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Hubbard Talks about Math, Physics, Neural Science.

Demented LRH

Patron Meritorious
What I don't see is the value in random selection of 200 statements. Let us say you took 700 negative statements, and 300 positive statements, Then from them you selected your random 200. If you did that random sampling several times and averaged the results, you would find you had the same ratio as the original test sampling.

So, what is the point of the randomization step? It is a fudge factor that does not lead to accuracy of results.

What should then be the ideal ratio of positive to negative statements in your sample that would not peg the results at a particular IQ? How do you rule out bias by the person selecting the statements that are used to make up the 1000?

You are basing your IQ on a sample of 100 correct answers giving a 100 IQ and we can presume, if you found more that 100 correct in your sample of 200, there exists the possibility of an IQ rating of over 100. Is this rating system the same as is generally used in the testing community?

Now, you are arbitrarily taking statements and deciding which are true and which are not. In your example you stated engrams do not exist. An engram is a moment, or incident containing pain and unconsciousness. Saying that is wrong is an error on the evaluator's part. How then do you adjust for such errors? They would skew your results.

How do you deal with the "Unreliable Narrator" aspect of his writings? If your IQ test is solely based on right and wrong statements, how do you obtain accurate results from his writings, if he willingly ignores the "truth", since he doesn't consider it necessary to running a con?

How does a ratio of correct statements to incorrect statements equate to IQ? I feel you are omitting many factors in determining "actual" IQ.

Mimsey.
You did not specify how 700 correct answers and 300 incorrect answers were chosen.
If you initial goal was to select 700 correct answers and 300 incorrect ones, then the method will not work. But if you begun selecting answers one by one and arrived at the result that you described, then the method will work, every statistician will tell you that.

Suppose, you want to determine average London income. You may use a table of random numbers to select 200 entries from a census data. But that will not work because some entries contain incomplete data -- the income fields are missing in them. You may replace incompelete entries with complete ones, but that woun't work, either, because this is not random selection by definition.

The right method would be to select complete 1000 entries in any way you like -- starting from the top of the list, starting from the botto, starting from the middle, etc -- and then use the table of random numbers or generator of random numbers to select 200 records from them
 

Student of Trinity

Silver Meritorious Patron
I did not say that IQ is used to test general intelligence ... [but rather] ... to determine what kind of mental retardation a subject has.

If by 'mental retardation' you do not mean 'low general intelligence', then what do you mean?

In any case this reply is irrelevant. My points were to the effect that your procedure for evaluating Hubbard's IQ is a very poor procedure for evaluating anyone's IQ. Whether you say 'mental retardation' after finding what you think is a low IQ score, or instead say 'low intelligence' after finding that score, is an entirely separate question.
 

Demented LRH

Patron Meritorious
Hubbard's management tech worked very well, for him. He raked in a lot of money, without doing a day's honest work. His system wasn't very good for managing a normal business, but it was pretty good for managing a cult.

Cult management is pretty different from managing a real business, you know. A lot of its purposes are diametrically opposite to real business management's. Like, you don't want to recruit, recognize, and promote talented workers. You want to drive out anybody smart enough to see through the con. Building a lot of pointless crap into the system really helps with that. You want to reel in the foolish and vulnerable, and hook them well, to keep them on the treadmill, making you money, for as long as possible, as cheaply as possible. Hubbard did pretty well at that.

Maybe it's not the best possible cult management system. But it worked well enough. Calling Hubbard stupid for not working hard to make a better cult management system, when the system that he had ran well enough (for him) and didn't need any work, is kind of missing the point of cult management. Which is, money comes in, while boss does no work.
Does the Hubbard management system work well? I do not think so -- 90% of the Orgs that occupy Big Blue are insolvent. The cult got rich, nevertheless, but the money come from the sources that have nothing to do with the Hubbard management system; they come 1. from donations made by the rich donors 2. from the stakes that the cult has in the companies run by Scientologists; 3. from investments (this is done in the countries where CoS is not registered as a Church).

