about them) -- the same way undergraduate talk about topics when they BS about things -- then taking the article at face value, on faith that the authors are truthful, honest, sincere, nondelusional, and have drawn the correct conclusions from the sources they have used, then by all mean, take the leap of faith, and accept it. If you do so, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you. ;-) >But the paper largely cites review articles by experts in the field. >so I'm not sure what Mike expects to find. When Bem cites experts in the field of parapsychology, do you feel nice and warm that he does so? Afterall, they are experts and have typically published their work in the appropriate journals (true, they are journals on parapsychology but if one is willing to accept "Intelligence" as a good journal, well, the bar is set pretty low). >Nor do I think this kind of potential infinite regress is a constructive >way for us (or students) to approach topics like this, unless one's >intention is to raise doubts about the original conclusions. There >are certainly no shortage of articles on intelligence by experts >(including the APA expert panel led by Neisser) Wouldn't the 2012 article I cite above by Nisbett et al be a wee bit more relevant? >that would be consistent with the article Miquel cited. Quien es miquel? Listen, if you believe in "g", then I can understand why you would be receptive to the article Miguel linked to and the rest of the "fine" work in places like "Intelligence". But maybe you can find it in your heart to accept that some people might not believe in "g", that they think that "g" is as bogus as the Tooth Fairy or the Easter Bunny. If you can accept that, then you should not be surprised when someone asks "SHOW ME THE DATA!!!!". >3. After a brief digress to a movie allusion and comments on >comments to the cited article, both of which held some import >for Mike, he proceeds to resurrect (Easter allusion) his earlier >claims about IQ and being a billionaire being negative. The >negative correlation (I'm not sure what refereed journal it >was published in or whether it was an expert in intelligence >or statistics) is actually not with being a billionaire but with >how many billions billionaires have. Actually, we had this discussion back in August 2009 on Tips and I even provided an SPSS file that contained the Forbes top richest people (all billionaires), their net worth, what school they went to, highest degree obtained, and whether they were a dropout (college dropout except for one person who dropped out of high school). So, for the richest people in 2009, we had the educational range from high school graduate to Ph.D. and M.D. The top 10 richest people had no Ph.D.s or M.D.s, the highest degree was a JD (5th richest) and lowest was High school degree (the richest man in the world Bill Gates in 1st place -- if the man with the lowest level of academic achievement is richest but the person with the highest academic achievement is 5th richest (worth less than half of Bill Gates), what is the regression line of net worth on educational level doing? a) going up (positive relationship) b) flat (no relationship) c) going down (negative relationship) d) refuse to answer on general principles. I've located the SPSS data file and here is a table of networth divided by highest degree achieved: Report NetWorthBil degree2 Mean N Std. Deviation BA 7.8333 36 4.88730 HS 13.6400 15 13.57902 MA 10.6517 29 9.13622 NA 8.5286 7 6.61380 Ph 6.6000 4 1.86011 PR 6.9600 10 5.79275 Total 9.4178 101 8.26384 NOTE: PR refers to MD and JD degrees, NA=not available. Draw your own conclusions. Since Forbes provides the Billionaire's list for every year, one can determine whether this pattern is maintained from year to year; see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbes_list_of_billionaires For 2014, the highest degree obtained by the top 10 richest people are masters degrees. The Ph.D.s aren't worth as much. >Perhaps in respect of such concerns as restriction of range, Mike >buttresses this with a reference to the education level of millionaires, >citing >reports that 20% of millionaires never attended college. Of course, that >statistic does not allow for much in the way of interpretation ... after all, >80% did attend college, and we do not know the denominators (i.e., total >number >not attending and attending college). My guess is that the percentage of >people >attending college who became millionaires is higher than the percentage of >people who did not attend college who became millionaires, perhaps especially >controlling for inherited wealth. But if Mike believes his claims, I assume >that he is encouraging all his students to drop out of school, as that will >(in >his mind) increase their odds of becoming a billionaire or millionaire? I >think >I'll forgo that strategy, reluctantly putting at risk my students' chances of >becoming wealthy. See: http://ethanbeute.com/wordpress/forbes-400-rich-american-education-level-college-dropout/ By the way, I don't need to encourage students to drop out of college. Their daily growing student debt is often making that decision for them. >Happy Easter all. What he said except if you don't observe Easter. -Mike Palij New York University [email protected] P.S. 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