Gina Kolata Via Brad DeLong


I would like to present an alternative hypothesis. The article basically makes a claim of fact -- that people develope Arthritis, heart disease and chronic lung disease at a much older age -- and presents a hypothesis -- that this is due to better health in early childhood, infancy and in the womb. The natural experiement of the Spanish flu provides direct evidence.

The basic reason for the long delayed costs of ill health very early in life (or just before) is that the diseases are not prevented by medical interventions (such as vaccination) and are not believed to have an infectious cause which could be blocked before we know about it by sanitation including water purification, sewage treatment etc. (I really did just delete two ceteras for space)

All very interesting, but I think the diseases in question might have infectious causes so the explanation might be sanitation.

Consider an example: stomach cancer. Over the past century, deaths due to stomach cancer have declined as dramatically as deaths due to lung cancer have increased. This was a mystery until it was discovered that stomach ulcers and stomach cancers are largely caused by helicobacter pilori, an infectious agent. Better sanitation thus explains the decline in stomach cancer (in developed countries).

Rheumatoid arthritis was unknown in the old world before 1492 (they had osteo arthritis but these are different syndromes and the diagnosis can be made from bones). It is very possible that it has an infectious cause brought from the Western hemisphere (syphillis in contrast is definitely an old world disease even if it was introduced to Europe from North Africa about then).

Heart disease can be caused the Streptococcus. More generally, heart disease seems to have something to do with inflamation which might have something to do with an infectious agent.

If the causes are infectious, it is at least possible that the agents will be found implying an even more dramatic improvement in the future.

This is just an effort to provoke thought. I don't really hope to take a heart disease vaccine before I die.

I hope this translation makes my blog clearer.

Can John Fund afford internet access ?

Media Matters quotes John Fund claiming "We have the same -- we have almost the same number of troops there [Saudi Arabia] that we had five years ago, about 16,000. Look it up."

Atrios is shocked by his ignorance. From the partial transcript it seems that Fund brought the issue up.

Well I knew that one minor motivation for the invasion of Iraq was the desire to redeploy out of Saudi Arabia, but I wasn't sure we had actually done so.

Let's ask google. First search for US Troops in Saudi Arabia. No need to click the links, the headlines are enough to show that Fund is full of it. Elapsed time 10 seconds (max).

How can anyone go on the air without googling a bit in the green room if necessary ?

Why doesn't Hardball have real time fact checking. There was a disagreement about a very public fact. It took 10 seconds for me to find proof that Green was right and Fund was wrong. Why doesn't Hardball have a staffer or two googling for facts ? I mean the disagreement should have been settled (by Matthews) on the air after a commercial break. In this case no need for a break.

Do Blogofascists Have More Integrity than Republicans ?

Sadly No ! At great personal risk your intrepid correspondent discovered the paintbrushed version of this image at Sadly NO

They are not currently displaying this crude sexist and unacceptable version



Which can still be found in the Googleplex Stash.

Camper boy has left a new comment on your post "8/12/2006 12:43:00 PM":

Cute blog. Not really great. Just cute. Nice pic, though.

Primary Colors

Michael O'Hare is worried about being stuck for hours in O'Hare because of insane new flight security regulations and argues "A book is a low-tech object that can be X-rayed and riffled to confirm that it's what it appears to be;". I believe he is referring to the act of running the book's pages past your fingers like shuffling cards. The English word for this act is "to rifle" not "to riffle" which would be what a breaze does to still waters.


Hmmm remember the book "Primary Colors" written by Anonymous who turned out to be Joe Klein ? How did it turn out ? Seems Klein used "riffled" for "rifled" (IIRC the context was exactly riffling the pages of a book). Makes me wonder if anyone has ever seen Michael O'Hare and Joe Klein in the same room at the same time.

