@spyrosmakrid USA TODAY Article Published Jan 18, 19 “Do you have High Blood Pressure (HBP)? It depends on which doctor you ask” https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2019/01/18/high-blood-pressure-guidelines-american-heart-association-college-cardiology/2607407002/   AND which study you use (some saying HBP decreases life expectancy by 5 years others by couple of months) https://openheart.bmj.com/content/1/1/e000048   @nntaleb ” target=”_blank”>http://pic.twitter.com/7rMRj5DDVO”>  pic.twitter.com/7rMRj5DDVO Permalink 8:18 AM – 19 Jan 2019

@Lipsie ( message to #Millennials ) Bae (s), “you want to help mankind, start a business” a.k.a stop taking long haul flights to have your photos taken with black kids suburbs of Nairobi. Yeet ? Now bounce xxx c/o @nntaleb https://medium.com/incerto/the-merchandising-of-virtue-b548762658f0   Permalink 2:21 AM – 19 Jan 2019

@nntaleb (And no, I am not setting foot in South Beach. Not even for squid ink.) Permalink 4:02 PM – 18 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Psychologists, among other very serious defects, cherrypick data. https://twitter.com/jbenton/status/1085960543079419905   Permalink 2:46 PM – 18 Jan 2019

@l0bbelt In true Talebian tradition, I will block you because you are an idiot. Permalink 11:14 AM – 18 Jan 2019

@TimMcCoy5 I follow maths expert Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Here’s why – his on the record predictions in May 2016 pic.twitter.com/RJ0qALhSZ4 Permalink 10:19 AM – 18 Jan 2019

@black_swan_man #blackswanman #theblackswanman @ErikSchatzker @Bloomberg pic.twitter.com/8usJEXuHge Permalink 9:55 AM – 18 Jan 2019

@NonMeek Here’s the #Offshore IQ -collection in its entirety. I gather intelligence is mostly about not being stupid. This collection will help with that. [inspired by @nntaleb & #IQ-tweetstorm] pic.twitter.com/MuE271iWcv Permalink 7:56 AM – 18 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Miami (downtown): Something refreshing about a town devoid of any pretense of intellectualism. Permalink 7:55 AM – 18 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Basic analytical problems pervade psychology. https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1086259582052286465   Permalink 7:24 AM – 18 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Look at things from probability… Remember Cramer & other dist of gaps between primes. pic.twitter.com/IndsleeIp6 Permalink 7:23 AM – 18 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Goes flat, then fools you with a jump. https://twitter.com/fermatslibrary/status/1083722706963582976   Permalink 4:51 AM – 18 Jan 2019

@Firsou The dietary data that they used to constitute the “Mediterranean Diet Pyramid”, that Willett considered “the optimal diet”, was collected in Crete during Lent, when no meat or dairy are consumed until Easter. They are basing their recommendations on pure BS @Mangan150 pic.twitter.com/IyhOPvL55V Permalink 12:24 PM – 17 Jan 2019

@nntaleb 4- WHT I LEARNED IN 2018 That historical accounts of migrations are largely fiction: there have been little movement in S. W. Eurasia [Mediterranean + Anatolia] since the Bronze age. Ancient Greeks weren’t blond “Aryans”; looked like someone in Astoria. https://twitter.com/iosif_lazaridis/status/1085894427263070209   Permalink 6:56 AM – 17 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Precisely why Psychology is nonsense: you call their BS they claim that there is something wrong with you. [ Incidentally there is little new & true psychologists know that was not perfected by 1) thieves, 2) used car salesmen, 3)magicians. ] https://twitter.com/benrobbins/status/1085898485788856326   Permalink 6:05 AM – 17 Jan 2019

@nntaleb @iosif_lazaridis (Clearly the statement by the quack-quack Molyneux that the population of Mesopotamia was “replaced” by peninsulars & other invaders doesn’t hold.) Permalink 5:26 AM – 17 Jan 2019

@nntaleb The entire problem with closing psychology departments: you need a place to put (talkative) neurotic people. https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1085635799209660416   Permalink 5:05 AM – 17 Jan 2019

@nntaleb My genetics (probability) paper. pic.twitter.com/IIte4sC2lK Permalink 4:41 AM – 17 Jan 2019

@nntaleb μεράκι = soul in the game. Permalink 5:53 PM – 16 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Why statistician are way out of their depth w/BIG DATA: + To a statistician, there are single variables, scalars, vectors, and matrices, separate “tings” in various degrees of complication. + To a probabilist, a scalar is just a low dimensional matrix. All the same “ting”. Permalink 4:32 PM – 16 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Neaaaaaaat https://twitter.com/samuelgwalters/status/1085373506643156992   Permalink 2:51 PM – 16 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Salibi, genetics show, is largely fabrication. #science #rigor https://twitter.com/the_levantist/status/1085623558242426880   Permalink 2:39 PM – 16 Jan 2019

@pennedtweets And if I follow logically, we arrive back at bottom up localism. Beautiful. Though it’s daunting and deliberately demanding, it seems there’s much to nobly devote one’s life to in this space for the foreseeable future. Very exciting. Permalink 12:44 PM – 16 Jan 2019

@nntaleb PSYCHOLOGY has contributed to nothing nonBS in its history (hence “IQ” shtick) -nothing real & unknown to grandmothers. PROBLEM: if we close psych depts in univ., would it be riskier since psychologists can cause WORSE damage in other jobs (drivers, pizza delivery, journalism)? Permalink 12:31 PM – 16 Jan 2019

@ArmandDAngour Whereas COMPERICLITY is having #skininthegame @nntaleb https://twitter.com/haggardhawks/status/1085503179528261633   Permalink 11:30 AM – 16 Jan 2019

@TheOppoMan @gillette It is immoral to claim virtue in order to make a buck! @nntaleb https://medium.com/incerto/the-merchandising-of-virtue-b548762658f0   Permalink 6:09 AM – 16 Jan 2019

@VasMusca On IQ tests: “Take the sequence {1,2,3,4,x}. Only someone clueless about induction would answer 5 as if it were the only answer. And not only clueless, but obedient enough to want to think in a certain way.” Sad that they’re so used. – via @nntaleb: https://medium.com/incerto/iq-is-largely-a-pseudoscientific-swindle-f131c101ba39   Permalink 5:18 AM – 16 Jan 2019

@AutomaticEarth Debt Rattle January 16 2019 | EU approval of Roundup was based on docs straight out of Monsanto propaganda texts. Now Canada sees no risks in Roundup. We seriously risk losing this one. High time for new weapons. @nntaleb https://www.theautomaticearth.com/2019/01/debt-rattle-january-16-2019/   ” target=”_blank”>http://pic.twitter.com/ZLzTbKG5CO”>  pic.twitter.com/ZLzTbKG5CO Permalink 3:09 AM – 16 Jan 2019

@paulportesi The problem with modernity-abundance. @nntaleb https://twitter.com/YiddishProverbs/status/1085408117964312581   Permalink 10:23 PM – 15 Jan 2019

@VergilDen Yes – it has arrived. @ErwanLeCorre @MovNat pic.twitter.com/JYUmW2rx05 Permalink 4:08 PM – 15 Jan 2019

@nntaleb As with GMOs & Pinker boy, I do not aim at changing the mind of bigots, IQ pple, psychologists, & pseudostatisticians. All I can do is expose them & change the mind of a certain intelligent audience. And it works. pic.twitter.com/iJcZfiIZ55 Permalink 12:38 PM – 15 Jan 2019

@alexandersquats This is textbook Lindy! https://twitter.com/Arch_Revival_/status/1085153000421756929   Permalink 10:30 AM – 15 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Which shows the circularity of IQ scores. Psychometrics is a scam, which shows in so many respects. pic.twitter.com/mIy3F9iVzf Permalink 10:19 AM – 15 Jan 2019

@FattestFatTony I ain’t “smart” enough to know what intelligence is, but I been around enough suckers to know what it ain’t. #ViaNegativa https://twitter.com/PersuasionRisng/status/1085206671612436480   Permalink 10:07 AM – 15 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Let’s start with an elementary QUIZ that the psychologists (& the mountebanks s.a. @charlesmurray) seem to be implicitly flunking. pic.twitter.com/KzxNoh8FTe Permalink 9:41 AM – 15 Jan 2019

@Gavelascos @nntaleb please tweet something about this pic.twitter.com/Ojorg97g8z Permalink 8:42 AM – 15 Jan 2019

@PersuasionRisng I’d point out that the top 25% of janitors score higher IQ than the bottom 25% of college professors. Permalink 8:06 AM – 15 Jan 2019

