Is ability to read minds an aspect of general intelligence?
You have maybe seen this test making the rounds on Twitter: It's called the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Task (RMET). The subject is given 36 such grey-tone images…
Who’s prejudiced? Who’s a conspiracy theorist? Sampling bias in social science
You have no doubt heard that conservatives are more prejudiced and just generally stupid than leftists. For instance, LiveScience in 2012: And in 2017 Vox talks openly about how all…
Why the race and intelligence question is still not resolved
It could probably have been resolved decades ago, and definitely within the last 10 years with genomic data, yet it is still not. Why? Essentially, it's because of bias in…
Large scale sex, race etc. discrimination studies: what do they show?
Given enough motivation, QRPs, biased reviewing and time, one can build an entire literature of studies proving anything. There's plenty of all of these to prove left-wing ideological beliefs (and…
Cognitive ability, surveys and measurement error: possible bias in GxE studies
I saw this paper at random: The consequences of heavy alcohol use remain a serious public health problem. Consistent evidence has demonstrated that both genetic and social influences contribute to…
Measurement error and behavioral genetics in criminology
I am watching Brian Boutwell's (Twitter, RG) talk at a recent conference and this got me thinking. https://youtu.be/yDm9bCgPKvs?list=PLD7ASfe52RybK4nYTZejG4-kQYqKI1rXX What are we measuring? As far as I know, there are typically…
Correcting for n-level discretization?
When one has a continuous variable and then cuts it into bins (discretization) and correlates it with some other variable, the observed correlation is biased downwards to some extent. The…
Rationality and bias test results
I've always considered myself a very rational and fairly unbiased person. Being aware of the general tendency for people to overestimate themselves (see also visualization of the Dunning-Kruger effect), this…
Correlations and likert scales: What is the bias?
A person on ResearchGate asked the following question: How can I correlate ordinal variables (attitude Likert scale) with continuous ratio data (years of experience)? Currently, I am working on my…