Naaaah. Michael O'Hare is an extremely thoughtful and intelligent commentator. Klein is a wanker. But wait didn't people read "Primary Colors" from cover to cover. The status of Roman a Clef without a Clef could have gotten people past page 10, but evidently, the author is someone who can write. Now Klein eventually admitted to being "anonymous" causing a great scandal, a 3 week leave of absence, and a huge lift for his career.

hmmmmm. Anyone know where O'Hare was in 1992 ?


update: I admit that, since the "Primary Colors" took place in the 20th century way back in the age of the dinosaurs, the only evidence I found was in comments on blogs. Thus I am guilty of Nutpicking and, for all I know, "a book is a low-tech object that can be X-rayed and riffled" is correct English. My google search.

Separated at Birth ?



Technological Progress in Ventriloquists' Dummies

or

Eugene McCarthy '68 Charlie McCarthy '06

or

His Lips Move but Karl Rove is Talking


or


Separated at Birth ?


or

Joe and Charles McCarthy


(last one no good. Joe ... McCarthy is fighting words where I comes from).


Image courtesy of The Institute for Contemporary Music. I don't know if it is public domain.

Please Please continue the caption suggestions in comments.

On 8/11/06, Joe wrote:

You should have it end like this:

or

Joe and Charles McCarthy

or

Liebermannequin

Robert tries

"Now we know why Dick Cheney talks without moving his lips"

Lost in Cyberspace

Lieberman concedes primary to Lamont. He also says he is running as an independent. I think it is obvious that no honorable person can participate in a vote then decide that the outcome doesn't matter. Liberman could have honorably chosen to not contest the primary and to run as an independent. No person with any respect for democracy of fair play can play heads I win tails we flip again.

The sad sad story of Joe Lieberman meets the 21st century had a very very appropriate twist when his campaign's site went down. The lieberteam decided that this fit the narrative of blogofascists attaching the last civil and honest man and claimed that the site was hacked. They also admit they were paying "a bit more" than $15 a month for their partial share of a web server. Now one of those things about elections is that interest tends to peak around the day of the election. A site which had barely adequate capacity for months will crash soon before the election.

The Blogobarbarians are laughing at Lieberman's expense.
and laughing and laughing and laughing

The last is the best. Life is made of priorities and, it seems, that Lieberman's internet consultant doesn't have time to figure out what happened (or get the site up again) because he is too busy making unsupported accusations

Lieberman's internet consultant Dan Geary, who oversees Joe2006.com, says he's still sure that their site suffered a "malicious attack." But when pressed, he said that they weren't sure that it was a "Denial of Service" attack, as he'd said earlier. He didn't have any more information about the nature of the supposed attack. "I've spent 99% of my time speaking [to reporters] about the story," he said.

Maybe could save some time with "I don't know. I'll get back to you when I know something. What is your e-mail address ?"

Jonathan Zasloff asks I answer

The answer to your question depends on what you mean by "Europeans". Western European governments were on board for Kosovo and Afghanistan so they did not denounce the bombings (except for bombing the Chinese embassy in Belgrade which caused the prime minister of Italy to say too many mistakes were being made). European commentators and journalists were IIRC quite enthusiastic about denouncing NATO bombing of Serbia to the extent that I found the voices pointing out that they had been calling for the USA to do something about Kosovo quite lonely.

I live in Italy. My sense was that public opinion was strongly against the Clinton administration on Kosovo.

As to Afghanistan well 9-11 changed everything for a while. Certainly civilian deaths due to US bombing were reported and many people thought the US should have done better in, for example, not bombing more than one ICRC warehouse in Kabul. My recollection of the war certainly includes recollection of extensive coverage of the US bombing a village tucked into a ravine that looked to someone like a terrorist camp and, of course, extensive extensive discussion of the US bombing red cross buildings (with huge red crosses on their roofs) in Kabul.

If people relying on US news sources have the impression that no one was denouncing the USAF for bombing neutral embassies, civilian targets, and the red cross in both wars, then my concern about the US MSM just turned into panic.

update: Also Matthew Yglesias has a body count and notes that 500<10,000.

