A peer-reviewed study about Wikipedia's accuracy

[GG]

So apparently you're born with 20 of your parents 100 intelligence genes, and they gradually give you the other 60 as you grow up.

 

See kiddies, that's why it's important to eat your oatmeal. Otherwise, the parents won't give you the good genes.

[DC Tom]

See kiddies, that's why it's important to eat your oatmeal. Otherwise, the parents won't give you the good genes.

 

Yeah. Eat your veggies, and you get Levis. Don't...you get Wranglers.

[Orton's Arm]

The mean OF THE ERROR, YOU NITWIT.

Ah, you're back to your "mean of the error" nonsense. That isn't the "mean" that the phrase "regression toward the mean" refers to, by the way. In a test/retest situation, where the correlation between test and retest is less than one, results on the retest will be closer to the population's mean than were the results on the original test. If there's a significant amount of measurement error, the correlation between test and retest cannot be a perfect 1 (except in Dave's 11" ruler example). Ergo, there will be regression toward the mean.

Why? You're the one that doesn't understand it. Genetics and the inheritance of traits does NOT cause evolution. That's pretty much central to Darwin's On the Origin of Species. There's a reason he called his theory "natural selection" and not "evolution".

Natural selection is a relatively simple theory. Below is a quote from On the Origin of Species

As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive; and as, consequently, there is a frequently recurring struggle for existence, it follows that any being, if it vary however slightly in any manner profitable to itself, under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving, and thus be naturally selected. From the strong principle of inheritance, any selected variety will tend to propagate its new and modified form.

Darwin argued that artificial selection could--and did--produce quick changes, while natural selection produced changes at a slower pace. Natural selection works by choosing those with the most favorable phenotypes, which over time changes the composition of the genotype.

[Orton's Arm]

Not necessarily.

 

As an example, if you measure someone's height with an 11" ruler, believing it to be 12", and measure that person's height with the incorrect ruler 100 times; you can get the exact same result every single time. The correlation would be 1 (perfect) and yet every single measurement has error in it.

You're right.

[Orton's Arm]

once again, all bluster, no fact nor evidence.

 

Just because oyu dont have the slighest clue of how darwinism or genetics work, you try to cover it up by not supporting your own opinion, and then claiming that other people dont know that they are talking about?

 

But thats right, you DO know what you are talking about, because according to you, intelligence is determined by 100 genes, and if the heritability is .80, a person will get 80 intelligence genes from their parents.

Are you really this stupid?

[Ramius]

Ah, you're back to your "mean of the error" nonsense. That isn't the "mean" that the phrase "regression toward the mean" refers to, by the way. In a test/retest situation, where the correlation between test and retest is less than one, results on the retest will be closer to the population's mean than were the results on the original test. If there's a significant amount of measurement error, the correlation between test and retest cannot be a perfect 1. Ergo, there will be regression toward the mean.

 

Natural selection is a relatively simple theory. Below is a quote from On the Origin of Species

 

Darwin argued that artificial selection could--and did--produce quick changes, while natural selection produced changes at a slower pace. Natural selection works by choosing those with the most favorable phenotypes, which over time changes the composition of the genotype.

 

So wait. Now you are flip-flopping yet again and finally saying that environment DOES affect genetic expression, like i have been saying all along?

[Ramius]

Are you really this stupid?

 

Again, another one liner to try and cover up the fact that you have entirely no !@#$ing clue of what you are talking about.

[Orton's Arm]

So wait. Now you are flip-flopping yet again and finally saying that environment DOES affect genetic expression, like i have been saying all along?

You just looooove to accuse me of flip-flopping, don't you? But just like everything else you've ever said in your entire pathetic life, this particular accusation is baseless.

 

I pointed out that, by adulthood, the correlation in intelligence between unrelated people raised together is zero. In other words, there's no direct evidence that environmental differences explain a meaningful portion of the observed variation in people's intelligence levels. I've also pointed out that there's a selection process involved for adoptive parents, so the study in question wouldn't necessarily capture the intelligence-lowering actions that the very worst parents may be engaged in. Moreover, very few adopted children come from high-I.Q. parents. It's possible that high genetic-potential children could significantly benefit from an enriched environment, and that this potential for benefit wouldn't be captured by the adoption study.

 

Your interpretation of the above paragraph requires a level of stupidity which I thought was beyond even you.

