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Top-level
@makeworld @viraptor @aimaz @bontchev if you get two identically educated and raised people to take the same test, then that might tell you that the one who did better on the test is smarter. That doesn't mean that the test itself is a good one, nor does it preclude it from being racist and pseudoscientific. 7 comments
@makeworld @viraptor @aimaz @bontchev medical science has known for decades that BMI is an absolutely terrible metric for health in the general population. Yet most clinical professionals still insist it's invaluable in a clinical context. They're not doing that because they're raving bigots or incompetent, nor are they doing it because they know something we don't, they're just doing it because they're people who are lazy and resistant to change and challenges to their assumptions. Same for IQ. @makeworld @viraptor @aimaz @bontchev I'm not trying to have a go at you here, or change the subject, but I am begging you to start applying some critical thinking to this. We're all raised with assumptions about which groups of people have authority and should be trusted and listened to. And someone railing against an established authority isn't automatically right, *but an established authority isn't automatically right either*. Question those assumptions, apply critical thinking.  @georgepotter ah perhaps the issue is semantics. BMI is flawed of course, but not pseudoscientific by any definition. It's not unfalsifiable or un-replicatable and so on. It's just a measure that isn't perfect. @makeworld if you want to argue semantics, then let me be precise: IQ is pseudoscientific in that it does not do what it claims, it relies on false assumptions and confirmation bias, is routinely advocated for situations it fails miserably at, and lacks any kind of proper scientific basis. Some guy in the 1910s thinking that something is scientific does not make it so, no matter how popular it becomes. @georgepotter I mean okay, I think I just disagree. I like this video if you're interested in why: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkKPsLxgpuY Thankfully we've moved far beyond the 1910s, over 100 years ago. I have no doubt cognitive testing sucked back then. @makeworld "I watched a video by some guy on YouTube and I found it convincing" plus "I read a wikipedia article and found a quote I agreed with" 🙄 It's nothing but appeals to authority, and zero critical reasoning, all the way down with you isn't it? I'm sorry we've both wasted our time on this, but you really need to learn what a proper source is and isn't. Congratulations for being a textbook example of how structural racism upholds itself though. |
Gregory's Server
@makeworld @viraptor @aimaz @bontchev BMI is another completely inaccurate, flawed and pseudoscientific metric. Yet it's still used near universally by the medical profession.
Why is that? Because it's good and robust? Or just because it's easy and convenient and everyone's used to it and the people harmed by it aren't usually the same people as the ones using it?