The Accidental Realist

I define a realist as someone who believes that true statements are statements which correspond to reality, that is, people who accept that there is an external reality and objective truth. I do not assume that a realist thinks such truths must be knowable, that is a realist must believe that ontological objectivity is possible but may believe that epistomological objectivity is mythological like, say, pegasus.

I think everyone is a realist. I don't think it is humanly possible to get away from it. This doesn't mean we are right (or that we exist outside of the feavered dreams of your brain). I think that basic principles of Quantum mechanics are undeniable but just won't fit in a human brain, so that the claims of physicists seem to be logically inconsistent and definitely false even when they are just describing the results of experiments.

In any case, many people who claim to reject realism fail to do so. Let me consider the case of Prof Stanley Fish (again). He is a smart guy. He claims he is not a realist. He writes in English not in semi translated French. He has a weird view about what a professor may and may not do

it shows us where the line between the responsible and irresponsible practice of academic freedom should always be drawn. Any idea can be brought into the classroom if the point is to inquire into its structure, history, influence and so forth. But no idea belongs in the classroom if the point of introducing it is to recruit your students for the [snip] agenda it may be thought to imply.

[big snip]

Not at all. It is perfectly possible to teach a viewpoint without embracing it and urging it. But the moment a professor does embrace and urge it, academic study has ceased and been replaced by partisan advocacy.

Here Fish seems to say that a fair and balanced professor must teach as if all theories are created equal. He makes no exceptions. In particular he makes no exceptions for natural sciences. His view is that realism has no place in the academy.

However, professor Fish falls into a contradiction. His argument is general. It is not restricted to particular fields of inquiry. It applies to all fields of inquiry and, therefore, it applies to the particular field of inquiry called "intellectual history". When a professor discusses the "structure, history, influence and so forth" of an idea he or she takes a stand on potentially controversial debates in the study of the history of ideas. When the professor claims that the history of this idea is x, the professor makes many claims about the real world. For example the professor typically assumes that books do in fact exist outside of the professors mind and that they were written by people who are more or less the same sort of thing as the professor and the students.

You can't escape from talking about the real world by talking about the world of human ideas, because human beings are part of the real world. You can't discuss the history of the idea that there is no objective reality without implicitely conceding that there is such a history and therefore there is an objective reality.

For some reason, some people seem to think that the particular atoms that are ink on paper are different. The aspect of human history which is classified as intellectual history is different. That a professor can't propound a theory of what happened on September 11 2001, but can propound a theory on what happened when the rev Berkeley drank a bit too much pine water.

Fish is deliberately provacative, but the view is shared by someone who is deliberately not provacative -- Isaiah Berlin. It is clearly nonsense. Why do smart people believe it?

Brad DeLong makes peace with Tom Ricks first by telling people to listen to him on the radio and now in this interesting post. I thought I had something useful to say about it, but I don't so I won't pollute Brad's comment thread with my comment which I dump here.


I remember reading Hicks's explanation years ago written by Michael Ignatieff (sp? google wont show it to me) about how reporters didn't report the truth on Iraq because of their "professionalism" which requires them to present views that range from the main stream of the Democratic party to the [main stream of the Republican party] loony right.

Evidently Kucinic and and the love one another caucus aren't main stream enough to count (Drew agrees and so do I) and Harkin etc aren't either. This is, as has been noted by many people, absolutely aweful. If the press is obliged to accept the conventional wisdom (of politicians most ordinary people weren't on board yet) then they are worthless.

Hicks actually puts it a different way. He says his editors said there was no need to inform a debate about whether Iraq should be invaded, because it was going to happen anyway, so the debate didn't matter. The slogan appears to be "don't speak truth to power". This is also what Drumheller claims he was told when he expressed doubts about curve ball. This definitely has nothing to do with finding and reporting the truth. Also it shows (again) that the Post's editors do not see their job as informing their readers but rather as influencing politicians. Only powerful people count. If they agree the matter is decided. The public doesn't matter.