[GG]

You just looooove to accuse me of flip-flopping, don't you? But just like everything else you've ever said in your entire pathetic life, this particular accusation is baseless.

 

I pointed out that, by adulthood, the correlation in intelligence between unrelated people raised together is zero. In other words, there's no direct evidence that environmental differences explain a meaningful portion of the observed variation in people's intelligence levels. I've also pointed out that there's a selection process involved for adoptive parents, so the study in question wouldn't necessarily capture the intelligence-lowering actions that the very worst parents may be engaged in. Moreover, very few adopted children come from high-I.Q. parents. It's possible that high genetic-potential children could significantly benefit from an enriched environment, and that this potential for benefit wouldn't be captured by the adoption study.

 

This should be good news for parents adopting kids from third world countries. Imagine the savings on the college education. Just buy the lawnmower for the little tyke when he's 12, and off he goes.

[Orton's Arm]

This should be good news for parents adopting kids from third world countries. Imagine the savings on the college education. Just buy the lawnmower for the little tyke when he's 12, and off he goes.

I know you idolize the people of the Third World, and look forward to the day when they've completely displaced our present population. So this may be difficult for you. Of all the people in the Third World, which do you think are most likely to "slip up" and have babies they themselves can't take care of? The geniuses, or those who lack a little something upstairs?

[GG]

I know you idolize the people of the Third World, and look forward to the day when they've completely displaced our present population. So this may be difficult for you. Of all the people in the Third World, which do you think are most likely to "slip up" and have babies they themselves can't take care of? The geniuses, or those who lack a little something upstairs?

 

I'm guessing it would be the strong ones who'll bash the crap out of idiots who pretend to be intellectuals.

[DC Tom]

Ah, you're back to your "mean of the error" nonsense. That isn't the "mean" that the phrase "regression toward the mean" refers to, by the way. In a test/retest situation, where the correlation between test and retest is less than one, results on the retest will be closer to the population's mean than were the results on the original test. If there's a significant amount of measurement error, the correlation between test and retest cannot be a perfect 1 (except in Dave's 11" ruler example). Ergo, there will be regression toward the mean.

 

No, that's completely wrong. In a test/retest situation, the test regresses to the mean OF THE ERROR OF THE TEST, because successive test scores are not independent of each other, but successive error is. That is, if your average IQ score is 125, and you score a 115 on some test, your next test is more likely to be closer to 125 than it is the population average of 100 because THE ERROR REGRESSES TO THE MEAN OF THE ERROR. Otherwise, everyone would have an IQ of 100, because according to you successive measurement of their IQ would cause their scores to regress to the population mean. This is not true, because an individuals successive test scores are highly covariant with each other, but the error in their successive test scores IS NOT.

 

Again, your confusion is solely because you can't comprehend that things which are not the same are, in fact, different. The distribution of error in an individual measurement is not the same as the distribution of multiple independent measurements within a population. Testing the same thing twice is not the same as testing two different things once each. You're confusing two completely different statistical distributions.

 

And yes, so are Stanford and MIT. The difference between them and you being: they understand this stuff and are aware they're over-simplifying for an unsophisticated crowd. Whereas you're just an idiot.

 

 

Natural selection is a relatively simple theory. Below is a quote from On the Origin of Species

 

Darwin argued that artificial selection could--and did--produce quick changes, while natural selection produced changes at a slower pace. Natural selection works by choosing those with the most favorable phenotypes, which over time changes the composition of the genotype.

 

Yeah, just what we've said. Natural selection isn't about genetic inheritance, it's about SELECTION. You have a truly amazing ability to prove our points for us.

[Ramius]

Your interpretation of the above paragraph requires a level of stupidity which I thought was beyond even you.

 

What in the hell are you talking about?

 

And you do flip-flop. All the time on your supposed "knowledge". We could do a post by post breakdown of you wavering and changing what you said. The reason? Because you dont understand what you are saying or any of the multitude of errors you have made along the way.

 

But now, bakc to your intelligence, you have flipped back from your previous post. Now you are saying environment doesnt play a role in determining phenotype when in the previous post you said it did. (or more likely, you just posted a quote from darwin, showing that the environment greatly effects phenotype. which you misunderstood. hence the reason for your flip-flopping)

 

The difference with you and most others is, that most others know the limit fo their knowledge. You dont. You see yourself as much more knowledgeable than you can ever hope to be. For example: I dont a lot about economics, hence the reason i sat on the sidelines and watched GG spank you in that discussion.

