Destabilizing The Genetics Of g

There is yet another discussion of intelligence raging across the internet just now, sparked by Sam Harris’ interview of Charles Murray and a Vox article critical of that interview. (h/t to PZ) I have been critical of the uses of IQ testing for quite some time now, dating back to 8th grade or so. There is nothing per se wrong with intelligence testing. Nor is it inherently bad to make use of intelligence testing. As part of a job application where one is being asked to perform particular tasks in a particular environment, it’s entirely conceivable that a particular intelligence test or set of such tests might well predict success in that job. However, for many if not the vast majority of public policy purposes, IQ and other intelligence testing will function badly, misleadingly, or both. This is even more true if we make assumptions about how much of a particular test result is due to intraracial genetic factors (factors shared within one race, but not between people of different races).

[Read more…]

I Know How PZ Would Answer The Question. Or Maybe I Don’t.

Inspired by Mano Singham’s recent post sharing a video tour of the Hammer Gallery, I feel it is time to play another round of the game, is it art, or is it a bicycle rack?

That’s a question that’s so old it’s been plaguing homo sapiens since perhaps before the beginning of our current geologic epoch. More to the point, it’s a question that has been the source of giggle between my best friend and I for a good twenty years. We’ll be drawing heavily from bikerackaroundtheworld.blogspot.ca for examples, the first of which shows that our question can be decidedly difficult to answer in places like Burma:

[Read more…]

Does the Entire Media World Think John Kelly is Stupid and/or Racist? Spoiler: Yes!

It really is as if Kelly’s discourse on intercultural communication and compromise before the civil war has drawn the attention of every single person with a brain and access to a media outlet – and a few without brains as well. But let’s focus on the BRAAAAAIIIIIIIIINNNNNNZZZZZZ for a minute, as it is Halloween.

MSNBC’s talking head Roland Martin let Kelly have it:

I’m not going to allow four stars stuck on stupid to simply go on.

Snap!

Martin also had some substance to add:

First of all, historic fact number one. The Civil War was fought over slavery. 11 southern states left the United States in 1860 and 1861 in order to protect the institution of slavery following the election of President Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln was an avowed opponent of the expansion of slavery that said he would not interfere with it where it already existed.

It is not yet confirmed whether Martin continued:

Well, alright. Hey I was diggin’ on John Kelly for awhile
Sounds like he got a three on him though, to me.

Maybe I’m reporting on this entirely too much, but people have been getting away with this for so long that earlier this year I had to go absolutely off the deep end when Jack Kingston insisted that advocating slavery doesn’t mean a (white) man isn’t working for peace.

It is so good to see some piling-on take place. If the people who spread this malicious, racist disinformation routinely got trashed when they did so, we might see less disinformation out there. Honestly, when Kingston’s comment passed by without notice from the members of the panel with whom he was talking about Andrew Jackson, I thought I’d never ever live in a land where the war mongering, the racist statements, or the rape apology of the elite would ever be seriously challenged. But with Weinstein, #metoo, Spacey, and John Kelly, I’m starting to think I’m living in once upon a time called Now!

I like this new media environment: strongly against rape-apology, refusing to hear gayness equated with pedophilia, calling out racism. Great Calliope’s Capybara, Batman! This is how mass media should be: chocolate covered and freakin’ habit forming.

White House Communication Is Doubly Unfortunate

So, no. I don’t necessarily edit what I scribble on the bathroom wall they call the internet. However, I do try to write with some polish, some attention to crafting language that is both informative, readable, and, on the odd occasion, entertaining. I know how much effort goes into this top-of-the-tongue, tip-of-the-brain blather, and I know how much more goes into the work I actually publish.

It’s this appreciation for the craft and work of writing that makes me amused at things like this scene from The West Wing:

[Read more…]

FEEL MY PAIN!

An odd mishearing, a bit of banter, and a child who learned pun-crafting from some demented soul*1 and you end up with this travesty being created mostly by my child, with a small amount of assistance from me that I now, of course, deeply regret::

When you see headlines like,
Global climate change: defining the end of an entire geologic age? Scientists now asserting “holocene” ending in disaster, “anthropocene” imminent…

you know you’re encountering an Epoch ellipse.

 

*1: I can’t imagine whom that would be

Worst Treated Politician in the Ever?

It has been noted many places, not least of which being this prestigious blog, that Donald Trump and cohort have labeled his opponents a “lynch mob” and declared the effort to investigate Russian electoral-interference schemes to be a “witch hunt”. Donald Trump himself said that he could assert “with surety” that he was the victim of the worst treatment and most unfair treatment of any politician in the history of the world in which Donald Trump invented the phrase “priming the pump”.

[Read more…]

Yes, I Talked To A Trump Voter

Warning: exact quote from a racist below.

Me: But why?

Them: I didn’t think Obama was fair. After 8 years of Obama, I wanted a fair leader.

Me: Ah. You wanted a Fair Leader. So we’re in agreement then. You voted for Trump because of racism.

Yeah, I don’t think they got it. But if not for definitions 2 & 9, what they said wouldn’t make any sense to me either.