Help on IQ

[Brechun]

I'm not too sure if there's any truly concise info on this, but are there any studies, guides, etc. regarding the dynamics of human IQ variation? There's alot out there that even laymen know, such as regression to the mean, inbreeding depression and it's effects on IQ variation from population outgrowth etc., but does anyone have something large-scale on this? (preferably recent too, and maybe including how recent discoveries in genetic underpinnings correlate with it)

[Helios Panoptes]

I'm not too sure if there's any truly concise info on this, but are there any studies, guides, etc. regarding the dynamics of human IQ variation? There's alot out there that even laymen know, such as regression to the mean, inbreeding depression and it's effects on IQ variation from population outgrowth etc., but does anyone have something large-scale on this? (preferably recent too, and maybe including how recent discoveries in genetic underpinnings correlate with it)

Can you make your question more specific?

[Space Onion]

IQ tests measure how intelligent you are.

[Crowley]

I'm not too sure if there's any truly concise info on this, but are there any studies, guides, etc. regarding the dynamics of human IQ variation?

The Bell Curve contains a great deal of information.

[Kamandi]

^ Mostly misinformation.

I'd recommend Thorndike's Measurement and Evaluation in Psychology and Education as the definitive text on intelligence psychometrics - I usually teach from it.

I believe the 7th edition is the most recent revised edition.

[Choppy deroute]

^ Mostly misinformation.

I'd recommend Thorndike's Measurement and Evaluation in Psychology and Education as the definitive text on intelligence psychometrics - I usually teach from it.

I believe the 7th edition is the most recent revised edition.

"Robert M. Thorndike (born March 2, 1943) is an American psychology professor known for several definitive textbooks on research procedures and psychometrics.

He earned his B.A. in psychology fromWesleyan University in 1965 and his Ph.D. from University of Minnesota in 1970. He has taught at Western Washington University since 1970.

He is a Fellow in the American Psychological Association, Division 5. In 1994 he was one of 52 signatories on "Mainstream Science on Intelligence," an editorial written by Linda Gottfredson and published in the Wall Street Journal, which defended the findings on race and intelligence in The Bell Curve."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_M._Thorndike

Did you mean the other Thorndike?

[Ixtab]

Thorndike was one of the signatories on the "Mainstream Science on Intelligence" piece, which defended The Bell Curve.

Did you mean the other Thorndike?The Robert Thorndike who wrote Measurement and Evaluation in Psychology and Education is the same Robert Thorndike who signed "Mainstream Science on Intelligence".

Other notable signatories were Arthur Jensen, Hans Eysenck, Philippe Rushton, Richard Lynn, and Raymond B. Cattell.

[Brechun]

Can you make your question more specific?

Exactly how much more do you want?

The Bell Curve contains a great deal of information.

It does little to cover IQ variation in-depth, and that book is garbage overall.

I'd recommend Thorndike's Measurement and Evaluation in Psychology and Education as the definitive text on intelligence psychometrics - I usually teach from it.

I believe the 7th edition is the most recent revised edition.

Are you sure that covers it? Does it include anything on recent genetic research?

[Crowley]

It does little to cover IQ variation in-depth, and that book is garbage overall.





Why exactly is the book garbage overall? The only criticisms I ever read were ad hominem attacks against the authors by a slew of politically correct liberals.

[Brechun]

Why exactly is the book garbage overall? The only criticisms I ever read were ad hominem attacks against the authors by a slew of politically correct liberals.

Actual scholarly critiques didn't come out until a year or 2 after it came out. Here's just a few examples: http://www.slate.com/id/2416/
http://www.amazon.com/Inequality-Design-Claude-S-Fischer/dp/0691028982/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-5986063-5384137?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1187664995&sr=8-1

BTW Helios, why didn't you ever get back to me on my PM about Ashkenazi intelligence?

[Kamandi]

Zorn, I'd be happy to answer your question but your PM inbox appears to be full.

