QOTD, June 7, 2019

@AdityaRajKaul

Important point to ponder. External Affairs Minister @DrSJaishankar on rise of nationalism says, ‘nationalism in Asia is a nationalism of confidence while nationalism in other places is a nationalism of insecurity’.

https://twitter.com/AdityaRajKaul/status/1136497816686276623

A Peek into Einstein's Zurich Notebook

Here.

"Eukaryogenesis, how special really?"

Eukaryogenesis, how special really?

Another interesting article.

Abstract

Eukaryogenesis is widely viewed as an improbable evolutionary transition uniquely affecting the evolution of life on this planet. However, scientific and popular rhetoric extolling this event as a singularity lacks rigorous evidential and statistical support. Here, we question several of the usual claims about the specialness of eukaryogenesis, focusing on both eukaryogenesis as a process and its outcome, the eukaryotic cell. We argue in favor of four ideas. 

• First, the criteria by which we judge eukaryogenesis to have required a genuinely unlikely series of events 2 billion years in the making are being eroded by discoveries that fill in the gaps of the prokaryote:eukaryote “discontinuity.”
  
• Second, eukaryogenesis confronts evolutionary theory in ways not different from other evolutionary transitions in individuality; parallel systems can be found at several hierarchical levels.
  
• Third, identifying which of several complex cellular features confer on eukaryotes a putative richer evolutionary potential remains an area of speculation: various keys to success have been proposed and rejected over the five-decade history of research in this area.
  
• Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, it is difficult and may be impossible to eliminate eukaryocentric bias from the measures by which eukaryotes as a whole are judged to have achieved greater success than prokaryotes as a whole. 

Overall, we question whether premises of existing theories about the uniqueness of eukaryogenesis and the greater evolutionary potential of eukaryotes have been objectively formulated and whether, despite widespread acceptance that eukaryogenesis was “special,” any such notion has more than rhetorical value.

Context: reading of David Quammen's "The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life".

Peak Gene

Interesting article.

We have reached peak gene, and passed it.

Ken Richardson in "It's The End Of The Gene As We Know It" 

In scientific, as well as popular descriptions today, genes “act,” “behave,” “direct,” “control,” “design,” “influence,” have “effects,” are “responsible for,” are “selfish,” and so on, as if minds of their own with designs and intentions.

But at the same time, a counter-narrative is building, not from the media but from inside science itself.... Scientists now understand that the information in the DNA code can only serve as a template for a protein. It cannot possibly serve as instructions for the more complex task of putting the proteins together into a fully functioning being, no more than the characters on a typewriter can produce a story.

...

First, laboratory experiments have shown how living forms probably flourished as “molecular soups” long before genes existed. They self-organized, synthesized polymers (like RNA and DNA), adapted, and reproduced through interactions among hundreds of components. That means they followed “instructions” arising from relations between components, according to current conditions, with no overall controller: compositional information, as the geneticist Doron Lancet calls it.
In this perspective, the genes evolved later, as products of prior systems, not as the original designers and controllers of them. More likely as templates for components as and when needed: a kind of facility for “just in time” supply of parts needed on a recurring basis.

...

We have traditionally thought of cell contents as servants to the DNA instructions. But, as the British biologist Denis Noble insists in an interview with the writer Suzan Mazur, “The modern synthesis has got causality in biology wrong … DNA on its own does absolutely nothing until activated by the rest of the system … DNA is not a cause in an active sense. I think it is better described as a passive data base which is used by the organism to enable it to make the proteins that it requires.”

PS: the proposed definition of "gene" by Portin and Wilkins:

A gene is a DNA sequence (whose component segments do not necessarily need to be physically contiguous) that specifies one or more sequence-related RNAs/proteins that are both evoked by Genetic Regulatory Networks and participate as elements in Genetic Regulatory Networks, often with indirect effects, or as outputs of Genetic Regulatory Networks, the latter yielding more direct phenotypic effects.

Wiki tells us: A genetic regulatory network (GRN) is a collection of molecular regulators that interact with each other and with other substances in the cell to govern the gene expressionlevels of mRNA and proteins.  

