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That's impressive, but seems more like filtering. Taking the top 15 students in a high school and teaching them calculus doesn't prove that one can make people

That's impressive, but seems more like filtering. Taking the top 15 students in a high school and teaching them calculus doesn't prove that one can make people more intelligent through education, as 15 out of thousands is a huge filter - though still helping those kids was very nobel. As for the higher numbers later in his career, you have to imagine that with his fame intelligent students from other districts were likely filtered to his school. I also don't see a pass rate for the later years. I've investigated many of the claims that one can teach intelligence. From Dual-N-Back to Head Start, they have all proven to have negligible effects on future outcomes and no effect on measured G. I think there are also pretty solid theoretical reasons to think that "learning how to learn" is not possible, as intelligence is that capacity that enables you to learn, you are strictly limited by your intelligence even when learning how to learn. There is also increasing evidence in the literature that the theorized transfer effect (that learning one skill increases your capacity to learn other unrelated skills) does not exist. These are not conclusions that I relish; I advocate them because I think they're true. Better a bitter truth than a sweet fiction.

eli_gottlieb 11y ago
>There is also increasing evidence in the literature that the theorized transfer effect (that learning one skill increases your capacity to learn other unrelated skills) does not exist. Interesting. Presuming that such a "transfer effect" is hypothesized to work the same way as transfer learning (in statistical learning, machine learning, cognitive science, etc.), this would be one of the first times mathematical models have predicted a cognitive capability should be commonplace that human beings failed to actually exhibit.
darkmighty 11y ago
Your argument is hardly related to what he presented. Intelligence is almost defined by your innate ability to learn, not by your actual acquired skills and abilities or knowledge. His example showed you can make a group of motivated students very skilled and knowledgeable in calculus. He wasn't raising their IQ. However, I'm pretty sure I could find studies pointing to a raise in whatever intelligence metric for those with a college education (specially mathematics or physics heavy) versus a control group that went on to menial jobs. Actually I'll just post the first few Google hits (only glanced by they severely contradict your claims): 1) http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/39/5/1362.full http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/39/5/1362.full Causal relation between education and intelligence metrics observed 2) http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1465-7295.2010.00312.x/abstract http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1465-7295.2010.... Correlation between education attainment and IQ --- Moreover, there's the even more glaring correlation (and causal relationship) between success and higher educational attainment, specially in technical fields, where obviously you need a lot of hard to learn knowledge, skills and general ability to learn (that is, I also dispute your claim that education has no effect on ability to learn). I can ellaborate and dig more if someone is interested/skeptical.

eli_gottlieb 11y ago

>There is also increasing evidence in the literature that the theorized transfer effect (that learning one skill increases your capacity to learn other unrelated skills) does not exist. Interesting. Presuming that such a "transfer effect" is hypothesized to work the same way as transfer learning (in statistical learning, machine learning, cognitive science, etc.), this would be one of the first times mathematical models have predicted a cognitive capability should be commonplace that human beings failed to actually exhibit.

darkmighty 11y ago

Your argument is hardly related to what he presented. Intelligence is almost defined by your innate ability to learn, not by your actual acquired skills and abilities or knowledge. His example showed you can make a group of motivated students very skilled and knowledgeable in calculus. He wasn't raising their IQ. However, I'm pretty sure I could find studies pointing to a raise in whatever intelligence metric for those with a college education (specially mathematics or physics heavy) versus a control group that went on to menial jobs. Actually I'll just post the first few Google hits (only glanced by they severely contradict your claims): 1) http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/39/5/1362.full http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/39/5/1362.full Causal relation between education and intelligence metrics observed 2) http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1465-7295.2010.00312.x/abstract http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1465-7295.2010.... Correlation between education attainment and IQ --- Moreover, there's the even more glaring correlation (and causal relationship) between success and higher educational attainment, specially in technical fields, where obviously you need a lot of hard to learn knowledge, skills and general ability to learn (that is, I also dispute your claim that education has no effect on ability to learn). I can ellaborate and dig more if someone is interested/skeptical.