@nntaleb I’ve called people “imbeciles” for vastly more intelligent remarks. Permalink 7:17 AM – 15 Jan 2019

@nntaleb CIRCULARITY If MDs and academics tend to have a “IQ” slightly informative (higher on a noisy average), it is largely because to get into schools you need to score on a test similar to “IQ”. Probability and statistics confuse the psychologist and other fools. https://twitter.com/jonathanwilson/status/1085190318662725632   Permalink 7:14 AM – 15 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Monsanto’s @ericsachsPhD was involved in getting “scientists” to sign studies ghostwritten by Monsanto. Documents show he gave marching orders to discredit our precautionary principle paper. http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/PrecautionaryPrinciple.html   https://twitter.com/Thibault_Lec/status/1085157467393327106   Permalink 5:32 AM – 15 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Sir Michael Atiyyah’s family and the Roman emperor Alexander Severus come from the same village in North Lebanon. https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1084053084014370817   Permalink 2:05 PM – 14 Jan 2019

@normonics NOT STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT @nature wtf is this pic.twitter.com/jq5IHukGY2 Permalink 1:35 PM – 14 Jan 2019

@nntaleb You cannot be more stupid than that. Monsanto (via its active shills) managed to make people believe SCIENCE = SCIENTISM Our paper(s) on precaution under dimensionality: http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/PrecautionaryPrinciple.html   https://twitter.com/antonioregalado/status/1084864808963444737   Permalink 12:11 PM – 14 Jan 2019

@nntaleb These are the idiotic analogies to avoid: running speed is unidimensional in a fixed environment, intellect has yuuuuuuuge dimensionality in fast moving complex domains. Stop this race/attributes BS. https://twitter.com/darrenknewell/status/1084739524154912769   Permalink 7:42 AM – 14 Jan 2019

@oldlevantine Can’t wait!! The Thirty-Year Genocide: Turkey’s Destruction of Its Christian Minorities, 1… https://www.amazon.com/dp/067491645X/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_U_x_lajpCb5ETACRM   via @amazon Permalink 5:37 AM – 14 Jan 2019

@Extrachelle Variant of the #Phoenician alphabet https://twitter.com/josh_lipson/status/1084629270436167680   Permalink 4:39 AM – 14 Jan 2019

@nntaleb There was NO “substantive” correction to the IQ piece. Not even ONE single valid commentary by psychs. Asking Charles Murray for probabilistic points is no different from asking a Lower East Side astrologist to discuss relativistic quantum mechanics. https://medium.com/incerto/iq-is-largely-a-pseudoscientific-swindle-f131c101ba39   Permalink 3:30 AM – 14 Jan 2019

@nntaleb A friend, yesterday: ME “Long time. How are you doing?” HIM “Busy period. I have a lot to do. How about you?” ME “I am doing a lot, tons of things, because I have nothing to do.” https://twitter.com/morganhousel/status/1084592176925982720   Permalink 3:48 PM – 13 Jan 2019

@wtgowers James Watson (as in Crick &) has been stripped of certain honours at a NY lab thx to comments about race and intelligence. If you’re worried that he is simply stating uncomfortable truths, this great blog post should reassure you. https://gcbias.org/2018/03/14/polygenic-scores-and-tea-drinking/   Permalink 3:34 PM – 13 Jan 2019

@statwonk It’d be interesting to see this plotted by distance from where the IQ concept was invented. It’s probably just geographic distance between the test makers and takers. Permalink 3:29 PM – 13 Jan 2019

@nntaleb C- Selects for obedient idiots who don’t get the problem of induction. (from a discussion with @paulboghossian ) pic.twitter.com/p2nGBhadMD Permalink 3:27 PM – 13 Jan 2019

@nntaleb B- WHY THE ERROR RATE FOR ONE INDIVIDUAL IS YUUUGE pic.twitter.com/kinX6vxVNW Permalink 3:25 PM – 13 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Added 2 additional arguments in the IQ paper- A- WHY NATIONAL IQ IS A FRAUD https://medium.com/incerto/iq-is-largely-a-pseudoscientific-swindle-f131c101ba39   ” target=”_blank”>http://pic.twitter.com/sVoBz1WYvT”>  pic.twitter.com/sVoBz1WYvT Permalink 3:24 PM – 13 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Psychologists hope that I did not look at the literature. This, adjusted for padding, is astrology. pic.twitter.com/MsfLjCD0Qn Permalink 12:45 PM – 13 Jan 2019

@nntaleb HEURISTIC: In any profession, when someone becomes rich and/or famous and starts socializing or attending organized gatherings w/the rich & famous & members of the IAND*, you can start counting the time until the big blowup. * International Association of Name Droppers Permalink 10:23 AM – 13 Jan 2019

@timjburrows @nntaleb has a lot to say about this. Averages quoted without variance, precision without confidence interval. List goes on. Worse, even if accompanying data were provided, majority of pop would be none the wiser. Permalink 10:11 AM – 13 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Friends, what kind of magazine is Aeon? Thanks. Permalink 8:34 AM – 13 Jan 2019

@nntaleb 3- WHT I LEARNED IN 2018 (cont, 2 ) Also learned that “PhD” researchers who BS about “IQ” (and RACE) don’t get that if IQ correlates to performance at 50% (the beeeeeesssst of cases), that it can only explain less than 16.7% of said performance. Idiots. Permalink 7:30 AM – 13 Jan 2019

@nntaleb 3- WHT I LEARNED IN 2018 (cont) Also learned that “PhD” researchers who BS w/buzzwords don’t understand basic inference; the notion of variance. Worse, race idiots think that if a country has “IQ”=82 (assuming “IQ” is real), that ALL will have IQ=82. https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1082713050837336065   Permalink 7:26 AM – 13 Jan 2019

@nntaleb 3- WHT I LEARNED IN 2018 Learned that psychologist involved in “IQ” fail to understand very basic notions they are using. Such as correlations. Not talking about higher dimensions “g”, nonlinear correlations, etc. Not talking abt quacks like Molyneux, but academic psychs. pic.twitter.com/aVQoCvh33H Permalink 7:17 AM – 13 Jan 2019

@Extrachelle They, all, deadlifted too. You can see it in their eyes. pic.twitter.com/YuXTSKK3vO Permalink 5:56 AM – 13 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Voila: a problem with PCAs that psychologists are not getting. Science is hard. #fooledbyrandomness https://twitter.com/Zusehrverkuerzt/status/1084388417474056192   Permalink 3:54 AM – 13 Jan 2019

@nntaleb 2- WHAT I LEARNED IN 2018 Learned from @Mangan150 that seed oil (Not #Lindy) is actually only tested in theory, & maybe be v. inflammatory. (Went nuts yesterday on Air France when I saw the smallprint for the “olive oil/balsamic” small bottle: 38% olive/37% sunflower.) Permalink 1:12 PM – 12 Jan 2019

@ClarkeMicah You don’t *use* the scientific method if you invent ailments and claim diagnoses on the basis of unfalsifiable subjective guesswork. https://twitter.com/nancydoylepsych/status/1084173391811276800   Permalink 11:55 AM – 12 Jan 2019

@nntaleb What I learned in 2018: Learned from @Safaitic that written language often had nothing to do with spoken languages. The former later makes its way via the minority rule. It is conceivable that Jesus spoke a Galilean dialect not Aramaic, but used Aramaic for harangues. Permalink 7:51 AM – 12 Jan 2019

@nntaleb The “left” is just as owned by weapon makers as the “right”. https://spectator.us/left-tulsi-gabbard/   Permalink 5:20 AM – 12 Jan 2019

@nntaleb With @EmanuelDerman @jim_gatheral pic.twitter.com/yeLuVbRRij Permalink 3:45 AM – 12 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Sir Michael Atiyyah, British/GrecoPhoenician (Greek-Orthodox from North Lebanon), most decorated mathematician, charming man, RIP. Permalink 3:42 AM – 12 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Friends, I see some IQ “holes” in research. Please help if you are familiar with literature 1) Has anyone measured within individuals IQ test variance (you take the test, get different score) ? 2) Has anyone controlled for Chinese characters reading (as training for IQ tests)? Permalink 2:28 AM – 12 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Molyneux-Quack has same explanation for Mesopotamia that Nazis & Aryan supremacists gave for the decline of Modern Greeks: “They are different people” (illegal immigration +cousin marriages). Until came science; ancient DNA shows it’s just not true. https://twitter.com/mgpolitis/status/1084026383133741056   Permalink 2:13 AM – 12 Jan 2019