H.Res.109 - The Green New Deal

H.Res.109 - Recognizing the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal.116th Congress (2019-2020)

Resolution

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Sponsor:	Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, Alexandria [D-NY-14] (Introduced 02/07/2019)
Committees:	House - Energy and Commerce; Science, Space, and Technology; Education and Labor; Transportation and Infrastructure; Agriculture; Natural Resources; Foreign Affairs; Financial Services; Judiciary; Ways and Means; Oversight and Reform
Latest Action:	House - 02/12/2019 Referred to the Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources.  (All Actions)

Tracker:

This bill has the status Introduced

Here are the steps for Status of Legislation:

1. Introduced
2. Agreed to in House

Shown Here:
Introduced in House (02/07/2019)

116th CONGRESS 1st Session

H. RES. 109

Recognizing the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal.

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IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

February 7, 2019

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez (for herself, Mr. Hastings, Ms. Tlaib, Mr. Serrano, Mrs. Carolyn B. Maloney of New York, Mr. Vargas, Mr. Espaillat, Mr. Lynch, Ms. Velázquez, Mr. Blumenauer, Mr. Brendan F. Boyle of Pennsylvania, Mr. Castro of Texas, Ms. Clarke of New York, Ms. Jayapal, Mr. Khanna, Mr. Ted Lieu of California, Ms. Pressley, Mr. Welch, Mr. Engel, Mr. Neguse, Mr. Nadler, Mr. McGovern, Mr. Pocan, Mr. Takano, Ms. Norton, Mr. Raskin, Mr. Connolly, Mr. Lowenthal, Ms. Matsui, Mr. Thompson of California, Mr. Levin of California, Ms. Pingree, Mr. Quigley, Mr. Huffman, Mrs. Watson Coleman, Mr. García of Illinois, Mr. Higgins of New York, Ms. Haaland, Ms. Meng, Mr. Carbajal, Mr. Cicilline, Mr. Cohen, Ms. Clark of Massachusetts, Ms. Judy Chu of California, Ms. Mucarsel-Powell, Mr. Moulton, Mr. Grijalva, Mr. Meeks, Mr. Sablan, Ms. Lee of California, Ms. Bonamici, Mr. Sean Patrick Maloney of New York, Ms. Schakowsky, Ms. DeLauro, Mr. Levin of Michigan, Ms. McCollum, Mr. DeSaulnier, Mr. Courtney, Mr. Larson of Connecticut, Ms. Escobar, Mr. Schiff, Mr. Keating, Mr. DeFazio, Ms. Eshoo, Mrs. Trahan, Mr. Gomez, Mr. Kennedy, and Ms. Waters) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and in addition to the Committees on Science, Space, and Technology, Education and Labor, Transportation and Infrastructure, Agriculture, Natural Resources, Foreign Affairs, Financial Services, the Judiciary, Ways and Means, and Oversight and Reform, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned

---

RESOLUTION

Recognizing the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal.

Whereas the October 2018 report entitled “Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 ºC” by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the November 2018 Fourth National Climate Assessment report found that—


(1) human activity is the dominant cause of observed climate change over the past century;

(2) a changing climate is causing sea levels to rise and an increase in wildfires, severe storms, droughts, and other extreme weather events that threaten human life, healthy communities, and critical infrastructure;

(3) global warming at or above 2 degrees Celsius beyond preindustrialized levels will cause—


(A) mass migration from the regions most affected by climate change;

(B) more than $500,000,000,000 in lost annual economic output in the United States by the year 2100;

(C) wildfires that, by 2050, will annually burn at least twice as much forest area in the western United States than was typically burned by wildfires in the years preceding 2019;

(D) a loss of more than 99 percent of all coral reefs on Earth;

(E) more than 350,000,000 more people to be exposed globally to deadly heat stress by 2050; and

(F) a risk of damage to $1,000,000,000,000 of public infrastructure and coastal real estate in the United States; and

(4) global temperatures must be kept below 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrialized levels to avoid the most severe impacts of a changing climate, which will require—


(A) global reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from human sources of 40 to 60 percent from 2010 levels by 2030; and

(B) net-zero global emissions by 2050;

Whereas, because the United States has historically been responsible for a disproportionate amount of greenhouse gas emissions, having emitted 20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions through 2014, and has a high technological capacity, the United States must take a leading role in reducing emissions through economic transformation;

Whereas the United States is currently experiencing several related crises, with—


(1) life expectancy declining while basic needs, such as clean air, clean water, healthy food, and adequate health care, housing, transportation, and education, are inaccessible to a significant portion of the United States population;

