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University of Cambridge Cognitive Ability Test

(planning.e-psychometrics.com)
101 points indigodaddy | 7 comments | | HN request time: 1.313s | source | bottom
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hirvi74 ◴[] No.45077200[source]
I still do not understand why we are wasting scientific resources trying to stack rank humans on arbitrarily defined concepts like cognitive ability or intelligence.

After over a century of psychometric research in cognitive abilities and intelligence, what do we have to show for it? Whose life has actually improved for the better? Have the benefits from such research, if any, outweighed the amount of harm that has already been caused?

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bofadeez ◴[] No.45077238[source]
Psychometrics has clear value. Cognitive ability predicts academic/job performance (Schmidt & Hunter 1998, Psych Bull), and standardized tests reliably forecast college outcomes (Kuncel, Hezlett & Ones 2004, Science). Conscientiousness adds further predictive power (Poropat 2009, Psych Bull). The science is robust. The issue is the discomfort it causes, not lack of benefit or predictive power.
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shermantanktop ◴[] No.45077340[source]
Intelligence testing is not widely used in employment hiring, despite many attempts. Why is that?
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gruez ◴[] No.45077416[source]
Because the supreme court ruled that it's racist to do so

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Co.

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d1sxeyes ◴[] No.45078241[source]
No, the Supreme Court ruled that you have to have a concrete business reason for implementing a test that is disproportionately likely to favour one ethnic group over another:

> The touchstone is business necessity. If an employment practice which operates to exclude Negroes cannot be shown to be related to job performance, the practice is prohibited.

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1. bofadeez ◴[] No.45078990[source]
So the NBA is discriminating by using physical tests that require height?

Any kind of skill-based testing is obviously racist. Thanks for teaching me.

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2. olddustytrail ◴[] No.45079114[source]
The NBA doesn't discriminate by height. They have chosen players that are 5'3" over players who are 6'6".

You're welcome for me educating you.

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3. bofadeez ◴[] No.45079684[source]
Oh you're right, it is very diverse in the NBA in terms of height and race. Not at all dominated by tall guys.

The Duke Power Company had as many black people in management as the NBA has short players.

Your argument is not even internally consistent.

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4. d1sxeyes ◴[] No.45080524[source]
No? The quote specifically says “If [it] cannot be shown to be related to job performance”.

Maybe we should implement IQ testing before people are allowed to post on HN.

5. olddustytrail ◴[] No.45082737{3}[source]
That is discriminating by ability not height. It happens to be easier for taller people to have that ability but that's secondary.
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6. bofadeez ◴[] No.45085125{4}[source]
Duke Power Company was discriminating by IQ not race. It just happened to have been easier for white people to pass the IQ test at the time, but that's secondary. You're using the same logic used by Duke power Company's defense team.
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7. d1sxeyes ◴[] No.45085382{5}[source]
> If an employment practice which operates to exclude Negroes cannot be shown to be related to job performance, the practice is prohibited.

This heavily implies the opposite:

> If an employment practice which operates to exclude Negroes CAN be shown to be related to job performance, the practice is NOT prohibited.

The problem is you’ve got an indicator that appears to favour white people, and a lack of evidence that the indicator shows anything of relevance to the actual position or job content.

Hypothetically, let’s say you were a racist, a nice easy way to do racist things like “disproportionately hire white people” would be to find some metric which disproportionately favours white people, and then evaluate everyone against that.

If you can prove it’s important for the job, you can discriminate still. For example, a Chinese restaurant can require knowledge of Mandarin, a metric which very likely favours people of Chinese descent. They just have to be able to explain why (e.g.: internal communication is in Mandarin, most of our customers speak Mandarin, etc).