There is nothing in the field of psychology with better support than IQ. If you aren't going to accept IQ, then you've entirely tossed out the field of psychology. There is nothing left.
This is not true. See Wikipedia[0][1][2].
IQ actually holds little support, compared with (e.g.) bilateral sound recognition, or somatotopic arrangement on the postcentral gyrus. (Among psychologists, that is; IQ probably has more support amongst the general population, because it's pop-pseudoscience.)
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_race_and_intell...
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient#IQ_testi...
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient#Validity...
Had it been completely pop-pseudoscience it would not be used by, say, the Swedish school system as a tool to gauge whether someone has special needs that warrant another form of school with extra support. The tests used are however not the same as most people have done online, like WAIS (but for kids. Can't remember the name of it).
They would be so correlated even if they were a bad metric. Imagine a score that multiplies academic success and the highest Tetris score obtained within 100 miles of your birthplace, then subtracts 50 points if you're a girl. That would also be positively correlated with academic success.
IQ tests measure something, yes, but they're not magic. (See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law) I received a high-quality education including what amounts to IQ-test tuition (to pass an entrance exam); do you know of any studies that attempt to factor out this particular confounder?
Ah, yes. The g factor: “that which is measured by IQ tests”.
The main arguments for IQ tests, as far as I understand, that they correlate with an assortment of cognitive metrics, which all correlate with each other. This is a question. “It's the g factor” is not an answer; you've just stuck a circularly-defined label on the question (or, rather, on a particular frequentist analysis of the question) and declared it solved.
Do you see a problem there?
The g factor—or more descriptively—the theory of general intelligence has little support outside of the field of psychometrics. And the field of psychometrics is not known for it’s scientific rigor. Needless to say, there is little reason to believe that the theory of general intelligence has any grounds in reality, nor that the g factor exists outside of an operationally defined concept that might not hold any descriptive power for human behavior outside of a narrow setting of pen and paper tests.
It seems stable because of how age is adjusting for and the huge sweet spot where 64.2% of the population is grouped between 85 and 115. Basically people with significant developmental disabilities at 5 don’t suddenly become normal, but an IQ of 180 at 5 isn’t stable long term.
My point is this, IQ seems to have signal. It probably doesn't hold up in extreme circumstances. Psychology in particular seems to have a difficult time holding large enough studies to find universal constants that we should accept that IQ might be the best local approxination for now.
You can read papers saying IQ texts on 2 year olds are strongly correlated with adult IQ, but read the details and individual people’s scores varied wildly.
So sure in aggregate it seems consistent, but that’s largely an artifact of test design. Someone with mental handicaps so profound as to be non communicative will consistently score very low, it doesn’t mean much for the general population.
No serious IQ test claim to measure much more than 2 standard deviations up and down (meaning they all break down somewhere above 130-135 or below 70). I have done WISC/WAIS three times (as a part of a psychological assessment) and the conversion to IQ scores were within 3 points (the WAIS/WISC scale measures many different abilities, and can be converted to an "aggregate" IQ score). I asked about this and when people are healthy the tester said people tend to score very similarly on tests, even many years apart.
The issue with the underlying raw score at 90+ is it doesn’t map very well to a bell curve. Many people are quite healthy but a significant number are drastically reduced from their younger self.
Someone is using IQ tests for their intended purpose?!
Not that it’s actually useful.
Who really cares if psychology goes the way of the dodo?
If IQ is all the field has produced that’s of value and we’ve been doing grand engineering and science things since before it was around (grand in then contemporary context perhaps) what’s the field really getting us?
Does it build infrastructure, feed people, and heal wounds?
Given human propensity for shallow vanity and gatekeeping it often tends to be used along those lines.
Having a high IQ does not equal more political power over anyone.
The answer to all these is yes.