(2) a 4-decade trend of wage stagnation, deindustrialization, and antilabor policies that has led to—


(A) hourly wages overall stagnating since the 1970s despite increased worker productivity;

(B) the third-worst level of socioeconomic mobility in the developed world before the Great Recession;

(C) the erosion of the earning and bargaining power of workers in the United States; and

(D) inadequate resources for public sector workers to confront the challenges of climate change at local, State, and Federal levels; and

(3) the greatest income inequality since the 1920s, with—


(A) the top 1 percent of earners accruing 91 percent of gains in the first few years of economic recovery after the Great Recession;

(B) a large racial wealth divide amounting to a difference of 20 times more wealth between the average white family and the average black family; and

(C) a gender earnings gap that results in women earning approximately 80 percent as much as men, at the median;

Whereas climate change, pollution, and environmental destruction have exacerbated systemic racial, regional, social, environmental, and economic injustices (referred to in this preamble as “systemic injustices”) by disproportionately affecting indigenous peoples, communities of color, migrant communities, deindustrialized communities, depopulated rural communities, the poor, low-income workers, women, the elderly, the unhoused, people with disabilities, and youth (referred to in this preamble as “frontline and vulnerable communities”);

Whereas, climate change constitutes a direct threat to the national security of the United States—


(1) by impacting the economic, environmental, and social stability of countries and communities around the world; and

(2) by acting as a threat multiplier;

Whereas the Federal Government-led mobilizations during World War II and the New Deal created the greatest middle class that the United States has ever seen, but many members of frontline and vulnerable communities were excluded from many of the economic and societal benefits of those mobilizations; and

Whereas the House of Representatives recognizes that a new national, social, industrial, and economic mobilization on a scale not seen since World War II and the New Deal era is a historic opportunity—


(1) to create millions of good, high-wage jobs in the United States;

(2) to provide unprecedented levels of prosperity and economic security for all people of the United States; and

(3) to counteract systemic injustices: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Representatives that—

(1) it is the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal—

(A) to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions through a fair and just transition for all communities and workers;

(B) to create millions of good, high-wage jobs and ensure prosperity and economic security for all people of the United States;

(C) to invest in the infrastructure and industry of the United States to sustainably meet the challenges of the 21st century;

(D) to secure for all people of the United States for generations to come—

(i) clean air and water;

(ii) climate and community resiliency;

(iii) healthy food;

(iv) access to nature; and

(v) a sustainable environment; and

(E) to promote justice and equity by stopping current, preventing future, and repairing historic oppression of indigenous peoples, communities of color, migrant communities, deindustrialized communities, depopulated rural communities, the poor, low-income workers, women, the elderly, the unhoused, people with disabilities, and youth (referred to in this resolution as “frontline and vulnerable communities”);

(2) the goals described in subparagraphs (A) through (E) of paragraph (1) (referred to in this resolution as the “Green New Deal goals”) should be accomplished through a 10-year national mobilization (referred to in this resolution as the “Green New Deal mobilization”) that will require the following goals and projects—

(A) building resiliency against climate change-related disasters, such as extreme weather, including by leveraging funding and providing investments for community-defined projects and strategies;

(B) repairing and upgrading the infrastructure in the United States, including—

(i) by eliminating pollution and greenhouse gas emissions as much as technologically feasible;

(ii) by guaranteeing universal access to clean water;

(iii) by reducing the risks posed by climate impacts; and

(iv) by ensuring that any infrastructure bill considered by Congress addresses climate change;

(C) meeting 100 percent of the power demand in the United States through clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources, including—

(i) by dramatically expanding and upgrading renewable power sources; and

(ii) by deploying new capacity;

(D) building or upgrading to energy-efficient, distributed, and “smart” power grids, and ensuring affordable access to electricity;

(E) upgrading all existing buildings in the United States and building new buildings to achieve maximum energy efficiency, water efficiency, safety, affordability, comfort, and durability, including through electrification;

(F) spurring massive growth in clean manufacturing in the United States and removing pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from manufacturing and industry as much as is technologically feasible, including by expanding renewable energy manufacturing and investing in existing manufacturing and industry;

(G) working collaboratively with farmers and ranchers in the United States to remove pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector as much as is technologically feasible, including—

