More indications that g is a myth

One indication that Spearman's g (upon which IQ is based) is an artifact of positive correlations among various intelligence test measures than a real thing is that there are subpopulations among which these measures do not correlate in the same way as among the general public.

An example is here: (note, my interpretation of their findings):

Psychol Sci. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2015 Jan 8.

Published in final edited form as:

Psychol Sci. 2007 Aug; 18(8): 657–662.

doi:  10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01954.x

PMCID: PMC4287210

NIHMSID: NIHMS653064

The Level and Nature of Autistic Intelligence

Michelle Dawson,¹ Isabelle Soulières,^1,2 Morton Ann Gernsbacher,³ and Laurent Mottron^1,2

To quote:

For example, no autistic child scored in the “high intelligence” range on the WISC-III, whereas a third of the autistic children scored at or above the 90th percentile on the Raven’s Matrices. Only a minority of the autistic children scored in the “average intelligence” range or higher on the WISC-III, whereas the majority scored at or above the 50th percentile on the Raven’s Matrices. Whereas a third of the autistic children would be called “low functioning” (i.e., in the range of mental retardation) according to the WISC-III, only 5% would be so judged according to the Raven’s Matrices.

In striking contrast to the autistic children, the nonautistic control children did not show a significant difference between their Raven’s Matrices scores and their WISC-III Full Scale, Verbal Scale, or Performance Scale scores .

So, if there was a real thing X corresponding to Spearman's g that represented the intelligence of a human brain, then the general positive correlation in the general population between WISC and Raven's Matrices is not measuring this thing X.  But it is these kinds of positive correlations among the various tests' results that is supposed to be measuring this real thing that is approximated by Spearman's g.

The Perils of the Smartness Obsession

Paul Frampton, distinguished professor of physics, age 68, was in the news. He was arrested in Buenos Aires in January on the charges of attempting to smuggle two kilograms of cocaine out of the country.

Professor Frampton was likely the victim of a scam. Like the New Zealander Sharon Mae Armstrong, he was lured to Argentina by the other end of an internet romance.  He never met the "model" but was persuaded by an associate to carry a bag on her behalf.  The bag had cocaine in a hidden compartment.
Sharon Armstrong had five kilograms of cocaine in her luggage.

As a physicist blog put it,

Everyone passing through international airports will know that they must pack their own bags and be responsible for the contents. Travellers are continually warned and asked about it. It is easy to be befriended especially in honeypot traps. The details of how Frampton may have been tricked are not yet known but similar stories are well-known. Cases have even been turned into films such as Bangkok Hilton. It will be hard for an intelligent professor to persuade his prosecutors that he was naive enough to innocently accept to use a suitcase with cocaine stuffed into the padding. We wish him luck.

So far naivete and perhaps stupidity have been on display - why my headline? Well, someone drew attention to a section in this preprint by Frampton which I have reproduced after the fold.