Some truths may not be uttered

An adviser in British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's office has resigned after online comments resurfaced where he linked intellect to race and seemed to advocate a eugenics policy.

Andrew Sabisky once suggested that black Americans had a lower average IQ than white Americans. <i>[All the research says they do]</i>

He also said in a 2014 web post that one way to stop unplanned pregnancies "creating a permanent underclass" was to force people to use contraception.

Mr Sabisky said he was in the middle of a "giant character assassination" and was stepping down because he did not want to be a distraction.

"The media hysteria about my old stuff online is mad but I wanted to help HMG, not be a distraction," he said on Twitter using the initials for Her Majesty's Government.

"Accordingly I've decided to resign as a contractor."

He said he hoped the government hired more people with "good geopolitical forecasting track records and that media learn to stop selective quoting".

"I signed up to do real work, not be in the middle of a giant character assassination: if I can't do the work properly there's no point," he said, adding that he had "a lot of other things to do" with his life.

Downing Street had repeatedly refused to say whether Mr Johnson supported the views expressed by Mr Sabisky.

<a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/boris-johnson-advisor-resigns-over-comments-linking-race-and-intelligence">SOURCE</a>  

New dating app matches people based on INTELLIGENCE - and singles must complete an IQ test to determine how 'smart' they are

This is realistic but likely to be criticized

My Kitchen Rules finalist Olga Rogacheva and entrepreneur Gi Singhhas have launched a dating app that matches people based on intelligence.

The LoveSmart.app site has attracted more than 2,000 curious users through word-of-mouth after its Australian launch.

This new type of 'smart dating' avoids matching people who may not be on the same wavelength. 

'There is overwhelming scientific evidence that matching intelligence levels is the best foundation for long-lasting relationships,' Olga said.

The app predominantly aims to 'cut through the superficial clutter' of people by using a unique testing mechanism.

When users first log into the app a series of standardised questions similar to an IQ test are asked to determine how smart each individual is.    

Each question in the 'heimdall quiz' varies in difficulty and is picked from a range of different categories.

Once the common knowledge test is complete a second round of questions are asked to discover what type of person you are, such as if you're shy, outgoing or empathetic.

'We want smart, single people to go out and have the time of their lives, and in the process to find love in the foolproof cohort of intelligent dates,' Olga said.


Dating in the modern world is difficult enough, but the new app eliminates the fear of meeting someone who may not suit your level of intelligence.

'We made it our mission to fix the omissions of the current dating services and create a space for smart people to meet and bond without the pain of dealing with unsavoury characters,' Olga explained. 

LoveSmart.app is free to use online and hopes those who match create a successful long-lasting relationship together.

SOURCE 

IQ and achievement

A useful summary below from the Daily Mail. He is both right and wrong below.  It is true that many high IQ people don't make a great mark on the world but it is also true that those who do make their mark in anything requiring  brainpower do have very high IQs. High IQ is almost always very helpful and in some occupations is essential

With the example he gives, the writer below does tell us why many SEEM to be low achievers:  They have their own definition of achievement and the good life.  And they work to that.

Many may not even be detected as intelligent at all.  I know a woman who was a duffer at school but somehow got into a very highly-paid job while still young.  She made some very good financial decisions while in that job and was able to retire at about age 30 to a country area where she spends a lot of time in the garden growing her own fruit and veg.  She also has a very bright and supportive husband and an attractive young daughter.  She is one of the most successful people I know by the only criterion that matters:  She has got exactly what she wanted. 

Her IQ has never been assessed as far as I know but her repeated good decisions tell me it is very high

And in my own case I made enough money in business to retire at age 39.  And retire I did.  I did not go on to make more and more.  I had enough not to need a job and that was all I wanted


People who are intelligent tend to be healthier, wealthier and live longer.

But beyond a certain point, being clever can be more a hindrance than a help – and certainly doesn’t guarantee happiness or success.

The cleverest man I’ve ever met is a 67-year-old American called Chris Langan. He has an IQ well over 190 – higher than Albert Einstein, whose score was about 160.

Chris was once known as ‘the smartest man in America’, but he’s not a Silicon Valley supergeek or a multi-millionaire tycoon.

When I met him a few years ago he was a horse rancher working in the Midwest.

He had dropped out of college and spent most of his life doing manual labour, including as a construction worker and a bouncer.

He told me that he enjoyed being a bouncer because it gave him plenty of time to think about quantum mechanics.

He never pursued his obvious gifts – though he did on one occasion enter an American game show where he won the equivalent of about £200,000.

He told me he had enough money, so felt no need to repeat that trick. He was perfectly happy looking after horses.

The first person to properly explore the link between high intelligence and life outcomes was a psychologist called Lewis Terman.

In 1926, he visited Californian schools searching for the most gifted children.