(i) by supporting family farming;

(ii) by investing in sustainable farming and land use practices that increase soil health; and

(iii) by building a more sustainable food system that ensures universal access to healthy food;

(H) overhauling transportation systems in the United States to remove pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector as much as is technologically feasible, including through investment in—

(i) zero-emission vehicle infrastructure and manufacturing;

(ii) clean, affordable, and accessible public transit; and

(iii) high-speed rail;

(I) mitigating and managing the long-term adverse health, economic, and other effects of pollution and climate change, including by providing funding for community-defined projects and strategies;

(J) removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and reducing pollution by restoring natural ecosystems through proven low-tech solutions that increase soil carbon storage, such as land preservation and afforestation;

(K) restoring and protecting threatened, endangered, and fragile ecosystems through locally appropriate and science-based projects that enhance biodiversity and support climate resiliency;

(L) cleaning up existing hazardous waste and abandoned sites, ensuring economic development and sustainability on those sites;

(M) identifying other emission and pollution sources and creating solutions to remove them; and

(N) promoting the international exchange of technology, expertise, products, funding, and services, with the aim of making the United States the international leader on climate action, and to help other countries achieve a Green New Deal;

(3) a Green New Deal must be developed through transparent and inclusive consultation, collaboration, and partnership with frontline and vulnerable communities, labor unions, worker cooperatives, civil society groups, academia, and businesses; and

(4) to achieve the Green New Deal goals and mobilization, a Green New Deal will require the following goals and projects—

(A) providing and leveraging, in a way that ensures that the public receives appropriate ownership stakes and returns on investment, adequate capital (including through community grants, public banks, and other public financing), technical expertise, supporting policies, and other forms of assistance to communities, organizations, Federal, State, and local government agencies, and businesses working on the Green New Deal mobilization;

(B) ensuring that the Federal Government takes into account the complete environmental and social costs and impacts of emissions through—

(i) existing laws;

(ii) new policies and programs; and

(iii) ensuring that frontline and vulnerable communities shall not be adversely affected;

(C) providing resources, training, and high-quality education, including higher education, to all people of the United States, with a focus on frontline and vulnerable communities, so that all people of the United States may be full and equal participants in the Green New Deal mobilization;

(D) making public investments in the research and development of new clean and renewable energy technologies and industries;

(E) directing investments to spur economic development, deepen and diversify industry and business in local and regional economies, and build wealth and community ownership, while prioritizing high-quality job creation and economic, social, and environmental benefits in frontline and vulnerable communities, and deindustrialized communities, that may otherwise struggle with the transition away from greenhouse gas intensive industries;

(F) ensuring the use of democratic and participatory processes that are inclusive of and led by frontline and vulnerable communities and workers to plan, implement, and administer the Green New Deal mobilization at the local level;

(G) ensuring that the Green New Deal mobilization creates high-quality union jobs that pay prevailing wages, hires local workers, offers training and advancement opportunities, and guarantees wage and benefit parity for workers affected by the transition;

(H) guaranteeing a job with a family-sustaining wage, adequate family and medical leave, paid vacations, and retirement security to all people of the United States;

(I) strengthening and protecting the right of all workers to organize, unionize, and collectively bargain free of coercion, intimidation, and harassment;

(J) strengthening and enforcing labor, workplace health and safety, antidiscrimination, and wage and hour standards across all employers, industries, and sectors;

(K) enacting and enforcing trade rules, procurement standards, and border adjustments with strong labor and environmental protections—

(i) to stop the transfer of jobs and pollution overseas; and

(ii) to grow domestic manufacturing in the United States;

(L) ensuring that public lands, waters, and oceans are protected and that eminent domain is not abused;

(M) obtaining the free, prior, and informed consent of indigenous peoples for all decisions that affect indigenous peoples and their traditional territories, honoring all treaties and agreements with indigenous peoples, and protecting and enforcing the sovereignty and land rights of indigenous peoples;

(N) ensuring a commercial environment where every businessperson is free from unfair competition and domination by domestic or international monopolies; and

(O) providing all people of the United States with—

(i) high-quality health care;

(ii) affordable, safe, and adequate housing;

(iii) economic security; and

(iv) clean water, clean air, healthy and affordable food, and access to nature.

