iq

...I think he's right (don't tell driftglass). From the NY Times: For a time, it seemed as if we were about to use the bright beam of science to illuminate the murky world of human action. Instead, as Turkheimer writes in his chapter in the book, "Wrestling With Behavioral Genetics," science finds itself enmeshed with social science and the humanities in what researchers call the Gloomy Prospect, the ineffable mystery of why people do what they do. The prospect may be gloomy for those who seek to understand human behavior, but the flip side is the reminder that each of us is a Luxurious…
There are many brain fitness software products available these days so when I was offered a copy of Core Learning's program Mind Builder, I agreed to check it out. It offers a series of test questions similar to America's SAT, while Mind Builder Pro is a fuller package that also incorporates IQ, career and aptitude tests intended to be "fun mental exercises." Unlike some similarly-marketed software there were no unproven claims of preventing age-related cognitive decline or improving processing speed. There were vague promises like "get smart, stay smart" and "build brain power" - whatever…
Atrios wonders about William Saletan's and Andrew Sullivan's recurrent idiocy about IQ: The thing about the perpetual attempts to claim that TEH SCIENCE proves that black people really are stupid is that there are two simple fallacies that they are based on. The first one is that the "intelligence" tests used in the data actually measure some sort of immutable inherent or potential intelligence when in fact people can be educated to do better on the tests. The second is that race generally or especially as understood in America bears any relationship to the concept of "population" as…
Obviously, I have to work this both into tonight's talk in Grand Rapids, and blog about it: Gene governs IQ boost from breastfeeding from PhysOrg.com The known association between breast feeding and slightly higher IQ in children has been shown to relate to a particular gene in the babies, according to a report this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. [...] But for now, I'll just say this... By way of cautionary notes. It is being said that this is evidence of intelligence being the result of "nature and nurture" interacting. This is because there is a gene that…