He selected 1,500 with IQs of 140 or more. They became known as The Termites and have been studied now for over 90 years.

While some did achieve wealth and fame, others, Terman noted, became ‘policemen, typists and filing clerks’.

The link between intellect and achievement was far from clear.

So why doesn’t having a very high IQ make you better off? I think it is partly because if people are told when they are young that they are much smarter than others, they often feel burdened by expectations.

After that, they feel whatever they do is not quite good enough.

Another factor is that a lot of really smart people I know also spend way too much time agonising over things, seeing the different side to so many problems they find it hard to make a decision.

SOURCE 

Indian girl in Britain gets highest possible IQ score in Mensa test

Indians outside India often do remarkably well in many ways.  A brown skin does not seem to hinder them.

A primary schoolgirl has achieved the highest possible score in a Mensa IQ test - beating Albert Einstein and the late Stephen Hawking.

Freya Mangotra, of Moseley, Birmingham, sat the test the when she was 10 and a half in October - the youngest allowed. Einstein is believed he have had an IQ of 160, the same as the late Hawking.

Proud dad Kuldeep Kumar said Freya's result of 162 in the Cattell III B test - which examines verbal reasoning - means his only child is officially 'a genius' according to officials at Mensa.  'They said it's the highest you can get under the age of 18,' said Dr Kumar, a psychiatrist.

'I don't want to put too much pressure on her but we knew from an early age, two or three, that she was gifted. 'She grasps things very fast. She can concentrate very quickly and remember things - she only needs to read or do something once to remember. We are blessed.'

Her proud dad says she is also a voracious reader just like he and his wife, Dr Gulshan Tajuriahe, who is currently studying for a PhD in child development.

The family is often to be found with their heads buried in books at home with the TV on in the background.

SOURCE 

Children who start school later gain advantage, new study shows (?)

The paper underlying this report does not yet appear to be online but the Centre seems very Leftist so the research is unlikely to be very rigorous.

Even the report below does however reveal a lack of rigour.  It is apparently based on the nonsensical "all men are equal" dogma.  No attempt is made to take account of student IQ. High IQ students have often been shown to thrive when enrolled early and the usual squawk about their social fitness has been shown to be a snark.  Smart kids are in general better socially as well as academically

So the study tells us nothing certain.  There were presumably a number of low IQ students in the sample who would benefit from a late start.  So the finding of an overall benefit from a late start could be entirely a product of the low IQ element in the sample.  How students of around average IQ fare is simply not addressed


Children who are held back and start school later than their peers gain an advantage that is still felt up to six decades later, a new study shows.

They are more self-confident, resilient, competitive and trusting, which tends to be associated with economic success.

The analysis of 1007 adults aged between 24 and 60 illustrates the “potential adverse effect of school entry rules," lead author Lionel Page from the University of Technology, Sydney said.

“Our findings indicate that school entry rules influence the formation of behavioural traits, creating long-lasting disparities between individuals born on different sides of the cut-off date," he said.

School starting ages vary between Australian states. In Victoria, children starting school must turn five by April 30 in the year they start school, whereas in Queensland and Western Australia the cut-off is June 30. In South Australia,, they must be five by May 1 and in Tasmania they must be five by January 1.

Dr Page said the study’s findings suggested the relative age at school had an impact on people’s success in adulthood.

“We find that participants who were relatively old in school exhibit higher self-confidence about their performance at an effort task compared to those who were relatively young," he said.

“Moreover, they declare being more tolerant to risk in a range of real-life situations and trusting of other people in social interactions.

“Taken together, this set of results offers important insights on the long-term effects of relative age at school on behavioural traits."

The new study was published by the Life Course Centre, a joint research project between the federal government and the University of Queensland, the University of Sydney, the University of Melbourne and the University of Western Australia.

It involved adults from Queensland, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia.

The findings come as a UNSW study found a quarter of students are held back so they start school when turning six, not when they turn five.

SOURCE  

Social class in speech

The article below tells us that we all speak in a way that tends to indicate our background.  In particular, whether we are upper class, lower class or in between is detectible from our speech.

The study is an American one but I doubt that many Britons will be surprised by it.  In Britain, an "Oxford" or "RP" accent is the mark of the upper class person and below that there are various regional accents of varied significance -- with Cockney (a London working class accent) being the lowest of the low. Regional accents are also well known in the USA of course.

And in both the USA and the UK, your accent has a major impact on your life chances.  The best and most lucrative jobs will normally be occupied by people with prestigious accents.  And for anyone with a humble background to break into that is virtually impossible.  It would simply "grate" on upper class people to associate daily with (say) a cockney accent.  There is a loophole, however.  You can change your accent to a more prestigious one.  Many do.

