belief poll #2

[spoonless]

This time I made sure that the lower end of the range is 0 rather than 1, to make it symmetric with the 10. I don't know why lj defaults to 1-10... I was lazy last time and just left it how they set it up.

I know different people mean different things by choosing different numbers, so to standardize try and do it this way: pick 10 if you are 95%-100% confident that the statement is true. Pick 0 if you are 0-5% confident (in other words, 95%-100% confident it's false). Pick 9 if you are 85%-95% confident it's true. Pick 5 if you are 45-55% confident it's true (in other words, you don't know). I'm going to take browascension's suggestion this time and say that if you're unfamiliar with the topic, just skip it rather than picking 5.

I tried to pick questions that I was a little more agnostic on this time... last time I had too many extreme responses, both from myself and from everyone, so hopefully this one will be more mixed.

[Poll #1438874]

Comments

[shaktool.livejournal.com]

Serious question: What do you mean by "morally wrong" in question 3? I'm assuming you're not referring to a cosmic function?

For many of these I would be uncomfortable with responding with a number and leaving it at that. For example, I am at least 95% certain that IQ scores are a meaningful. Anything that produces statistically relevant discrepancies is meaningful. But they are hardly comprehensive, they are unreliable, and they are dangerous to extrapolate from.

And with the chromosome thing, of course having XX chromosomes is likely to put people at a disadvantage on math IQ test. Because IQ tests are administered in this universe, and this is a universe where having XX chromosomes makes you a woman and women are less likely to be encouraged to excel at taking math IQ tests, therefore having XX chromosomes reduces your probability of excelling at math IQ tests. I assume this is not quite what you're asking about, but there are many ways I could interpret the question. In fact, that particular question is sort of phrased as a truism. "The reason why people with different genetics score differently on IQ tests is because of genetics... well yeah, if there's a statistically relevant discrepancy between XX and XY people, then the XX and the XY probably has something to do with it."

Basically my answers would depend a lot on the precise phrasing of the question and on the definitions of words that I assume you are using.

I am tempted to respond using the numbers as a measurement of how confident I am that I interpreted your question correctly. :P

Perhaps ironically, the questions where I am not worried about interpreting the question correctly but I simply don't know the answer are the ones where the confidence metric makes the most sense to me. I don't know much about the stock market, but I'd be happy to hazard a guess somewhere between 0 and 10 for that one. Same for the calorie question. Most of the rest of my answers would be exactly 0 or 10, depending on the interpretation.

[spoonless.livejournal.com]

I see your point regarding the chromosome question, there is a tautological interpretation of it. But I thought it fairly obvious what the right way to interpret it is. It's asking whether there is some gene or set of genes for IQ that are correlated with the XX/XY chromosome. If not, then the reasons are either just cultural, or perhaps have to do with some other non-genetic biological trait... if on the other hand, they are correlated, then there is a genetic reason for it. People have done many tests trying to isolate whether this is true... some claiming one set of results and some claiming the opposite results. Personally, I do not think the matter is settled yet, although I tend to hear more people who think it is definitely NOT genetic than people who think it definitely is.

Basically my answers would depend a lot on the precise phrasing of the question and on the definitions of words that I assume you are using.

Part of the fun is in letting people interpret the statements in whatever way seems most meaningful to themselves. So for example, the question about whether IQ measures intelligence depends on what your definition of intelligence is. It does not depend on what *my* definition of intelligence is, because what I'm asking by the question is "what's YOUR definition" :)

[shaktool.livejournal.com]

I don't doubt that there are conditions in which men and women have the same math scores. Are these conditions "neutral"? "Unbiased"? I don't think it's possible to raise a population to the age where they are able to take a math test and still call them unbiased. I don't think it makes sense to talk about the origin of the intelligence of a person as being distinct from their history.

I guess the answer that you're looking for is that I don't think there is any specific gene that evolution selected for encouraging or inhibiting math intelligence. And if there was, I don't see why it would be turned on for one sex and not the other. But we are complicated organisms, and our mathematical intelligence is the product of our complicated genes interacting with a complicated environment.

[spoonless.livejournal.com]

I guess the answer that you're looking for is that I don't think there is any specific gene that evolution selected for encouraging or inhibiting math intelligence.

IQ has been shown to be highly hereditary. Surely it is not as simple as one specific gene, but I am highly confident (a 10 for sure) that there are some set of genes that affect mathematical intelligence. The question is whether they are correlated with the chromosomal sex and if so how strong of an effect this is compared to cultural conditioning or other factors.