Also interesting is the dread Kurtz line about "objective". I think that Auros puts it exactly right "Kurtz has -- like most media figures -- confused "objective" and "impartial". If one has a liking for -- a partiality towards -- actual, factual truth, then it is difficult to remain impartial in the face of lies and stupidity." Yes that's it. "Fair" and "objective" are used to mean "balanced" and "impartial". It is not enough to refrain from drawing conclusions without proof, it is necessary to draw no conclusions even if there is proof. This reminds me of Stanley Fish who wrote that it was unacceptable for a professor to advocate any theory (including one assumes the germ theory of diseases).

However my point, such as it is, is about Ricks' reply. He interprets the question as one about being frozen out by the defence department, or maybe he interprets as an accusation that he is not supporting the troops. Now, given the awefulness of the question answering the question that Kurtz should have asked might be a diplomatic way to avoid accepting Kurtz's premise, but I think that there is a third meaning of "objective" as in "one should be objective" = "one should reach no conclusions even with proof beyond reasonable doubt" = "one should maintain access". It seems to me that they have become confused leaving reporters vulnerable to the Rovian technique of giving access only to people who would write "opinions about shape of earth differ."

Hmmm access. Once I mentioned this as a case of failure of the invisible hand (which guides the marketplace of ideas as well as the marketplace). Typically the selfish aim to be a top reporter is useful, because typically the way to be a top reporter is to report interesting and important news. However, some reporters (and newspapers) are prominent because they get the top leaks. Thus when the administration of the day wants to get a theme out but doesn't want their names attached, they leak to reporters from a few top newspapers. This makes the newspapers and reporters important to people trying to figure out what is going on in the White House. However, the reporters have not done anything socially useful. The White House will get its line out and will leak to another reporter if they are mad at those who used to get the good leaks. The effort to get the leaks serves the selfish aim of the reporter who wants to be important but it adds nothing to the information available to readers. Reporters who put a pro-administration spin on the leaks they get are serving their own interests at the expense of the public interest.

Now it should be possible to change this, because a lot of what reporters are after is bragging rights. The condemnation of source buffing reporting on the web might alleviate the problem. On the other hand, the proper use of carrots and sticks is to whack those who misbehave and give carrots when they reform. The Brad and Billmon approach has been to remind the reformed of their past misdeads. This does not creat useful incentives, so I am very glad that Brad has made peace with Ricks.

Comments:

brad has left a new comment on your post "8/08/2006 08:51:00 AM":

I think this is insightful and interesting...

Auros has left a new comment on your post "8/08/2006 08:51:00 AM":

A fantastic post. And really, I'm not just saying that because I appreciate the citation. :-)

Searching for Cyber Space's worst kept secrets I look at the Technorati popular blogs list.

They are ranked by the number of technorati members who select them as their favorit blog. As expected techno geek blogs outnumbered political blogs at the top.

Showing my conventional tastes I actually really like this blog (assuming it is authentic).

But I am horrified that Michelle Malkin is the favorite of 3 more members than Kos.
Being singular I can only go 1 third of the way towards solving this problem

Also che cazzo fa Beppe Grillo soppra Atrios.

New Slogan inspired by TBogg

Via Michael Berube who is brilliant as always, I learn of an op-ed by Stanley Fish in some obscure journal

I will quote it with ruthless snips aiming to make it sound idiotic without being at all unfair.


KEVIN BARRETT, a lecturer at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, has now taken his place alongside [another academic] of the University of Colorado as a college teacher whose views on [topic] have led politicians and ordinary citizens to demand that he be fired.

[snip]


Rather, academic freedom is the freedom of academics to study anything they like; the freedom, that is, to subject any body of material, however unpromising it might seem, to academic interrogation and analysis [insert to academics do anything other than interrogation and analysis with material].

[snip]

In short, whether something is an appropriate object of academic study is a matter not of its content — a crackpot theory may have had a history of influence that well rewards scholarly scrutiny — but of its availability to serious analysis [insert are the subjects of academic study all theories or are there other subjects of study such as "golf tees" which are not theories]. This point was missed by the author of a comment posted to the blog of a University of Wisconsin law professor, Ann Althouse: “When is the University of Wisconsin hiring a professor of [theory 2]?” The question is obviously sarcastic; its intention is to equate the [theory 1] with believing in the predictive power of [snip] and to imply that since the university wouldn’t think of hiring someone to teach the one, it should have known better than to hire someone to teach the other.