[Kamandi]

Why exactly is the book garbage overall? The only criticisms I ever read were ad hominem attacks against the authors by a slew of politically correct liberals.
The various critiques of the book's sources and the authors' statistical praxis and qualifications are hardly "ad hominems" just because you don't like them.

[Kamandi]

Thorndike was one of the signatories on the "Mainstream Science on Intelligence" piece, which defended The Bell Curve.

The Robert Thorndike who wrote Measurement and Evaluation in Psychology and Education is the same Robert Thorndike who signed "Mainstream Science on Intelligence".

Regardless, Thorndike makes a strong presentation of introductory psychometric evaluation anyhow despite his willingness to defend racialist pseudoscience elsewhere.

[Brechun]

Zorn, I'd be happy to answer your question but your PM inbox appears to be full.

Just cleared it out, go ahead and resend.

[New Scientist]

I'm not too sure if there's any truly concise info on this, but are there any studies, guides, etc. regarding the dynamics of human IQ variation? There's alot out there that even laymen know, such as regression to the mean, inbreeding depression and it's effects on IQ variation from population outgrowth etc., but does anyone have something large-scale on this? (preferably recent too, and maybe including how recent discoveries in genetic underpinnings correlate with it)


Your box is full again. Heres reply.

I'm really skeptical of the Ashkenazi intelligence hypothesis, suddenly.

Why? I noticed something- most jews generally have large to very big head sizes, as this will give you an idea: http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=rabbi&gbv=2

So this kind of throws a monkey wrench in my ideas of the Ashkenazi brain- or this particular carrier disorder- being different.

>

You would be better typing ashkenazi rabbi. What you got was all the rabbis, who ended up on google, so that may just indicate social assortment.

http://images.google.com/images?client=opera&rls=en&q=ashkenazi+rabbi&sourceid=opera&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi

social assortment for rabbis based on physical features. There were studies done on people with high army rank. They had bigger chins.

http://images.google.com/images?q=Sergeant+Major+&svnum=10&um=1&hl=en&client=opera&rls=en&start=20&sa=N&ndsp=20

Big chin does not mean that people without big chins have lower testosterone. It means that you inherited the jaw structure for big chin AND you had the testosterone to keep it big. The image game in politics, applies in degrees with many professions in ways to suit the profession. Instinctively in leaderships social assortment, appearance plays a major role. How do you become the best rabbi. Having a great memory might go well with the social skills. You are expected to be able to recall appropriate phrases from truckloads of texts to suit the context. Memory, thats just one component of IQ . Bigger brain might be a bigger hard drive, but not necessarily have fast data transfer.



I have some questions in regards to Ashkenazi intelligence- I suggest you read the comments section of this GNXP post: http://www.gnxp.com/MT2/archives/004045.html

So here's my questions-

Is there any evidence to suggest the brains of Ashkenazi are different?

What is the full listing of the neurological diseases peculiar to Ashkenazi jews, and how many are involved, at all, with the branching of things like neurons and other cognitive traits?

They are mostly diseases of the nervous system, which affect the brain as well. They either fall into mutations of lipids, or those with growth factors, and cancer. You know all this already. You get them by searching ashkenazi genetic diseases. Takes you straight to the many research centres set up to deal with them. Whats connected to mental traits ? thats the question. the whole thing is quite interesting. Then after all that, the problem has to be put into context.

Study jewish history, or just live with jewish people, and yes they want to be smarter than everyone else. And they also place themselves with ambitions, which aggrivate others and create hostility, so they have to be smarter just to survive, and what caused what, the ambitions or the retributions ? Who knows. All that matters is jewish people want to be smarter, and so its quite likely they would become so. BUT there is the other problem. In the name of this relentless ambition, there is a chance of deceptions or delusions to prove this. I cannot say to what degree this theory is what it says, or tries to fulfill its own ambition, but iit sure is interesting.

How many neurological diseases are involved with this?

Are there any emperical studies linking these diseases to IQ? If so, is this effect found in Jews and non-jews, or just Jews?

If these diseases really were selected for intelligence, what exactly is the mechanism for bringing all of these numerous different neurological diseases out, when most of these exist in numerous other species?



