When the characteristics that a test is supposed to measure are completely ill-defined (there is no concept of a "Measurable Intelligence" independent of a context, leaving aside biological retardation) they are a measure of nothing definitive and any correlations/predictions are subject to bias and/or randomness.
You don't need an exact definition in order to be able to measure something approximately.
In fact, one could taboo the word "intelligence" entirely and merely say "that thing we observe where people who do better at these tests seem to also do better at these jobs and are more likely to win board games[1].". While the tails do come apart eventually, the correlation is observable up to at least 130 (there was a strong correlation at my previous work place between those who did well at board games and those who got a lot of good technical work done, these people also tended to have +2sd test scores compared to the +1sd average).
Btw: I've read Taleb's charged essay before and found it rather unconvincing. Very much "given these particular papers it's possible high IQ scores correlate with nothing other than high test scores".
Out of curiosity are you espousing that differences in intelligence don't actually exist, or just that we need to come up with better ways to measure them?
I wonder how many Fields medalists score one or two standard deviations below average on the Stanford-Binet. If the measure is meaningless then roughly half should, right?
Also while I certainly respect Mr. Taleb's insights and the mass market appeal of his punchy authorial persona, based on various writings of his I conclude that he views intelligence very narrowly in the "good at trading options" sense, which coincidentally is an area where he has demonstrated ability. Funny that. And to be fair in my own trading I benefitted quite a bit from his maxim that the first goal is survival.
I'd bet that Fat Tony would probably score well above average on an IQ test too, he just wouldn't be caught dead taking one. And I don't blame him; the kind of people who mistake aptitude for achievement are generally insufferable.
> Out of curiosity are you espousing that differences in intelligence don't actually exist, or just that we need to come up with better ways to measure them?
Yes and No to both.
Simply put;
1) There is nothing called "General Intelligence" beyond what enables a Human to survive in his/her environmental niche (including cultural/social since we are social animals). Leaving aside obvious biological retardation, if Extraversion/Introversion, Agreeableness/Disagreeableness, etc. enables one to survive, they are equally "Intelligent". Trying to rank these attributes on a ordinal scale and do quantitative calculations on them is nonsense. See Stephen Jay Gould's The Mismeasure of Man (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mismeasure_of_Man) for convincing arguments.
2) Humans are highly adaptable and exhibit dynamic behaviour in different contexts. This "role" and hence the "exhibited intelligence" is specific to that context but if that adaptation subsumes the need for another related context then obviously one will be intelligent in both the contexts. For example London Taxi drivers actually grew their hippocampus and became more intelligent in both spatial navigation and memory recall - https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/london-taxi-memor...
3) We know that gene expression can be influenced by the environment via Epigenetics over generations (see the documentary The Ghost in your Genes). Environment (cultural/social/nutritional/economic) now becomes of paramount importance and thus a person's "fitness" for a role is dependent on Nature, Nurture and his unique Family Past history. He will now be intelligent in certain roles not so in others.
4) Wrong understanding and misuse of Statistical methods in the above scenarios. This is where Taleb's writing/videos help one to separate the wheat from the chaff.
No thanks. Why would I refer to a source whose author either lied to get the results that suited his politics or was completely incompetent? From the NY Times[1]:
But now physical anthropologists at the University of Pennsylvania, which owns Morton’s collection, have remeasured the skulls, and in an article that does little to burnish Dr. Gould’s reputation as a scholar, they conclude that almost every detail of his analysis is wrong.
Frankly I have my doubts about your knowledge of the subject if you’re relying on thoroughly discredited sources.
You did nicely restate Mr. Taleb’s novel redefinition of “intelligence” as survival ability though. No doubt then Taleb believes the humble tardigrade is one of the most intelligent creatures on Earth.
I pointed you to the wikipedia page of the book for a reason. The fact that you failed to note that the study you quote has itself been debunked/criticized by later studies leads me to question your knowledge of the whole topic.
Read the section on Reassessing Morton's skull measurements and follow the links as needed.
Finally, you might also want to checkout the following;
You are in full-blown denial mode of every evidence/theory contrary to your cherished "g factor"/single general intelligence/psychometrics "belief system".
I will end this with the following observation;
In this modern day and age anybody who believes;
a Bedouin from the Sahara, a Aborigine from the Australian Outback, a Chukchi from the Northern Arctic, a tribal hunter from the Amazon Rainforest, a nomadic herder from the Mongolian Steppe, a Sherpa from the Himalayas, a Xhosa from Africa and a Techie from Silicon Valley
can all be ranked on a single scale using a single metric of "General Intelligence" is ... manifestly wrong and unscientific! The absurdity is self-evident.
Now you’re just falling back on bluster. You’re not even making claims anymore.
You may as well argue that height isn’t a scientific metric because some people have longer legs and others have longer torsos so clearly any single height metric is meaningless. It’s pure flimflammery.
In any event it’s pretty clear that your beliefs on the subject of intelligence are not evidence based, so I don’t think further discussion will be intellectually satiating for either of us.
Here is Nassim Taleb;
1) IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle - https://medium.com/incerto/iq-is-largely-a-pseudoscientific-...
2) Fooled by Correlation: Common Misinterpretations in Social "Science" - https://www.academia.edu/39797871/Common_Misapplications_and...
3) Correlation videos - https://nassimtaleb.org/tag/correlation/
See also :
a) The Pseudoscience of Psychometry and The Bell Curve - https://www.jstor.org/stable/2967209
b) Pseudoscience and Mental Ability: The Origins and Fallacies of the IQ Controversy. - https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED164662