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Arya per Sita in the Ramayana

Dholavira Seal from the Harappan Era.  No implication that this is connected to the story below. I just like it as an illustration.

 Aravindan Neelakandan reminds us:

In Ramayana, the Rakshasas are a group of people who were not, as many consider, uncultured, demonic people. Rather, they considered themselves superior to other humans and animals. In fact, when Ravana asked for the boon of invincibility from the creator Deity, he left out humans and animals because he thought they were too inferior to be bothered about.

The Rakshasa women who guarded Sita when she was being held captive were instructed by Ravana to torment Sita endlessly. Their taunts and threats even led Sita to contemplate suicide. But for the timely intelligent intervention of Hanuman - a Vanara emissary from Rama, she would have succumbed to the thought of suicide.

Now Rama had vanquished Ravana with the help of the Vanaras - the monkeys or the non-human primates. Hanuman was here to tell Sita the good news. Then he looked at all those Rakshasa women who had tormented her. He asked her permission to punish them.

Sita refused him to give permission but then told Hanuman what a bear once told a tiger.

This story told by Sita is known throughout India for millennia now . It is about how a hunter chased by a tiger in a forest, escaped by climbing a tall tree. In the tree was a bear. The tiger told the bear that the hunter is the killer of wild animals and hence the bear should push him down. The bear refused. He said that the tree being the home of the bear, the hunter had become its guest. And it was the dharma of the householder to protect the guest.
The tiger waited. Soon, the bear fell asleep. The tiger told the man that despite the grand words, the bear was actually reserving the man for himself. So, the tiger suggested that if the man pushed the bear down, then the tiger could easily devour and eat the sleepy bear and would go its way while the man too could be free of danger. The hunter yielded to the temptation and pushed the bear down. The bear, adept in living on the trees, saved itself.

Now the tiger appealed again to the bear. Pointing out the treachery of the man it asked him to push him down. The bear told the tiger that a noble person does not do evil deeds to revenge evil deeds. A good person, he said, always does good deeds irrespective of what the others do. After saying this, Sita defined the term ‘Arya’ in a very famous statement:

Kaaryam kaarunyamaaryen na kashchit naaparaadhyati
(कार्यं कारुण्यमार्येण न कश्चिन्नापराध्यति) :
Showing kindness (towards the saintly and the sinner alike) defines a person as Arya for there is none who has never committed a wrong.

Valmiki Ramayana: Yuddha Kanda: 46

Here, the term ‘Arya’, much maligned by colonial Indology, European historiography and Nazi racism , is defined as a quality that is even above mercy, compassion and empathy combined, possessed not only by humans but by all living beings. Only a being who possesses that quality irrespective of what species it belongs to, should be considered as noble - ‘Arya’. Thus defined Sita the term ‘Arya’.

India - a growing discontent?

There is an outfit that publishes the World Happiness Report.  The primary measure is the "Cantril Life Ladder" (from Hadley Cantril, Patterns of Human Concern, 1965).

As far as I can tell, some 1000-odd people of age 15+  in each of 156 to 158 countries are asked by Gallup polling each year the following question, which in English reads:

“Please imagine a ladder, with steps numbered from 0 at the bottom to 10 at the top. The top of the ladder represents the best possible life for you and the bottom of the ladder represents the worst possible life for you. On which step of the ladder would you say you personally feel you stand at this time?”

The average for the country is supposed to reflect its level of happiness.   The Cantril Life Ladder is available for India from 2006 onwards.  The report also includes measures that one might think affects the answers given on the Cantril Life Ladder, such as per capita income and life expectancy, and survey measures such as perceived freedom to make life choices, perceived corruption, and so on.  India is generally improving on these measures over the 2006-2018 time period.  One interesting thing is that countries with poorer improvement on these measures can be happier than India.

NYT Magazine: Is Ancient DNA Research Revealing New Truths?

I am told that this article is worth reading: "Is Ancient DNA Research Revealing New Truths — or Falling Into Old Traps?"
 
Maybe some time I will.

On Graduate School

For a graduate student it can be very difficult. It’s very easy to get discouraged if you have no real understanding that you’re going to be stuck for a very long time.

I could very easily have imagined myself getting discouraged and dropping out of graduate school. That could have easily happened to me under different circumstances.

