Allievating Global Inequality

[ribozyme]

wspublishers.com/ (Read the entry for IQ and Global Inequality)

(Yes, this is a controversial and inflammatory topic!)

Also, here is the wikipedia entry for IQ and Global Inequality :en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_and_Global_Inequality

http://www.wspublishers.com/images/iq.jpg

The book rather has a dour tone: foreign aid would not significantly help regions such as sub-Saharan Africa. So how do we pursue helping these regions if these socioeconomic maladies have a genetic cause? One must acknowledge, however, that this is a problem requiring a real solution. This is a rather unpleasant quagmire that we have to deal with…

Unfortunately, my parents are not willing to order the book online for me. I am willing to read that book as it offers a global perspective on the nature of human intelligence. IQ and Global Inequality would evince how intelligence is necessary for the formation of advanced civilizations, and explain with concinnity the intellectual prerequisites for a stable civilization.

I used to malign Richard Lynn, but it was a rather heartrending experience when I had an epiphany that his work is irrefragable and I could only object by caviling.

Any comments?

 

[Bobby_Jim]

How do you measure IQ? People have been talking for years how these tests are culturally biased. If you give a test designed by & for western Europeans to someone in sub-saharan Africa of course they’re going to flunk it. Ask someone from Western Europe to start a fire without a match and they’ll be lunch for a leopard before they have a chance to cook the poisonous grub they proudly caught for their dinner. Now who’s the stupid one?

 

[ribozyme]

How do you measure IQ? People have been talking for years how these tests are culturally biased. If you give a test designed by & for western Europeans to someone in sub-saharan Africa of course they’re going to flunk it. Ask someone from Western Europe to start a fire without a match and they’ll be lunch for a leopard before they have a chance to cook the poisonous grub they proudly caught for their dinner. Now who’s the stupid one?

I do not think the Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices is culturally biased: avlisad.com.ar/test/ Edad means age

The resulting IQs are inflated. To test this hypothesis, I answered the first 52 problems on that test correctly (and I answered the remaining questions incorrectly intentionally) and it gave me an IQ of 113 (age 18) while I expected an IQ of 100 because on American norms that should correspond to an IQ of 100.

A perfect score on that test (out of 60) doesn’t really mean anything; for me, it means I am excellent at those kinds of tests when I am in a placid state of mind. Besides, that test is not designed to discrimate among individuals of higher intellectual ability.

RSPM is used in most cross-cultural studies as it has been demonstrated as it measures the g factor in a culturally unbiased fashion.

I think it is the actual RSPM as Item C7 on the online version corresponds to Item C7 on Figure 1 in this paper: psychology.uwo.ca/faculty/rushtonpdfs/Skuyetal2002.pdf . The point is the demonstate that the RSPM is culturally unbiased. So I will assume the online test is the same one used in the Skuy *et al. *study. Here’s an interesting study using the RSPM (and the Raven’s Colored Progressive Matrices, the easiest of Raven’s matrices): psychology.uwo.ca/faculty/rushtonpdfs/2007%20Intell%20(Roma).pdf

I’m going to sleep; have fun with this analogy:

Darwin is to biological evolution as Guth is to ________

A. Quantum gravity
B. Particle physics
C. Steady-state theory
D. Cosmic inflation
E. Supersymmetry

So, I do think that question is culturally biased, but the Raven tests do not require any specific culturally based knowledge such as the aforementioned question.

 

[Bobby_Jim]

To test this hypothesis, I answered the first 52 problems on that test correctly (and I answered the remaining questions incorrectly intentionally)

Oh come on, that’s just where the test starts to get interesting!

It still assumes some expectation about what constitutes a rational pattern. E.g. If I lay down a beat that goes 1-2 1-2 1-2, and ask you to continue, you might correctly continue it 1-2 1-2 1-2 1-2 in Western Europe, and equally correctly continue it 1-2-3 1-2 1-2 1-2 1-2-3 in Turkey.

On a more basic level it assumes knowledge of how to take a test. E.g. when my grandfather was getting older, it was very difficult to explain the very basic concept of “choose only one answer” when he was getting his drivers license renewed at the DMV (which was maybe a sign it was time to hang up the keys). But such seemingly basic concepts are maybe not so basic. Kind of like the concept of “showing up on time” is also meaningless to some people.

