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> hereditary wealth correlates to intelligence has been endlessly refuted. Source? There's noise and luck (and IQ wasn't so much a factor for income historica

> hereditary wealth correlates to intelligence has been endlessly refuted. Source? There's noise and luck (and IQ wasn't so much a factor for income historically) but given the following, how could it not be true? Intelligence leads to higher income (med school etc) Income leads to higher wealth Wealth is partly inherited. Intelligence is partly inherited.

TomMckenny 8y ago
This very article shows that rich tend to succeed and poor tend to fail regardless of whether the grab the marshmallow or not. But a summary of other issues include: If intelligence corresponds to wealth, we would expect Nobel prize winners and widely cited scientist to be the richest people. Royal families and their descendants, having concentrated their genes, should also be the most inventive, artistic or scientifically productive people. It is possible to improve earnings skills, the degree to which it can be improved is the degree to which it is behavioral rather than genetic. Rich people are scattered through the world and through history and thus have maximum genetic difference. They can not reasonably share a common gene that skips over millions of people between them, let alone crossing the Atlantic to end up in Montezuma's line. And if there were such genes, they would be extremely conspicuous. Yet in spite of great interest and success in sequencing, no gene correlating to wealth has been found. If some genes corresponded to earnings, it would have a geographic origin and concentration as do eye color, lactose tolerance, epicanthic folds, malaria-resistance/cycle-cell etc. Yet every region has a few rich people and many poor. In fact, regions change in wealth over time: nations like Egypt were rich for millennia while Scandinavia and Japan were poor. This does not happen with genes eg blue eyes don't emerge and disappear over millennia at random around the world. All of the above points to wealth acquisition as a essentially a purely behavioral activity. Even if there were any genetic components, they would be negligible to the point of being undetectable. Pardon me for summaries rather than finding dozens of links but here is one readable citation: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11711-smarter-people-are-no-better-off/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11711-smarter-people-...
- haihaibye 8y ago
  >> rich tend to succeed and poor tend to fail regardless of whether the grab the marshmallow or not. We were talking about intelligence. The marshmallow test measures delayed gratification. >> If intelligence corresponds to wealth, we would expect Nobel prize winners and widely cited scientist to be the richest people. It's a correlation - so we'd expect them to be richer than average, and richer on average than dumber scientists. They are - you can sell a Nobel prize for $5M. >> Rich people .. scattered through the world .. history and thus have maximum genetic difference. They can not reasonably share a common gene that skips over millions of people between them. ... no gene correlating to wealth has been found. ... I am not proposing "wealth" genes - how ridiculous. It would be trivial though, just find a richer ethnic group and use their novel variants. That doesn't prove causality, though. Intelligence is a highly polygenic trait, there are probably thousands of variants involved. But here's a simpler model - inheriting a high IQ is partly due to a lack of damaging variants. There are plenty of variants associated with intellectual disability, go search OMIM. Inheriting one of them leads to not being able to hold down a job, and thus lower income. There you go - inherited intellectual disability - an exact genetic link to wealth acquisition (or lack thereof). >> https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11711-smarter-people-are-no-better-off/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11711-smarter-people-... >> controlled for other factors – such as divorce, years spent in school, type of work and inheritance I wish I had a dollar for every social science paper confounded by genetics! Imagine wealth and IQ are perfectly linked and 100% heritable. Wouldn't controlling for inherited wealth completely wipe away the signal? For divorce - delayed gratification seems to be inherited - the original marshmallow experiment showed this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment#Origins https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experimen... "Absence of the father was prevalent in the African-descent group but occurred only once in the East Indian group, and this variable showed the strongest link to delay of gratification, with children from intact families showing superior ability to delay."
  - TomMckenny 8y ago
    >and richer on average than dumber scientists ...but not the richest of all people. Nor do the richest people in the world tend to be great scientist, mathematicians, chess players, writers etc. Because intelligence can only shuffle you around in the class you inherit but only luck will get you out of it. Children born to carpenters will tend to become good carpenters because they get connections, learn skill and are given tools by their parents not because they are inheriting more intelligence than someone just breaking in to carpentry. Children born to massive landlords will be landlords because they inherit the estate not because they are smarter than people wanting to become landlords with no cash. >Wouldn't controlling for inherited wealth completely wipe away the signal? You need to measure delta in wealth so in fact you _must_ control for wealth. Otherwise a rich kid who looses half his inheritance will be counted more successful than a poor kid who doubles his. >just find a richer ethnic group I point out above why this is impossible. If, for some reason, you decide this moment in history was the one to make the judgment on, you would find that the richest countries are also the most progressive and have the largest social safety nets. Are we going to claim the intelligence correlates to progressive politics and the wisdom of social safety nets as much as wealth? >The marshmallow test measures delayed gratification. And yet when it was believed to predict future wealth, it was said delayed gratification _was_ intelligence. >the original marshmallow experiment showed... The article explains why the original test was fundamentally flawed. For one reason, because it only had 90 subject rather than 900