After I left Sea Org, I had a telemarketing job for 2 weeks before I returned to my regular work. The owner of telemarketing company was a Scientologist, and so was his wife. Hubbard management system was not used at that company.

Scientology franchises do not use the Hubbard management system, either, as I found out. The pay royalties to the church for using Dianetics auditing, but they are not required to use the Management Series.
 

Demented LRH

Patron Meritorious
If by 'mental retardation' you do not mean 'low general intelligence', then what do you mean?

In any case this reply is irrelevant. My points were to the effect that your procedure for evaluating Hubbard's IQ is a very poor procedure for evaluating anyone's IQ. Whether you say 'mental retardation' after finding what you think is a low IQ score, or instead say 'low intelligence' after finding that score, is an entirely separate question.
My definition of the mental retardation is based on the APA chart that you provided.
It seems to me that you are rejecting any method of IQ dewtermination, not just the one that I described. I may be wrong, in this case please, name a method of IQ determination that you accept.
 

Student of Trinity

Silver Meritorious Patron
I provided no chart. That must have been someone else.

If mental retardation means low IQ to you, but not low intelligence, then evidently you do not think that IQ means intelligence. Fine; I am skeptical about IQ, too, though I would not go so far as to say it has nothing to do with intelligence. So let's forget about exactly what IQ means, and just address the question of whether your analysis has provided any evidence about Hubbard's IQ.

Your test is not an IQ test. It is not like IQ tests. It does not provide evidence about anyone's IQ. Therefore it provides no evidence about Hubbard's.

In the first place, you test only general factual knowledge, but IQ tests explicitly try to avoid testing general factual knowledge. They focus on reasoning, though some of the older ones also indirectly include some vocabulary testing, which is admittedly a form of factual knowledge. Insofar as they do that, they are flawed — better IQ tests try not to do that.

In the second place, IQ tests make every subject generate answers to the same questions. You let the subject provide the questions. This is, as I have twice explained, a fatal flaw.
 

Student of Trinity

Silver Meritorious Patron
Does the Hubbard management system work well? I do not think so -- 90% of the Orgs that occupy Big Blue are insolvent.

Another special feature of cult management, as opposed to regular business management, is that it doesn't have to keep working at all past the death of the cult leader. As long as it pulls in money while he's alive, it's working great. If it falls apart after that, that makes him an asshole, but it doesn't make him stupid.
 
Hi DLRH, perhaps I wasn't clear enough, if after taking your 1000 statements, you then find you have 300 positive and 700 negative, what is the point of then randomly selecting 200 answers for your evaluation? My point is you are always pegged to the initial ratio of correct answers to wrong, whatever that is.

That ratio is determined by the criteria you have for selecting statements to be included in your 1000. This is where your procedure falls apart.

A) How do you deal with valid statements that are vague or ambiguous?
B) How do you assign a value to a statement that has 4 correct concepts in it - it is considered 1 or 4?
C) How do you deal with a statement that states 2 correct facts and has a wrong conclusion? Is it 2/3 correct, right or wrong?
D) How do you rank one statement vs. another? If he says something obvious, that is generally perceived as true, how is it ranked compared to some statement that is a revaluation?
E) What training level does the person have who is selecting the statements to be included, is he qualified to determine a correct or incorrect statement by the test subject?
F) How do you rank statements that contain wrong answers for purposes of illustration of a correct application. Since the wrong concepts are knowingly entered by the test subject, are they ranked as wrong or right?
G) What is the cull process to determine what statements wind up in the thousand?
H) What sources are used and which are not? He has many books and tapes with hundreds of thousands of statements all told. How do you avoid bias in selection of statements?
I) By taking generalized remarks you are skewing the test results. Example: If you remove all of Einsteins statements on the subject of relativity from the selection process because they are too technical, the you are taking away the evidence of his genius from the test, and thus dumbing it down, and skewing your result towards a lower IQ.

I could go on, but the point should be obvious. Your test is subjective, not objective, and as such is junk science. I wish it were otherwise, but I can't see how you could fix these and the other fatal errors that have been pointed out in this thread by others.

