'An Appalling Report'

Started by Homo Aestheticus, October 20, 2008, 07:11:33 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Philoctetes

Quote from: Florestan on December 11, 2008, 11:03:11 PM
This is pure mathematical nonsense. If half of all people are above average and half are below average, then who the heck is average?






The ones in the middle.

Florestan

Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

karlhenning

Quote from: Florestan on December 11, 2008, 11:30:53 PM
Which ones? The third half?  :D

You've picked apart the error expertly, Andrei.

Fact is, there's only one chap smack dab in the middle.

It's him Eric is burning in envy of  8)

Homo Aestheticus

Quote from: Florestan on December 11, 2008, 10:54:59 PMEric, leave the "abstract concepts and analyses" to those interested in them and live your own life!
I do live my own life, however I often dread family gatherings, despite having great parents and 5 wonderful sisters, because I am rarely able to contribute to most of their discussions.. It's dispiriting.. Sometimes even my little sister has to help me with math questions or interpreting official documents or writing simple business letters. And now with four highly verbal and competent brothers-in-law added to the mix there are moments when I just want to crawl under a rock.

(Yes, I need to get over this self-devaluating crap.)

-------

The other day you asked what  g  is... Here is an excellent overview from an article in  Scientific American  by Linda Gottfredson... A much better explanation than the Wiki or Murray I think.

"No subject in psychology has provoked more intense public controversy than the study of human intelligence.. Despite some popular assertions, a single factor for intelligence, called g, can be measured with IQ tests and does predict success in life. From its beginning, research on how and why people differ in overall mental ability has fallen prey to political and social agendas that obscure or distort even the most well-established scientific findings. Journalists, too, often present a view of intelligence research that is exactly the opposite of what most intelligence experts believe

[....]

This gulf between equal opportunity and equal outcomes is perhaps what pains Americans most about the subject of intelligence. The public intuitively knows what is at stake: when asked to rank personal qualities in order of desirability, people put intelligence second only to good health"


http://www.psych.utoronto.ca/users/reingold/courses/intelligence/cache/1198gottfred.html


drogulus

Quote from: The Unrepentant Pelleastrian on December 12, 2008, 11:26:57 AM

I do live my own life, however I often dread family gatherings, despite having great parents and 5 wonderful sisters, because I am rarely able to contribute to most of their discussions.. It's dispiriting.. Sometimes even my little sister has to help me with math questions or interpreting official documents or writing simple business letters. And now with four highly verbal and competent brothers-in-law added to the mix there are moments when I just want to crawl under a rock.

(Yes, I need to get over this self-devaluating crap.)

-------

The other day you asked what  g  is... Here is an excellent overview from an article in  Scientific American  by Linda Gottfredson... A much better explanation than the Wiki or Murray I think.

"No subject in psychology has provoked more intense public controversy than the study of human intelligence.. Despite some popular assertions, a single factor for intelligence, called g, can be measured with IQ tests and does predict success in life. From its beginning, research on how and why people differ in overall mental ability has fallen prey to political and social agendas that obscure or distort even the most well-established scientific findings. Journalists, too, often present a view of intelligence research that is exactly the opposite of what most intelligence experts believe

[....]

This gulf between equal opportunity and equal outcomes is perhaps what pains Americans most about the subject of intelligence. The public intuitively knows what is at stake: when asked to rank personal qualities in order of desirability, people put intelligence second only to good health"


http://www.psych.utoronto.ca/users/reingold/courses/intelligence/cache/1198gottfred.html





     Is this the kind of thing that gives you trouble? From what you're saying it shouldn't be easy to get these right.

     I don't see how you can just get over a problem like this. The only thing I can think of is to find something you're good at and pursue that. Many people become actors or comedians or composers not only because they're good at it, but also because they are remarkably bad at so many other things. And even though you may be no better than average or even a little worse than that at some tasks, it's very likely that you have some strong points which you could leverage if you could figure out what they are.

