Also in practical informal talk, people overemphasize IQ because it is so fun for hierarchy-minded primates to arrange people from best to worst.
edit re: PCA: Yes, PCA is a super-parametric method, with the usual super-parametric method problems. However, the issue I have with PCA in this context is different, and also occurs in very flexible, fully non-parametric methods. Basically the issue is, no matter how you massage it, the joint distribution simply does not have the causal information you want in it, in general.
I don’t think we disagree (?anymore?).
Also in practical informal talk, people overemphasize IQ because it is so fun for hierarchy-minded primates to arrange people from best to worst.
edit re: PCA: Yes, PCA is a super-parametric method, with the usual super-parametric method problems. However, the issue I have with PCA in this context is different, and also occurs in very flexible, fully non-parametric methods. Basically the issue is, no matter how you massage it, the joint distribution simply does not have the causal information you want in it, in general.
Yep. You just have to pick the correct metric: the one where you come out on top ;-)