[Orton's Arm]

No, that's completely wrong. In a test/retest situation, the test regresses to the mean OF THE ERROR OF THE TEST, because successive test scores are not independent of each other, but successive error is. That is, if your average IQ score is 125, and you score a 115 on some test, your next test is more likely to be closer to 125 than it is the population average of 100 because THE ERROR REGRESSES TO THE MEAN OF THE ERROR. Otherwise, everyone would have an IQ of 100, because according to you successive measurement of their IQ would cause their scores to regress to the population mean. This is not true, because an individuals successive test scores are highly covariant with each other, but the error in their successive test scores IS NOT.

 

Again, your confusion is solely because you can't comprehend that things which are not the same are, in fact, different. The distribution of error in an individual measurement is not the same as the distribution of multiple independent measurements within a population. Testing the same thing twice is not the same as testing two different things once each. You're confusing two completely different statistical distributions.

 

And yes, so are Stanford and MIT. The difference between them and you being: they understand this stuff and are aware they're over-simplifying for an unsophisticated crowd. Whereas you're just an idiot.

I see you're once again attempting to create a distinction between the things I wrote about regression toward the mean, and the things that came from Stanford or other top universities. Let me reiterate: the "mean" in the phrase "regression toward the mean" refers to the population's mean, not the mean of the error. Consider a group of 100 people, each of whom got a 140 on an I.Q. test. That group will contain more lucky 130s than unlucky 150s. When those people retake the test, their scores will--on average--be closer to the population's mean I.Q. of 100 than they'd been the first time around.

Yeah, just what we've said. Natural selection isn't about genetic inheritance, it's about SELECTION. You have a truly amazing ability to prove our points for us.

I'm not sure what point (if any) you were trying to make. The point I was making is that species change over time because some traits are selected for, while other traits are selected against. If you start breeding dogs for, say, aggressiveness, you'll end up with something like the pit bull. Darwin understood the power of artificial selection, and this power was one of the things which caused him to adopt his theory.

 

By selecting for a trait, you cause the species to move in a certain direction. Right now, stupid people are having more kids than are smart people; so that's the long-term direction the species is moving in. A eugenics program could potentially halt this decline, and might even cause our species to resume its traditional increase in intelligence.

[Ramius]

I see you're once again attempting to create a distinction between the things I wrote about regression toward the mean, and the things that came from Stanford or other top universities. Let me reiterate: the "mean" in the phrase "regression toward the mean" refers to the population's mean, not the mean of the error. Consider a group of 100 people, each of whom got a 140 on an I.Q. test. That group will contain more lucky 130s than unlucky 150s. When those people retake the test, their scores will--on average--be closer to the population's mean I.Q. of 100 than they'd been the first time around.

 

I'm not sure what point (if any) you were trying to make. The point I was making is that species change over time because some traits are selected for, while other traits are selected against. If you start breeding dogs for, say, aggressiveness, you'll end up with something like the pit bull. Darwin understood the power of artificial selection, and this power was one of the things which caused him to adopt his theory.

 

By selecting for a trait, you cause the species to move in a certain direction. Right now, stupid people are having more kids than are smart people; so that's the long-term direction the species is moving in. A eugenics program could potentially halt this decline, and might even cause our species to resume its traditional increase in intelligence.

 

Well, there we have it. 5 months of idiocy all rolled up neatly into 1 post. All you need to add is how the smart people are simply going to build more power lines to expand the power grid and we're set.

[DC Tom]

I see you're once again attempting to create a distinction between the things I wrote about regression toward the mean, and the things that came from Stanford or other top universities. Let me reiterate: the "mean" in the phrase "regression toward the mean" refers to the population's mean, not the mean of the error. Consider a group of 100 people, each of whom got a 140 on an I.Q. test. That group will contain more lucky 130s than unlucky 150s. When those people retake the test, their scores will--on average--be closer to the population's mean I.Q. of 100 than they'd been the first time around.