But the truth is that it would not be at all outlandish for a university to hire someone to teach [theory 2] — not to profess astrology and recommend it as the basis of decision-making (shades of [snip]), but to teach the history of its very long career. There is, after all, a good argument for saying that [snip], [snip] and [snip], among others, cannot be fully understood unless one understands [theory 2].

The distinction I am making — between studying [theory 2] and proselytizing for it — is crucial and can be generalized; it shows us where the line between the responsible and irresponsible practice of academic freedom should always be drawn. Any idea can be brought into the classroom if the point is to inquire into its structure, history, influence and so forth. But no idea belongs in the classroom if the point of introducing it is to recruit your students for the [snip] agenda it may be thought to imply.

And this is where we come back to Mr. Barrett, who, in addition to being a college lecturer, is a member of a group calling itself [group on the web] an organization with the decidedly [snip] agenda of persuading Americans that [theory 1]

Is the fact of this group’s growing presence on the Internet a reason for studying it [snip]? Sure. Is the instructor who discusses the group’s arguments thereby endorsing them? Not at all. It is perfectly possible to teach a viewpoint without embracing it and urging it. But the moment a professor does embrace and urge it, academic study has ceased and been replaced by partisan advocacy. And that is a moment no college administration should allow to occur.

[snip]

I have removed most of the op-ed but I don't think I have done any violence to Fish's argument at all. In particular he does not in any way rely on the two exact theories he is discussing. His argument would be equally valid, I think, if theory 1 were the ory of evolution by natural selection and theory 2 were the theory of special relativity. Fish very clearly says that professors should not "embrace and urge" any particular theory.

He also assumes that all academics study theories developing theories of theories. Some do, for example he does, but others study things. For example biologists might want to confront the theory of evolutionary biology by disecting worms. Worms are not theories yet they are a suitable subject for academic inquiry. When considering the theory of natural selection biologists to not consider only its "structure, history, influence and so forth" but also the relationship of this biological theory to worms.

Fish is able to explain why one might wish to discuss theories which are totally false and do not correspond to reality. He seems to assume all theories are such theories. Evidently he does not wish to be subjected to people whose professors in medical school chose to "embrace and urge" the theory that penicillin kills bacteria.
I'm sure he would only go to a doctor who had been taught to keep an open mind about the germ theory of disease, that is, if he is not both a hypocrite and a pompous ass.

I think that not all theories are equally valid. To live we have to choose among them, to make a decision, are we to consider theories of theories and debates about debates or are we going to observe the world. What is worthy of our attention ? I choose cut bait over Fish.

At this rate I'll be a chicken dove before I turn 46

As Satchell Paige said "don't look back something might be gaining on you"

Hirohito Watch


The theory that Iran stands "alongside all oppressed nations" seems less plausible.

Matthew Yglesias

I wonder why Hillary Clinton Doesn't look worried

Her opponent, KT McFarland, when arguing that her husband (Bill you know) was responsible for 9/11 said "

McFARLAND: Tell that to 2,000 people who died.

OK she didn't say "tell that to the 2,000 people who died on September 10th 2002 while Bill Clinton was president," but I think she did as much as is humanly possible to help the Clinton campaign.

I know numbers can be tricky things but I wonder if 2,000 New Yorkers are going to vote for this McFarland person.

