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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 2013-10-25 09:22, Omar Rahman wrote:<br>
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<div>Their whole notion of 'national IQ' is so deeply flawed it is
laughable. Just looking at and attempting to account for the
bias in IQ tests is difficult enough, but rubbing that together
with a notion of GDP which is connected to a fiat currency
produces a rich creamy mousse of pure bullshit.</div>
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Hmm, you have a population of people. You measure something (IQ,
weight, liking of icecream). Of course there is a group mean, no
matter how big the group is. And that group mean might very well be
a decent predictor of things when comparing to other groups even if
the test is lousy. <br>
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While Lynn and Vahanen's original study was pretty crappy, their
data does work surprisingly well as a predictor of a lot of things
(and some temporal changes seem to be good predictors of changes in
other important variables). That is in itself curious, even if one
does not think they are measuring real intelligence differences.
Newer and better data seem to follow the same pattern, whatever it
means.<br>
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<blockquote cite="mid:69C0136E-5F99-4C65-9D86-70EC38F8E55F@me.com"
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<div>If you see 'data' indicating that the AVERAGE CITIZEN OF
EQUATORIAL GUINEA IS SEVERELY MENTALLY RETARDED, the AVERAGE
CITIZEN mind you, and you make any other conclusion than your
data being horribly horribly wrong then well...<br>
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Actually, measures of state IQs in the US also show that some states
are retarded. Is that a reason to say that those differences do not
tell us *anything*, or to conclude that maybe state IQ is not really
the same thing as an individual person's IQ?<br>
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<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Dr Anders Sandberg
Future of Humanity Institute
Oxford Martin School
Oxford University
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