Graduate school is a different environment and then you start to wonder—“Am I really good enough to do research-level math?” It’s hard, in fact, to tell. You see all these people who are doing great things around you and then you think, well, maybe you’re not cut out for this. So I think it’s important [long pause] to have someone who believes in you.

from an interview with Akshay Venkatesh.

Akshay Venkatesh in the news.

Wincing at the state of physics

High energy particle physics theorists - the people who lead the investigations into the most fundamental aspects of nature - have been having a bad streak.  They have had no major successful new idea in the last forty years, all the theories they've proposed -- and there are lots of them -- have failed to yield an experimental signature.  The excuses for failure are flying thick.

Mathematician Peter Woit at Columbia University in his blog, recently quoted physicist Nima Arkani-Hamed of the Institute of Advanced Studies, Princeton, from an answer given in the Q&A session after a seminar, thus:

You could very justifiably say “look, you’re just continuing to make excuses for a paradigm that failed”, OK, and I would say that’s true, and even the paradigm most of your advisors love [e.g. usual SUSY] was already an excuse for the failure of non-supersymmetric GUTs before that.

That is a perfectly decent attitude to take, but I would like to at least tell you that you should study some of the history of physics. This very, very, very rarely happens, that some idea that seems basically right is just crap and wrong, It’s probably mostly right with a tweak or some reinterpretation. You’d have to go back over…, I don’t know how far you’d have to go back, even Ptolemy wasn’t so far from wrong…

Ouch! That is some seriously bad reading of the history of physics.   That was amply pointed out in the comments on the blog.

Rutgers University physicist  Amitabh Lath rightly, I think, pointed out:

Stop picking on Nima. You all are doing the internet thing of taking one statement in an hour talk and ganging up.

But challenged on it, he continued:

Even the pre-Copernican Ptolemaic stuff made sense to me. Basically, there are concepts in a failed theory that you might want to keep (things moving in circles around other things) and others you might want to jettison. Granted, he is not very good at history of science.

 Double Ouch!  Is "things moving in circles around other things" a valuable idea from the Ptolemaic theory of the solar system?  I think it is wrong on two counts -- firstly, the idea of things moving in circles around other things is present in earlier theories of the heavens; and secondly, things moving in circles around other things is not a theoretical idea; it is a root observation, the experience early humans had of the skies, at the very start of the study of the heavens.   For example, the sun rises at the east horizon in the morning every day, sets at the west horizon in the evening  and presumably somehow finds its way back in the dark to the east horizon the next morning, completing a closed loop if not a circle, per the early earth-bound humans.

I'm happy that I'm not in the high energy physics milieu at all.  Lot of mathematics, very little understanding.

American obsession with IQ - v3

I'll conclude this series on IQ with three pages' worth from Scott Barry Kaufman.  Remember he was "classified" at school via IQ test.  His IQ score predicted he was unlikely to finish high school.  This following is about four years after he was so classified.

Continue below the fold.

NNT revised draft

On medium.com, IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle

Binet Betrayed

Here's the way Scott Barry Kaufman tells the story of Alfred Binet, the inventor of the modern IQ test.

As the nineteenth century came to an end, business and civic leaders across a number of West European and North American countries united to promote compulsory universal public education.  But this posed a serious problem: how should a diverse population of children be educated?
....
The opportunity of a lifetime {for Binet} came in October 1904, when Joseph Chaumie, the {French} minister of public instruciton, established a commission to create a way to identify students in need of alternative education.....Binet and {Theodore} Simon immediately went to work.
....
Binet and Simon made clear the purpose of their test:

Our purpose is to be able to measure the intellectual capacity of a child who is brought to us in order to know whether he is normal or retarded.  We should, therefore, study his condition at that time and that time only.   We have nothing to do either with his past history or his future; consequently we shall neglect his etiology, and we shall make no attempt to distinguish between acquired and congenital idiocy...we do not attempt to establish or prepare a prognosis and we leave unanswered the question of whether this retardation is curable, or even improbable.   We shall limit ourselves to ascertaining the truth about his present mental state.

