"Mark D. Morin" <mdmpsyd at PETERHOOD69gwi.net> writes:
[attempted followup to "alt.usenet.kooks" disobeyed.]
> Peter Douglas Zohrab apparently has no grasp of statistical analyses and
> wrote:
>> >
> > Mark Morin tried unsuccessfully to cover up his inability to refute my
> > points, in his message (repeated below, with my comments added):
> >
> > "Mark D. Morin" <mdmpsyd at PETERHOOD69gwi.net> wrote in message
> > news:3D26D82C.CDCF294F at gwi.net...> > > Peter Douglas Zohrab wrote:
> > >
> > > > What I am leading up to here is that the above webpage tries to ignore
> > size
> > > > and concentrate on structure, for the simple reason that the two authors
> > are
> > > > both female,
> > >
> > > ah no. it's because you compare apples to apples not to oranges.
> >
> > I don't know what you consider to be an intelligent refutation, but using a
> > primary school metaphor doesn't cut any ice with me. Could you please
> > attempt -- however pathetically -- to explain the relevance of fruit to this
> > discussion ?
>> If you have an apriori reason to believe to samples are different and
> you have an anomolous subject in one sample, you test for differences
> from the sample the subject came from, not the other one.
Slow down a bit. You imply you're addressing the issue of "Why
compare Einstein's brain to male brains and not female?". But that's
not exactly the issue Peter raised, and in this context the
substitution is a bit unfair. He pointed out that the effect is "to
ignore size and concentrate on structure", and your argument doesn't
refute that.
And certainly it's reasonable to compare against a range of sample
classes: all human brains, male human brains, physicists' brains. The
insistent focus on never using the wider comparison tends to support
Peter's point in a backhanded way. You could argue that it would be
like comparing against monkey brains, which we know simply aren't as
capable as human brains, but I don't think you want to make that
analogy.
> > The various "abilities" that IQ tests test for,
> > and the test items that are used, have been challenged for alleged cultural
> > bias,
> > and they can be challenged for (anti-male) sex bias, as well.
>> How? Point me to one peer reviewed article that makes this challenge.
> Are you even familiar enough with the tests to make this idiotic
> statement? What specific items are biased?
Now, be fair. You know there are severe political and ideological
pressures against publishing anything like that. Scientists like
Suzanne Steinmetz have received death threats against themselves and
their children simply for publishing results that went against
Feminist interests. At the very least, anyone who published about
anti-male bias in IQ tests could look forward to great difficulty ever
getting another research grant. Anyone who reviewed it favorably
would be taking a political chance too. So you can't just assume that
such information would make its way into peer-reviewed journals.
But the *information* is out there. Credit to Leonardo
<Leonardo_member at newsguy.com> in <9miftl0239r at drn.newsguy.com> for the
following:
> When Wechsler was developing his IQ test, he found
> that out of 105 tests assessing skills in solving
> maze-puzzles, involving the most heterogeneous
> populations throughout the world, 99 showed an
> incontrovertible male superiority. (Wechsler resolved
> this type of problem by eliminating all those tests
> that resulted in findings of significant sex
> differences.)
--
Tom Breton at panix.com, username tehom. http://www.panix.com/~tehom