 

...and we're back, full circle, to you being a total ignoramus again. That is NOT regression toward the population mean, as it's not a function of the variance of the population's statistical distribution. It is a function of the statistical distribution of the error that, when you select a completely arbitrary subset of data and completely ignore the rest, is still regression to the mean of the distribution of error that just happens to be in the same direction as the mean of the population BUT IS NOT THE SAME THING, BECAUSE YOU'RE MEASURING THE ERROR, WHICH IS A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT STATISTICAL DISTRIBUTION THAN THE POPULATION DISTRIBUTION. Again: things that are different are not the same. It's pretty much the definition of "different".

 

It's REALLY simple math. Excruciatingly simple. The variance within the population distribution is variance. It is not error. Variance causes regression toward the mean. Not error. Because variance and error are different. Hence, being different, they are not the same. What part don't you understand?

 

I'm not sure what point (if any) you were trying to make. The point I was making is that species change over time because some traits are selected for, while other traits are selected against. If you start breeding dogs for, say, aggressiveness, you'll end up with something like the pit bull. Darwin understood the power of artificial selection, and this power was one of the things which caused him to adopt his theory.

 

By selecting for a trait, you cause the species to move in a certain direction. Right now, stupid people are having more kids than are smart people; so that's the long-term direction the species is moving in. A eugenics program could potentially halt this decline, and might even cause our species to resume its traditional increase in intelligence.

 

My God, I can't even begin to describe the logical Gordian knot you've tied. We can breed humans to be smarter because the invariant heritability of intelligence that varies with age simultaneously is and is not affected by environment...

 

I just keep coming back to "Buy copper wire. Run it where it's needed. Build power plants." You have an amazing propensity to apply your near total ignorance to complex issues and simplify them to perversely ridiculous levels where they have absolutely no relation to reality.

[Orton's Arm]

Well, there we have it. 5 months of idiocy all rolled up neatly into 1 post. All you need to add is how the smart people are simply going to build more power lines to expand the power grid and we're set.

Just when I think this is the absolute worst level of idiocy Ramius will ever reach you come out with something like this.

[GG]

Just when I think this is the absolute worst level of idiocy Ramius will ever reach you come out with something like this.

 

I'm quite certain he didn't come up with that quote on his own.

[Orton's Arm]

...and we're back, full circle, to you being a total ignoramus again. That is NOT regression toward the population mean, as it's not a function of the variance of the population's statistical distribution. It is a function of the statistical distribution of the error that, when you select a completely arbitrary subset of data and completely ignore the rest, is still regression to the mean of the distribution of error that just happens to be in the same direction as the mean of the population BUT IS NOT THE SAME THING, BECAUSE YOU'RE MEASURING THE ERROR, WHICH IS A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT STATISTICAL DISTRIBUTION THAN THE POPULATION DISTRIBUTION. Again: things that are different are not the same. It's pretty much the definition of "different".

At least based on this paragraph, we're in agreement about the consequences of a test/retest situation, where the correlation between test and retest is less than one. While I can't see any major flaws with your statements about error, the mean of the error isn't what's referred to in the phrase "regression toward the mean."

It's REALLY simple math. Excruciatingly simple. The variance within the population distribution is variance. It is not error. Variance causes regression toward the mean. Not error. Because variance and error are different. Hence, being different, they are not the same. What part don't you understand?

Your use of the word "causes" is clumsy and overly simplistic. Regression toward the mean will take place under the following circumstances:

1. A distribution where an average value is more likely than an extreme value

2. An initial test where the results are due in whole or in part to random chance

3. Select a subset of members based on their initial test scores. If your subset's scores are above the mean, it will have more lucky members than unlucky ones. If it's below the population mean, the opposite will be true.

4. Retest the members of the subset.

The population variance to which you're referring allows condition #1 to be fulfilled. The presence of measurement error allows condition #2 to be fulfilled.

 

My God, I can't even begin to describe the logical Gordian knot you've tied. We can breed humans to be smarter because the invariant heritability of intelligence that varies with age simultaneously is and is not affected by environment...

Did Ramius write that for you? While I wouldn't expect him to have heard of the Gordian knot, everything else in that paragraph is consistent with his level of stupidity.

[Ramius]

Just when I think this is the absolute worst level of idiocy Ramius will ever reach you come out with something like this.

 

keep on yapping, there. Talking more and more doesnt make you any smarter in genetics. And why havent you answered the open questions that you have been asked?

 

So how is your race of smart people going to build more power lines to expand the power grid?