....
Along with their test, they also published a number of caveats.  First, they made it clear that their test does not measure a person's absolute level of intelligence.   They warned that their test couldn't possibly offer precise measurement like inches as measured by a ruler.   Instead, a score on their test was simply a classification entirely relative to that of other children of the same age. ....
....
Binet and Simon also acknowledged that many others than intellectual ability could influence performance on their tests, such as the unnaturalness of the testing situation and the potential for the test to intimidate children.   They also mentioned longer term influences, such as background, upbringing, health and effort.   Due to these other potential influences, they stressed the need to compare any person's test results only with those of comparable backgrounds.  Finally, they noted the importance of constant retesting, pointing out that individuals' intellectual development progresses at variable rates, due to different rates of maturation as well as differences in intellectual experiences.
....
It's noteworthy that the Binet-Simon scale never yielded an intelligence quotient (IQ).  In fact, long after Binet's death, Simon indicated that the use of a summary IQ score was a betrayal of the purpose of their test.  While Binet and Simon's purpose was noble, let's be absolutely clear: most people in France just wanted to weed out the intellectually disabled os that the "normal" students would not be slowed down.
....
Alas, Binet's efforts, caveats and cautions were almost completely ignored by the French establishment...Binet and Simon's efforts were wasted in their native France.  Binet personally felt as though he was a failure.

Soon his test would spread like wildfire across the globe-- particularly in America-- and to his horror, his test was used for purposes he never intended.   Toward the very end of his life, in response to statements that children with low test scores would never achieve certain things, he wrote in exasperation: "Never! What a strong word!  A few modern philosphers seem to lend their moral support to the these deplorable verdicts when they assert that an individual's intelligence is a fixed quantity, a quantity which cannot be increased.   We must protest and react against this brutal pessimism.  We shall attempt to prove that it is without foundation... With practice, training , and above all method, we manage to increase our attention, our memory, our judgment and literally to become more intelligent than we were before."

Binet even developed various "mental orthopedics" -- intellectual exercises -- to show the potential for remediation.  But it was too late.  On October 28, 1911, Binet suffered a stroke and passed away at the young age of 54.   The mass testing movement in America had just begun, with the testing proponents carrying with them a completely different conceptualization of human intelligence.

American obsession with IQ v2

Book-ends:  Perhaps it is karma that a nation obsessed with IQ finally got a President that it deserves - self-proclaimed, not simply smart, "but genius....and a very stable genius at that!"

When our intelligence scales have become more accurate and the laws governing IQ changes have been more definitively established it will then be possible to say that there is nothing about an individual as important as his IQ, except possibly his morals; that the greatest educational problem is to determine the kind of education best suited to each IQ level; that the first concern of a nation should be the average IQ of its citizens, and the eugenic and dysgenic influences which are capable of raising or lowering that level; that the great test problem of democracy is how to adjust itself to the large IQ differences which can be demonstrated to exist among the members of any race or nationality group.  — Lewis M. Terman (1922)

"Sorry losers and haters, but my I.Q. is one of the highest -and you all know it! Please don't feel so stupid or insecure,it's not your fault" (Donald J. Trump, May 8, 2013)

Take that, you libtard!

I hate the impudence of a claim that in fifty minutes you can judge and classify a human being’s predestined fitness in life. I hate the pretentiousness of that claim. I hate the abuse of scientific method which it involves. I hate the sense of superiority which it creates, and the sense of inferiority which it imposes. Walter Lippmann (1923)                

Some definitions of intelligence

Scott Barry Kaufman, in "Ungifted: Intelligence Redefined" has a graphic itself based on J.D. Wasserman "A History of Intelligence Assessment: The Unfinished Tapestry", which is available online. 

Some few tie intelligence to adaptability.  Definitions below the fold.

Genes and IQ

The Scientific American reports a new idea on what triggers Alzheimer's.

This paragraph triggered me, however:

But at start of the 21st century, researchers uncovered a harbinger for GR {gene recombination}. We discovered that DNA sequences vary from cell to cell, meaning that our brains are a vast mosaic of distinct genomes, a phenomenon aptly referred to as “genomic mosaicism.” These changes are distinct from epigenetic changes that do not directly affect DNA sequences. Scientists have now identified multiple sequence changes that are quite varied and seemingly random, consisting—in order of decreasing size—of entire chromosomes (aneuploidies), smaller copy number variations, even smaller LINE1 retrotransposon repeat elements and “single nucleotide variations that alter individual nucleotides.

How genes determine IQ becomes a bit mysterious if "our brains are a vast mosaic of distinct genomes".   One question presumably would be that are these "vast mosaic of distinct genomes in the brain" the same in some statistical sense in identical twins raised together and those raised separately?