TomMckenny 8y ago

This very article shows that rich tend to succeed and poor tend to fail regardless of whether the grab the marshmallow or not. But a summary of other issues include: If intelligence corresponds to wealth, we would expect Nobel prize winners and widely cited scientist to be the richest people. Royal families and their descendants, having concentrated their genes, should also be the most inventive, artistic or scientifically productive people. It is possible to improve earnings skills, the degree to which it can be improved is the degree to which it is behavioral rather than genetic. Rich people are scattered through the world and through history and thus have maximum genetic difference. They can not reasonably share a common gene that skips over millions of people between them, let alone crossing the Atlantic to end up in Montezuma's line. And if there were such genes, they would be extremely conspicuous. Yet in spite of great interest and success in sequencing, no gene correlating to wealth has been found. If some genes corresponded to earnings, it would have a geographic origin and concentration as do eye color, lactose tolerance, epicanthic folds, malaria-resistance/cycle-cell etc. Yet every region has a few rich people and many poor. In fact, regions change in wealth over time: nations like Egypt were rich for millennia while Scandinavia and Japan were poor. This does not happen with genes eg blue eyes don't emerge and disappear over millennia at random around the world. All of the above points to wealth acquisition as a essentially a purely behavioral activity. Even if there were any genetic components, they would be negligible to the point of being undetectable. Pardon me for summaries rather than finding dozens of links but here is one readable citation: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11711-smarter-people-are-no-better-off/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11711-smarter-people-...

haihaibye 8y ago
>> rich tend to succeed and poor tend to fail regardless of whether the grab the marshmallow or not. We were talking about intelligence. The marshmallow test measures delayed gratification. >> If intelligence corresponds to wealth, we would expect Nobel prize winners and widely cited scientist to be the richest people. It's a correlation - so we'd expect them to be richer than average, and richer on average than dumber scientists. They are - you can sell a Nobel prize for $5M. >> Rich people .. scattered through the world .. history and thus have maximum genetic difference. They can not reasonably share a common gene that skips over millions of people between them. ... no gene correlating to wealth has been found. ... I am not proposing "wealth" genes - how ridiculous. It would be trivial though, just find a richer ethnic group and use their novel variants. That doesn't prove causality, though. Intelligence is a highly polygenic trait, there are probably thousands of variants involved. But here's a simpler model - inheriting a high IQ is partly due to a lack of damaging variants. There are plenty of variants associated with intellectual disability, go search OMIM. Inheriting one of them leads to not being able to hold down a job, and thus lower income. There you go - inherited intellectual disability - an exact genetic link to wealth acquisition (or lack thereof). >> https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11711-smarter-people-are-no-better-off/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11711-smarter-people-... >> controlled for other factors – such as divorce, years spent in school, type of work and inheritance I wish I had a dollar for every social science paper confounded by genetics! Imagine wealth and IQ are perfectly linked and 100% heritable. Wouldn't controlling for inherited wealth completely wipe away the signal? For divorce - delayed gratification seems to be inherited - the original marshmallow experiment showed this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment#Origins https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experimen... "Absence of the father was prevalent in the African-descent group but occurred only once in the East Indian group, and this variable showed the strongest link to delay of gratification, with children from intact families showing superior ability to delay."
- TomMckenny 8y ago
  >and richer on average than dumber scientists ...but not the richest of all people. Nor do the richest people in the world tend to be great scientist, mathematicians, chess players, writers etc. Because intelligence can only shuffle you around in the class you inherit but only luck will get you out of it. Children born to carpenters will tend to become good carpenters because they get connections, learn skill and are given tools by their parents not because they are inheriting more intelligence than someone just breaking in to carpentry. Children born to massive landlords will be landlords because they inherit the estate not because they are smarter than people wanting to become landlords with no cash. >Wouldn't controlling for inherited wealth completely wipe away the signal? You need to measure delta in wealth so in fact you _must_ control for wealth. Otherwise a rich kid who looses half his inheritance will be counted more successful than a poor kid who doubles his. >just find a richer ethnic group I point out above why this is impossible. If, for some reason, you decide this moment in history was the one to make the judgment on, you would find that the richest countries are also the most progressive and have the largest social safety nets. Are we going to claim the intelligence correlates to progressive politics and the wisdom of social safety nets as much as wealth? >The marshmallow test measures delayed gratification. And yet when it was believed to predict future wealth, it was said delayed gratification _was_ intelligence. >the original marshmallow experiment showed... The article explains why the original test was fundamentally flawed. For one reason, because it only had 90 subject rather than 900