The difficulties of getting IQ research published

Below is an email circulated by eminent East German psychologist and geneticist, Volkmar Weiss [Volkmar-Weiss@t-online.de]

With great interest I have read Gelade's paper on "IQ and the technological achievement of nations", Intelligence 36 (2008) 711-718, in which he has come to the conclusion that the GDP of a nation depends upon the percentage of high-IQ individuals. Independently, La Griffe du Lion with his smart fraction theory and I myself with the "law of the vital few" are confirming his result, see page 137ff. of my paper "National IQ Means, Calibrated and Transformed from Edudational Attainment, and Their Underlying Gene Frequencies", Mankind Quarterly 49 (2008) 129-164. For the full text click here. Originally, in April 2008 my paper was submitted to "Intelligence", too, but was rejected by Dettermann. In September I wrote to Richard Lynn:

"Dettermann was even able to find a reviewer who did not understand the transformation of PISA scores (500;100) into IQ scores (100;15). I quote from this review: "The author mentioned the mean and SD of intelligence and at one point stated "in the relationship 100 : 15 = 6.67 ." I am not sure what to make of this. I know quite well how to perform linear transformations, but I am not sure how the 6.67 helps in this context." ... The author stated that he was able to "calculate . a world average IQ of 95". How can one make sense of this? What is the reference population? Typically, IQ is normed to have a mean of 100 in the population. If so, why wouldn't the world average IQ be 100?" - Richard, you could be happy that this anonymous reviewer did never review one of your publications. - A responsible editor would be ashamed to communicate such a "review" to the author and drop this reviewer from any further reviewing. However, I am sure, this will never happen.

In your book "The Global Bell Curve", I was very impressed by the foreword by the publishers: "We are distinguished by the fact that we are not a publisher of choice but one of last resort. We celebrate that status as it grows directly from our resolve not to tolerate the strictures of political correctness. Our authors come to us after having been worn to a nub by rejection slips from established houses that only a few years ago would have been figthing for their manuscripts. But now a velvet tyranny seeks to oppress the mind."

My original plan was to write a monograph on intelligence in English during the next two years, the rejected paper should already be a small part of this book. Now, I am sure that after reading this foreword and the rejection, I will have no chance to find an established house to print my book. I write in German at least three times faster than in English. Therefore, I will write this book in German. I have an offer from an established house in Austria and from two smaller publishers in Germany.

In the age of mass universities, where all over the world thousands of professors of psychology must publish or perish, the journal "Intelligence" and the "International Society for Intelligence Research" are themselves part of the problem of increasing mediocrity. Of course, next year I will not renew my membership in the so-called "Society for Intelligence Research".

Today, I would like to add and I am calling, that the adherents of Charles Spearman should found a journal "General Intelligence" and found a society of their own, free from the thousand multiple intelligences and even emotional ones. The editor of "Mankind Quarterly", Roger Pearson, is already an old man and, I am afraid, after him no journal all over the world will dare to print such a completely political incorrect paper as mine.

Attention: In the printed pdf-version the head of Table 1 is lacking, and the tables are not printed in the places where they should be inserted. 4 pages behind the tables are doubled. Otherwise the text is okay. (I had no possibility to correct the final pdf-version.)

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The National Ponzi Scheme

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was set up to combat fraudulent practices. The SEC's website explains that "Ponzi schemes are a type of illegal pyramid scheme named for Charles Ponzi, who duped thousands of New England residents into investing in a postage stamp speculation scheme back in the 1920s." It goes on to say, "Decades later, the Ponzi scheme continues to work on the 'rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul' principle, as money from new investors is used to pay off earlier investors until the whole scheme collapses." That is how the SEC described the recent Bernard Madoff $50 billion Ponzi scheme, "a stunning fraud that appears to be of epic proportions."

A Ponzi scheme does not generate any wealth whatsoever; that is why it ultimately collapses. As Circuit Judge Anderson said in the 1922 Lowell v. Brown case, the Ponzi scheme was "simply the old fraud of paying the earlier comers out of the contributions of the later comers." So long as the number of late comers -- you might call them suckers -- grows, the fraudulent scheme has life.

We have a national Ponzi scheme where Congress collects about $785 billion in Social Security taxes from about 163 million workers to send out $585 billion to 50 million Social Security recipients. Social Security's trustees tell us that the surplus goes into a $2.2 trillion trust fund to meet future obligations. The problem is whatever difference between Social Security taxes and benefits paid out is spent by Congress. What the Treasury Department does is give the Social Security Trust Fund non-marketable "special issue government securities" that are simply bookkeeping entries that are IOUs.

According to Social Security trustee estimates, around 2016 the amount of Social Security benefits paid will exceed taxes collected. That means one of two things, or both, must happen: Congress will raise taxes and/or slash promised Social Security benefits. Each year the situation will get worse since the number of retirees is predicted to increase relative to the number in the workforce paying taxes. In 1940, there were 42 workers per retiree, in 1950 there were 16, today there are 3 and in 20 or 30 years there will be 2 or fewer workers per retiree.