@nntaleb The “cousin marriage” (CM) ad hoc to explain the degradation of Mesopotamia is crackpot: – Parsis, the MOST successful community ever (only~50k) encourage CM – Lebanese Greek Orth ban it, not Maronites & no differential in success – Was practice common earlier? (ergodicity) https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1082621586044264448   Permalink 1:09 AM – 12 Jan 2019

@Mangan150 The fakest of fake news. How anyone believes this is beyond me. Skipping breakfast even once a week might increase risk of type 2 diabetes https://abcn.ws/2AgRhTe   Permalink 7:32 PM – 11 Jan 2019

@EHSANI22 Genghis Khan valued Loyalty so highly that when when followers of his chief rival Jamukha handed him, rather than reward the men he had them all executed in front of the leader they had betrayed. Permalink 3:46 PM – 11 Jan 2019

@FattestFatTony Looking for enemies is a suckers game but letting them find you is the oldest free marketing known to man… #Lindy Permalink 3:25 PM – 11 Jan 2019

@thackerpd 1/6 Emails shows #Monsanto orchestrated a behind the scenes retraction of Seralini’s paper on #GMOs. David Saltimiras w/ #Monsanto started “the last rites of Seralini” with an email to Sir Colin Berry. @NaomiOreskes @sejorg @TimothyAWise @industrydocs @sfoucart @fastlerner pic.twitter.com/cHnFBz9Jgu Permalink 4:55 AM – 11 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Pasquale, you are a professional probabilist and statistician. You are a scholar. Molyneux is a crank. Please do not engage him. Permalink 2:31 PM – 10 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Psychology. https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1083354728023707648   Permalink 9:30 AM – 10 Jan 2019

@yaneerbaryam How can there be enough skin in the game to stop this? @nntaleb https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/former-ceo-pleads-guilty-to-fentanyl-spray-kickback-scheme/2019/01/09/f25d3cea-1452-11e9-ab79-30cd4f7926f2_story.html   Permalink 7:26 AM – 10 Jan 2019

@black_swan_man #blackswanman #theblackswanman #daoofcapital #SunTzu #TheArtofWar pic.twitter.com/dY9BogrsWo Permalink 6:10 AM – 10 Jan 2019

@thackerpd How did #Monsanto try to spin the carcinogenicity of #glyphosate and attack @IARCWHO? Documents show they hired a PR firm to plant op-eds targeting Washington Post & USA Today https://usrtk.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Benbrook-expert-report-November-2018.pdf   @NaomiOreskes @NaomiStarkman @TimothyAWise @industrydocs @sfoucart @fastlerner ” target=”_blank”>http://pic.twitter.com/A573FTfAr1″>  pic.twitter.com/A573FTfAr1 Permalink 4:54 AM – 10 Jan 2019

@nntaleb The “Daf Yomi” or occasional Daf is the best way to learn …Eastern Aramaic. And there is no better way than to listen to a Syrian Rabbi such as rabbi David Mansour. https://twitter.com/JYuter/status/1083327159752671232   Permalink 3:41 AM – 10 Jan 2019

@nntaleb After 4 days of diluvial rain from angry Zeus, Baal & other gods, stuck at home running Monte Carlo genetics simulations while eating stuffed grape leaves and busting IQ and race idiots on Twitter, finally the storm ended … and a lot of snow covering Mount Lebanon. pic.twitter.com/0vWKtHNBDV Permalink 2:12 AM – 10 Jan 2019

@nntaleb *Footnote: clearly I don’t insult not ALL psychologists, just those who put people & races in”idiot” IQ boxes or similar things…) Permalink 12:59 PM – 9 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Psychologists use “IQ” to politely put people & entire races in boxes with the label “idiots”, and stick them there for a lifetime. They ruin people’s careers and potentials. Politely. I call psychologists (& IQ mountebanks) idiots to their face. Not politely. Permalink 5:23 AM – 9 Jan 2019

@nntaleb This Q is the fraudulent type psychologists give you. You NEVER interview someone w/o some background credentials w/far more information than IQ, a measure made by low “I” psychologists. In the REAL WORLD there is something called a CV! https://twitter.com/rammbling/status/1082986472834138112   Permalink 5:13 AM – 9 Jan 2019

@nntaleb NEXT BS PSYCHOLOGY BUSTING project: Count how many of these “biases” are errors or we have the wrong model. E.g. “sunk cost” not an error if you use P/L as info from environment. Heuristic in #SkininTheGame: if not present in Erasmus, it doesn’t exist Remember Psych is BS #Lindy pic.twitter.com/Iv6eRtNLT4 Permalink 3:42 AM – 9 Jan 2019

@nntaleb They designed my technical book cover How to Design a Great Book Cover by @TuckerMax https://link.medium.com/zhZGp7uSkT   Permalink 3:26 AM – 9 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Typo 16.67% pic.twitter.com/nau8cTHdy0 Permalink 2:39 AM – 9 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Version 2: turns out that the IQ story is vastly worse than I initially thought. https://medium.com/incerto/iq-is-largely-a-pseudoscientific-swindle-f131c101ba39   ” target=”_blank”>http://pic.twitter.com/1eIasgDkqs”>  pic.twitter.com/1eIasgDkqs Permalink 12:26 AM – 9 Jan 2019

@nntaleb IQ FACTS The highest correlation IQ to “performance” (with yuuuge massaging) is .5 [not eliminating the resemblance between said performance and test] The pick up is only 13% Psychologists are kluuuueless about some basics. pic.twitter.com/ZOR9igEEDp Permalink 12:07 AM – 9 Jan 2019

@nntaleb QUIZ DU JOUR (very very simple) IQ is said to correlate at .5 with performance. You hire an employee with above average IQ. What is the probability of above average performance? What is the probability if there were 0 correlation with performance? Assume Normal distr. Permalink 10:57 PM – 8 Jan 2019

@nntaleb To understand Wittgenstein’s ruler: Any MEASURE of IQ or intellectual abilities or anything related to intellect that does not give #Molyneux a score in the bottom 8% of the population is patently a wrong measure. pic.twitter.com/gGtokyl2Fu Permalink 4:04 PM – 8 Jan 2019

@TeslaAircraft This is exactly @nntaleb’s dictatorship of the small minority (which I think is great in this case). We only stay at hotels with chargers, but people without EVs don’t care if the hotel has one or not. This phenomenon accelerates adoption. @elonmusk https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dictatorship-of-the-small-minority-3f1f83ce4e15   https://twitter.com/thehoff525/status/1082328699737960449   Permalink 2:05 PM – 8 Jan 2019

@nntaleb It is actually much worse when you consider that Meds were extensions of Caucasus/Persia/Anatolia; Greeks were much much ethnically closer to Persians, Assyrians & Phoenicians than to “Europeans” as the demarcation is fake. https://twitter.com/GhostVirusX/status/1082756180814979072   Permalink 1:54 PM – 8 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Actually, if one of the variables is fat tailed… Always a problem when pple use mechanistic regressions without knowing probability. Further, THERE IS NO BASIS FOR NATIONAL IQ. Even if there were differences in averages, VARIANCE swamps the local information. Science is hard pic.twitter.com/viK5meA1yf Permalink 12:51 PM – 8 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Clint Eastwood w jeddé Saliba Skandar l mesh3ir by @jadabdala https://link.medium.com/gl2C152PjT   Permalink 12:24 PM – 8 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Which brings us to a statistical Quiz. What is the distribution of the regression slope? @GarettJones I will be nice to you because you deadlift. But you need to understand the ERROR rate of a regression slope. Otherwise, NO regression. Gabish? pic.twitter.com/VKem5V6lWm Permalink 12:13 PM – 8 Jan 2019

@nntaleb STATISTICAL BUSTING TRAINING 101 How many data points (sampled within the same data) do you need to add to change the slope from positive to negative? @GarettJones, this is no longer called a regression. This is called intellectual fraud. pic.twitter.com/PcjBqRVKKd Permalink 10:58 AM – 8 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Time to make public what we’ve been laughing quietly about. We figured out the salaries of some of the bitter IQ psychologists in this debate (public records from state U). They earn less than NY Uber drivers. https://twitter.com/mikeharrisNY/status/1076933024439250945   Permalink 10:52 AM – 8 Jan 2019

@nntalebbot “The four most influential moderns: Darwin, Marx, Freud, and (the productive) Einstein were scholars but not academics. It has always been hard to do genuine – and no perishable – work within institutions” – @nntaleb Permalink 10:30 AM – 8 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Serious question. Have you ever done a regression before? Permalink 10:14 AM – 8 Jan 2019

