7 ms·

Just Leave Them Behind

29 points by bootload 18y ago

jacobscott 18y ago
Thesis of the book (article is a book review): "it’s almost impossible to raise academic ability, to turn the below-average into even the slightly less below-average. It’s only “educational romanticism” that makes us think we can." I disagree in principle, although I don't have a lot of exposure to the science/data concerned here. What is pretty clear to me is that currently, the United States as a whole is not culturally geared to hold education, science, etc as important and/or "sexy". Consider the ratio of how many people watch Reality TV compared to Mythbusters and the like.
- antiform 18y ago
  Unless Tom Murray has significantly changed his opinion in the last few months, I think this is a major oversimplification, if not obfuscation, of his argument. I mean, half the article is devoted to a "Mr. Fish," who as far as I can tell, is just another commentator that has nothing to do with the book. The reviewer clearly dislikes this book (as well as "The Bell Curve"), and I can't help but be put off by the disjointed organization of the article. For instance, I think this review misses a point of Murray's that I consider important. In an article I read by Murray in the American last month [http://www.american.com/archive/2008/september-october-magazine/are-too-many-people-going-to-college http://www.american.com/archive/2008/september-october-magaz...], his idea seems to be that core knowledge, the kind of things that we as a culture need to know, like basic American history, geography, cultural literacy, science, etc, should be taught at a much earlier age, in the K-8 curriculum, and not wait until college. He said that the average student needs to know much more about the above fields than they know now, and so it should be taught earlier, so that most people don't need a four-year college education in order to have the core knowledge necessary in a modern society.
  - jimbokun 18y ago
    From the article: "The more people who go to college, the more stigmatizing the failure to complete college becomes." I think Mr. Murray needs to lighten up a little. One way in which American culture excels over many others, is in our embrace of failure. If you want to try to go to college, and end up failing, so what? Do something else. You're still in your early 20s. Certainly, there is the issue of going into heavy debt in a failed attempt at a college education. But that is different from people thinking less of you for having tried something and failed. People reading Hacker News should empathize with this sentiment more than most, I think.
alecco 18y ago
Disgusting as usual. Yet another reputed scholar going out of his field and posing a controversial set of ideas with mostly anecdotal justification. In particular, IQ is a very old and limited measure of cognitive ability with many controversies about culture bias. For example it doesn't reflect long term goal focus, a more important ability for success.
- antiform 18y ago
  To play Devil's advocate here, isn't your personal thesis that "long term goal focus" is important for success also based on anecdotal evidence? Or do you have a study that you would like to reference? I don't know too much about education or psychology or any related field, and I'd be very interested in looking at any material that you might have.
  - kolya3 18y ago
    Dr. Banfield at Harvard University wrote a book in the 70's based on his study of this question ("The Unheavenly City"). His main finding is that long term success is tied to "long term goal focus".
  - alecco 18y ago
    I read that on neuroscience blogs and peer-reviewed papers, they were doing fMRI based tests on subjects and their life achievements (but, as usual, telling them they were testing something else.) I can't find it right now as "long-term goal" is just too broad for a search (on Google Scholar.) It is very likely in one of the Encephalon entries, but there are about 52 of those with 10 to 20 references each, and spread out over dozens of blogs (they each turn in a different neuroscience blog.) Even if you don't find it, you'll sure find very interesting research in an easy to read form (well, [interesting] at least for me.) Related but not what I had in mind at that moment: http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/09/18/060918fa_fact?currentPage=all http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/09/18/060918fa_fact?cu... I don't know much about anything. My back-in-time kind of dream is to make my (younger) self pick neuroscience (well, that or protein biochemistry.)
- Prrometheus 18y ago
lux 18y ago
My personal experience from myself and everyone I've seen, is that there are very few true geniuses (much less than 20% of the population), and that the major differentiators are luck and effort. You're lucky to be born into a family that turns you on to reading and learning, or even to be born in a country where you have the freedom and equality of opportunity to try for your dreams. But you also make your own luck, in that those who put in the effort make things happen. I don't know any really smart or accomplished people who would say that it was just their intellectual superiority that got them to where they are. Rather, they are usually eager to cite luck first, and in reality it was their effort that got them places. Myself, I know I'm lucky as hell, but I do put in a lot of effort too, not just in my chosen field but also reading everything I can. My hope is the effort in combination with a little luck will pay off big :) This guy has some interesting points, and there is a degree of truth in it, but he's way too absolute in citing a single determinant factor of success, and his idea of additional systemized testing is ridiculous. There are differences in intelligence levels, but through effort they even out in practice in most cases. And as if his tests could ever be completely without bias, or even perfected enough to accurately determine true intelligence vs acquired knowledge.
