Category: Writing

[Medium] IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle (Argument Closed)

On By In Statements, Writing

UPDATE

ARGUMENT CLOSED (2025): The argument is now closed thanks to paper by Brown, Wai, and Chabris that tried to rebut the piece below, but confirmed all of its conclusions. The piece, most recent one on IQ and relying on multi-cohort studies, unintentially showed that IQ explains almost nothing in educational attainment, occupational attainment, and …income! And that, in spite of the circularity. I did not notice the paper until 2024.

Link: medium.com/incerto/iq-is-largely-a-pseudoscientific-swindle

[Medium] Foreword to Pierre Zalloua’s book Ancestors: Identity and DNA in the Levant

On By In Academic, Writing

Some people believe that the Levant is the end of the East and a portal to the West; others describe it as the end of the West and a portal to the East. Those in the first group tend to belong to the main branches of the Islamic faith, while those in the second belong to various Christian Levantine churches. Now, one might think that the two descriptions are equivalent: an intersection, after all, is an intersection. However, by the same mechanism that generates the so-called ‘narcissism of small differences,’ not only are these two statements not equivalent, but they are, in practice, contradictory. It even took a civil war for the Lebanese to understand this fallacy.

Read the complete foreword on Medium.

Get the book on Amazon.