@The_Cyrenian THIS IS OFFICIALLY MY FAVOURITE TWEET OF ALL TIME. There is nothing more beautiful, nothing more satisfying, than seeing a real intellectual expose the fake-intellectual and closet-racist that is Stefan Molyneux. https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1082607889309683713   Permalink 10:13 AM – 8 Jan 2019

@nntaleb COUNTRY IQ This may not give you much information (nonhomogeneous migration patterns) but it certainly tells you that “country IQ” and genetics is a scam. pic.twitter.com/JLqxqWF0Hu Permalink 9:11 AM – 8 Jan 2019

@nntaleb NOW an intelligent question. Cultural changes, mostly accelerated in past 200 y. https://twitter.com/alanizBTC/status/1082630721779523586   Permalink 5:33 AM – 8 Jan 2019

@nntaleb 1) No, it was not Ghengis Khan who sacked Baghdad but his grandson Holagho 2) That they killed all the locals is fiction (from balance X vs Y chr) 3) Only someone like PrimatebrainedMolyneux can believe 1)Asian IQ genetic superiority & 2) degradation in IQ from male replacement Permalink 5:18 AM – 8 Jan 2019

@nntaleb I do not debate charlatans. I EXPOSE them to others. Permalink 4:55 AM – 8 Jan 2019

@nntaleb This inbreading/cousin marriage theory is another crackpot by IQ-genes-race pple who NEED to find genetic (not cultural) degradation. First effect of inbreeding is systematic diseases. & you see MORE among Ashkenazis so stop the IQ link & crank-science. https://twitter.com/Titus_Pullo55/status/1082620263697661952   Permalink 4:54 AM – 8 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Do you fucking think I am stupid enough to not check Babylonian genetics? Permalink 4:37 AM – 8 Jan 2019

@nntaleb #SkinintheGame dictates not talking about an idea (such as #SkinintheGame) shallowly, w/o a deep investment, here is my recitation of Hammurabi’s code in ancient Babylonian (Akkadian) w/proper Semitic gutturals. Yes, I know enough Babylonian to argue Molyneux is a fraud in it. pic.twitter.com/CYCHTrhS1p Permalink 4:29 AM – 8 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Mesopotamia Invented Metallurgy, Agriculture, Writing, Sailing, theWheel, Chemisty, Pharma, Astronomy, LAW,(co)algebra, Algor, Calendar, Maps, Metrics… Maintained techno superiority for 4600/5000y of history. So fraudster @stefanmolyneux now arbiter of their inferior “IQ”. pic.twitter.com/uGxSiIlJ0q Permalink 4:00 AM – 8 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Psychology. https://twitter.com/chsommers/status/1082397016821501953   Permalink 2:03 AM – 8 Jan 2019

@nntaleb The ONLY test of intelligence that counts is to see if the person detects Wittgenstein’s ruler situations: 1) When you use a ruler to measure the table, you are also using the table to measure the ruler. 2) The more unexpected the measurement, the more you apply W’s ruler. Permalink 12:51 AM – 8 Jan 2019

@JoshHochschild Nassim Taleb’s recent attack on psychology and IQ “science” emerged too late for me to work into this essay, but it could be easily incorporated. If his campaign surprised you, politically or intellectually, maybe this will help. https://www.firstthings.com/article/2019/02/taleb-the-philosopher   Permalink 4:29 PM – 7 Jan 2019

@nntaleb 6) But the grand doyen of Statistical BS Busting is the great @spyrosmakrid who started in the 1980s! He is the M in the M-competitions. He was 10y early figuring out the scam w/hypertension treatment. https://twitter.com/spyrosmakrid/status/1081434668476612608   Permalink 3:36 PM – 7 Jan 2019

@nntaleb 5) BS Busting by probability people seems to have become a specialty. We now have an army! https://twitter.com/salilstatistics/status/1082390431344852992   Permalink 3:20 PM – 7 Jan 2019

@nntaleb 4) @HarryDCrane is making evidence a better place. LEARN FROM HIM. Remember that there is no scientific “evidence” w/o statistical significance. Meanwhile, I am focusing on the Fat Tails aspect as it mushrooms the problem of naive & pseudo-empiricism. https://twitter.com/HarryDCrane/status/1082079005505916933   Permalink 2:34 PM – 7 Jan 2019

@Wurux @nntaleb https://twitter.com/UnwobblingPivot/status/1081632438663761920   Permalink 1:28 PM – 7 Jan 2019

@nntaleb “European” is meaningless a genetic term. Western Eurasia is the correct one. Permalink 1:13 PM – 7 Jan 2019

@nntaleb First meeting of the localist society for the promotion of the Neo-Canaanite language in a Starbucks near Byblos. Thank you everyone for the spontaneous gathering! pic.twitter.com/HlCrlSfxdi Permalink 8:57 AM – 7 Jan 2019

@nntaleb 3) My problem is with charlatans such as @michaelshermer with their promotion of “empirical evidence” in the name of “science” –not aware of spurious correlations, exactly the opposite of statistical inference. They argue from “facts” based on above spuriousness. Permalink 8:42 AM – 7 Jan 2019

@black_swan_man #blackswanman #theblackswanman @AOC @ronpaul #paygo #paytoday #freelemonade pic.twitter.com/Fa6zGnRphY Permalink 5:33 AM – 7 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Wrong to say 1300 y ago. Lebanon spent 500 y under Ottomans who maintained most aspects of Byzantine Empire. They kept ethnicities separate, under self administration (Millet system), so the Rum Millet (i.e. “Roman”) were same citizenship: Greece, Anatolia, Romania, East Med. Permalink 2:43 AM – 7 Jan 2019

@coryklippsten The last two weeks of his anti-IQ push have been primarily about ending the practice of using the tests for anything OTHER than its original purpose, which was to identify people with low intelligence. The correlation between IQ and success disappears above 100. Permalink 5:36 PM – 6 Jan 2019

@normonics This guy @sapinker did not address the critique of NNT because he probably does not understand it. But it is straightforward statistics: 1) interarrival times are too long to make any strong claims and 2) a stationary distribution with alpha implying NO MEAN best explain the data https://twitter.com/52_insights/status/1081910305477808128   Permalink 4:21 PM – 6 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Here I explain. It’s not that correlation is not causation, but that correlation is not correlation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6CxfBMUf1o   Permalink 4:15 PM – 6 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Let me give the most concentrated lecture about statistics/Data Science. Statistics is about avoiding the mistake below. The rest is (more or less complicated) footnotes. pic.twitter.com/xLYPE6pcAf Permalink 3:57 PM – 6 Jan 2019

@nntaleb In all fairness, she took communion there, which is beyond mere attendance. On paper, the Greek-Orthodox church technically bans us from taking communion in any other church. But the rule is not enforced and most people don’t know about it. Permalink 11:37 AM – 6 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Hilaaaarious! Exactly as predicted. Within HOURS. You can play a BS vendor like a violin. pic.twitter.com/vewi6O2igd Permalink 11:31 AM – 6 Jan 2019

@BLebnene Sorry for the back and forth. We have final settled for a meet up with @nntaleb tomorrow Monday, January 7, 2019. The meeting will be held in Jbeil (Byblos.) We will confirm the venue shortly; but it will be somewhere near the old souk. (New Yorker Cup for example) Permalink 11:11 AM – 6 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Exaaaaaaaactly as predicted by previous 2 tweets in thread! Only half a day later. You block a psychologist or some similar small time BS vendor, they call you arrogant/egomaniac and will make all the mistakes in the book. Which BS vendor should I tick-off next? pic.twitter.com/O00CFDEbFo Permalink 10:58 AM – 6 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Salafis managed to get a Sunni Muslim Lebanese woman politician to apologize for attending church service, something that has been part of the fabric of Lebanese society. Result of Saudi funding of intolerance over the past 50y. Will happen in the West. pic.twitter.com/6hs5jhZ7K3 Permalink 10:20 AM – 6 Jan 2019

@nntaleb I think Pinker survives on statistical ignorance. Nothing else. https://twitter.com/jacyreese/status/1081950190972604416   Permalink 8:48 AM – 6 Jan 2019

@semacks In which Pinker completely ignores that @nntaleb published a paper that shatters the entire “violence is in decline” thesis and waves his hands about black swans more generally. Taleb’s paper actually covered the substance of Pinker’s argument: https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=851091091009083095089127115110075099034023058067019062072066004100009103081023097123034016097101060099003106115098003095116092026058012038004029004118103111073028059062024121067073124072085091092069010121104097107075021088001008095027011086119103085&EXT=pdf   https://twitter.com/52_insights/status/1081910305477808128   Permalink 7:48 AM – 6 Jan 2019