 

[Bobby_Jim]

Darwin is to biological evolution as Guth is to ________

A. Quantum gravity
B. Particle physics
C. Steady-state theory
D. Cosmic inflation
E. Supersymmetry

I think it’s cosmic inflation.

 

[ribozyme]

Oh come on, that’s just where the test starts to get interesting!

It still assumes some expectation about what constitutes a rational pattern. E.g. If I lay down a beat that goes 1-2 1-2 1-2, and ask you to continue, you might correctly continue it 1-2 1-2 1-2 1-2 in Western Europe, and equally correctly continue it 1-2-3 1-2 1-2 1-2 1-2-3 in Turkey.

On a more basic level it assumes knowledge of how to take a test. E.g. when my grandfather was getting older, it was very difficult to explain the very basic concept of “choose only one answer” when he was getting his drivers license renewed at the DMV (which was maybe a sign it was time to hang up the keys). But such seemingly basic concepts are maybe not so basic. Kind of like the concept of “showing up on time” is also meaningless to some people.

According the Skuy et al. (2002), the mean score for African university students is ~ 44. If the test measures innate ability that is lamentably low. Remember, the test is called Raven’s STANDARD Progressive Matrices. That’s the problem; RSPM is remarkably easy.

One can state the instructions for Raven’s matrices: “Use the content in the visible squares to determine the missing item.” The instructions are that simple.

Did you look up the answer about Alan Guth? I made that question up.

I never thought an IQ test (since it is online, one can easily look up the answers, but surprisingly I knew the answers to these type of questions with recourse to that) would ask questions such as:

Painter is to canvas as lapidary is to ________

A. Gems
B. Acrylic
C. Gallery
D. Appraisal
E. Pencil

Ceylon is to Sri Lanka as _____ is to Zimbabwe

A. Abyssinia
B. Africa
C. Harare
D. Rhodesia
E. Swaziland

An easier version of that IQ test asked this question:

“What is the number of electrons in a hydrogen atom?”

Surprisingly, that can be considered a “difficult” question.

For example, 47% of Americans answered “true” for this question: “Electrons are smaller than atoms (true/false)”.

mdcbowen.org/p2/rm/stupidit.htm

(Presumably, some of them were probably guessing.)

But, the studies that Richard Lynn invokes the Standard Progressive Matrices so it is free from cultural bias. But in contrast, the IQ tests here are culturally biased as the answers to the factual knowledge and analogy questions on those tests are acquired from schooling or reading.

As a discursive aside unrelated to this topic, if anyone gets a 157 (or better) on the TA3 WITHOUT cheating (as I had to look up the some answers to get that score), I’ll worship you as a god as you are about 1.5-1.8 standard deviations units above myself!

Returning to Richard Lynn’s hypothesis, if one uses a test such as the RSPM, one can predict the economic welfare of a country, as the scores on this highly g-loaded test are correlated to economic development, life expectancy, literacy rate, and other important variables. Do you have an alternative hypothesis or evidence that confutes Vanhanen and Lynn interpretations?

Unfortunately, I haven’t read *IQ and Global Inequality *yet to have an informed opinion as I am not versed in economics (but I do think Lynn’s work on the Darwinian etiology of racial disparity is peremptory as he has embraced the solid edifice of evolutionary biology). However, I think I may have access to IQ and the Wealth of Nations.

 

[Bobby_Jim]

In adminstering this Raven test, do they account for left-to-right reading bias? I bet most of us westerners would find the mirror image of that test harder, with the missing swatch in the lower left corner.

And I would still maintain instructions like “Use the content in the visible squares to determine the missing item” are not as obvious as you think. That could mean, complete the bottom line in a manner analagous to the top line(s), or choose the tile that you think makes the overall picture the most artistic or aethetically pleasing.

I think you also have a hard time separating out a genetic component of intelligence, from functional intelligence as determined by a whole slew of developmental and environmental influences. Little things like… Western parents tend to read to their children a lot, whereas illiterate parents wouldn’t - especially in places where women in particular are not taught to read. We shower our young kids with a huge variety of brightly colored stimulating toys and spend a lot of idle time playing with them. Poor kids in a subsistence culture don’t get that as much. Heck, it wouldn’t surprise me if kids in less-developed countries are exposed to more lead in their environment, due to ongoing use of leaded gasoline and lead-based paints. To identify a genetic component you would probably need to find a large group of identical twins separated at birth and raised in different places.