If these diseases only increase intelligence in jews, what neurological correlates would go in line this?

Have there been any neuroscientific or genetic studies on this all?

I honestly don't even remember where I heard about that brain-rewiring thing, so what do you have?

I hope that list of questions was made for sending round a lot of people. I sure dont have much regarding this, apart from that one paper. Although doesnt that try to answer many of those ?
Its an open area. There isnt enough around on this now. Who is going to fund research to say why jews are more intelligent, unless IQ becomes such a major priority for understanding the brain, that it would be possible to go ahead with an agenda like that.

[Brechun]

You would be better typing ashkenazi rabbi. What you got was all the rabbis, who ended up on google, so that may just indicate social assortment.

http://images.google.com/images?client=opera&rls=en&q=ashkenazi+rabbi&sourceid=opera&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi

Not really relevant. Most of those rabbis are blatantly ashkenazi due to their distinctive facial features, and just a simple follow up to those links confirms it.

social assortment for rabbis based on physical features. There were studies done on people with high army rank. They had bigger chins.

Um.... selecting for head size? Head size is a very constant indicator of one's IQ. It's just a case of them moving into those positions.

Big chin does not mean that people without big chins have lower testosterone. It means that you inherited the jaw structure for big chin AND you had the testosterone to keep it big. The image game in politics, applies in degrees with many professions in ways to suit the profession. Instinctively in leaderships social assortment, appearance plays a major role. How do you become the best rabbi. Having a great memory might go well with the social skills. You are expected to be able to recall appropriate phrases from truckloads of texts to suit the context. Memory, thats just one component of IQ . Bigger brain might be a bigger hard drive, but not necessarily have fast data transfer.

Look, I honestly don't even know where I got this idea of the "ashkenazi brain" being rewired. The whole thing doesn't make any sense from a basic evolutionary stand-point. These people are at too high of a frequency to be resultant of that- if it were true, you'd see a huge variation in brain size despite similar or identical IQ levels. I've run with this idiocy for too long.

They are mostly diseases of the nervous system, which affect the brain as well. They either fall into mutations of lipids, or those with growth factors, and cancer. You know all this already. You get them by searching ashkenazi genetic diseases. Takes you straight to the many research centres set up to deal with them. Whats connected to mental traits ? thats the question. the whole thing is quite interesting. Then after all that, the problem has to be put into context.

I believe one thing I didn't understand with the Cochran-Harpending study until recently was how they posited that these diseases enchance intelligence in EVERYONE- IE, heterozygotes. The only possibility for to be some uniquely ashkenazi thing was if there was some neurological mechanism that came up that allowed these to come into play. And that's just insane.

Study jewish history, or just live with jewish people, and yes they want to be smarter than everyone else. And they also place themselves with ambitions, which aggrivate others and create hostility, so they have to be smarter just to survive, and what caused what, the ambitions or the retributions ? Who knows. All that matters is jewish people want to be smarter, and so its quite likely they would become so. BUT there is the other problem. In the name of this relentless ambition, there is a chance of deceptions or delusions to prove this. I cannot say to what degree this theory is what it says, or tries to fulfill its own ambition, but iit sure is interesting.

One thing that Cochran and Harpending fail to really consider is if the job positions the Ashkenazi took up in the middle ages were really cognitively demanding at all- you look up the correlates with IQ for job performance in the same or similar fields today, and they aren't that sizable. And just considering how life was so much simpler back then, where such jobs would be quite less complex, and it doesn't seem to hold much water. It might be just the simple forced eugenics the Ashkenazi carried out, in combination with their massive emphasis on scholarship.

...They also put off the idea that these neurological disorders were selected for in ALL jews. Rediculous. Studies of their lineages actually show the neurological diseases slowly spreading out through the Ashkenazi population, going in line with it beggining in perhaps a single jewish family or jew.

And, it doesn't even really end there. They also try to link 4 DNA repair disorders among the ashkenazi to IQ- despite 2 of them showing up at frequencies of 2% or less among them, and one of these low frequency disorders being at vastly higher rates among middle eastern jews.