Burns Flames Firefighters

heh In-deed.

via Brad De-Long

Violence in Defence of Guild Priviledge

Most economists are not used to being threatened with harassment for advocating pro market policies. In Italy advocates of competition are considered enemies to abuse violently if necessary. In today"s Corriere Della Sera I read

Strappa il volantino dei tassisti, lo picchiano
Giovane aggredito a Milano per aver cestinato un comunicato in cui si invitava a disturbare a colpi di clacson l'economista Giavazzi


MILANO — L'invito: «Passando sotto casa del nostro amico, rivolgetegli un saluto con qualche colpo di clacson». Le indicazioni: «Giorno e notte». L'istigazione: «Ora e per il resto della sua vita». In calce al manifesto, comparso ieri sotto la pensilina di una fermata dei taxi, indirizzo e numero di telefono del professor Francesco Giavazzi, docente della Bocconi, economista ed editorialista del Corriere della Sera. L'accusa: avere opinioni contrarie al pensare comune dei tassisti. Sedici righe di intimidazioni, accuse, caustica ironia.
Per aver staccato il manifesto, dopo averlo letto e giudicato «incivile», un ignaro passante si è ritrovato sotto una scarica di pugni.

That is

He tore down a poster of the taxi drivers and they beat him up

A youth was attached in Milan for having trashed a message which suggested bothering the economist Giavazzi with taxi horns.

Milan: The invitations "passing under the house of our friend great him by honking" instructions "day and night" ... "for the rest of his life" on the page posted yesterday at a taxi stop, the address and telephone number of prof. Francesco Giavazzi, professor at Bocconi University and columnist for the Corriere Della Sera. The accusation: having opinions different from the consensus of taxi drivers. 16 lines of intimidation, accusations and caustic irony.

For remobing the manifesto, after having read it and judging it to be "uncivil" an unknowing passerby found himself under a flood of punches.

Further details. The guy, Marco M, was interviewed in the emergency room of a hospital with bruises and cuts. Between the offence of removing the call to abuse an economist guilty of believing in reduced protection of taxi drivers from competition and the assault there were words exchanged and the victim spat on a taxi driver. Notice that Mr M does not want his name to be published since he dared the offence of lese tassista.

I think economists around the world should declare solidarity with prof Giavazzi and, especially Marco M.

OK so big news from Josh Marshall made me interupt my vacation from blogging
(also I am upset that no one and I mean not one single person complained).

Also I raised the issue of the heritability of intelligence. This is a very very delicate topic so I will plunge right in.

Kevin Drum has an interesting post presenting data which seems to contradict his analysis.

He notes that twin studies suggest that, if variation in IQ can be decomposed into hereditary and environmental components (a big if) then the hereditary component is larger than the environmental componenent. In fact, they suggest that it is slightly larger -- on the order of 60% of the variance. He argues that this understates the amount of IQ variation due to environmental factors since twin studies look only at adopted people and most adopters are middle to upper class. This is a good point (it is also worth noting that some of the most convincing studies which weren't completely fraudulent were conducted in Scandanavia which is not the place to look for effects of inequality). Thus one would guess that, if a decomposition makes sense, the environmental component is larger than the hereditary component.

Then he notes a study which does not use twins and but looks at IQ based on the very rough socioeconomic class of biological and adoptive parents. The study finds that the IQ's of people with poor biological parents and non poor adoptive parents are very slightly lower than the IQ's of people with non poor biological parents and non poor adoptive parents. Drum seems to think this shows environment is more important than suggested by twin studies. It doesn't. To the extent that it suggests anything it suggests that variance due to congenital factors is slightly greater than variance due to post adoption environmental factors. This is in line with twin studies.

So what about Drum's very convincing argument which suggests that twin studies underestimate the relative importance of environment compared to genetics ? I think the explanation is based on the difference between "congenital" and "genetic" that is "present at birth" and "heritable indefinitely at least for millions of years". Congenital factors which are not genetic include maternal malnutrition, maternal smoking, maternal alcohol consumption and maternal crack consumption and maternal expose to lead. There are many factors which differ between the biological offspring of the poor and non poor which have nothing to do with genes. Each of the factors I mention is strongly associated with both IQ and mothers' income.

