Dr. X's Free Associations

Sullivan on Intelligence Research ctd

Andrew consulted with some academic psychologists for more feedback on the alleged intelligence research blackout:

I've reached out to some academic pros in the intelligence field, and the feedback I get is that the exploration of IQ and race is effectively toxic as a subject. But the rest of the research area is more complex than my first post suggested. An academic writes: 

Within some subfields of psychology, there is a small degree of pushback against studying intelligence, but this is not true of psychology as a whole--there are thriving societies and journals, and reports of intelligence measures are not uncommon in mainstream journal articles. Nor is it unusual for researchers to document the degree of heritability of IQ (once again, within races). The study of racial differences in intelligence, however, particularly when it comes to assessing the possibility of genetic contributions, is still radioactive. Few researchers other than Jensen and Rushton are willing to go there, while marginal phenomena such as "stereotype threat" that superficially seem to suggest that the race difference is 100% environmental are avidly pursued.

Sullivan has more to say in his latest post, and I could quibble with some of it, but it's beyond what I'm interested in tackling. However, after reading many of the comments in other blogs that linked to this discussion, I think it might be helpful to work on a post or two covering some common misconceptions about the nuts and bolts of psych evals and psych testing. There's a great deal of misinformation out there.

The National Suppress Club

The National Press Club suspended a reporter's membership for asking a Saudi Prince some difficult questions. Then they reversed their decision, 10 days into the 2-week suspension:

HUSSEINI: There’s been a lot of talk about the legitimacy of the Syrian regime, I want to know what legitimacy your regime has sir. You come before us, representative of one of the most autocratic, misogynistic regimes on the face of the earth. Human Rights Watch and other reports of torture detention of activist, you squelched the democratic uprising in Bahrain, you tried to overturn the democratic uprising in Egypt and indeed you continue to oppress your own people. What legitimacy does you regime have — other than billions of dollars and weapons? [...]

    TURKI: After how many years since the establishment of the United States did women get to vote in the United States? Does that mean that before they got the vote that United States was an illegitimate country? According to his definition, obviously. So, until, when was it — 1910 when women got to vote — from 1789 to 1910 United States was illegitimate? This is how you should measure things, by how people recognize their faults and try to overcome them.

    HUSSEINI: So are you saying that Arabs are inherently backward?

    MODERATOR: Sam, that’s enough — this lady to the right, you’re next.

Privacy is Evil, Privacy is for Pedos

The rationalizations of a former British tabloid editor:

“We did all these things for our editors, for Rebekah Brooks and for Andy Coulson,” Mr. McMullan said, referring to two former News of the World editors who, he said, “should have had the strength of conviction to say, ‘Yes, sometimes you have to stray into black or gray illegal areas.’ ”

He added: “They should have been the heroes of journalism, but they aren’t. They are the scum of journalism for trying to drop me and my colleagues in it." [...]

Mr. McMullan said he thought that privacy was “evil,” in that it helps criminals cover up their misdeeds. Using a Britishism for “pedophile,” he said, “Privacy is for pedos.”

Chick-fil-A-holes

Chick-fil-A is suing a T-shirt artist:

A Vermont folk artist attempting to expand his home t-shirt business built around phrase "eat more kale," finds himself up against a formidable, and some would say, delicious, opponent: Chick-fil-A.

Chick-fil-A, whose own trademarked slogan "eat mor chikin," has tried to shut down Bo Muller-Moore's hand silkscreen operation claiming his t-shirts cause brand confusion amongst customers. [...]

However, Muller-Moore, 38, says he's been using the phrase since 2000 and is ready to fight on against the nation's second-largest chicken franchise.

"Our plan is to not back down. This feels like David versus Goliath. I know what it's like to protect what's yours in business," he said.

So he has enlisted the help of Montpelier lawyer Daniel Richardson and the intellectual property clinic at the University of New Hampshire School of Law's Intellectual Property and Transaction Clinic.

"Bo's is a very different statement. It's more of a philosophical statement about local agriculture and community-supported farmers markets," said Daniel Richardson of the New Hampshire School of Law's Intellectual Property and Transaction Clinic, who is representing Muller-Moore. "At the end of the day, I don't think anyone will step forward and say they bought an 'eat more kale' shirt thinking it was a Chick-fil-A product."

About what I'd expect from these bullies.

Suggestion for a new t-shirt: Don't eat Chick-fil-A

So You Want To Be A Ranch Hand

From a WSJ piece about purity testing American bison DNA:

One by one, the bison are pushed into a squeeze chute, which holds them steady so ranch hands can work on them. As the calf thrashes and flails, Mr. Collins works the front end, trying to hold the head and shoulders steady so the microchip can be inserted. It's a messy job. "They blow snot," he says.

The ranch hand at the rear end doesn't have it much better.

The branding iron on the rump sends smoke curling into the air, and with it, the throat-clogging smell of burning hair. It is then that the designated tail-puller must thrust his arm into the chute—taking care not to get crushed against the wall by the 300-pound calf. The tail hairs are well-rooted, so it takes as many as a dozen firm tugs to unloose them.

