this post was submitted on 08 Mar 2024
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SneerClub

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Hurling ordure at the TREACLES, especially those closely related to LessWrong.

AI-Industrial-Complex grift is fine as long as it sufficiently relates to the AI doom from the TREACLES. (Though TechTakes may be more suitable.)

This is sneer club, not debate club. Unless it's amusing debate.

[Especially don't debate the race scientists, if any sneak in - we ban and delete them as unsuitable for the server.]

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Is the "g factor" just a rebranding of IQ, or is there any scientific basis for it? (awful.systems)
submitted 8 months ago by gerikson@awful.systems to c/sneerclub@awful.systems
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The Wiki page is voluminous enough to approach gish galloping, and the Talk page is almost as big https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_factor_(psychometrics)

Asking because someone in another forum basically said that while IQ might be discredited, "g" is valid.

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[–] self@awful.systems 18 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

isn’t psychometrics the part of Talos I where you get the psychoscope?

the gish gallop that forms the majority of this article looks like an attempt to signal jam the criticisms section (which itself isn’t anywhere near as damning as it should be):

Research on the G-factor, as well as other psychometric values, has been widely criticized for not properly taking into account the eugenicist background of its research practices.[157] The reductionism of the G-factor has been attributted to having evolved from "pseudoscientific theories" about race and intelligence.[158] Spearman's g and the concept of inherited, immutable intelligence were a boon for eugenicists and pseudoscientists alike.[159]

[…]

Some especially harsh critics have called the g factor, and psychometrics, as a form of pseudoscience.[161]

fascists will do anything to feel superior about a number they made up, and renaming IQ now that it’s got a lot of fash stank on it and pretending it’s different and sophisticated now, you wouldn’t understand is one of the older tricks in the fascist playbook

[–] dgerard@awful.systems 7 points 8 months ago

that wiki article leaves my eyes bleeding. i think i'll leave it precisely where it is.

[–] blakestacey@awful.systems 17 points 8 months ago (2 children)

It's a rebranding of IQ.

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 13 points 8 months ago

Thanks for the link, I figured as much.

I decided there was no point in engaging the person in polemic on this matter (it's the kind of forum where that kind of behavior will just get the comment deleted) so decided to just add the person to my (literal) shitlist, only to discover they're already on it! Correlation or causation something something.

[–] slopjockey@awful.systems 6 points 8 months ago

What a beautiful set of sneers. Though it's sad how topical they still are.

[–] Omega_Haxors@lemmy.ml 9 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Asking because someone in another forum basically said that while IQ might be discredited, “g” is valid.

That's got huge "it hasn't been disproven, yet" energy. That's basically the "it's not illegal" argument but for ideology.

[–] swlabr@awful.systems 11 points 8 months ago

IQ might be discredited, “g” is valid.

It also has "MBTI is pseudoscience, you should take this online Big 5 quiz instead" energy

[–] Amoeba_Girl@awful.systems 9 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

The vibe I always got is that it's somewhat more sinister than IQ, in that it's purported to be an Actually Real Property of humans that's measured by IQ tests, when IQ tests in themselves don't necessarily make claims beyond raw statistical variance.

It's like talk around IQ got too careful so they made this as a sort of anti-euphemism. Disphemism??

edit: wow it's a real word

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 4 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Man that wiki page is kinda shit, there's a section titled "Critique of Gould"[1], reference [178] is simply "Korb 1997", there's no link, and no hit for the name anywhere else.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_factor_(psychometrics)#Critique_of_Gould

[–] carlitoscohones@mas.to 6 points 8 months ago

@gerikson

Korb is a tool
Carlito et al, 2024

[–] dgerard@awful.systems 5 points 8 months ago (3 children)

here's the Korb paper. Can you guess what department he works in?

[–] self@awful.systems 6 points 8 months ago (3 children)

every fucking time. what’s the Wikipedia term for “this source is barely qualified to touch computers, much less weigh in on this topic?”

[–] self@awful.systems 8 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

oh that’s why he thinks he’s qualified to weigh in on psychological shit — he’s an AI researcher who specializes in Bayesian networks which is a pretty strong signal for him being a Rationalist, especially when you look at some of the topics of his research

e: god the titles of a lot of these papers sound like LessWrong or slatestarcodex posts

[–] Soyweiser@awful.systems 5 points 8 months ago

This but replace the references to stocks to references to IQ and the last panel with 'everybody thinks im a piece of shit now'.

[–] dgerard@awful.systems 4 points 8 months ago

i tell you, i larfed and larfed

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 5 points 8 months ago

JFC the abstract

Gould has no difficulty in demonstrating the influence of racism; where he goes astray is in his dismissal of such prior work as simply unscientific because the racist conclusions preceded the collection of data. Advancing hypotheses prior to experimentation is how all of science proceeds, and is no mark of inferior work. And no science is immune to influences - racist or otherwise -from the culture in which it is embedded, as Gould elsewhere readily acknowledges.

I mean, in that case the interest in IQ should have gone the way of phrenology except phrenology is still around.

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 5 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Meta Wiki question, are "bare" citations (no hyperlinks) acceptable in the reference section? It's not too hard to find this paper just based on author's last name and year in this case, but in others it might be harder.

[–] dgerard@awful.systems 5 points 8 months ago

yeah, absolutely. Some editors find it a bit lazy and annoying, but it's still a vast improvement over no reference. In fact there are bots that will attempt to turn URLs into nicely formatted references.