America's obsession

Scott Barry Kaufman notes that when David Wechsler came up with his tests (for the Wechsler-Bellevue Intelligence Scale) around 1939,

"The test publishers were skeptical.  Why take so much time to measure a person's intelligence? This was antithetical to America's obsession with a fast, cheap and efficient way to categorize the totality of a person".

 This leads to the question, why is America so obsessed?  Is it a by-product of the ideology of capitalism?

Scott Barry Kaufman defies his IQ score

This article in The Atlantic, 2013, titled "The Perils of Giving Kids IQ Tests" doesn't say that IQ testing is useless.

We classify learning disabilities because children with dyslexia require very different academic support than children with Asperger's. In order to help these very different children, we must identify and understand their deficits and the resources those children will need. I have sat in on many meetings in which we - teams of psychologists, teachers, parents, learning specialists, and administrators - work to find the ideal combination of resources for kids with learning challenges. I have even recommended intelligence testing for students who, despite their persistence, diligence and effort, are not succeeding in school. I've seen testing lead to real academic and cognitive improvement, thanks to individualized education plans and access to learning resource professionals.

But the article does say that IQ test results are not destiny, via the story of Scott Barry Kaufman.

Kaufman, writing of his experience in Ungifted: Intelligence Redefined. The Truth About Talent, Practice, Creativity, and the Many Paths to Greatness, may have thought he knew what was at stake when he visited that school psychologist for testing, but he would not fully grasp the influence that afternoon of testing would have on the trajectory of his life until much later. The psychologist who tested Kaufman concluded that he had a relatively low IQ, a score low enough to earn him the label "seriously learning disabled."

Kaufman narrates:

After school I dash off to the local library and find a book about human intelligence. I flip through the pages and come face to face with a terrifying chart. At the top is listed the average IQ of PhDs. I am way lower than that number. Tentatively, I go down the list. College graduate? Closer, but still no cigar. My blood pressure is rising. Semiskilled laborer? In my dreams. After some time, I finally find my range: "Lucky to graduate high school," it says.

 But Kaufman "ripped up his label, held on tight to his growth mindset and his well-honed skills of grit, diligence, and persistence, and rode that potential all the way to a Ph.D from Yale."

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So that makes three - Feynman,  Boyd and Kaufman.  But how many children have fallen victim to IQ humbug?

Cosmo Shalizi takes on IQ

IQ

Because You Really Wished I'd Write More About Books

Books to Read While the Algae Grow in Your Fur, August 2008

Books to Read While the Algae Grow in Your Fur, June 2008

Last Words on Saletan

Reading Skills

In Which I Demand That Slate Refund My Subscription

Uncle Fritz Explains How It Feels to Argue about Intelligence Tests

g, a Statistical Myth

Yet More on the Heritability and Malleability of IQ

Those Voices Again

...In Different Voices

On the Superiority of Sociology to String Theory

PS:

Q: So the analogy suggests that IQ scores are...?

A: A proxy for the skills and habits encouraged by a bureaucratic society; skills and habits which can be at once highly heritable (because of strong transmission through family and neighbors) and highly learned (within the scope of what it is biologically possible for humans to learn and internalize). Innate ability needn't enter into it at all. The implications for democracy would be nearly nil.

Q: And the famous g?

A: Is a statistical artifact, or better yet a myth; but that is another story for another time.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb tweets about IQ

The twitter thread is here.  Please refer to the thread on twitter for full detail.

FYI: IYI = The IYI class: Intellectual-Yet-Idiot
One of the key take aways: "the only robust measure of "rationality" & "intelligence" is survival, avoidance of ruin/left tail/absorbing barrier, (ergodicity). Nothing that does not account for ability to survive counts as a measure of "intelligence".

Sorry for the poor formatting.  Will try to fix.

PS: Also found this:

“I suspect the I.Q., SAT, and school grades are tests designed by nerds so they can get high scores in order to call each other intelligent...Smart and wise people who score low on IQ tests, or patently intellectually defective ones, like the former U.S. president George
W. Bush, who score high on them (130), are testing the test and not the reverse.”

― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms

"IQ" THREAD

"IQ" measures an inferior form of intelligence, stripped of 2nd order effects, meant to select paper shufflers, obedient IYIs.