As to "if variation in IQ can be decomposed into hereditary and environmental components" this is only possible if IQ is the sum of a part due to genes and a part due to the environment, that is, if the effects are additively seperable. Clearly this is not true if any environmental factor is a function of a genetic factor. Consider IQ in Southern states of the USA for people who attended school before (at the earliest) Brown vs Board of Education (to be reasonable in all US States at any time up to the present) or in Apartheid South Africa. Skin color is definitely highly heritable (has to do with exposure to the sun too). It affects the budget of the school one attented if one lived in those places at those times. That budget affects measured IQ (look at IQ by US state if you doubt this). Thus IQ was highly heritable then and there because race as defined there and then is 100% heritable. I know I didn't notice this obvious point on my own. I think I may have gotten it from Jonathan Chait but then again maybe not.

update: See also this which I didn't notice the first time around and which only appears because the editors is whomping on Andrew Sullivan. Also just this second I notice that Mark Klieman makes the point about congenital and genetic somewhat more concisely than I did (and with no big words).

"Kevin Drum is right to say that studies of separately adopted twins have long been considered the gold standard in research on the heritability of IQ. But I've never understood why. Each twin in a pair spends nine crucial months in precisely the same environment, and an environment whose quality varies strongly with social class."

To be fair to twin studiers who didn't just make the data up (that is who are not Sir Cyril Burt) they compare fraternal and identical twins. So they look at pairs all of whom shared a womb and all of whom were raised by different parents some of whom had all the same genes and some of whom have half the same genes and half different genes. Differences in experience in the womb do not appear either as genetic or as environmental differences. Thus the ratio is post natal environmental vs genetic out of the sum of the two. The variance due to prenatal environmental factors is not estimated in twin studies. Thus my idea as to why the results from the new studies aer similar to results from twin studies even though Drum's criticism of twin studies is convincing. There is a similar problem in the new study which is that it lumps 9 months of crucial environment with genetics (not that there is anything the authors cold have done about it or any hint that they didn't understand and discuss the issue).

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "7/27/2006 11:56:00 PM":

This assumes that intelligence can be measured. We can all site examples of people who are intelligent about some things and stupid at others. I understand the scientific need to study and measure things but when it comes to the brain, they have a long way to go. When building on previous knowledge, it is important to have a solid foundation to stand on and not just pretend that you do. By now it should be clear to everyone that the brain especially at a young age has enormous potential for learning.

yes Anonymous that is certainly true. Why at this site alone I can cite two examples of people who have interesting things to say but can't spell to save our lives. More generally scores on IQ tests are useful in predicting life outcomes. The tests measure something that matters. This does not mean that it corresponds to the ordinary meaning of the word "intelligence" but there is solid evidence that IQ test scores are correlated with something interesting and important.


?
Tilted Edge has left a new comment on your post "7/27/2006 11:56:00 PM":

This assumes that intelligence can be measured. We can all site examples of people who are intelligent about some things and stupid at others. I understand the scientific need to study and measure things but when it comes to the brain, they have a long way to go. When building on previous knowledge, it is important to have a solid foundation to stand on and not just pretend that you do. By now it should be clear to everyone that the brain especially at a young age has enormous potential for learning.

Also some very smart people have trouble dealing with blogger sometimes.


Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "7/27/2006 11:56:00 PM":

If you are ever have a psychological evaluation, one of the first questions you will be asked is "Did you Graduate from college?" In my opinion this should have nothing to do with your mental state but statistically they find that college graduates have better mental health so they ask you this question. This is bullshit.


?
Tilted Edge has left a new comment on your post "7/27/2006 11:56:00 PM":

Yes and legibility in handwriting skills surely are not a measure of intelligence.

Josh Marshall is Expecting

he wrote "my dear pregnant wife".

Now I don't want to add to the suspicions caused by my having something good to say about R.J. Herrnstein, but I can't deny that I expect average human IQ to increase in the near future.


?
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "7/27/2006 11:45:00 PM":

I thought he was just trying to make clear which wife he was refering to, distinguishing her from the dear one who is not pregnant!

ah yes I understand anonymous' point. Josh Marshall not an islamofascist but, who knows, perhaps a polygynoliberal.