It basically comes down to opinion - in your opinion, Hubbard is a retard. Hey fine. Be happy with that. But that is all it is, an opinion. Your test does not elevate it beyond being an opinion.

Best, Mimsey
 

Hatshepsut

Crusader
I remember the IQ test the nuns passed out to our parochial school class when I was just 11. I believe the sister said my IQ was 54 :biggrin: but I had the HIGHEST Probable Learning Rate score. :happydance: :happydance:

Does that mean the nuns were lousy teachers or does it have nothing to do with it? I'm leaving myself wide open here..
 

Demented LRH

Patron Meritorious
I provided no chart. That must have been someone else.

If mental retardation means low IQ to you, but not low intelligence, then evidently you do not think that IQ means intelligence. Fine; I am skeptical about IQ, too, though I would not go so far as to say it has nothing to do with intelligence. So let's forget about exactly what IQ means, and just address the question of whether your analysis has provided any evidence about Hubbard's IQ.

Your test is not an IQ test. It is not like IQ tests. It does not provide evidence about anyone's IQ. Therefore it provides no evidence about Hubbard's.

In the first place, you test only general factual knowledge, but IQ tests explicitly try to avoid testing general factual knowledge. They focus on reasoning, though some of the older ones also indirectly include some vocabulary testing, which is admittedly a form of factual knowledge. Insofar as they do that, they are flawed — better IQ tests try not to do that.

In the second place, IQ tests make every subject generate answers to the same questions. You let the subject provide the questions. This is, as I have twice explained, a fatal flaw.
I do not make distinctions between low IQ and low intelligence because I am not a professional in this field, I am not qualified to make such distinction -- you are asking too much of me. I simply use the APA IQ gradation.
I asked you a specific question about an IQ test acceptible to you because I want to compare it to the IQ measurement method that my cousin developed. She compared the results of her test to the results of an IQ test used by APA and found out that the differences in results are statistically insignificant (she tested her method on the patients who are alive before moving on to Hubbard).
It seems to me that you view all IQ tests with mistrust.
 

Demented LRH

Patron Meritorious
Another special feature of cult management, as opposed to regular business management, is that it doesn't have to keep working at all past the death of the cult leader. As long as it pulls in money while he's alive, it's working great. If it falls apart after that, that makes him an asshole, but it doesn't make him stupid.
The same situation persisted when Hubbard was alive, almost nothing changed after his death -- the Orgs were insolvent, but there was influx of the money into the cult -- the $$$ were coming from the sources not described the Management Series.
For example, Hubbard said nothing about investing money into profitable industries; I suspect that this practice was adviced by business consultants hired by the church
 

Demented LRH

Patron Meritorious
Hi DLRH, perhaps I wasn't clear enough, if after taking your 1000 statements, you then find you have 300 positive and 700 negative, what is the point of then randomly selecting 200 answers for your evaluation? My point is you are always pegged to the initial ratio of correct answers to wrong, whatever that is.

That ratio is determined by the criteria you have for selecting statements to be included in your 1000. This is where your procedure falls apart.

A) How do you deal with valid statements that are vague or ambiguous?
B) How do you assign a value to a statement that has 4 correct concepts in it - it is considered 1 or 4?
C) How do you deal with a statement that states 2 correct facts and has a wrong conclusion? Is it 2/3 correct, right or wrong?
D) How do you rank one statement vs. another? If he says something obvious, that is generally perceived as true, how is it ranked compared to some statement that is a revaluation?
E) What training level does the person have who is selecting the statements to be included, is he qualified to determine a correct or incorrect statement by the test subject?
F) How do you rank statements that contain wrong answers for purposes of illustration of a correct application. Since the wrong concepts are knowingly entered by the test subject, are they ranked as wrong or right?
G) What is the cull process to determine what statements wind up in the thousand?
H) What sources are used and which are not? He has many books and tapes with hundreds of thousands of statements all told. How do you avoid bias in selection of statements?
I) By taking generalized remarks you are skewing the test results. Example: If you remove all of Einsteins statements on the subject of relativity from the selection process because they are too technical, the you are taking away the evidence of his genius from the test, and thus dumbing it down, and skewing your result towards a lower IQ.