@Spfannenschmidt f(x) is not x Primary lesson from #RWRI Permalink 6:18 AM – 6 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Can someone explain to me why one needs an IQ test by some unintelligent rent-seeking psychologist to see if one is good at math when mathematical abilities are DIRECTLY and rapidly observable. https://twitter.com/zach_pinto/status/1081739672936693760   Permalink 6:14 AM – 6 Jan 2019

@nntaleb In 2008 debate told Mountebank @CharlesMurray that in France, Protestants & Jews were ~1% of population, had ~ share of Nobels & wealth. Are French Protestants a different race? Minorities everywhere fare disproportionately well. Disentangling genes from culture impossible. Permalink 5:00 AM – 6 Jan 2019

@nntaleb That fraud Molyneux made similar racist remarks linking me to the IQ of a presumed “ethnicity”. Alt-Right pple tend to suffer from clinically low levels of intelligence. Incidentally, for these cranks obsessing over race-IQ, East Med genetics haven’t changed since the Bronze age pic.twitter.com/qoSHaeRjJa Permalink 4:42 AM – 6 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Please don’t spread the information. Permalink 6:59 PM – 5 Jan 2019

@nntaleb It showed 84½ . Any problem with that? Permalink 6:47 PM – 5 Jan 2019

@nntaleb When I went to finance, I discovered that those who *tawk* about money were the ones who didn’t have it, couldn’t make it, or wanted a lot more but couldn’t get it. Same problem with IQ. Those who insist on measuring IQ are … the most stupid. Permalink 6:17 PM – 5 Jan 2019

@nntaleb His “country IQ” (U=used for racemongering) comes from education (test scores), which tends to FOLLOW not CAUSE devlpment Mr @GarettJones did you look at the dynamics? Countries like Korea/Switzerland had low literacy/education, got rich, THEN high education… see #Antifragile https://twitter.com/GarettJones/status/1081697009155768320   Permalink 5:55 PM – 5 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Income is not a measure of performance. But it is the LEAST nonsensical for analysis where things wash out. Plus I can use $5 to buy a meal. You cannot “eat” IQ points, SAT points, or vague academic notions such as prestige, rank, had picture taken with the Queen, etc. https://twitter.com/andrewronmo/status/1081714204090875904   Permalink 4:59 PM – 5 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Even when there is correlation between IQ and performance, it is SWAMPED by noise. Is it me or that psychologists have NO notion of noise? pic.twitter.com/pvENuD8oD8 Permalink 4:46 PM – 5 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Fat Tony Quotient = Intelligence Permalink 3:37 PM – 5 Jan 2019

@nntaleb National average IQ is BS Permalink 3:27 PM – 5 Jan 2019

@nntaleb It is called Intelligence. https://twitter.com/steveroh/status/1081691743576342528   Permalink 3:21 PM – 5 Jan 2019

@nntaleb IQ may correlate (noisily) to Income because of the circularity/employee effect. But it does not correlate to wealth. What’s in a name? “I” should be removed. PsycholobSers have the wrong definition of IQ. Permalink 3:20 PM – 5 Jan 2019

@NonMeek The first #Offshorecomic linked to @nntaleb’s [ https://medium.com/incerto/iq-is-largely-a-pseudoscientific-swindle-f131c101ba39  ] ist fertig. Stay tuned for more. #IQ is for obedient losers [part 1 of x]. ” target=”_blank”>http://pic.twitter.com/sFnlgFVHHY”>  pic.twitter.com/sFnlgFVHHY Permalink 10:02 AM – 5 Jan 2019

@nntaleb FRIDAY QUIZ (rephrased for clarity) pic.twitter.com/kSb9AnykLY Permalink 10:41 AM – 4 Jan 2019

@nntaleb When someone refers to psychology “results” for backup, ask: what is the SINGLE significant result psychologists have discovered that is both correct and not well known (and used) by ancients, used car salespeople, magicians, & swindlers. Ignore psychologists. #Lindy. Permalink 9:53 AM – 4 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Founders of statistical “science” were mathematicians (probability). They understood the properties (& conditions) for tools they designed. But users of stats are clueless parrots blabbering words like “correlation”. NEVER teach statistics to those who don’t know probability. Permalink 6:11 AM – 4 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Can someone explain to this fellow @DegenRolf that all these contradictions are telling us is that variance of results from the IQ measure increases with IQ. Not a good thing. Please explain it slowly to him. https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1081118653737824256   Permalink 5:33 AM – 4 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Years ago I waged a war against “Value at Risk”, an equally bogus measurement; like IQ, had a bunch of nerds clinging to it because “we have nothing better”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=78&v=6QiiFSOrJhQ   Permalink 5:23 AM – 4 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Yes, indeed, systematically getting rid of people by blocking/muting. https://twitter.com/angiejchelala/status/1081169805355483137   Permalink 5:01 AM – 4 Jan 2019

@nntaleb That’s why social science failed to get convexity/#Antifragility (or something as elementary as Jensen’s Inequality). https://twitter.com/stevenstrogatz/status/1080800546813034499   Permalink 4:54 AM – 4 Jan 2019

@nntaleb First blunder of 2019: Bought a Medieval Byzantine bio of Saint Symeon the Theologian thinking it was Saint Symeon the Stylite στυλίτης. Took me a while to realize it. pic.twitter.com/A7JSjcZNsE Permalink 3:59 AM – 4 Jan 2019

@YiannisArch This is the dorkiest response I’ve ever read. All praise king Taleb @nntaleb. And welcome to all his new fans who are surprised to see *high IQ* academics unable to understand a via negativa argument. https://twitter.com/primalpoly/status/1080978692250034176   Permalink 2:02 AM – 4 Jan 2019

@mrraoofi @nntaleb has a talent in procuring enmity of charlatans and/or the ignorant. But I had never seen so much negative reaction to his previous works as to the present one about IQ. Everybody seems to be screaming and crying. Well-done sir! Permalink 10:51 PM – 3 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Friends, can someone find in this promo by propagandist @SteveStuWill info: – How many of these 1% fared “well” compared to 2%, 3%, .1%, etc? – Variance for 1% compared to other brackets – Any HARD correlation (not words) s.a. $ income? Ευχαριστώ πολύ! https://twitter.com/SteveStuWill/status/1080856310063788032   Permalink 6:53 PM – 3 Jan 2019

@FamedCelebrity I think the reason people get so angry over the IQ (test score) debate is akin to the heat in evolution arguments. That is, they are not interested in the subject matter per se, but in its supposed implications. Permalink 4:48 PM – 3 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Psychologists have the illusion that I am writing this critique of IQ for them. No. Never argue theology w/a Salafi Sheikh. Psychologists are the losers in & out of campus. I am writing to expose the lack of rigor of these “metrics” to “intelligent” scientists & Fat Tonies. Permalink 2:40 PM – 3 Jan 2019

@nntaleb The best map fallacy in The Technical Incerto, Vol 2. Geoff Miller is clueless. pic.twitter.com/bs4oqMRTVp Permalink 2:22 PM – 3 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Replaced the thread with this article https://medium.com/incerto/iq-is-largely-a-pseudoscientific-swindle-f131c101ba39   Permalink 1:39 PM – 3 Jan 2019

@AhsanDeliri I find it amusing to see that @nntaleb took down the IQ Industrial complex not by defining what it is, but simply highlighting what it isn’t. It isn’t science, or predictive. Stripped of all that, Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare. Permalink 1:30 PM – 3 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Hello @StuartJRitchie, can you answer the following? Feel free to ask the geniuses in psychometrics. IQ below 100 correlates at 90% with performance IQ above 100 correlates at 10% with performance What’s the correlation IQ to performance? Permalink 1:21 PM – 3 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Corrected pic.twitter.com/jA5Nhgn1Xn Permalink 9:40 AM – 3 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Typos pic.twitter.com/eyBiiUhL5g Permalink 8:14 AM – 3 Jan 2019

@nntaleb HINT: partial correlation includes a statement about the mean. (No psycholophaster-psychometrician saw something that elementary) pic.twitter.com/1zmoUX3ylD Permalink 8:11 AM – 3 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Assume to simplify that both IQ and performance are Gaussian. Permalink 5:22 AM – 3 Jan 2019

@nntaleb A Quiz for IQ “researchers”. Something elementary. pic.twitter.com/tqhdt9CDDU Permalink 5:04 AM – 3 Jan 2019

@nntaleb I don’t randomly call people “imbeciles” publicly. Only when they claim “someone doesn’t know what he is talking about ” when it turns out that they don’t know what THEY are talking abt. Singal is done. He got pretty much everything wrong, from conscientiousness to correlation pic.twitter.com/DsKZmpl3Ro Permalink 3:09 PM – 2 Jan 2019

