Quote Originally Posted by Fragony View Post
You know perfectly well that statistical probabilty is always taken into the equation. It doesn't say much that is true, modern pshycholigy destuingishes 6 types of intelligence including curving a ball
Yes, yes it is. So much so we have a whopping accuracy of +/- 3 points on each test, which is only like 2-3% of the total score. On a population of millions that's nothing, riiiiiiiiiight? Let's put it this way, if you tried to sell medicine with studies that are anywhere near that level of accuracy statistical irrelevance you'd first not get past the regulations, and second you'd get sued out of business if you did from disgruntled people who weren't aware of the effects that happen with “only” 2% chance.

That's the whole point: statistics are all good fun when you have a population of millions to talk about, but I don't see that study comprising millions of test subjects, do you? With something as highly variable as IQ all you can say at the end of a small scale study is “well those subjects here have comparatively high IQ, and those there don't”. You can't extrapolate the results in a meaningful way, precisely because you don't know which of those variables is relevant. For all we know it could be the food, or the water.

For a Mathematics analogy: I have a black box function that maps 20 different stochastic variables onto a 21st one (IQ). You don't know what those 20 ones are, so you have to guess. Now try and find me a definition of the function that, given each possible input will produce the correct output.

You being the clever scientist you are, you try and keep 19 of those the same while attempting to take samples of the 20th one and observe the function result. Yet you don't actually know how it works, you don't actually know whether or not you are controlling for the *right* variables and you don't actually know whether or not your sample is representative.

To top it all off, there is on average less genetic difference between an American Africans and a WASP than there is between two WASPs or two African Americans....