chaostheory 18y ago
Murray is an old school ivory tower academic who is out of date. From my understanding I feel that his theories rely too much on standardized tests, which many other studies over the years have shown that the only thing they really predict is how well someone does in academia; not beyond it
IsaacSchlueter 18y ago
Anything that can be expressed in terms of inputs and outputs, can, conceivably, be codified into a computer program. Given enough time, the hardware time required to run any program shrinks to nil. I foresee a future where a computer scans you, and prints out your ideal career. Then a beautiful one-eyed woman puts a chip in your hand that permanently locks you into that career. The motto: "You gotta do what you gotta do." I'm off. Gotta deliver a pizza to I. C. Wiener.
- dgordon 18y ago
  The funny thing is, that played absolutely no role in the rest of Futurama, at least as far as I can remember.
  - IsaacSchlueter 18y ago
    In season 3, episode 32, "The Cryonic Woman," Fry and Leela trade career chips. He thaws his ex from the 20th century, and she delivers pizzas.
bootload 18y ago
"... This is the same Charles Murray who was co-author of the even more controversial 1994 book “The Bell Curve,” which argued not only that I.Q. was genetically determined but that it amounted to destiny ..." The sad thing is, this statement is sometimes true (but not as much as Murry would suggest). When I was young, down the street lived a big kid, Kenny was his name. He was never really allowed out like the other kids. But I do remember when I visited his house once he had the largest box of cars I'd ever seen. I remember asking my mum if he could come out to my house some time and possibly bring some toys. Only to be promptly told no. Why? Well he's different and has trouble learning and goes to a special school. But why? Surely he could take a book and learn as much as he wanted? No was the reply... Never. I remember balling my eyes out hearing this as I couldn't understand why he couldn't just pick a book up and learn as I was at school. Of course this didn't stop Kenny playing Basketball for Australia or numerous other achievements. The reason why Murray is wrong is this is an extreme. Not everyone has the intellectual disability that crippled Kenny's ability to learn and therefore if they want to learn new things all the stops should be pulled out if they show the inclination. The ability to learn is a form of emancipation. "... the others are incapable of doing college-level work — and those who do should study a curriculum heavy on the great books, so they can become moral and ethical mandarins and wisely run the country for the rest of us. ..." China has this sort of approach and I'll give you an example of the kind of screwed up problems it can cause. Australia has a large quantity of super fine Merino wool. It's the material that all the best suits are woven from and has some unique properties that make it ideal for high-end garments. But it's expensive. So the Chinese decided that investment was one way to go ~ http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2006/s1664831.htm http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2006/s1664831.htm So they invested some money in an existing Merino Sheep-Station with the intention of growing the wool then shipping the clipped wool to China thus saving money. From clip to yarn would be all Chinese. But running a farm tested their approach to tackling things - their bias for groups of "elites" who are primarily tertiary educated instructing a greater mass of ill-educated. Running a farm is difficult anywhere. Not having any local expertise or understanding of the local conditions as well as a group of people that could be trained or seek training on the latest techniques but could also put this training into practice turned out to be fatal. The farm failed. The highly educated couldn't translate their theory into practice. The lesser educated couldn't be show how. What was missing was the broad spectrum of skills and intelligence, something what we class as tradesman or technicians. We severely underestimate the quality and expertise of our tradespeople and technicians.
bd 18y ago
What you can't say http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html http://www.paulgraham.com/resay.html http://www.paulgraham.com/resay.html
sdurkin 18y ago
We ought to equip all students with the basic level of education necessary to know about The Choice (work hard or clean toilets), and let them buy, beg, borrow, or steal the rest.
