3 ms·

Higher education seems like more of a "class marker" to me.

• toasterlovin 9y ago
  Or maybe the causal factor for both class and higher education is intelligence. The Bell Curve makes a compelling case that the transition away from agriculture toward knowledge work over the last 100 years has created a society in which intelligence is funneled into higher education and from there into high paying professions.
  • fjsolwmv 9y ago
    The Bell Curve is a famous case of quasi-science. You are putting statistical speculation up against centuries of well-documented explicit discrimination policies.
    • toasterlovin 9y ago
      Have you read The Bell Curve? You may disagree with some of its conclusions (I personally am skeptical of its conclusions about racial differences in IQ), but to call it pseudo science is, I think, unfair. FWIW, Steven Pinker, who is about as thoughtful and level headed as they come, agrees: https://mobile.twitter.com/sapinker/status/846912847036723202?lang=en https://mobile.twitter.com/sapinker/status/84691284703672320... And, anyway, the point I was making had nothing to do with racial IQ differences. It was referring to what the rest of The Bell Curve is about (discussion of racial IQ differences makes up only about 25% of the book): how the US society’s transition away from most people working in agriculture toward most people working at desks has created a class structure stratified by intelligence. It’s actually a shame that the book discusses racial IQ differences at all, because everyone got hung up on that and totally missed what is, IMO, a much more important point. And I think it explains a lot about current politics in the US.
    • holbrad 9y ago
      You seem to be rather confused about the Bell Curve. It's my understanding that the main data presented hasn't been overturned or disproved (In-fact quite the opposite)