> Build infrastructure
Maybe not build but affects design. Civil engineers often use models from cognitive psychologists during the planing phase. E.g. how tall and how luminescent should the traffic lights be to optimize energy savings without risking safety? Or close to a dense population center can we build an airport before the sound pollution starts posing public health risks? Or even: “Is it wise to build water pipes with lead?’
> Feed people
To the same extent that quantum mechanics feeds people, by granting jobs and building models, maybe optimize some aspects of food distribution. A psychologist certainly can affect what food people choose. Food companies have a bunch of psychologists working in their marketing. And governments might hire psychologists to help persuade people to eat healthier food.
> heal wounds
This one is easy. Depression is a deadly disease. Psychotherapy is our best way to treat mild to moderate depression. And even sever depression is best treated with drugs and psychotherapy. Psychologists are saving lives every day. You asked about feeding people above, many people have been cured of anorexia because of psychologists. Behavior therapy is the best way we know of to treat many phobias and obsessive compulsive behavior. PTSD can develop into deadly depression if left untreated. This is also prevented with psychotherapy.
Note that none of the above examples have anything to do with IQ. If IQ goes away, psychologists will still continue their work in improving and saving peoples lives with better infrastructure, better public health policies, and by literally healing (or at least treating) peoples wounds.
It is true that the debate about general intelligence is huge. So you see a lot of papers written about it. But this is a subfield inside psychology (in fact a subfield of psychometrics which is a subfield of psychology; the whole field of psychometrics invoking skepticism among many scientist).
I’m gonna do you a favor and list sub-fields of psychology that work regardless of the theory of general intelligence and therefor work just fine without IQ:
* Cognitive psychology (and computational psychology)
* Neuropsychology
* Social psychology (and psychological sociology)
* Pathological Psychology and Psychiatry
* Developmental psychology (although they might use IQ tests; but for different reason as psychometricians do)
* Psychological first aid (not a science but a method; similar to paramedics but for trauma victims)
And here are some generic theories inside psychology which have nothing to do with—and might reject—the theory of general intelligence.
* Behaviorism
* Neurological determinism
* Evolutionary psychology
* Psychoanalysis
Even inside psychometrics (which is the believe that any psychological effect that exists is measurable; and that operational definition is a legitimate way to describe psychological effect) I bet there are people that reject the theory of general intelligence on the grounds that IQ is not measuring general intelligence, but something else.
Huh. That's quite a bold and incorrect claim. Are you a psychologist?
(self-reply because I can no longer edit the comment)
https://youtu.be/D7Kn5p7TP_Y?t=2938
For anybody interested in personality research, I warmly recommend this lecture series, by the way. These are the basics, which psychology students learn at university.
"If men are pushed too hard to feminize they will become more and more interested in harsh, fascist political ideology."
"the current hierarchy might be predicated on competence." [referring to men being placed higher than women in society]
""Peterson says that "disciplines like women's studies should be defunded", advising freshman students to avoid subjects like sociology, anthropology, English literature, ethnic studies, and racial studies, as well as other fields of study that he believes are corrupted by "post-modern neo-Marxists".""
He also has a bible series on YouTube that asserts that god created the appropriate hierarchy of man, and that it should not be tampered with. We should mold society on the archetype of the book of Genesis. Which in my humble opinion is simply Calvinism in the extreme.
Most of this can be found on YouTube or his Wikipedia page.
This is not to say everything he says is wrong, that would be silly. But I believe it should be approached with a heavy dose of skepticism.
Not a Peterson acolyte, a Jungian, or even right wing for that matter, but I'm a political philosophy junkie so I have some familiarity with Peterson's claims, mostly from watching debates and listening to arguments. And I will say this, your random out of context quoting, and hiding behind "check his Wikipedia page and YouTube yourself" is the same sophistry you're accusing him of. To give just one example, the claims around Western Civilization you bring up imply neo fascism, while they are in defense of Enlightenment ideals. Forget Peterson, there has been a debate between idealists and materialists about the value of Enlightenment ideals since the horrors of WWII (Frankfurt School being prominent critics), and a defense in the 90s by Idealists and classical liberals (The End of History) and an attacks by Postmodernists since the 70s (Foucault et. al).