@nntaleb 12- Year in Review Someone got my paper on forecasing and vs the “methods” of @NateSilver538. I will explain the paper in a Youtube minimooc. https://towardsdatascience.com/why-you-should-care-about-the-nate-silver-vs-nassim-taleb-twitter-war-a581dce1f5fc   Permalink 2:30 PM – 2 Jan 2019

@nntaleb (To echo Haldane, one ounce of correct algebra is worth more than a century of verbalistic statisticopsycholophastering). https://medium.com/incerto/iq-is-largely-a-pseudoscientific-swindle-f131c101ba39   Permalink 7:36 AM – 2 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Can you go give unsollicited advice to someone else who care about your opinion? Permalink 7:25 AM – 2 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Need to add “not the same ting”, x vs f(x) https://twitter.com/VergilDen/status/1080451498067271680   Permalink 5:17 AM – 2 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Starting 2019 with a paper in … genetics I worked on while arguing with the IQ idiots. pic.twitter.com/PvZ90fu6Yu Permalink 4:58 AM – 2 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Just realized there is list of terms summarizing the INCERTO. Thanks! https://twitter.com/ArturoHerrero/status/1080439849491070976   Permalink 4:55 AM – 2 Jan 2019

@HectorIlias Cicero on IYIs and Romans vs Greeks. I’m enjoying the read a lot thanks to having read @nntaleb’s INCERTO before. pic.twitter.com/Kc9gGAgCP3 Permalink 4:00 AM – 2 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Still can’t get it. It DOES NOT “measure” abilities. https://twitter.com/miketranchina/status/1080277104774635520   Permalink 5:39 PM – 1 Jan 2019

@nntaleb I just published https://medium.com/@nntaleb/iq-is-largely-a-pseudoscientific-swindle-f131c101ba39   Permalink 5:09 PM – 1 Jan 2019

@nntaleb NEVER talk about correlation 1) if you are a psychologist [they are klueless] 2) when there is nonlinearity such as IQ and performance. You can have 80% correlation with “performance” when it is 0 for positive performance, & high for negative. Compare to “SAT” and see the BS. pic.twitter.com/E7fQ9jL2iM Permalink 1:04 PM – 1 Jan 2019

@nntaleb No. https://twitter.com/NikkiHaley/status/1080195496407388165   Permalink 12:57 PM – 1 Jan 2019

@black_swan_man Happy New Year! #blackswanman #theblackswanman #newyearsresolution #fightthefed #jiujitsu #daoofcapital #antifragile pic.twitter.com/0Bm9t7K1Ah Permalink 12:51 PM – 1 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Be-strayné (Happy New Year in Lebanese) Odds are, from its pronunciation, it came from *Estreine*, medieval French. As I cannot find it in Sabir and Med Lingua Franca, high probability it came from the Crusaders. @QifaNabki @PhDniX @Safaitic pic.twitter.com/LvoZEfObSl Permalink 7:23 AM – 1 Jan 2019

@nntaleb No, “IQ” tests aren’t even close to what intelligence means, even excluding decision-making (wisdom). https://twitter.com/nietzsches_tash/status/1080085347680149505   Permalink 5:15 AM – 1 Jan 2019

@enzolamberti Grateful for 2018. Graduated (again), grew my library and spent quality time thinking about risk taking. The peak has been the incredible #RWRI week, led by @nntaleb, #raphaeldouadi and @financequant. To all my RWRI friends, I wish you a year of convex optionalities Permalink 3:09 AM – 1 Jan 2019

@nntaleb Happy 2019 everybody. Hope the new year delivers to you something you highly deserve but were too humble, too thoughtful, and too realistic to dare to wish for it. Permalink 5:40 PM – 31 Dec 2018

@nntaleb 11- Year in Review 2018: Started replying to intrusive, lenghty & boring emails in Italian, especially when the sender is not Italian. 2019: Will try Greek or Latin. Permalink 1:32 PM – 31 Dec 2018

@nntaleb I will be even more intransigent. Repeating thrice. Ciao https://twitter.com/jonhaidt/status/1079826085934714881   Permalink 11:47 AM – 31 Dec 2018

@vidythatte If you’re a fan of @nntaleb & his tweets (like me) here are his top tweets from 2018 https://www.tweet-rewind.com/nntaleb.html   Permalink 10:56 AM – 31 Dec 2018

@nntaleb I can understand someone saying “listen, I love strangers but I am more comfortable w/my nationality, shared values” (homophily) or “neighbors get along better than rommates” (fractal localism). But making “others” genetically “inferior” using IQ “science” is quite sinister. Permalink 10:53 AM – 31 Dec 2018

@nntaleb PHILOLOGICAL problem solved Bi-Strayné in Lebanese from: bi-Strenua or Strenia, Roman a goddess of the new year https://twitter.com/QifaNabki/status/1079786887273959424   Permalink 9:14 AM – 31 Dec 2018

@paulportesi This is perfect. This is so funny. Nassim’s sense of humor is great. https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1079585825506115585   Permalink 7:31 AM – 31 Dec 2018

@Safaitic Thanks you! There is a consensus that by the 10th century the language of Arabic poetry (the qasidah) was far removed from virtually all vernaculars. Mutanabbi certainly composed in an Arabic with the vocalizations in your post but he probably didn’t grow up speaking that way. Permalink 6:42 AM – 31 Dec 2018

@NonMeek This year’s final #Offshorecomic. A tribute to the best Tweetstorm ever @nntaleb vs the journo. #IQ #success Happy new year, y’all! For more visit http://www.offshorecomic.com   ” target=”_blank”>http://pic.twitter.com/cE8Etk2XhX”>  pic.twitter.com/cE8Etk2XhX Permalink 6:05 AM – 31 Dec 2018

@nntaleb F***king hypocrite; Molyneux @StefanMolyneux thinks he can manage to keep posting strings showing lower “IQ” for Africans + heritability of IQ, catering to a Nordist supremacist following… …yet claim this is not racist so he doesn’t get banned from social media. Hypocrite. pic.twitter.com/LajdHGUepl Permalink 5:44 AM – 31 Dec 2018

@nntaleb An intelligent “current IQ” test is one that maximum number of successful pple (Gell-Mann, Feynman, Buffett, plumbers happy w/their lives, Musk, Umb. Eco) ace, & maximum number of unsucessful ones (bureaucrats, journalists, pple in jail) flunk, revised as environment changes. Permalink 5:30 AM – 31 Dec 2018

@rockwell_n2 I believe Taleb’s point is that we don’t understand the world well enough to define intelligence. What seemed intelligent in the year *blank* seemed incredibly unintelligent years later. Permalink 11:10 PM – 30 Dec 2018

@nntaleb Can someone explain how the psycholophasters got the IQ of Goethe, Einstein? By retro-testing? And stats for IQ of math/physicists? Selfreporting bias? I don’t know one mathematician who knows his/her IQ. Only IQ of physicist we know is Feynman’s (126 as he fluncked Mensa). Permalink 7:29 PM – 30 Dec 2018

@nntaleb That was what I tried to convey to that hawker-mountebank Charles Murray @charlesmurray when he wrote his gerrymandering book on how the “West” was great, redefining West as whatever has been recently successful. Permalink 5:25 PM – 30 Dec 2018

@nntaleb THE SUMMARY “”IQ” THREAD “IQ” measures an inferior form of intelligence, stripped of 2nd order effects, meant to select paper shuffleE, you focus first on “WHY is he asking me that?”, whi []” #SkininTheGame #Lindy #antifragile #FooledbyRandomness https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1076845397795065856.html   Permalink 4:48 PM – 30 Dec 2018

@nntaleb I find these comparisons by @StefanMolyneux insensitive, silly, and failing basic introspective recursion. Someone from Babylon/Ancient Egypt/The Med/China could have, at some point, made similar comparisons entailing Northern Europeans. Then look what happened after 1600. pic.twitter.com/LJbUCqNwo2 Permalink 4:41 PM – 30 Dec 2018

@mikeandallie The most interesting piece of math I learned in 2018 – thanks to @nntaleb – was a an amazing limit related to both probability and calculus: https://mikesmathpage.wordpress.com/2018/06/27/a-fascinating-limit-to-share-with-both-calculus-and-probability-students/  . #math #mathchat Permalink 3:09 PM – 30 Dec 2018

@nntaleb Some overlap with the RWRI program –but much more technical. http://www.realworldrisk.com   Permalink 2:23 PM – 30 Dec 2018

