The idea that schooling raises intelligence still prevails. The influential study review of Ceci (1991) concluded that schooling has a strong impact on IQ scores despite his final warning that observed score does not equate real intelligence. After, many more studies were published, including latent factor modeling and quasi-experimental designs. It is unclear whether education truly improves general intelligence modeled as latent factor or whether long-lasting IQ gain involves far transfer effect. More likely, the answer to all of these questions is negative.
Author: Meng Hu (Page 2 of 3)
Back in 2014 I wrote an extensive review of studies on the income mobility rate over time and across countries and discussed whether it truly fits the Great Gatsby Curve, a term based on the observation of the negative relationship between mobility and inequality, that is considered by many as unfair because it implies that higher inequality causes lower mobility. However I did not consider Black-White difference in mobility. Because mobility and inequality are interrelated, I will cover both topics here.
It’s been almost 50 years now that the famous study of Willerman et al. (1974) has been published. This study is regularly cited as one of the most convincing evidence against the hereditarian hypothesis, despite strong emphasis by hereditarians on the failure of experimental efforts to raise IQ (more specifically, g) and population differences magnifying during adolescence or adulthood due to increasing heritability with age (Jensen, 1998, pp. 333-344, 359, 474; See Malloy [2013] for a case of a stability model with respect to the Black-White gap). Caution about this study is now vindicated. The data used by Willerman also revealed a pattern: the IQ deficits related to having a Black mother seem to vanish over time (Hu, 2022). Continue reading
Or nearly so. I was planning to publish that blog article for the 31th December 2014. As you can see, I failed in this task, and didn’t finish in the right time. Anyway, I wrote this article, mainly because I am bothered that when people cite The Bell Curve the typical opponent responds with a link toward Wikipedia, specifically the part related to the “controversy” of The Bell Curve. It goes without saying that these persons did not read the books written in response to The Bell Curve. In fact, they have certainly read none of them. It is ridiculous to cite a book you didn’t read, but apparently, it does not bother many people, as I see.
For the 20 years of the book, I found appropriate to write a defense of the book. Or more precisely, a critical comment on the critics. I have decided to read carefully one of these books I can have access, and for what I have read here and there, it is probably the best book ever written against The Bell Curve. I know that Richard Lynn (1999) has already written a review before. But I wanted to go into the details. The title of the book I’m reviewing is :
Devlin, B. (1997). Intelligence, Genes and Success: Scientists Respond to the Bell Curve. Springer.
In fact, I have read that book some time ago, but didn’t find the need to read everything in detail. And I was unwilling to write a lengthy review. But I have changed my mind because of some nasty cowards.
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Here, I will explain how to use the so-called “Yhat” or predicted values of Y when doing regression (OLS, logistic and multilevel).
(Update 2017) This article is based on my paper: Hu, M. (2017). An update on the secular narrowing of the Black-White gap in the Wordsum vocabulary test (1974-2012). Mankind Quarterly, 58(2), 324-354. Continue reading
Earlier, I have reviewed Braden’s (1994) book, Deafness, Deprivation, and IQ. Considerable amount of studies have been conducted since then. The focus is on the validity of measures of intelligence among the deaf population, such as reliability, predictive validity, measurement properties of the tests.
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Jeffery P. Braden. (1994). Deafness, deprivation, and IQ. Springer.
See also. The study of deaf people since Braden (1994). Human Varieties.
The book is a compilation of studies on deaf people, which concludes that cultural deprivation due to deafness lowers verbal IQ but not nonverbal IQ. Braden sought to prove Arthur Jensen wrong about his conclusions on the genetic component in racial differences in IQ. At the end, his research culminated in a trauma well known to scientific history, namely, his perfectly good theory was ruined by his data. Being born deaf does not affect g. And genetic theories are the most powerful arguments to account for the pattern of the data.
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I analyze the LTT NAEP achievement scores, a public data set available at NCES. In general, minority-majority ethnic groups show a secular decline in d gap, for both math and reading tests, and this occurs at all ages of assessment (9, 13, 17), and at all percentile levels. Some exceptions are noteworthy. There is no secular gain at age 17 among whites, and no meaningful decline in black-white difference for the NAEP math at ages 13 and 17. Within each year of assessment, no evidence is provided for the hypothesis that the racial gaps (notably, the black-white gap) widen with age after entering schools. There was simply no trend at all.
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It must be known that a p-value, or any other statistics based on the Chi-Square, is not a useful number. It has two components : sample size and effect size. Its ability to detect a non-zero difference increases when either sample size or effect size increases. If only sample size increases, even with the other left constant, the statistics become inflated. There is also a problem with the assumption. If it is about the detection of “non-zero” difference, it is of no use if the magnitude, i.e., effect size, is of no importance. I will provide several examples of the dangerosity of the significance tests.
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It goes without saying that multiple regression is one of most popular and applied statistical methods. Thus, it would be odd if most practitioners among scientists and researchers do not understand and misapply it. And yet, this provocative conclusion seems most likely.
Because a simple bivariate correlation does not disentangle confounding effects, the multiple regression is said to be preferred. The technique attempts to evaluate the strength of an independent (predictor) variable in the prediction of an outcome (dependent) variable, when controlling, i.e., holding constant, every other variables entered (included) as independent variables into the regression model, either progressively step by step or altogether at the same time. The rationale is to get the effect of an independent variable that only belongs to it. But this is a fallacy.
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