So what is new about the article below? We surely knew all along that our speech gives away a lot about us. The  relative novelty was the finding that class can be detected in your writing style as well.  And that, I think, is very interesting indeed.  Because I think that it is probably complexity that is being detected.  The lower class person can be expected to use fewer words, mostly common words and simpler sentence structure.  That should be easily detected but I cannot see what else would be.

But verbal ability is strongly correlated with IQ.  The more words you know, the smarter you generally are.  I like the word "inchoate" as a test of that.  Do you know what that means?  If you do, take a bow.

So we come back to the now well-supported generalization that social class is largely an IQ gradient. See e.g. here and here. The top people are smarter.  The recruiter who assesses a job applicant by his speech is not being arbitrary.  He is seeking more intelligent employees, which will be generally advantageous.  He is doing a good job of personnel selection.

That is a very different interpretation of the results below.  Intelligence is strongly inherited and Leftists hate that.  They hate a lot of things.  And the traditional Marxist way of coping with that is to use the word "reproduced"' -- which you will see in the heading below.

To account for the fact that some arrangement is persistent from generation to generation, Marxists don't regard that as natural in any way.  They say that the arrangement has to be "reproduced". And they go about earnestly looking for HOW it is reproduced.  They look for things that people do which  cause the same thing to emerge in a second and third generation.  And it is always due to the machinations of evil men, of course.  The idea that a smart person mostly has smart kids willy nilly is rejected by the Marxist.  He thinks that the smart man gets smart kids by sending them to private schools etc.  So if you abolish the private schools, all men will be equal.

So in the article below the authors don't regard the class-detection of the recruiter as being reasonable and natural but rather see it as an unjust strategy of devious complexity that unfairly disadvantages lower class people.  Therefore the recruiter must "unlearn" his wrong procedures and abandon his biases.

So there are two very different lessons that can be learned from the findings below.  I think that nothing needs to be done, whereas the Leftist thinks the whole thing is wrong, wrong, wrong and is in urgent need of reform.


Evidence for the reproduction of social class in brief speech

Michael W. Kraus et al.

Abstract

Economic inequality is at its highest point on record and is linked to poorer health and well-being across countries. The forces that perpetuate inequality continue to be studied, and here we examine how a person’s position within the economic hierarchy, their social class, is accurately perceived and reproduced by mundane patterns embedded in brief speech. Studies 1 through 4 examined the extent that people accurately perceive social class based on brief speech patterns. We find that brief speech spoken out of context is sufficient to allow respondents to discern the social class of speakers at levels above chance accuracy, that adherence to both digital and subjective standards for English is associated with higher perceived and actual social class of speakers, and that pronunciation cues in speech communicate social class over and above speech content. In study 5, we find that people with prior hiring experience use speech patterns in preinterview conversations to judge the fit, competence, starting salary, and signing bonus of prospective job candidates in ways that bias the process in favor of applicants of higher social class. Overall, this research provides evidence for the stratification of common speech and its role in both shaping perceiver judgments and perpetuating inequality during the briefest interactions.

SOURCE 

Marriage and the So-Called Gender Pay Gap

This has become something of an old chestnut.  But it is rubbish.  Because of the larger standard deviation of IQ in males, there are far more men than women in the upper ranges of IQ -- and IQ is a strong determinant of income.  So high income, high IQ women in fact have an objective surplus of compatible men to choose from.

So why the beef?  It's just the latest excuse for an old, old problem: Women in their 30s and 40 asking "Where are all the men?"  So where are they?

Women with good juices grab a desirable man in their teens and 20s, while there are plenty of men in their age-range still single.  So fussy women who fail to do that grab in their 20s find that all the desirable men are married.  They are left with other women's rejects.  IQ is not the problem. The lack of a strong sexual motivation is.

A strongly motivated woman will make allowances for the inevitable male inadequacies while the less motivated ones are more fussy and wait for perfection. But perfection seldom comes so all too often that fussiness will lead to a lonely old age.


Highly educated professional women are finding fewer well-suited men available to marry.

In this era of “equity equals justice” radicalism where the gender pay gap is regularly trotted out by leftists as an example of social injustice, a recent study provides an interesting twist. According to a study published in the Journal of Marriage and Family, the number of women in higher income brackets is increasing … and these women are running into a shortage of marital partners. In other words, these unmarried women are having trouble find men to marry who match or exceed their own income level.

The study concludes that there are “large deficits in the supply of potential male spouses,” and that “one implication is that the unmarried may remain unmarried or marry less well-suited partners.” The study’s lead author, Daniel T. Lichter, notes that while women do indeed seek to marry for love, “it also is fundamentally an economic transaction.”

Fox Business observes, “It seems many men aren’t getting up to the income level that women prefer in a potential marriage partner.” Evidently, no matter what the social justice warriors may claim, there is an innate expectation in the minds women that values men as husbands who will be the primary bread winner. Who knew that gender roles were so ingrained?

SOURCE