Category Archives: IQ

It’s Not Just Derbyshire: Charles Murray Can’t Answer the Question Either

Posted on April 8, 2012 by

While it’s good news that John Derbyshire lost his job at National Review Online for his disgusting racist screed, Freddie deBoer notes that Derbyshire’s arguments about IQ and race aren’t different from many of the ‘genetic conservatives’ (boldface mine): Some … Continue reading →

Posted in Conservatives, IQ, Racism | 6 Comments

I.Q., Stock Picking, and Discipline

Posted on March 7, 2012 by

By way of Robert Shiller, we come across this interesting paper linking I.Q. and successful financial investment behavior: Stock market participation is monotonically related to IQ, controlling for wealth, income, age, and other demographic and occupational information. The high correlation … Continue reading →

Posted in IQ | 2 Comments

Congress, in Omnibus Spending Bill, To Inflict Mental Retardation on America’s Children: It’s the Lead, Stupid

Posted on February 23, 2012 by

I’ve discussed before how reducing childhood exposure to lead affects everything from IQ and academic performance to crime rates. It is arguably one of the most crucial and successful environmental efforts in the U.S. of the twentieth century. So, if … Continue reading →

Posted in Fucking Morons, IQ, Public Health | 11 Comments

The Question Charles Murray Needs to Answer and Can’t: Why Are Massachusetts’ Whites ‘Superior’ to Alabama’s?

Posted on February 14, 2012 by

Saturday, Charles Murray, author of The Bell Curve, had an op-ed in The Washington Post, plugging his new screed, Coming Apart. In the op-ed, Murray writes (boldface mine): It’s common to assume that upper-middle-class white kids win more slots in … Continue reading →

Posted in Conservatives, IQ | 1 Comment

Accidental Schadenfreude Is a Beautiful Thing: The Charles Murray Edition

Posted on January 24, 2012 by

By way of Jesse Taylor, we learn that Charles Murray, author of The Bell Curve and longtime advocate of a genetic basis for the racial difference in IQ scores, will release a book on the growing socioeconomic divisions. In the … Continue reading →

Posted in Conservatives, Fucking Morons, Genetics, IQ

A Modest Proposal: Alabama Whites Are Genetically Inferior to Massachusetts Whites (FOR REALZ!)

Posted on December 29, 2011 by

Every so often, like a bad case of hemorrhoids, the race/IQ/genetics kerfuffle flairs up. Well, the Mad Biologist can settle it once and for all. NAEP math scores have been used as proxies for IQ (pdf, pdf)*. If we look … Continue reading →

Posted in Education, Fucking Morons, IQ, Racism | 9 Comments

A Question About IQ and NAEP Math Scores

Posted on December 1, 2011 by

With all the recent buzz about IQ, it’s not clear to me how lower IQ scores are supposed to be attributable to racial differences, while lower NAEP math scores for minorities are attributable to Teachers Unions (the Evilest Force for … Continue reading →

Posted in Education, IQ, Unions | 1 Comment

Racial Differences in IQ Only Manifest at Age 2

Posted on November 30, 2011 by

Once again, the IQ race wars have flared up again (here, here, here, here, and here). I’ve never been a big fan of IQ except to identify people who are very smart or very dim–which were the original purposes of … Continue reading →

Posted in IQ | 2 Comments

Palin Is Ignorant, Not Stupid: For Palinists, That’s a Feature, Not a Bug

Posted on August 21, 2010 by

Palin, and many like her, don’t see politics as a way of fixing mundane, even if severe problems.
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Posted in Conservatives, IQ | 8 Comments

C Is for Cookie, but Is It Good Enough for Delayed Gratification and Linear Regression?

Posted on August 4, 2010 by

Doubts about the significance of the cookie experiment. It’s not necessarily good enough for me.
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Posted in IQ, Statistics, WhatEVAH! | 3 Comments