@nntaleb An association for losers (of the Birkensock footwear category) whose major skill is scoring on a particular test. https://twitter.com/Connectitecture/status/1079501400281935872   Permalink 2:21 PM – 30 Dec 2018

@nntaleb PHILOLOGY du JOUR A question for Maestro @Safaitic: how much of the diacriticals are original to Mutanabbi? Do you accept the idea that poets used a parallel language to the spoken one? https://twitter.com/almotanabby/status/1079489259814506497   Permalink 1:49 PM – 30 Dec 2018

@nntaleb Was it Tversky who said that all they were trying to do is formalize the corpus of used car salespeople. What shd replicate in psychology is what tricksters, illusionists, marketers, advertising pple, jilted lovers & crooks have known forever. #Lindy @ole_b_peters @stanley223 https://twitter.com/Stanley223/status/1079489173621481472   Permalink 1:40 PM – 30 Dec 2018

@nntaleb 32- WRAPPING UP – I said psychology was BS because something wrong between 50-100% of the time is the very definition of bul***st (a lie is wrong ~100%). – Selection of traits “tested” by IQ require predictability of future environment. – Will put everything in short article. Permalink 10:53 AM – 30 Dec 2018

@nntaleb 10- Year in Review One Tweetstorm countered close to a century of intelligence metrification (“IQ”) by nerds, & thousands of psychologists (& eugenists) who use probabilistic equations without knowing what is behind… One single Tweetstorm. https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1079239238053490688   Permalink 7:32 AM – 30 Dec 2018

@nntaleb I never made that point. Never linked “IQ” (which I didn’t consider a “measure”) to evolution. I blocked Razib Khan @razibkhan because he claimed there were “flaws” in our GMO risk arguments but could not produce any. https://twitter.com/fitchett_adam/status/1079375852079669249   Permalink 7:24 AM – 30 Dec 2018

@MorrisseyHelena I’m all for more localism and devolved powers to regions & counties. And they are lovely flags! ⁦@Telegraph⁩ pic.twitter.com/zxPcAlgpXo Permalink 4:04 AM – 30 Dec 2018

@imleslahdin I paraphrased everything in Python (using google colaboratory). I might have misunderstood though (I tinkered a lot). Please correct if there is any mistake it’s an open notebook as a github gist (you can edit and run). https://nbviewer.jupyter.org/gist/Nydhal/2bb2831b3713dade324af65a3aabb88a   Permalink 9:06 PM – 29 Dec 2018

@nntaleb 31- Technical point: why the PCA behind the “g” is tooooooootally BS when correlation is not constant. Their math is entertainemnet. And indeed psycholophasters DON’T get it. This is the shape of the proof, more details to fill in. pic.twitter.com/MnLxxB1kMN Permalink 8:54 PM – 29 Dec 2018

@nntaleb Why the “g” is BS as correlation is not constant pic.twitter.com/5rs5lFVyku Permalink 8:50 PM – 29 Dec 2018

@nntaleb Why I am blocking @sentientist Because of course if you disagree with psychology there is something wrong with you. pic.twitter.com/eW1lsL0v6s Permalink 4:03 PM – 29 Dec 2018

@nntaleb What @cshalizi intuited is in the variation of the PCA for a different realization; this is vastly worse. The PCA version of this https://arxiv.org/pdf/1603.07532.pdf   Permalink 2:21 PM – 29 Dec 2018

@nntaleb Severe problem w/psychologists. Deary doesn’t know how PCAs work (elementary misunderstanding of probability). But if you don’t agree with their metric there is something wrong with YOU. Popper called psychs charlatans. When you disagree, there’s something in your childhood… https://twitter.com/sentientist/status/1079107954027057152   Permalink 2:13 PM – 29 Dec 2018

@nntaleb This is an example of what the brilliant Cosma @cshalizi intuited behing the failure of “g”. And the SAT is DIRECTLY covered by IQ tests from overlap. A low IQ “correlates” with low SAT, but a low SAT doesn’t “correlate” with low IQ. Now do that with other measures covered by IQ https://twitter.com/IdentityWithin/status/1079120246693416960   Permalink 2:02 PM – 29 Dec 2018

@nntaleb DATA SCIENCE TRICK DU JOUR: How to make a random covariance/correl matrix that is positive definite? pic.twitter.com/rU4n0LBuij Permalink 7:00 AM – 29 Dec 2018

@normonics People who have learned to think in the RWRI @nntaleb style have uncommon clarity around systemic risk. It is not “difficult”, but generally requires a complete cognitive re-frame. Most unwilling or unable due to prior commitments of identity. Natural for @GuruAnaerobic https://twitter.com/guruanaerobic/status/1078779929670619137   Permalink 6:15 AM – 29 Dec 2018

@nntaleb A vector of unknown dimensions. If we knew the dimensions we would be able to predict the future. (Popper/Hayek) https://twitter.com/srini_sateesh/status/1079016017672585218   Permalink 6:13 AM – 29 Dec 2018

@nntaleb 9- Year in Review People stopped giving me the wrong awards, honoris causa, etc., awards by BS vendors to resumé-building BS vendors (asinus asimum fricat). Here is the real thing. https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1053256560758218752   Permalink 4:39 AM – 29 Dec 2018

@amconmag Trump “must find people who have remained outside the system during the permanent war years while being highly critical of its whole ideology and culture.” https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/trump-scores-breaks-generals-50-year-war-record-syria-mattis-dunford/   Permalink 4:30 AM – 29 Dec 2018

@nntaleb I am allergic to verbalistic Pinker-style talk abt something like “correlation”, “variance” w/o knowing what it REALLY means. Hence EVERY statistical concept needs to be rederived ab ovo. With IQ, 1000s of psychologist so far seem to NOT understand their own statistics! https://twitter.com/blackorwa/status/1078972980997341184   Permalink 4:25 AM – 29 Dec 2018

@nntaleb How PCAs degrade under Fat Tails. I share code for everything in book. Since then function Random[ ] became RandomVariate[Distribution,{c,r}] pic.twitter.com/ngH1GEMKCG Permalink 3:37 AM – 29 Dec 2018

@nntaleb They use a vertical form of Nestorian Syriac. pic.twitter.com/8rKA128bwn Permalink 6:07 PM – 28 Dec 2018

@nntaleb Mongolians write in the Nestorian alphabet, still today. https://twitter.com/ehsani22/status/1078822762343469056   Permalink 5:32 PM – 28 Dec 2018

@nntaleb I asked a specific question Mr @rjhaier, whether where tweets 17,18, 27, 29, 30, 7, 6, to select a few, correpond to “recycled” old anti-intelligence research, Charlatans talk: “we are aware of the shortcomings”… or “do you have better to offer?” https://twitter.com/rjhaier/status/1078699552515866626   Permalink 3:36 PM – 28 Dec 2018

@nntaleb Preparing for a new fall course at NYU @nyutandon called “Data science, Fragility, & Extremes”, Mondays 6-8 PM. About 50% is from my new technical book, 50% themes within Data science. pic.twitter.com/rZ1fd2l9JT Permalink 7:58 AM – 28 Dec 2018

@nntaleb 8- Year in Review (cont) To be ethical in 2019, do each of the following repeatedly. a- Invite someone who has no friends to lunch b- Make a rent-seeking BS vendor uncomfortable (if you can, really uncomfortable) c- Help someone in needs of funds but is not asking for help Permalink 6:13 AM – 28 Dec 2018

@nntaleb 1- Mr Haier,@rjhaier, “intelligence researcher” Explain where tweets 17,18, 27, 29, 30, 7, 6, to select a few, correpond to “recycled” old anti-intelligence research, if you can of course. https://twitter.com/rjhaier/status/1078339660303163392   Permalink 4:23 AM – 28 Dec 2018

@MDiPaolaMD Nothing tests real world ambiguous situations with no perfect answer except real world ambiguous situations with no perfect answer Permalink 4:10 AM – 28 Dec 2018

@nntaleb Merci Editions Belles Lettres @BellesLettresEd pour ce dictionnaires de françois médiéval! Beaucoup plus riche que le français moderne … et le secret de Fréderic Dard. le dictionnaire est fait…par Takeshi Matsumura, de l’université de… Tokyo. pic.twitter.com/GAw7Ztr4b1 Permalink 3:36 AM – 28 Dec 2018

@nntaleb 30- Traders get it right away: hypothetical P/L from “simulated” strategies don’t count. Performance=actual. “IQ”: What goes in people’s head or reaction to a screen image doesn’t exist (except via negativa). And correlations in psych papers don’t count. https://twitter.com/emcilveen/status/1078475464522563585   Permalink 6:30 PM – 27 Dec 2018

