reasonaway

read the linked blog post that started this thread!

the blog post shows this argument is false.

the graphs with made up data? when you look at actual data, all his claims are false.

but all his specific arguments are completely false - see the linked blog post!

he examines specific claims made by Taleb in detail and shows them to be completely wrong in every case. that can be reasonably described as addressing the substance of his arguments.

can you identify any specific problems with the analysis in that post?

discussions around taleb often have a very cult like aspect to them - a refusal to discuss specific empirical claims made by Taleb and an assumption that the critics are too dumb to understand taleb's deep mathematical criticisms.

but it does scale beyond 80 points. why ignore all the available evidence and trust instead the Taleb's evidence free assumptions?

it is all unfounded speculation based on mathematica simulations and his own assertions. there is no empirical support for his arguments.

IQ predicts more than just income. It has incremental value for predicting scientific publications, academic achievement, patents etc even within the top percentile. http://adamlgreen.com/smpy/

there is also no evidence of strong cultural bias of the sort you are speculating about.

you keep claiming that there is some threshold above which it does not predict anything even though this contradicts all available evidence. like taleb your beliefs are based on nothing more than unfounded speculation.

this article is extremely weird. juul is doing exactly what you would expect it to do if the product was completely safe. what is wrong with marketing your own safe product?

the article refers to "mounting evidence of health complications", but there is no high quality evidence showing that ecigarettes or non-tobaccco nicotine products are unhealthy.

actively opposing safe and effective alternatives to cigarettes will lead to a huge number of avoidable deaths. it's hard to see why so many journalists and public health professionals are so invested in the failure of ecigs as a product.

The complexity of how biological mechanisms work does not change basic facts about genetics. There isn't any conflict between the two.

Your second point is not true for complex polygenic traits like height. Height is strongly influenced by genetics but we will likely never understand the exact mechanisms that do this.

Genes do explain much of the variation between people for many characteristics. You can think of them as initial character stats that are then modified by environmental factors and random noise.