     After all, if your conceptual ability was so bad in every way, you would hardly be likely to spend so much time in discussions about such difficult subjects as you do here. Even if you tend to borrow many arguments from other sources, how did you know they were the right ones to borrow? Or did you borrow that ability, too?  :D
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:123.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/123.0
      
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:109.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/115.0

greg

Quote from: The Unrepentant Pelleastrian on December 11, 2008, 01:25:55 PM

Because it's very easy to feel like a "preliterate" in our highly sophisticated culture, filled as it is with abstract concepts and analyses.


Hmmmm? Now when do you live again?

Homo Aestheticus

Drogulus,

I appreciate the encouragement..

Quote from: drogulus on December 12, 2008, 01:07:00 PMEven if you tend to borrow many arguments from other sources, how did you know they were the right ones to borrow?

Or did you borrow that ability, too?   :D

No...  ;D  What you've seen for the past few weeks is my spontaneous self, using words that come most naturally at the moment of posting.

Back on topic:

I suppose this is the strongest argument against Murray's piece, 'Intelligence in the Classroom'. It's a letter by Robert Steinberg, former professor of psychology at Yale and past president of the American Psychological Association.

He makes 5 separate points. To what extent Mr. Steinberg is correct on any of them I have no idea.

"Charles Murray 'Intelligence in The Classroom' is an article by a non-scientist filled with serious distortions and misunderstandings of the current state of scientific theory and research on intelligence. His column gives a false and misleading view of the state of research on intelligence. I believe responsible scientists will not take it seriously. Unfortunately, many laypeople will not be in a position to realize that the statements are seriously misleading and paint a picture of research on intelligence that does not correspond to reality..."   

It begins here:     

http://danerwin.com/research/pdf/sternberg_v_murray_intelligence.pdf



Homo Aestheticus

Andrei,

Did you find Gottfredson's exposition of the  'general mental ability factor'  persuasive ?


Florestan

Quote from: The Unrepentant Pelleastrian on December 15, 2008, 11:24:24 AM
Andrei,

Did you find Gottfredson's exposition of the  'general mental ability factor'  persuasive ?

Some people are naturally very intelligent and their intelligence will show up even with minimal (if any) schooling. Some others are naturally less intelligent and no amount of schooling will make them more intelligent than they are. Most people have an average intelligence and their schooling will reveal precisely this. That's all common-sense supported by daily experience. I need no theory to persuade me of such an evident truth.

If this implies that it's a waste of time to try to educate people beyond their intelligence threshold, I agree.

I also agree that the prevailing educational philosophy is deeply flawed and hurts the smart and the not-so-smart alike.

Anything else? :)



Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

karlhenning

Quote from: Florestan on December 16, 2008, 12:30:40 AM
Some people are naturally very intelligent and their intelligence will show up even with minimal (if any) schooling. Some others are naturally less intelligent and no amount of schooling will make them more intelligent than they are. Most people have an average intelligence and their schooling will reveal precisely this. That's all common-sense supported by daily experience. I need no theory to persuade me of such an evident truth.

If this implies that it's a waste of time to try to educate people beyond their intelligence threshold, I agree.

And the smart and the not-so-smart alike do learn something through the educational process.

Speaking of a waste of time . . . there were imperfections, in environment, in the classroom, in the overall curriculum, in any number of the several institutions of learning where I attended (four grammar schools or equivalent in various places, a junior high school, a high school, a liberal arts college, and three state universities).  So far as I can tell, no pupil/student is going to experience a perfectly efficient use of his time . . . some time is going to be wasted, and from time to time.

Long, long ago, I learnt that it were a waste of time and energy to rail against this.  (a)  The benefits of my education over time far, far outweighed the negatives (including, but not limited to, time wastage), and (b) where it was a pity that time was wasted back when I was in school, for me to waste my own time and energy kvetching about it now, were far worse, because that would be the individual himself electing the wastage.

Florestan

Quote from: karlhenning on December 16, 2008, 04:29:18 AM
And the smart and the not-so-smart alike do learn something through the educational process.

Absolutely. But Gottfredson's and Murray's basic idea seems to be, if I understand correctly, that no man can learn more than his native intelligence allows him to learn. This I tend to agree with. Non omnia possumus omnes.

Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

karlhenning

Quote from: Florestan on December 16, 2008, 04:42:36 AM
Absolutely. But Gottfredson's and Murray's basic idea seems to be, if I understand correctly, that no man can learn more than his native intelligence allows him to learn. This I tend to agree with. Non omnia possumus omnes.

Likewise.

Homo Aestheticus

Thanks Andrei.

Quote from: Florestan on December 16, 2008, 12:30:40 AMSome others are naturally less intelligent and no amount of schooling will make them more intelligent than they are.

QuoteBut Gottfredson's and Murray's basic idea seems to be, if I understand correctly, that no man can learn more than his native intelligence allows him to learn. This I tend to agree with


But what about the three points that Steinberg makes against this idea?  Are all of them fallacious ?


1. IQ is NOT a "ceiling," and I don't know of any responsible psychologist who believes it is. IQ gives rough prediction of a child's school performance, as does socioeconomic status, motivation, and any other number of variables. But none of these variables sets a ceiling on children's performance. First, they are all highly imperfect predictors--success is multi-factorial. Second, they are subject to error of measurement. Third, they are not etched in stone. Research by Stephen Ceci and others has shown that IQ increases as a function of schooling, and that it is the schooling that is responsible for the increase, not the other way around.

2.The temporary effects of interventions to increase intelligence are in large part because the interventions themselves are temporary and usually extremely shortlived. If you have a child living in extreme poverty, in a challenging and possibly dangerous environment, and with parents who are not in a position to provide the best possible education for their children, it is not surprising that short interventions-the kinds most easily funded by grants--are difficult to maintain. Consider an oftmade analogy to exercise. You can exercise to improve your muscles. But if you stop exercising, your muscles revert to what they were before. The same is true of your intelligence, and research by Carmi Schooler and others shows precisely that.

3. Our own peer-reviewed, published research has shown that broader measures of abilities--based on the "multiple intelligences" that Murray disdains--can substantially improve prediction of academic success at the college level at the same time that they reduce ethnic-group differences. These assessments do not replace traditional measures--they supplement them. They are not "refutations" of the existence of the analytical skills measured by tests of general ability, but rather, demonstrations that such measures are relatively narrow and incomplete in their measurements of abilities. These conventional tests measure important skills, but not the only skills that matter for academic and other forms of success. Indeed,teaching to a broader range of abilities, our research shows, also can significantly improve school achievement over teaching that is more narrowly focused.








drogulus

Quote from: The Unrepentant Pelleastrian on December 16, 2008, 06:12:09 AM
Thanks Andrei.


But what about the three points that Steinberg makes against this idea?  Are all of them fallacious ?


1. IQ is NOT a "ceiling," and I don't know of any responsible psychologist who believes it is. IQ gives rough prediction of a child's school performance, as does socioeconomic status, motivation, and any other number of variables. But none of these variables sets a ceiling on children's performance. First, they are all highly imperfect predictors--success is multi-factorial. Second, they are subject to error of measurement. Third, they are not etched in stone. Research by Stephen Ceci and others has shown that IQ increases as a function of schooling, and that it is the schooling that is responsible for the increase, not the other way around.

2.The temporary effects of interventions to increase intelligence are in large part because the interventions themselves are temporary and usually extremely shortlived. If you have a child living in extreme poverty, in a challenging and possibly dangerous environment, and with parents who are not in a position to provide the best possible education for their children, it is not surprising that short interventions-the kinds most easily funded by grants--are difficult to maintain. Consider an oftmade analogy to exercise. You can exercise to improve your muscles. But if you stop exercising, your muscles revert to what they were before. The same is true of your intelligence, and research by Carmi Schooler and others shows precisely that.

