Motivated reasoning in “science journalism.”
The “reproducibility crisis” has really benefited some sectors of science journalism, as there is less credulous amplification of spurious results. That being said, motivated reasoning is powerful. They “want to believe.” So when I saw this piece in Quartz, Highly motivated kids have a greater advantage in life than kids with a high IQ, I […]
Patterns in international GRE scores
Why writing up my earlier post I stumbled onto to some interesting GRE data for applicants for various countries. I transcribed the results for all nations with sample sizes greater than 500. What you see above is a plot which shows mean quantitative and verbal scores on the GRE by nations. The correlation in this […]
GRE utility for graduate school and conditioning on the dependent variable
One of the things that seems to be popular in biological sciences right now is the push to get rid of the GRE as part of the criteria for entrance. Two of the major rationales are that it’s expensive, so discriminates against lower socioeconomic status candidates, and, that it makes it harder to recruit underrepresented […]
The GRE is useful; range restriction is a thing
The above figure is from Beyond the Threshold Hypothesis: Even Among the Gifted and Top Math/Science Graduate Students, Cognitive Abilities, Vocational Interests, and Lifestyle Preferences Matter for Career Choice, Performance, and Persistence. It shows that even at very high levels of attainment on standardized tests there are differences in life outcome based on variation. The […]
The coming reign of the Baby Boomer gerontocracy
From Dawn to Decadence: 1500 to the Present: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life is one of my favorite books. It’s one of those works whose breadth and depth is such that I would recommend it to anyone. Jacques Barzun began writing this work when he was 84, and it was published in his 93rd […]
Looking for a few good 145+ I.Q. individuals
Above is the distribution of self-reported I.Q.s of the readers of this weblog according to the 2011 survey. I point this out because my friend Steve Hsu will be giving a talk at Google later today. Here are the details:
I’ll be giving a talk at…
I.Q. and genomics
In my experience most scientists are not too clear on the details of intelligence testing, perhaps because the whole area is somewhat in ill repute (except when you want to brag about your own SAT/GRE score!). This despite the fact that the profession …
American family values: where even the dull can dream!
One of the issues when talking about the effect of environment and genes on behavioral and social outcomes is that the entanglements are so complicated. People of various political and ideological commitments tend to see the complications as problems for the other side, and yet are often supremely confident of the likely efficacy of their […]
Psychometrics, epigenetics and economics
Two papers of interest. IQ in the Production Function: Evidence from Immigrant Earnings (ungated). And Human Intelligence and Polymorphisms in the DNA Methyltransferase Genes Involved in Epigenetic Marking. My impression is that the focus on epigenetics has a higher-order social motive; even the sort of humanists who are involved with N + 1 have asked […]