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2 posts found
Jul 26, 2017
ssc
6 min 764 words 294 comments
The post argues against the idea that the Griggs vs. Duke Power Co. case is responsible for credentialism in employment, presenting evidence that the issue is more complex and widespread. Longer summary
This post challenges the common belief that the Griggs vs. Duke Power Co. Supreme Court case is responsible for the rise of credentialism in employment. The author presents several arguments against this notion: 1) The Griggs decision applies equally to college degrees and IQ tests, yet degrees are still widely used. 2) Other countries without similar laws face similar credentialism issues. 3) It's legal and possible for employers to ask for SAT scores (which approximate IQ tests), but this practice hasn't caught on. 4) Fields with standardized tests (like medicine) still heavily rely on credentials. The author concludes that the roots of credentialism likely lie deeper than this single court decision. Shorter summary
Aug 11, 2014
ssc
22 min 3,056 words 144 comments
Scott Alexander defends the validity of intelligence and IQ tests by comparing them to comas and the Glasgow Coma Scale in medicine. Longer summary
Scott Alexander argues that intelligence and IQ tests are valid concepts, analogous to comas and the Glasgow Coma Scale in medicine. He contends that whether there's a single general factor of intelligence is less important than the usefulness of IQ as a predictive measure. Scott draws parallels between how comas and intelligence are measured, showing that both involve multiple factors combined into a single scale used for predictions. He criticizes arguments against the existence of intelligence as often being a motte-and-bailey fallacy, where the easily defensible position (uncertainty about a single general factor) is used to imply that all claims about intelligence are meaningless. Shorter summary