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The comment is not "not even wrong". In fact you are not even really disagreeing. People with high SES have children with high IQ, then those children's childr
by saint_fiasco 9y ago
The comment is not "not even wrong". In fact you are not even really disagreeing.
People with high SES have children with high IQ, then those children's children also have high SES and IQ. Does it really matter if the high IQ was because of inherited genes vs inherited wealth? You both already believe that it is hereditary.
- tptacek 9y agoIt matters very much, because the subtext of saying that school performance is effectively hereditary is that no intervention we can come up with will improve test scores, because the problem is intrinsic to the student. That's false.
- saint_fiasco 9y agoSchool performance is in fact hereditary, possibly because rich people go to fancy schools and their parents can afford to help them with homework and so on. A good intervention might be to improve the schools that poor people go to. But if poor students are just intrinsically more stupid for some biological reason, a good intervention might be to improve the schools that stupid people go to. Since it turns out the bad students are poor students, the interventions end up looking mostly the same. For example, hire more teachers to reduce class size, provide more nutritious food, or remove lead from the paint and the pipes. Just because something is "biological" doesn't mean it is immutable. In fact, as technology advances, we might end up wishing bad school performance was due to genetics so we can fix it with gene therapy instead of complicated finicky societal interventions.
- tptacek 9y agoIf we agree about the needed intervention but for different reasons, our debate isn't going to be very productive. I agree that schools are doing a poor job of serving black and latino students.