@nntaleb Performance Real world performance https://twitter.com/ramonarobot/status/1078451554129080320   Permalink 4:47 PM – 27 Dec 2018

@nntaleb IQ shd penalize some perceptional errors. IQ should accommodate perception of nonlinearity to aggregate payoffs: @yaneerbaryam picked it up right away “the mean-field error”, he said. But simplest problem is that measurements are cooked and terms like “correlation” don’t apply. https://twitter.com/davidboxenhorn/status/1078429267472646144   Permalink 3:20 PM – 27 Dec 2018

@HarryDCrane Major misunderstanding of statistics/p-values by scientists & statisticians: even if individuals control error rate exactly and correctly, we’d still have replication crisis. Cliff notes: RSS (.005 proposal) makes no sense, won’t work Long version: see https://youtu.be/vk9H246GrNQ?t=744   https://twitter.com/dougvk/status/1078353813642317824   Permalink 1:18 PM – 27 Dec 2018

@nntaleb Localism! https://twitter.com/black_swan_man/status/1078279012068327424   Permalink 1:15 PM – 27 Dec 2018

@nntaleb 29- A counter by a proponent of IQ w/what “g” offers best: explains ~½ the variance w.r. to academics. No “science” shd boast a measure that fails ~50%! Worse: counting circularity, hacking, the measure shd be wrong ~ 80% of the time! This is … fraud! https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022440518301031?via%3Dihub   Permalink 1:11 PM – 27 Dec 2018

@Stefano6412 Il latino e’ una lingua spietata con chi cerca di vendere aria fritta. Permalink 11:55 AM – 27 Dec 2018

@dittoaway Sorry but that is not how IQ testing works. Trial and error won’t work because you aren’t told the correct answer. Permalink 9:11 AM – 27 Dec 2018

@nntaleb 29- Note Charles Murray, @charlesmurray, is responding to these with series of ad hominem attacks (I mean really ad hominem). I will retaliate by sticking to the science. Permalink 8:33 AM – 27 Dec 2018

@nntaleb Charles Murray, you shd at least have the decency to index the person you are trying to slander: And this is the background about your friend Harris. https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/967892546461556737   Permalink 8:07 AM – 27 Dec 2018

@nntaleb 28-CURSE OF DIMENSIONALITY A flaw in the attempts to identify “intelligence” genes. You can get monogenic traits, not polygenic (note: additive monogenic used in animal breeding is NOT polygenic). The problem to some extent affect the “g” in IQ studies as it is multifactorial. pic.twitter.com/87weAlkplt Permalink 8:01 AM – 27 Dec 2018

@black_swan_man #blackswanman #theblackswanman #YellowVests #localism #skininthegame pic.twitter.com/IFU6wXcdx8 Permalink 5:18 AM – 27 Dec 2018

@nntaleb Isaac Levi, philosopher and probabilist, intellectual giant, RIP Few people in the past 2000 years went as deep into probability as you did. It was greatest luck to have met you. Ad vitam aeternam. pic.twitter.com/2iuU6jAuiC Permalink 4:56 AM – 27 Dec 2018

@nntaleb Machine Learning and Fat Tails Transcribed my M4 lecktchur @spyrosmakrid: the new nonlinear regression more effective than the old one pic.twitter.com/9JYQEzwqal Permalink 1:19 PM – 26 Dec 2018

@nntaleb As Karl Popper said about psychoanalysis they always come up for an explanation for failure, then ad-hoc the crap out of it. Or blame you for not knowing psychology or having narcissistic tendencies or problems with your mother. Permalink 12:56 PM – 26 Dec 2018

@nntaleb You can always leave psychology and get a real job. Permalink 12:42 PM – 26 Dec 2018

@nntaleb 27- Technical note I omitted: If IQ is Gaussian *by construction* & if performance is fat tailed, then either correlation betw IQ & performance doesn’t exist or is uninformational. It will show a finite number *in sample* but doesn’t exist statistically. https://www.academia.edu/37221402/THE_STATISTICAL_CONSEQUENCES_OF_FAT_TAILS_TECHNICAL_INCERTO_COLLECTION_   Permalink 11:56 AM – 26 Dec 2018

@nntaleb 26- I mute/block all pple comparing IQ to a physical measure s.a. height of basketball players. IQ as presented is NOT a measure. Reminiscent of risk charlatans insisting on selling “value at risk” & RiskMetrics saying “it’s the best measure”. Metrics need to have properties. Permalink 10:29 AM – 26 Dec 2018

@nntaleb There is an asymmetry that indicates most people who believe in IQ as a measure have a low IQ’ (some “real” intelligence metric). https://twitter.com/ddelruss/status/1077991832741601280   Permalink 10:22 AM – 26 Dec 2018

@ddelruss Ethically (per Taleb) observing a wrong and doing nothing is to perpetuate it (I forget which book, probably SITG). So when we observe misuse of metrics, broken models, dishonest arguments, etc, we are obligated to identify them. It’s ethics, not emotion – he’s not miffed. Permalink 8:12 AM – 26 Dec 2018

@nntaleb 25- For IQ idiots too slow: -If a 70 IQ is certain to fail but a 150 IQ has a significant probability of NOT succeeding, the ASYMMETRY has SEVERE statistical conseq. & “correlation” is BS term. -If variance is lower at some states & higher at others,”Bell Curve” is an illusion. Permalink 7:14 AM – 26 Dec 2018

@nntaleb Black Swan Man told you, Donaldo, that if you own the stock market on the way up, you will also own it on the way down. https://twitter.com/black_swan_man/status/1050766705667047426   Permalink 6:21 AM – 26 Dec 2018

@nntaleb I deleted my tweets ag. @davidgraeber (the only tweets I’ve deleted in past years since autodelete). I wanted to convey a strong message, prevent arbitrary petitions (having myself been the victim of a Monsanto initiated petition), not weaken him. Permalink 4:41 AM – 26 Dec 2018

@nntaleb 24- Note 2: “IQ selects for pattern recognition, essential for functioning in modern society”. Unfiltered pattern recognition makes you #FooledbyRandomness, to overnarrate, see false positives. Economics PhDs blow up in business. “IQ” good for @davidgraeber’s “BS jobs” Permalink 4:29 AM – 26 Dec 2018

@nickpahountis pic.twitter.com/4bRHfCjgsv Permalink 3:53 AM – 26 Dec 2018

@GhassanDahhan IQ tests are very similar to how psychologists measure “intelligence” of dogs. This is based on their obedience to humans and how fast they follow instructions. Therefore border collies are seen as the “smartest”, while in fact they’re the most servile IYI’s of all dogs. Permalink 3:06 AM – 26 Dec 2018

@nntaleb 23- Note 1: Why is Intelligence = (long term) survival? Because convexity, missed by IQ tests. You want to make those mistakes with small consequences NOT those with large ones. Academics ~ always focus on frequency of error not magnitude. Too Gaussianized. See #antifragile Permalink 7:51 PM – 25 Dec 2018

@warehouseninja read https://opinion.inquirer.net/118414/blame-passing   and was quickly reminded of @nntaleb’s #SITG “the government would keep tabs on economists’ inflation and economic growth forecasts next year to make them accountable for their projections, which consumers and businesses use in making decisions.” Permalink 7:01 PM – 25 Dec 2018

@nntaleb 22- This tweet storm irritated many: 1) Charlatans with something to sell: without IQ & other *testing* psychologists have little to sell society; there is a vested interest in hacking/massaging the stats & defending the products. 2) Pple who want some races to be inferior. Permalink 7:00 PM – 25 Dec 2018

@nntaleb If you look at my p-haking above all the numbers by the fellow are upper bound -add category selection & the story is grim. Discount the story by >½. “If IQ isn’t a valid concept, no concept in psychology is valid.” Sorry but psychology is largely bust. https://twitter.com/SteveStuWill/status/1057962295999885312   Permalink 3:30 PM – 25 Dec 2018

@nntaleb 20- This Tweet storm has NO psychological references: simply, the field is bust. So far ~ 50% of the research DOES NOT replicate, & papers that do have weaker effect. Not counting poor transfer to reality. How P values often fraudulent: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1603.07532.pdf   Same for g factor Permalink 1:36 PM – 25 Dec 2018

@HarryDCrane The best/only place to learn prob/stat is “on the street”. Concepts that are second nature in the wild become convoluted in the classroom (p-value, confidence level). https://twitter.com/imleslahdin/status/1077611993526194176   Permalink 9:55 AM – 25 Dec 2018