I could go on, but the point should be obvious. Your test is subjective, not objective, and as such is junk science. I wish it were otherwise, but I can't see how you could fix these and the other fatal errors that have been pointed out in this thread by others.

It basically comes down to opinion - in your opinion, Hubbard is a retard. Hey fine. Be happy with that. But that is all it is, an opinion. Your test does not elevate it beyond being an opinion.

Best, Mimsey
The ratio that you mentioned does not remain the same after a random selection procedure, you should study the books on mathematical statistics to understand why (I did that). In case of non-random selection the ratio may or may not remain the same.
A. Exclude the statements that cannot be understood. I gave an example of such statement.
B. You break a statement containing 4 ideas into 4 statements. Such statements are rare, by the way, we have not encountered them
C. If the conclusion is wrong, then the statement is wrong because a statement is taken in its totality (Rule #1 of the logic of deductions).
D. I do not understand the question. Please, paraphrase it.
E. In Hubbard's case such person would be someone who has High School diploma because Hubbard did not cover topics going beyond the high school level. The exception is his Management Series, but I can analyze that material because I have MS in Financial Engineering. (I have not done so). In any case, if a person thinks that he cannot evaluate a Hubbard statement, he can omit it without affecting the IQ evaluation.
F. Such statements are classified as correct ones provided they lead to a correct inference.
G and H. --I think I already answered these questions in the post where I described my cousin's methodology.
I. That would be Einstein. You and I and my cousin cannot use this method to determine Einstein's IQ because we lack knowledge of the topics required to fully understand his works. Hubbard was nothing of this sort, we all know enough to evaluate his statements. Besides, a lot of things that Einstein predicted require millions of years to verify, so we cannot judge all his statements at the present time .
 

Student of Trinity

Silver Meritorious Patron
She compared the results of her test to the results of an IQ test used by APA and found out that the differences in results are statistically insignificant.

This could in principle be a sound defense of her/your method. The question is how good her testing really was. Since there are at least two variables to consider — IQ and propensity for writing about subjects one doesn't know — it would take a large sample to test the method properly. Were any of your cousin's control group writers as prolific as Hubbard?

Also, lots of intelligent people believed things in the 1960's, when Hubbard was writing, that only idiots believe now. Was her control group living in the 1960's? If not, her method could still be sound for contemporary subjects, but applying it to Hubbard might be invalid.

As a bare minimum, nowhere near enough to be convincing but a good place to start: is the average IQ yielded by your cousin's test equal to 100? Is the standard deviation 15? Those are the figures to which IQ tests are normalized.

Whether I believe in the validity of IQ tests in measuring intelligence is irrelevant for this discussion. I believe that IQ tests exist. We are only asking whether your method will really reproduce whatever it is that a standard IQ test would show. I doubt it, but I could perhaps be convinced if you were able to show really substantial testing by your cousin. Testing substantial enough to amount even to plausible evidence, though, would be a major undertaking — the sort of thing that would normally take a funded study with a team of researchers, not the kind of thing that an average clinical psychologist could just do in her spare time.
 

Student of Trinity

Silver Meritorious Patron
The ratio that you mentioned does not remain the same after a random selection procedure, you should study the books on mathematical statistics to understand why (I did that).
It is quite unlikely to remain the same in any one sample, but on average over many samples, it certainly will. In other words, taking a random sample adds only noise. It reduces the work involved in analyzing the data, but it does not avoid any of the selection bias problems inherent in picking the original set in the first place.

This is MB's point. The sole possible advantage in your sampling is saving time, which is an advantage that does not require any statistical mastery to be understood.
 

Demented LRH

Patron Meritorious
It is quite unlikely to remain the same in any one sample, but on average over many samples, it certainly will. In other words, taking a random sample adds only noise. It reduces the work involved in analyzing the data, but it does not avoid any of the selection bias problems inherent in picking the original set in the first place.

