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The article: "The researchers also found some differences between family groups, suggesting that some of the decline might be due to environmental factors. But
by sambe 8y ago
The article:
"The researchers also found some differences between family groups, suggesting that some of the decline might be due to environmental factors. But they also suggest that lifestyle changes could account for some of the decline, as well, such as changes in the education system and children reading less and playing video games more. Sadly, other researchers have found similar results."
The paper:
"we show that the observed Flynn effect, its turning point, and subsequent decline can all be fully recovered from within-family variation. The analysis controls for all factors shared by siblings and finds no evidence for prominent causal hypotheses of the decline implicating genes and environmental factors that vary between, but not within, families."
Is this bad reporting or am I mis-understanding the conclusion of the authors?
EDIT: I think I was misunderstanding the conclusion of the authors. They believe they have shown that environmental factors are the main cause (from skimming the full paper's discussion).
- varjag 8y agoSounds like an oblique way to say the upbringing is the problem.
- pavel_lishin 8y agoSounds like an oblique way to say that IQ tests are aimed at people brought up by the 1960's educational system.
- Someone1234 8y agoI think this quote mirrors your point nicely (on psychometrics): > According to a 2006 article by the National Center for Biotechnology Information, contemporary psychological research often did not reflect substantial recent developments in psychometrics and "bears an uncanny resemblance to the psychometric state of the art as it existed in the 1950s."
- jabgrabdthrow 8y agoWhat is the current state of the art? I thought it was all progress towards eliminating things that are actually “knowledge” and so look more and more like the abstract IQ tests we see today.
- jabgrabdthrow 8y agoBullshit, the tests are all pattern recognition and specifically avoid anything that must be taught.
- learc83 8y agoThey don't. They try to, but they are still full of questions that require learned context.
- laumars 8y agoA persons education isn't just about learning facts. It's also about learning approaches to thinking and problem solving. A crude example would be these days people are less reliant on memorising information as they were 30 years ago because search engines enable the individual to find answers quickly. So you adapt your approach to a particular subject to learn how to search for answers instead of how to memorize those answers. As an aside, since we are heading at pace to a future where our memory is augmented by the internet; if for the internet offline for whatever reason humanity could be thrown into the dark ages again with vasts sums of knowledge lost.
- astrodust 8y agoThen standardized tests came along and all kids learn is how to pass these same tests. US education is an atrocity.
- pas 8y agoThat's bullshit. Standardization can be done very effectively. If the tests are different enough year by year. That said College Board is a very big risk factor, because its process and scoring is opaque. US education is problematic because (inner city) children are not thaught the value of education. When parents are crazy, it's hard to teach the kids.
- sdenton4 8y agoAs Busta Rhymes put it: "When even role models tell us we're born to be felons We're never gettin' into Harvard or Carnegie Mellon And we gon' end up either robbin' somebody or killin' It's not fair that's all they can tell us That's why you hustle hella hard, never celebrate a holiday That'll be the day I coulda finally hit the lottery I refuse to ever lose or throw my shot away Or chalk it up as just another one that got away." Is the problem 'children not being taught the value of education,' or that they /are/ taught that they're on a school-to-prison pipeline, without a lot of hope for much else?
- Brakenshire 8y ago> Sounds like an oblique way to say the upbringing is the problem. They're saying it doesn't differ between families, which means parental upbringing is not the issue, it's some issue which affects society in a broad swathe.
- zeveb 8y agoSociety is a large factor in one's upbringing. The vast majority of people attend public schools and consume the same entertainment (TV, movies & sports) as their peers.
- alendit 8y agoAs far as I understand it, it's saying that IF the upbringing is the problem, then on the level of the society, not on the level of individual families. I.e. there doesn't seem to be any evidence that some families bring up their children better than the others (on average, all thing being equal yada yada).
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]