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IQ testing was recently found to be highly driven by response to difficult challenges, and could be influenced significantly by just tuning the rewards for part

IQ testing was recently found to be highly driven by response to difficult challenges, and could be influenced significantly by just tuning the rewards for participants doing well. Which suggests that measuring iq is a pretty fraught science, if you are trying to draw conclusions about heritable intelligence... https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10990577/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10990577/

seizethecheese 10mo ago
I would guess that people will do better on just about any test when given a reward for good performance.
- Joel_Mckay 10mo ago
  The highest IQ man in history chose to be a plumber. =3
testtaker 10mo ago
which will bias all correlations towards zero, while height measurement is very accurate. yet iq inheritability is only a bit lower, around 80%
- tptacek 10mo ago
  The most generous twin study numbers get you to 80%; modern study designs get you nowhere close to that. This is the "missing heritability" crisis.
  - testtaker 10mo ago
    [dead]
    - tptacek 10mo ago
      This is a restatement of 1990s-vintage science. It almost can't (it very probably isn't, but it's close to mathematically refuted) be true that simple twin study designs are correct about behavioral traits: parents mate assortatively, with large correlations specifically on education, so it's quite unlikely that fraternal twins have 50% shared genes for behavioral traits. Don't see the term "assortative mating" in an article like this? It's trying to sell you something. (There are other broken assumptions in classic twin studies as well; this is just an easy one to describe). This is the reason we have modern modalities like RDR (invented by a hereditarian!) and sibling regression. Noah Carl's Wikipedia page is some interesting background (the author of the Aporia piece you provided). Enjoy!
      - testtaker 10mo ago
        [flagged]
      - testtaker 10mo ago
        [flagged]
Aurornis 10mo ago
If you give the same test to different people under completely different reward conditions, nobody is going to be surprised when the results are different. IQ tests are far from perfect, but when the same test is administered to different groups under the same conditions it can be reasonable to draw some signal out of the differences between groups. Generally in a study like this the people administering the test wouldn't even know which group each person belonged to. It's common knowledge that IQ tests aren't perfect, but your linked paper doesn't debunk their usefulness in a study like this. Not unless the researchers unblinded themselves and offered one group a large reward, which would be a much bigger problem than the use of IQ tests.
- powerclue 10mo ago
  You see how that's worse, right? That both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation to comply with the test can swing numbers, so choosing exactly one set of conditions necessarily benefits one group over another rather than creating an environment where everyone performs at their local optimum.
  - naasking 10mo ago
    > rather than creating an environment where everyone performs at their local optimum. There's likely no such thing, so your best bet is to conduct the tests under a variety of conditions and aggregate the results. This has been the case for IQ for almost a century.
  - Aurornis 10mo ago
    You’re really stretching. It’s a test. They’re not dangling marshmallows or $100 bills in front of some participants but not others dependent on results. In a study like this they may not even see the results.

seizethecheese 10mo ago

I would guess that people will do better on just about any test when given a reward for good performance.

Joel_Mckay 10mo ago
The highest IQ man in history chose to be a plumber. =3

testtaker 10mo ago

which will bias all correlations towards zero, while height measurement is very accurate. yet iq inheritability is only a bit lower, around 80%

tptacek 10mo ago
The most generous twin study numbers get you to 80%; modern study designs get you nowhere close to that. This is the "missing heritability" crisis.
- testtaker 10mo ago
  [dead]
  - tptacek 10mo ago
    This is a restatement of 1990s-vintage science. It almost can't (it very probably isn't, but it's close to mathematically refuted) be true that simple twin study designs are correct about behavioral traits: parents mate assortatively, with large correlations specifically on education, so it's quite unlikely that fraternal twins have 50% shared genes for behavioral traits. Don't see the term "assortative mating" in an article like this? It's trying to sell you something. (There are other broken assumptions in classic twin studies as well; this is just an easy one to describe). This is the reason we have modern modalities like RDR (invented by a hereditarian!) and sibling regression. Noah Carl's Wikipedia page is some interesting background (the author of the Aporia piece you provided). Enjoy!
    - testtaker 10mo ago
      [flagged]
    - testtaker 10mo ago
      [flagged]

Aurornis 10mo ago

If you give the same test to different people under completely different reward conditions, nobody is going to be surprised when the results are different. IQ tests are far from perfect, but when the same test is administered to different groups under the same conditions it can be reasonable to draw some signal out of the differences between groups. Generally in a study like this the people administering the test wouldn't even know which group each person belonged to. It's common knowledge that IQ tests aren't perfect, but your linked paper doesn't debunk their usefulness in a study like this. Not unless the researchers unblinded themselves and offered one group a large reward, which would be a much bigger problem than the use of IQ tests.

powerclue 10mo ago
You see how that's worse, right? That both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation to comply with the test can swing numbers, so choosing exactly one set of conditions necessarily benefits one group over another rather than creating an environment where everyone performs at their local optimum.
- naasking 10mo ago
  > rather than creating an environment where everyone performs at their local optimum. There's likely no such thing, so your best bet is to conduct the tests under a variety of conditions and aggregate the results. This has been the case for IQ for almost a century.
- Aurornis 10mo ago
  You’re really stretching. It’s a test. They’re not dangling marshmallows or $100 bills in front of some participants but not others dependent on results. In a study like this they may not even see the results.