Quote:
Originally posted by Gutterboy
A fine example of ad hoc, pseudoscientific hypothesizing.
There is no rational or empirical reason to suppose that a test designed by western psychologists should be biased against westerners, biased in favor of Asians and biased against Africans, all at the same time, other than your wanting it to be so. Your bias hypothesis is the exact opposite of a decent scientific theory. It is broad enough to explain ANY data points after the fact.. which is what you have just used it for.. and it has absolutely no predictive value.
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Actually, your argument against the bias theory is "a fine example of ad hoc, pseudoscientific hypothesizing".
You see, the bias theory is NOT broad enough to explain any data points after the fact. All it needs to be refuted is evidence that different cultures in fact do not influence test results.
However, like you showed, that is simply not the case.
It is not about <b>supposing</b> that they are biased. It is about <b>seeing</b> that results differ per culture, and trying to find an explanation for that.
If you can give another satisfactory explanation, and provide compelling evidence for it, I will gladly believe you.
However, right now we simply have the problem that these tests give different results for different cultures, and if the reason for that lies in the relation between the tests themselves and the different cultures, they are culturally biased. So far, I have not seen any other good explanation for this.
Quote:
Originally posted by Gutterboy
If you could supply some reason to think that these tests are not objective measures of spatial reasoning ability beyond your not wanting them to be, then it would be a different story, but you can't.
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The mere fact that there are differences in results among different cultures implies that these tests are not objective. It is also a very good reason to think that they may in fact not be objective. As are the other anomalies in the theory I pointed out.
Besides that, are there any reasons to think that iq tests <b>are</b> objective measures of spatial reasoning ability?
It seems rather odd to believe something without any reason at all, most certainly not the most scientific thing to do.