3. Our own peer-reviewed, published research has shown that broader measures of abilities--based on the "multiple intelligences" that Murray disdains--can substantially improve prediction of academic success at the college level at the same time that they reduce ethnic-group differences. These assessments do not replace traditional measures--they supplement them. They are not "refutations" of the existence of the analytical skills measured by tests of general ability, but rather, demonstrations that such measures are relatively narrow and incomplete in their measurements of abilities. These conventional tests measure important skills, but not the only skills that matter for academic and other forms of success. Indeed,teaching to a broader range of abilities, our research shows, also can significantly improve school achievement over teaching that is more narrowly focused.









     I don't read this as a refutation of Murray, though the author would like you to think he has done this.

     IQ is not a ceiling on performance, it measures the underlying aptitudes which have an upper limit, and that limit is fixed. Steinberg is right that there are other factors that can affect performance. They can get you up to speed, though they don'r provide you with a new, more powerful engine. That engine is what determines how fast you can go.

     On the second point, what Steinberg says actually indicates just how hard it would be to improve performance. Again this is a nondenial denial. Steinberg want you to read what he says as contradicting Murray. It doesn't do that.

     The third point says "multiple intelligence" tests can predict future success. He also says they don't refute Murray or replace traditional tests. So....what? If the tests are that good we'll use them, right?
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:123.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/123.0
      
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:109.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/115.0

Homo Aestheticus

Drogulus,

I found another piece by Gottfredson titled  'Pretending That Intelligence Does Not Matter'

Even though I agree with basically all of her points, I sometimes wonder if she is being a bit 'alarmist' with all of this... What do you think ?

Here is an excerpt:

One of the mantras of American schools is that students are being prepared for "full participation in a more complex world" of technology, multiple health care options, rapid-fire communications, and public policy debates. But as we move into a world where intelligence may be the individual's most nec­essary resource—necessary not only to succeed but to cope at all—the persistent, major dif­ferences among us in sheer brainpower, which we call "IQ," may stand in the way of today's dream of greater social equality.

Two discoveries about intelligence confirm its pivotal role in shaping our life chances. The first is that intelligence is a perva­sively useful tool. Critics commonly assert, mistakenly, that intelligence is a narrow "academic" skill, an artifact of social class background, or simply a reflection of acquired knowledge—meaning that it need not be taken seriously in many, if any, real-life settings. In fact, however, intelligence is such a general ability, having to do with processing information of any kind— apprehending, comprehending, transforming, and applying it—that it applies everywhere in everyday life: in our ability to turn things over in our minds, to fill in gaps, to see connections, to draw distinctions, and so on. It can take the form of aptness in reasoning, problem solving, learning complex material (as distinct from rote memorization), and other critical thinking skills—all general intellectual skills that observe no boundaries of subject matter, setting, or stage in life.

A look at the hypothetical IQ test items shown above shows how IQ tests call forth this same general ability. They pose questions that steadily increase in the com­plexity of their information-processing demands. The first column shows relatively simple items and the second relatively com­plex ones. This difference—complexity—is the active ingredient in IQ tests. It has nothing to do with the general content of the task, which is similar across the two columns. Instead, the more complex items require processing more bits of information, drawing more inferences, and the like, regardless of whether the information is carried by words, numbers, or figures. Differences in people's ability to deal with such complexity, not any familiarity with the obvious content of test items—which is where the charge of cultural bias mistakenly appears—account for their differences in IQ-test performance.

What does research show about how well people with different levels of intelligence are able to carry out everyday tasks? And why are we doing so little to simplify those tasks? Now we see why intelligence is useful in so many realms of life.  Life is complex and getting more so all the time. Virtually everything we do on a daily basis requires taking in, understanding, or providing information—whether it be deciphering job applications, tax forms, bus schedules, or the moods of friends and lovers; or keeping up with new rules and regulations, changing technology in our homes and cars, and our children's latest escapades. Experience helps, but it never negates the advantages of better critical thinking skills. Above-average intelligence may be decisive in only a few of these activities, but it is useful in all. Low intelligence is like a head­wind that one must constantly battle. High intelligence is a tailwind, always helping one move ahead, sometimes with little conscious effort. These persistent winds gradually create enormous differences in the outcomes of people's lives over the years.