 

[Bobby_Jim]

One thing all IQ tests, including the Raven test, are good at measuring is… ability to focus on a meaningless task. The Raven test is sufficiently long that, after 20 questions or so, it ceases to be a fun novelty, and becomes a tedious chore.

Now kids who go to school and do a lot of homework and take written and standardized tests get to be good at meaningless chores. However, even my mother describes taking these endless standardized tests when she was in school (back in the 1960s), and getting bored and just filling in the bubbles to make pretty patterns and diagonals and such. I can easily imagine a kid (or adult) who’s not used to spending 20-30 minutes taking a picture test getting ansy, and just zipping through it to get it over with, so they can get back to more important things.

 

[lak611]

I do not think the Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices is culturally biased: avlisad.com.ar/test/ Edad means age

Is there an English version of the test? I clicked on your link, and the page was in Spanish.

 

[ribozyme]

Is there an English version of the test? I clicked on your link, and the page was in Spanish.

It doesn’t matter, just look at the raw score when you are finished. You have to enter a number on “edad” or you can’t take it.

It’s not verbal though.

 

[lak611]

It doesn’t matter, just look at the raw score when you are finished. You have to enter a number on “edad” or you can’t take it.

It’s not verbal though.

I did not check out the actual test. Is it all maths? I cannot read Spanish.

 

[ribozyme]

I did not check out the actual test. Is it all maths? I cannot read Spanish.

There is no math on the test. It just matrices… hence the name Raven’s Progressive Matrices.

 

[Ramalama]

And how is this thread about Allievating Global Inequality?

 

[ribozyme]

And how is this thread about Allievating Global Inequality?

If we acknowledge that global inequality is due to genetic differences in cognitive ability, how should we formulate our policies on foreign aid?

This thread is rather discursive: most of the discussion concerns the issue of culturally biased test instruments. I think the RSPM is not culturally biased in contrast to some other questions asked on intelligence tests.

Concerning cultural bias, a mediated learning experience can increase Raven’s Progressive Matrices scores (Skuy et al. 2002). In that study, scores were increased by about one standard deviation unit (using American norms) in the black African cohort. (The paper actually argues that the increase scores was due to taking a “Stencils Test”.

The increase is still significant:

When the two racial groups were analyzed
separately, the effect of mediation was still significant at P < .001 for both groups, but still
with no significant differences between the experimental and control groups. This means that
all groups benefited equally from mediation on the Stencils Test, irrespective of whether or
not they had previously received mediation on the Raven’s.

Note that small p value. But mediation did not yield mean scores such as > 58.

 

[ribozyme]

Concerning cultural bias, a mediated learning experience can increase Raven’s Progressive Matrices scores (Skuy et al. 2002). In that study, scores were increased by about one standard deviation unit (using American norms) in the black African cohort. (The paper actually argues that the increase scores was due to taking a “Stencils Test”.

.

No, I did not read the paper correctly. This section was referring to the Stencil Test (not the RSPM):

Separate ANCOVAs were then computed for each racial group to see if there were any differences in transferability of skills between experimental and control groups. The Raven’s
posttest score (the covariate) was still significantly related to the Stencils pre- and posttest scores for both African and non-African groups (P < .001). However, for both groups, there were no significant differences between experimental and control groups on the Stencils pre and posttest scores (all groups received mediation for this test). The expected superior performance of the experimental group due to mediation from the Raven’s was not supported.

Mediation did increase the RSPM scores (p < .001), but it had little effect on results for the Stencil pre and post tests. Too bad I am unable to edit my previous post. That’s what one gets when they attempt to reread a paper in a cursory fashion .

Mediation (described in section 3 and 4 in that paper) increased scores the IQ equivalents from 83 to 96. It is notable that even the control groups in both the non-African and African groups, had raw score increases (from taking the test again), but these increases are minor. It is helpful noting that these were university students (University of Witwatersrand), not random people in South Africa, so it is reasonable to expect the population mean to be lower.

Returning to the actual topic:

However, if intelligence is a prerequisite for the formation of a successful civilization, why should one have optimistic sentiments concerning the development of sub-Saharan Africa? If these studies are valid, the future of Africa is not auspicious. What should we do?

 

[Bobby_Jim]

However, if intelligence is a prerequisite for the formation of a successful civilization, why should one have optimistic sentiments concerning the development of sub-Saharan Africa? If these studies are valid, the future of Africa is not auspicious. What should we do?

Move to California.