The mechanism for even positing how the DNA repair disorders to IQ is so vastly circumstantial- it just defies common laws of biology too.

I hope that list of questions was made for sending round a lot of people. I sure dont have much regarding this, apart from that one paper. Although doesnt that try to answer many of those ?
Its an open area. There isnt enough around on this now. Who is going to fund research to say why jews are more intelligent, unless IQ becomes such a major priority for understanding the brain, that it would be possible to go ahead with an agenda like that.

Too bad, though I doubt any of these genes are linked to IQ. Granted, some of these are universally known to cause deterioration in IQ in those afflicted, such as gaucher's diseases, yet a link between GAINS in IQ would be well established by now- not this bogus speculation in the Cochran-Harpending piece.

They really haven't found a single conclusive study linking them to IQ. At all. And it's been well over 2 years now.

[Brechun]

Now I found this interesting: http://books.google.com/books?id=ajmxPoLahvgC&pg=PA57&lpg=PA57&dq=jewish+cranial+capacity&source=web&ots=WheMoenHMe&sig=pEVRXpk266bt4Vvf17XvPJ8EnmY

Note how the author mentions that the average cranial capacity of the jews examined was moderately lower than the surrounding whites- though that doesn't lend too much credence to the neurological disease thing. These old craniometric studies had a habit of using whites who were quite above the real average of whites- an IQ of 100 goes in line with an CC of 1,350, while these studies pushed off something much higher. And, there's also the case of real, large assessments of jewish intelligence being rather lower than the often quoted 115- which would mean a much greater variation of jews in the low IQ range.

Who knows? I mean, has there ever been a modern study of jewish cranial capacities and brain sizes? And has there ever been any anomalies detected in the standard deviations of jewish IQ studies? That would go perfectly in line with the neurological diseases, as they work wholly outside normal human IQ variation.

[New Scientist]

Now I found this interesting: http://books.google.com/books?id=ajmxPoLahvgC&pg=PA57&lpg=PA57&dq=jewish+cranial+capacity&source=web&ots=WheMoenHMe&sig=pEVRXpk266bt4Vvf17XvPJ8EnmY

Note how the author mentions that the average cranial capacity of the jews examined was moderately lower than the surrounding whites- though that doesn't lend too much credence to the neurological disease thing. These old craniometric studies had a habit of using whites who were quite above the real average of whites- an IQ of 100 goes in line with an CC of 1,350, while these studies pushed off something much higher. And, there's also the case of real, large assessments of jewish intelligence being rather lower than the often quoted 115- which would mean a much greater variation of jews in the low IQ range.

Who knows? I mean, has there ever been a modern study of jewish cranial capacities and brain sizes? And has there ever been any anomalies detected in the standard deviations of jewish IQ studies? That would go perfectly in line with the neurological diseases, as they work wholly outside normal human IQ variation.

I dont know about this. I have taken a look about my ashkenazi relatives, and yes they do have high measured IQ's and head sizes that are average.

Many are above 130 on tests, and this is reflected by their achievements. My mother has IQ of 147 and a head shape that is smaller than average at the front. I believe her IQ is abover 130. She just seems to have fast detailed recall and insight into so many subjects including medical and technical ones, that i wonder when it was she had time to find out so much stuff. She
"seems" faster than that of other 130 plusers i know who are half her age. I also have high IQ friends with the massive forehead thing. Subjectively the interactions dont have that speedy feeling of the high IQers with small or average head shapes.

Its not my field. I think we are looking at different components of IQ here. Do mutations for a faster sheath renewal need to be connected directly to a larger skull structure ?


There is another overlooked IQ factor which is longevity. Longer lived tending to have higher IQ. Which is supposed due to more efficient cellular breathing. Once again i see this in the ashkenazi relatives, looking a decade younger than they are, most living to 80 plus, being productive and vigourous at these ages, then bang. A very high frequency of these relatives, just exit life with major stroke disorders.

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