To think 'academic freedom' and whistleblower punishment are misused in those protesting the suspension of Nathan Cofnas

Thank you. That's a good explanation. Sorry for being so rash.

The relevant paragraph above should say:

Cofnas hates the idea of picking from field B today; he think you should pick the tallest plants whichever field they're in. Furthermore, he thinks the height difference is generic and that, as such, improving field B ifor the future s a waste of time. He wrongly calls that meritocracy.

Think of it like this.

You harvest 1,000,000 seeds from a single crop. You split them in half arbitrarily. You plant group A in good soil and water them, and you plant group B in bad soil and don't water them.

Come harvest time, the average height is 10% greater in group A, and, as such, the top 1% by height across both fields will be enormously skewed to group A (the tail effect).

WITHIN in each group there's a spread of heights, which is not explained by environment - they were in the same field - so must be genetic.

BETWEEN groups the mean didference must be environmental, as the genetic mix is the same for both groups.

If you are looking to pick thr 10,000 tallest plants from across both fields TODAY your harvest it would contain many more from group A. (If your harvest was drawn proportionately from both fields, the mean height would be lower.)

But, a better bet for the FUTURE for increasing crop height would be to improve the soil and water field B.

Cofnas hates the idea of picking from field B today; he think you should pick the tallest plants whichever field they're in. He wrongly calls that meritocracy. In order to do so, he must maintain the fiction that the didference between the plants in fields A and B is genetic, which is patently false.

The trouble is that the need to improve field B is obscured by (admittedly well-meaning) people denying that the plants in fields A are currently taller than those in field B. Possibly because they wrongly assume that to do so would be to concede the genetics point.

In terms of IQ that's because they don't understand it for what it is (particularly at a population level) i.e. a measure of a group's current mean ability, not of the potential of future descendents of that group. They mistake IQ as something innate.

Yes, i think historically a lot of it turned on self- identification which was a confounding factor but modern GWAS pretty much pulled the rug away from Cofnas on the genetic aspect where he'd relied on faulty admixture studies.

Occam's razor suggests that if tests designed specifically to eliminate confounding factors show an even stronger correlation with race, then race is a likely significant factor. That you see it evidence that the tests were flawed suggests that you are working backwards from an assumption that race isn't a factor.

No, not claimed: Demonstrated through empirical evidence to have elimintaed comfounding factors of langauge/culture. This is pretty much settled science, now.

It's naive to think that scientist/academics work unaffected by ideology; people often posit (and seek to prove) hypotheses with which they morally agree. The people who designed the colour blind tests expected and likely hoped it would show that the differences in IQ were a defect of the tests rather than racial differences in mean IQ, and that they were disappointed that they showed the opposite, which is whythey didn't defend their methodology.

I get why the conclusion that there is a difference in mean IQ by race is uncomfortable, but it's pretty much indisputable at this point. But what we can (and should) do is refute claims by Cofnas and his ilk that this is because of genetics rather than environment (because that's what the data suggests). And try to level that environmental playing field.

Notably, Coftas talks mainly about the US. But its worth noting that the mean IQ gap between the races is much less pronounced in the UK, which, in itself suggests environment rather than genetics is the cause.

So on its own it’s fairly useless as a measure of anything productive.

I have no idea what you are trying to say or how it relates to what I said.

You are anti revisionism. ‘ get it 100% right first time, or we’ll say you were WRONG’?

or you admit process is learning?

My guess is that you have no desire to be out there creating cures. Without motivation to use intelligence, its measurement is mere admin.

Claims to have eliminated those biases.

Just like the people who wrote the tutor proof 11+ test thought they were doing when they wrote theirs. And they weren’t random thickos but highly respected.

They admitted defeat rather than trying to defend their test.

I’ve got a ridiculously stupidly high recorded IQ….and yet I’m not all that.

Either I’ve massively wasted my potential and could have been out there creating world peace and a cure for cancer, or it’s not actually a particularly useful measure.

No. It was, but modern testing has eliminated those biases.

No, it isn’t widely agreed. That is completely incorrect.

I thought it was already widely agreed that the IQ test favours middle class, white men. It’s not a good measure of intelligence really but like many similar measures it sticks around because it suits some people.

This is the kind of avoidance that creates both Cofnas and Arday.

Maybe. But that's not the consensus amongst experts in the feild.

Or perhaps it means that IQ or whatever the test is measuring isn’t actually that useful.

I dont assume. I think it needs to be tested. But no reason it couldn't be true i.e. that it eliminates the work-ethic effect that confounds the pure IQ differences.

Even though the ‘race blind tutor free’ test produced worse outcomes for those groups then the previous 11+, the assumption should be that it’s simply more accurate than either the previous test and the academic record?

You've assumed that differences in. Results are because of discrimination rather than differences in what's being measured, which isn't proven. I'm not asserting work ethic is the reason, but saying it can't be rules out, such that your conclusion of discrimination isn't proven.