Social Security is unsustainable because it is not meeting the first order condition of a Ponzi scheme, namely expanding the pool of suckers. Social Security has been one congressional lie after another since its inception. Here's what a 1936 Social Security pamphlet said: "After the first 3 years -- that is to say, beginning in 1940 -- you will pay, and your employer will pay, 1.5 cents for each dollar you earn, up to $3,000 a year ... beginning in 1943, you will pay 2 cents, and so will your employer, for every dollar you earn for the next 3 years. ... And finally, beginning in 1949, twelve years from now, you and your employer will each pay 3 cents on each dollar you earn, up to $3,000 a year. That is the most you will ever pay." The pamphlet also said, "Beginning November 24, 1936, the United States government will set up a Social Security account for you. ... The checks will come to you as a right."

That's another lie. In .Flemming vs Nestor (1960), the U.S. Supreme court held that you have no "accrued property rights" to a Social Security check. That means Congress can do anything it wishes with Social Security. There is little or nothing that can be done to prevent the economic and political chaos that will result from the collapse of Social Security.

Today's recipients of Social Security, along with their powerful AARP lobby, represent a powerful political force. Few politicians are willing to risk their careers alienating today's senior citizens for the benefit of Americans in 2040. After all what do today's seniors and politicians care about a 2040 calamity? They will be dead by then.

Source

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ELSEWHERE

A detailed but very amusing explanation here of how Wall St perpetuated the sub-prime mortgage problem.

Sounds hopeful: "Senate Democratic leaders conceded yesterday that they do not have the votes to pass the stimulus bill as currently written and said that to gain bipartisan support, they will seek to cut provisions that would not provide an immediate boost to the economy. The legislation represents the first major test for President Obama and an expanded Democratic Congress, both of which have made economic recovery the cornerstone of their new political mandate. The stimulus package has now tripled from its post-election estimate of about $300 billion, and in recent days lawmakers in both parties have grown wary of the swelling cost. Moderate Republicans are trying to trim the bill by as much as $200 billion, although Democrats working with those GOP senators have not agreed to a specific figure. The Senate's first vote on a stimulus amendment, a failed effort yesterday to add more infrastructure spending to the package, signaled the change in course."

Stimulus package will increase unemployment : "President Obama and the Democrats' 'stimulus' package will increase the unemployment rate. The changes they propose will also make us poorer, with fewer, less productive jobs. The most obvious explanation is the $36 billion in increased unemployment insurance benefits. Larger benefits at least for this year will encourage some people, who may be unhappy with their jobs, to be unemployed while they look for something better. . Yet the 'stimulus' package will do something else that will increase unemployment at least as much. Most of the new jobs will be for people who are currently employed. By moving money from places where it is currently being spent to places where the government wants it spent, you move the jobs also. But it takes time for people to move between jobs. That is called unemployment."

Kill the big, bad banks : "Every day we read that one primary reason the financial system is on the brink of collapse is that the banking industry extended too many loans to consumers and businesses that weren't creditworthy. We also read the reason the economy is in a nose dive is businesses and consumers have stopped borrowing because they no longer have access to credit. Taken together, these two premises imply the following conclusion: One key to reviving the economy and putting the financial system back on a sound footing is to provide creditworthy customers sufficient loans at reasonable interest rates. We are being told the only way to do that is to 'save' big, bad banks. Just the opposite is true: The only economically sound and morally just course of action is to close existing insolvent banks and replace them with new, sound banks."

The next big stink (according to P.J. O'Rourke): "The killjoys are back in charge - the mopes, the fusstails, the glum pots. Their wet blanket has been thrown over the White House and Congress. They're worrying up a storm. (Good thing that George W. Bush is no longer in charge of the weather and FEMA the way he was during Hurricane Katrina.) America is experiencing a polar ice cap and financial meltdown, causing sea levels to rise and sending cold water flooding into Wall Street where the rapidly acidifying ocean is corroding our 401(k)s and releasing mortgage securities full of hot air into the atmosphere until our every breath is full of CO2 especially when we exhale, which should be banned when children are present lest their uninsured health care be harmed by second-hand greenhouse gases that are causing endangerment of plant and animal species (Republicans are extinct already), leading to a shortage of green, leafy vegetables vital to the fight against America's growing epidemics of obese hunger and housing foreclosures on the homeless."

Investing in what doesn't work : "President Barack Obama, in discussing the $800 + billion economic stimulus package now working its way through Congress, promised that `we will invest in what works.' Well, if that's true, every piece of education spending - totaling a whopping $150 billion - in the mammoth stimulus bill should fall by the wayside. But isn't education one of the best public investments we could possibly make? After all, doesn't spending on education give our students the skills and knowledge they need not just to spur economic recovery, but long-term growth? No. More and better education may indeed be a good thing, but government spending doesn't give us that. What it gives us is more waste."

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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