Today there still is that debate, because the Postmodernist epistemology dominates and both other dominant alternatives, let's call them free market Western liberals and Marxists, don't agree. For you to summarize the debate Peterson weighs in on as a Western superiority is straight up manipulation on your part. You hide behind the manipulation by telling readers to go to his Wikipedia page and YouTube videos as if you've just cited something.
I only implied that saying men will become fascists if they are feminized is ludicrous. Does "postmodernism" mean feminizing men? And I suggest that the idea of men having rightfully taken their god given place higher up the hierarchy of society, is Calvinistic, by definition this is true. Is this what you think is "western superiority"? because I don't think I've ever said those two words together in my life. I also don't think I quoted out of context. Though it seems you feel the context reaches as far back as the enlightenment, in this way I have not given a history of the world before judging Peterson's arguments as something that should be met with skepticism.
I really do mean to go check it out for yourself. All the quotes I grabbed were from the Wikipedia page, I have not hidden anything. I've seen very little of what Peterson has to say, but all of it strikes me as very crackpot like. If I were a professor and publishing psychology papers I do agree my "citations" would not be up to snuff. But I am not either of those things and was not attempting to cite him in that manner. I think there should be more proof to the legitimacy of Peterson being a scientist rather than my HN comment needing more proof that he is not.
I just think it's not fair to quote - anyone - out of context, referencing a Wikipedia collection of a few quotations, and finger that as proof of insane or bad or incorrect views. Your explanation of his views is about as long or longer than the quotes you're referring to. These are extremely nuanced, complex issues, and to summarize with outrageous highlights (feminizing men, which you've brought up) is sophistry.
Peterson can be completely wrong, a bad intellectual, whatever you want to call him, but the correct thing is to understand the ideas that you disagree with without relying on an authority (The New Yorker, among others, which were quoted a few times in your Wikipedia article references) before calling them out, because they're not being portrayed accurately.
In fact I have not much of a clue as to anything of the things your referring too and lack the imagination to see a context larger than what those quotes establish. I have watched a bit of his videos, they are full of outrageous and unsubstantiated claims, often self defeating, and because of that, to your point, are hard to summarize. There seems to be beliefs that Peterson holds that are dear to you in some way, and I'm sure a great many of them have merit. Feel free to debate Marx, Foucault, WWII, etc. but if you claim the pecking order is the way it should be due to "nature" and "god" expect some kick back. Such as I would have expected a person, who believes those quotes to not be reflective of Peterson's views, would have said exactly what they believe them to have meant instead. Did he not imply that feminism leads to fascism, does he in a more complex way than I can see supporting gender equality? What are these enlightenment ideas that I missed? Not sarcasm, here, I really do not know what you mean.
I'm sorry if quoting the New Yorker, Wikipedia or the man himself is sub-par to your standards. If you have some better sources I'd be glad to hear you out.
You have demonstrated that there is one prominent psychologist who holds some fairly-obviously terrible and inaccurate beliefs, and is willing to trumpet them to anyone who will listen.
This is no more an indictment of the field of psychology than the occasional right-wing "climate scientist" Fox News brings out to "prove" that climate change is not real is an indictment of the field of climate science.
Many scientific fields likely have a handful of far-right kooks who would be happy to rack up YouTube views promulgating alt-right talking points dressed up in the trappings of science. That says very little about the state of their fields, and a great deal about the state of our nation. And YouTube.
That said, of course, I do not believe that it speaks to psychology as a whole. But again I poorly worded that sentence and take responsibility for the misunderstanding. I would only add that I think, and I may very well be wrong, that if a physicist were to parrot "free-energy/perpetual-motion" to anyone that would listen, that person would be promptly removed from teaching at any legitimate university. That is not to say physics is better than psychology, if anything it implies that it is easier than the still very important soft sciences.