It's then best to remove hand, pliers and hairs all at once, for often the bison "will start pooping, and their tail acts as a manure spreader," Mr. Hamilton says. "It gives you that manly smell."

Herman Cain's Saga Continues: 13-year, just-ended affair alleged.

Molly Ball:

A woman in Georgia told a local TV station in Atlanta Monday that she had a 13-year affair with presidential candidate Herman Cain that ended just eight months ago, right before he entered the Republican primary.

Ginger White, described as a "businesswoman" in the report by the Fox affiliate, supplied copies of her cell phone bills that showed 61 calls and texts over four months ending this September. When the station texted the number, Cain called back, according to the report.

White said she came forward because she was offended by the way Cain attempted to minimize and dismiss allegations of sexual harassment that have come to light over the last month. "It bothered me that they were demonized," she said.

'

White said she met Cain in the late 1990s when he was president of the National Restaurant Association and she liked a presentation he gave in Kentucky. She knew he was married, she said, but the affair "was fun. It was something that took me away from my humdrum life at the time." Cain, she said, flew her around and showered her with gifts.

In response to the story, Cain's lawyer, Lin Wood, issued a statement that was breathtaking in its avoidance of a direct denial of the affair: He noted that in this case, Cain was not accused of harassment or assault but of "private, alleged consensual conduct between adults," and contended that this is "not a proper subject of inquiry by the media or the public."

We're not quite in Gary Hart, follow-me-if-you-don't-believe-me territory, but it's getting close.

More Clinician Reaction to DSM-V

I swear, the only clinicians who think well of this project are the clinicians working on it.

Here's Doug Bremner:

Wacky-doodle diagnoses from the DSM committee, including internet addiction disorder, expanded ADD and GAD, temperament dysregulation disorder, and giving your soul away to meet criteria for PTSD. Podcast here.

All I need are the code changes and eliminations, otherwise the DSM makes a nice paper weight. I hate when people call it the bible of psychiatry or, heaven forbid, the bible of psychology. It is no such thing; a more apt metaphor is the auto insurance repair estimate book.

Sullivan, Race, Intelligence ctd

I'm on the periphery of a heated exchange of blog posts this morning. In a dissent to Andrew Sullivan's comments on intelligence research, Ta-Nehisi Coates at The Atlantic linked to the first of my two posts on the subject.

Andrew responded to Ta-Neshi and to me, and linked to my discussion. I think Sullivan was quite fair in his comments on my posts.

I do think Coates makes some good points and some of his commenters do as well, although a lot there and at other sites that have picked this up today are freighted with some pretty uncivil manifestations of myside bias; that would be the case on both sides of the discussion.

Update: A final thought here.

Singapore: Beacon of Economic Freedom, But...

Asia's richest economy, Singapore, is ranked second only to Hong Kong in economic freedom, and seven places ahead of the US, according to the Heritage rankings of economic freedom. It also has an 87% home ownership rate and a surprisingly government interventionist-heavy system to promote construction and ownership.

Via Andrew Sullivan

A Libertarian Economist Retracts Previous Claim of Greater Liberal Ignorance Of Economics

An economist is retracting findings of a widely trumpeted study that claimed liberals are more ignorant of economics than conservatives and libertarians. This comes after he and a colleague conducted a second study based on speculation that the original study questions had been posed in a way that elicited confirmation bias that would inevitably make liberals look more economically stupid than conservatives and libertarians. The second study found that conservatives and libertarians responded just as stupidly when questions that properly challenged their views were posed. I wonder if the Wall Street Journal will report this. The tendency toward confirmation bias would predict that they will be less likely than other publications to cover the retraction, but one can hope.

Daniel Klein writes:

Back in June 2010, I published a Wall Street Journal op-ed arguing that the American left was unenlightened, by and large, as to economic matters. Responding to a set of survey questions that tested people’s real-world understanding of basic economic principles, self-identified progressives and liberals did much worse than conservatives and libertarians, I reported. To sharpen the ax, The Journal titled the piece “Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?”—the implication being that people on the left were not.[...]

But one year later, in May 2011, Buturovic and I published a new scholarly article reporting on a new survey. It turned out that I needed to retract the conclusions I’d trumpeted in The Wall Street Journal. The new results invalidated our original result: under the right circumstances, conservatives and libertarians were as likely as anyone on the left to give wrong answers to economic questions. The proper inference from our work is not that one group is more enlightened, or less. It’s that “myside bias”—the tendency to judge a statement according to how conveniently it fits with one’s settled position—is pervasive among all of America’s political groups. The bias is seen in the data, and in my actions.[...]

Buturovic began putting all 17 questions to a new group of respondents last December. I eagerly awaited the results, hoping that the conservatives and especially the libertarians (my side!) would exhibit less myside bias. Buturovic was more detached. She e-mailed me the results, and commented that conservatives and libertarians did not do well on the new questions. After a hard look, I realized that they had bombed on the questions that challenged their position. A full tabulation of all 17 questions showed that no group clearly out-stupids the others. They appear about equally stupid when faced with proper challenges to their position.

Finally, kudos to Klein and Buturovic for digging deeper and honestly sharing their new findings. I look forward to another Wall Street Journal headline: Are Journal Reporters Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?