Here is the full article: http://www.dana.org/news/cerebrum/detail.aspx?id=3228


**********

Here was a reply to her article by one of my acquaintances:

"I find all such attempts to deal with intelligence utterly meaningless. Simple economics dictate that a person of below-average "cognitive ability" who can provide a valuable service will be in greater demand than a person of above-average cognitive ability who cannot provide a valuable service. Put another way, if you need a widget, then who's more valuable to you: the fool with a widget or the genius with nothing? Since intellect affects nothing about the equation, divide it out, and you're left with the simple question: Who has a widget I can buy?

An economic view of society is not necessarily the most appealing or comforting, but it has a certain charm inherent in the notion that anyone who can create something that other people demand will be rewarded accordingly..."


Your thoughts on this or is Gottfredson mostly right ? 


 

Josquin des Prez

#375
Quote from: Florestan on December 11, 2008, 11:03:11 PM
This is pure mathematical nonsense. If half of all people are above average and half are below average, then who the heck is average?

What he probably meant to say is that half of all people are average, the other half being either above or below average.

drogulus



     Eric, the situation is the same as the one between Steinberg and Murray. The rebuttal is not a denial. It's more like "I don't like your tone". Nothing is being effectively rebutted. All that about the below average guy with the widget versus the genius with nothing is just smoke. In the real world the smarter you are the greater the chance that you already have the widget. You have to read these supposed rebuttals carefully.

Quote from: Josquin des Prez on December 18, 2008, 03:57:28 PM
What he probably meant to say is that half of all people are average, the other half being either above or below average.

     It should be the median, right? Anyway, half above and half below is correct, I think.
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:123.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/123.0
      
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:109.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/115.0

Josquin des Prez

#377
Quote from: drogulus on November 22, 2008, 12:58:43 PM
But do what? What is Mozart actually doing that Salieri can't. What I think is going on is that Mozart is faster than everyone else, which means that mental time is much slower, and the genius is always faster in this way. This shows in the consideration of far more possibilities in the same amount of time than even the above average can do. Now at first this may look like an insufficient explanation. Sure Mozart was faster and geniuses always are but there must be more to it than that. There must be superior thoughts in there somewhere, not just more of the same kind. But I think not, because I've decided that if someone was thinking much faster than you he would find a better use for that speed than playing 25 opponents in chess. This would be one of those cases where quantity is turned into quality.

I disagree, i think there IS a kind of superior thought process in there somewhere. The mere fact Mozart had a superior mental capacity (or IQ, whichever you want to call it), over Salieri, doesn't automatically explain why one was a genius while the other wasn't. Compare Mendelssohn with Beethoven using the same measure employed in the Mozart/Salieri comparison. Now, there's no denying that both composers possessed out of the ordinary mental abilities, but it seems to me that it is Mendelssohn, not Beethoven, who would take the prize in a IQ test. Yet, it is Beethoven who is the real genius.

Thus, it seems to me that genius requires a special type of mental ability entirely independent from the power, speed and efficiency randomly awarded by nature to some individual's brains. Take the case of Alessandro Manzoni for instance, a man of dubious mental abilities who nonetheless managed to produce one work of genius (according to Goethe anyway, i haven't read The Betrothed myself), one over which he struggled for many years, as if his genius had to wrestle with the limitations imposed by his brain every inch of the way.

It is my belief that genius is non others but the ability to tap into the unseen, the world of Forms in their true essence, and to bring back some of the truth thus gleamed for all of us to see. I don't presume to know where this type of perception comes from, whether it is really metaphysical in nature or bound to a specific and yet to be discovered function of the brain (a function which is however seemingly independent from the raw physical performance of this organ, as we have seen), but i do know that it exists, and i do know that this function is tied to masculinity as argued previously (this also implies that the soul can only exist in conjunction with masculinity, a concept which isn't all that shocking if you know anything about religion). It is also where true knowledge comes from, which is why i believe our current educational systems are deeply flawed, in that they seem to be based on the idea that education is synonymous with the inculcation of information (a particular environment where those endowed with the specific mental gifts currently under scrutiny tend to flourish), where no learning of any sort is actually taking place. Even the mere acquisition of the skills necessary to operate within and maintain an industrial workforce (let's not mention how grim a prospect it is that the purpose of a liberal education is to train people in the use of the plough, or whatever fancy modern counterpart you can thing of) occurs outside of the schools, directly into the work environment. Why even bother sending our children to school then, when they are in fact acquiring nothing that is valuable, either to themselves or to their future?

