Crémieux Profile picture
May 21, 2023 10 tweets 4 min read Read on X
Changes to the Bar exam so far don't seem to have made a dent in the race differences in performance on it.

How large are these differences? In the latest year, 2022, the Black-White gap in California Bar pass rates was 0.97 SDs.

And this matters because we expect a threshold Image
to practice (the Bar exam) to reduce subsequent performance gaps.

But how much should those gaps be reduced?

Let's simulate to find out!

@_twolfram recently provided an estimate for British lawyers' IQs of 110.31: sciencedirect.com/science/articl….

Let's go ahead and assume
there's a threshold that's 0.67 SDs (10 points) above the higher-performing of two groups with equal variances who are separated by 0.97 d.

With simulated group sizes of one million persons each, the mean differences decline, and the SDs do too. The new gap is 0.412 d. Image
But we know that the 0.97 d gap is an underestimate due to range restriction.

Using MBE scores, it looks like the unrestricted gap should be more like 1.22 d. That leaves us with a 0.537 d gap above the threshold.

Do we have subsequent performance measures?

Yes! We have three:
- Complaints made against attorneys
- Probations
- Disbarments

For men, the gaps, in order, are 0.576, 0.513, and 0.564 d. For women, the gaps are 0.576, 0.286, and 0.286 d.

Men fit expectations and women apparently needed less discipline. Source: https://board.calba...
These gaps probably replicate nationally.

For example, here are Texas pass rates from 2004 - a 0.961 d Black-White first-pass gap. The 2006 update to these figures raised the gap to 0.969 d. Source: https://ble.texas.g...Image
Those figures are basically in line with LSAC's national study of Bar exam pass rates. Image
And those are basically in line with New York's gaps. Image
And this should probably be expected, since tests measure the same things. Image
Since all of the people included in these statistics went to ABA-accredited schools, they all had the opportunity to learn what was required to perform well on these tests.

But just like the Step examinations for medical doctors, the gaps on the tests and in real life remain.

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More from @cremieuxrecueil

Apr 25
Why have autism rates risen over time?🧵

I have just put out an article dealing with numerous misconceptions about this topic, and a complete explanation of why autism diagnoses have become more common.

It starts with acknowledging that more kids are diagnosed than in the past: Image
But this is misleading for a few reasons.

One has to do with how this data was sourced. We didn't have a DSM with autism in it before 1980, so all the oldest people in this cohort were diagnosed as adults.

Adults are underdiagnosed. Go out of your way to diagnose? Same rates.Image
So something is off about this graph.

A major issue is that the older diagnoses here were done under a more arbitrary criteria: Autism has only been a described thing since Kanner's studies in 1943 and mass diagnosis kicked off in 1980.

Before 1980, diagnosis was often crazy:Image
Read 16 tweets
Apr 24
In 2016, researchers found that the minority-White wage gap was overestimated by about 10% because, at work, non-Whites tended to partake in more leisure, waiting around, etc.

They delayed releasing the study out of fear Trump would "use it as a propaganda piece." Image
They explicitly admitted that they let their personal politics get in the way of releasing a study with contentious but correct findings.

That doesn't inspire trust, but at the same time, given the topic, it might!
This isn't the worst example of scientists hurting the public for political reasons.

More infamously, this guy stopped the release of the COVID vaccines to prevent Trump from winning re-election in 2020, killing tens of thousands in the process. Image
Read 5 tweets
Apr 23
Aspartame?

What is it? Where is it from? What does it do? Is it harmful? What do health agencies think of it?

And why might the HHS be planning to ban it from American food?

Here's the aspartame review thread🧵 Image
Aspartame is a sugary sweet synthetic molecule that's 200 times sweeter than sucrose.

More than half of the world's supply comes from Ajinomoto of Tokyo, better known for bringing the world MSG. Image
Because aspartame is so sweet, a little bit goes a long way.

The high levels of sweetness contained in very small quantities of aspartame make it ideal for making super low-calorie diet drinks like Diet Coke. Image
Read 34 tweets
Apr 22
When you match different American ethnoracial groups on socioeconomic status, the known differences in intelligence still persist. Image
This shows up in many datasets and persists whether using measures of parental or attained socioeconomic status:
This difference after SES stratification can be understood in dramatic terms.

For example, Asians with parents who merely graduated high school tend to be smarter than Blacks whose parents have graduate degrees.

Read 6 tweets
Apr 20
I don't think Bernie realizes what he's asking for🧵

The Bennett Hypothesis holds that universities alter their prices to capture additional funding that becomes available to students.

When Grad PLUS loans rolled out, the most exposed programs jacked up prices more: Image
If you want to "fix" this situation within reason, you need to cut funding.

Doing that has disproportionately negative impacts for the educations of people from socioeconomically worse off backgrounds. Or in other words, it hurts upward educational mobility for the poor.
Or, you could provide this presidential administration with a gift:

Centralize the universities and have the government more directly control all the funding. Make them "free".

This is far more likely than alternatives like 'Just give universities infinite money', but still bad
Read 4 tweets
Apr 16
Compared to twenty years ago, kids are eating some types of ultraprocessed foods more and some types less🧵

For example, one thing there's proportionally less of is sugar-sweetened beverage consumption. Meanwhile, there's relatively greater sweet snack consumption. Image
Overall, the ultraprocessed food (UPF) consumption share is up across young ages to similar degrees.

The increase is definitely there, but it isn't dramatic. For example, going from 61% to 67.5% is an 11% increase in twenty years. Image
The increase in consumption is not differentiated by the sex of children.

In other words, boys and girls are both eating a bit more ultraprocessed food. Image
Read 14 tweets

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