This is MB's point. The sole possible advantage in your sampling is saving time, which is an advantage that does not require any statistical mastery to be understood.
I'm glad that you raised this question because I was going to edit my previous post by adding more information to it.
The procedure will change the initial ratio 300/700 = 3/7 by + 5% or - 5%, which does not seem much, but it is required for a precise evaluation. This is a standard selection procedure whose purpose is to eliminate bias in the original group. See, for example, Some Theory on Sampling by W. Deming. which is a classical book in the field.
 

Student of Trinity

Silver Meritorious Patron
The procedure will change the initial ratio 300/700 = 3/7 by + 5% or - 5%, which does not seem much, but it is required for a precise evaluation.

In fact it could change it by anything from zero to ±100%. You could be so lucky as to select all 200 of your sample out of the 300 right, or out of the 700 wrong. With these largish numbers of items, your binomial distribution will be awfully close to Gaussian, so most of the time your sample will deviate from the population average by a factor less than (200/2)^(-1/2)=10%. The chances of the difference being more than 5% either way are fairly good, though.

But, humor me, here. Just how does a ±5% change help with 'precise evaluation'?

Pro tip: people who really understand statistics don't normally use vague terms like 'precise evaluation'. If in fact you do know what you're talking about, your presentation could use some work.
 

Demented LRH

Patron Meritorious
This could in principle be a sound defense of her/your method. The question is how good her testing really was. Since there are at least two variables to consider — IQ and propensity for writing about subjects one doesn't know — it would take a large sample to test the method properly. Were any of your cousin's control group writers as prolific as Hubbard?

Also, lots of intelligent people believed things in the 1960's, when Hubbard was writing, that only idiots believe now. Was her control group living in the 1960's? If not, her method could still be sound for contemporary subjects, but applying it to Hubbard might be invalid.

As a bare minimum, nowhere near enough to be convincing but a good place to start: is the average IQ yielded by your cousin's test equal to 100? Is the standard deviation 15? Those are the figures to which IQ tests are normalized.

Whether I believe in the validity of IQ tests in measuring intelligence is irrelevant for this discussion. I believe that IQ tests exist. We are only asking whether your method will really reproduce whatever it is that a standard IQ test would show. I doubt it, but I could perhaps be convinced if you were able to show really substantial testing by your cousin. Testing substantial enough to amount even to plausible evidence, though, would be a major undertaking — the sort of thing that would normally take a funded study with a team of researchers, not the kind of thing that an average clinical psychologist could just do in her spare time.
The control group were asked to give their own statements about topics such as math, physics, etc. What they thought about Hubbard's ideas is irrelevant, so it does not matter at what time they lived.
All IQ tests, including the one that my cousin designed, are normalized in such way that the average score is 100. The standard deviations are different for these tests, it is impossible to normalize them in such way that they have standard deviation of 15. (standard deviation is non-normalizable).
Since Hubbard had high school diploma, the assumption is that he knew the topics covered in the high school (biology, math, physics). Differential calculus is not a high school topic, so the Hubbard statements about the Math that I included in this thread was not included in the study. But his statement about the impossibility of using Newton's math was included because all high school students now that this stuff is the basis of all natural sciences.
 

Demented LRH

Patron Meritorious
But, humor me, here. Just how does a ±5% change help with 'precise evaluation'?

Pro tip: people who really understand statistics don't normally use vague terms like 'precise evaluation'. If in fact you do know what you're talking about, your presentation could use some work.
I was in a hurry yesterday, so I did not elaboorate what I mean by "precise evaluation".
The randomization procedure is used to eliminate the possibility that the Hubbard statements are correlted meaning that they follow from each other, although there is small possibility of that. But let's say that correlated estimate puts his IQ at 69, which is inside the range of mild mental retardation, and uncorrelated one puts it at 72, which is outside the range. In this sense even a 5% score difference matters.
 
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