drogulus

#378
Quote from: Josquin des Prez on December 18, 2008, 05:05:55 PM




It is my belief that genius is non others but the ability to tap into the unseen, the world of Forms in their true essence, and to bring back some of the truth thus gleamed for all of us to see. I don't presume to know where this type of perception comes from, whether it is really metaphysical in nature or bound to a specific and yet to be discovered function of the brain (a function which is however seemingly independent from the raw physical performance of this organ, as we have seen), but i do know that it exists, and i do know that this function is tied to masculinity as argued previously (this also implies that the soul can only exist in conjunction with masculinity, a concept which isn't all that shocking if you know anything about religion). It is also where true knowledge comes from, which is why i believe our current educational systems are deeply flawed, in that they seem to be based on the idea that education is synonymous with the inculcation of information (a particular environment where those endowed with the specific mental gifts currently under scrutiny tend to flourish), where no learning of any sort is actually taking place. Even the mere acquisition of the skills necessary to operate within and maintain an industrial workforce (let's not mention how grim a prospect it is that the purpose of a liberal education is to train people in the use of the plough, or whatever fancy modern counterpart you can thing of) occurs outside of the schools, directly into the work environment. Why even bother sending our children to school then, when they are in fact acquiring nothing that is valuable, either to themselves or to their future?

    I think this is an argument for essences, and therefore noncomputational, which gives the brain no means to shift to the qualitative from the quantitative, a shift that's essential* to the physicalist interpretation that underlies modern attempts to understand brain function at every level. Going through the whole argument would be a long process and it's best done at book length. Besides I'm probably not the one to do it. I'm just outlining what I think is needed to actually understand what's going on. Basically there isn't any thinking stuff in the brain. Our computational abilities and our general thinking ability have to be the same and at the limit the genius is adapting the same set of skills. I don't believe each quality has a stuff associated with it. All thinking must be computational at bottom or a brain couldn't do it. It's the universal character of our evolved brain/mind that makes a Beethoven and a Pauly Shore possible.  :D

     Turing's conjecture was that a universal thinking machine could be adapted to do anything with programming that any other thinking machine could do. All "qualitative" features (so we brainiacs detect!) are disguised quantitative features which we understand at approximately the same level of abstraction as the creator did. We don't need to understand at the physical level, and we mostly don't, so for us the abstract ("symphony") level is the output. Quantity becomes quality because that's the level we understand it on, and the computational substrate doesn't matter to us.

    * :o
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:123.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/123.0
      
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:109.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/115.0

drogulus

#379
Quote from: Josquin des Prez on December 18, 2008, 05:05:55 PM

It is my belief that genius is non others but the ability to tap into the unseen, the world of Forms in their true essence, and to bring back some of the truth thus gleamed for all of us to see.


     Yes, that's exactly what it appears like from the level we live on. We don't live at the neurochemical level, or the quark level, do we? So a symphony at the quark level of specificity would be incomprehensible, last until the Heat Death, and be spectacularly unrewarding.

     Size is related to speed, so mosquitos don't write symphonies or tell jokes. A mosquito joke would take so long to get to the punch line that.... you see the problem.....Salieri loses his concentration long before he arrives at the Mozartian conclusion! That, and not some substance explains the difference at the bottom level, which then ramifies all the way up to the music. So saying quality is not the same as quality is not taking all the facts into account. We have to start with how quality can be got out of the materials at hand and the processing power available and trace the pathway all the way up to where we experience the indefinable somethingness of all the quasi-abstract things abstractions like us enjoy. :)
   
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:123.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/123.0
      
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:109.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/115.0