MaysonL 18y ago
Peter Drucker had a telling piece of (anecdotal, but telling nonetheless) evidence on the subject. After World War II, a large proportion of students at Columbia were returned veterans, thanks to the GI Bill. Most of them would not have been considered, or considered themselves, candidates for college before the war. None of them were on academic probation. Motivation and application are much more important than any hypothesized "native ability". "How do I get to Carnegie Hall?" Practice.
akkartik 18y ago
Another study: teacher motivation is the key differentiator in a school's results. http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/sugata_mitra_shows_how_kids_teach_themselves.html http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/sugata_mitra_shows_how_ki...
markessien 18y ago
It's easy for those who live in ivory towers to write books justifying how they deserve to live in ivory tower. I would be much more intruiged in somebody writing a book explaining how he should actually be a plumber. One of my college professors always starts a new session by telling the story of how he bacame a professor. He started off by learning how to be an electrician, because that's all everyone around him was doing. This is in a 3-tier schooling system. After doing that for a while, an instructor encouraged him to go for a somewhat higher learning to become a technician. He did, and there again, he decided on a whim to try out for the university. He got in, and was encouraged to get a PHD. He got it, and some years later, was made a professor. It would have been real easy for him to have stayed an electrician. Maybe he could have met a girl and needed to pay bills. Maybe he would have felt he was too old. He had the intellectual ability, but the tiered system could have forced him into a path where he would never have been able to contribute what he has to everyone who passed through him.
- cperciva 18y ago
  I would be much more intruiged in somebody writing a book explaining how he should actually be a plumber. You'll never find a well-written book which honestly claims that its author should be a plumber. Why? For the same reason as you'll never find a well-written book which honestly claims that its author is illiterate: If you're able to write well, you're overqualified to be a plumber.
  - marvin 18y ago
    That argument only proves half of the statement; you can still not be sure that anyone wants to write a book about how they should be a plumber
    - hugh 18y ago
      An adopted relative of mine is a plumber -- he works hard, runs his own business, does useful things, and probably makes a lot more money than I do with my PhD. Ask him why he "deserves" to be a plumber and he'll give you a confused look: he deserves to be a plumber because he worked hard during his apprenticeship and learned how to fix drains well. Being a plumber is a pretty good life: given the choice between being a plumber with his own business and a mid-level Bachelor's-wielding drone in some random company, I'd choose plumber any day. Sure, a plumber has to deal with some pretty unpleasant substances, but then again so does a surgeon.
Tichy 18y ago
Doesn't this call out for a modern version of "My Fair Lady"?
lutorm 18y ago
If it's "almost impossible to raise achievement", then the implication is that the "leaking pipeline" in higher ed, where minorities drop out at a proportionately higher rate at each step, reflects an inherent difference in aptitude between different races. It would also mean that Americans are inherently "dumber" (loosely speaking) than Europeans, since they on average score lower on tests of math and science. After all, nothing can be done to raise achievement, so it must be inherent. I don't believe that for a minute. I also think the statement is empirically false; It is perfectly possible to raise achievement, and I think it's much more probable that the difficulties doing so on a large scale are rooted in flawed educational practices and cultural/societal factors.
cperciva 18y ago
"The Bell Curve," [...] argued not only that I.Q. was genetically determined but that it amounted to destiny, predicting your job performance, your financial prospects, even how likely you were to commit a crime or become an unwed mother. Life sucks. Deal with it. The fact is, Charles Murray is correct: IQ does predict your job performance, financial prospects, likelihood of criminality, and probability of becoming an unwed mother. It predicts these in the same sense as whether of not someone has the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes is a predictor of whether they will die of breast cancer -- there are lots of factors, including dumb luck, but it's one of the largest. Can we do something about this? Absolutely: If someone carries the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes, we can recommend that they undergo routine breast cancer screening from an early age. If someone has a low IQ, we can pay special attention to them in school to make sure that they're not falling behind. What we decide to do is a matter of public policy. Some states provide free breast cancer screening to everybody; others provide free breast cancer screening to anyone with a family history of the disease; others don't provide free breast cancer screening at all. Similarly, some states "stream" children into classes with other children with similar IQs; some states put everybody into the same class but perform testing so that teachers know which students are more likely to need help; and some states just throw all the children together without making any attempt to distinguish the high IQs from the low IQs. Some people are born stupid. But pretending that we're all equal won't fix that. The first step towards dealing with it is to recognize that life sucks.
dgordon 18y ago
Your radical ideas about education have already occurred to Plato, Charles Murray. Considering that 230 years ago, one-fifth of a nation consisting of 20% slaves, 50% indentured servants, and unschooled farmers for most of the rest, bought Common Sense, which isn't exactly beach reading, I'm not too impressed with his claim that 80% of people are inherently incapable of college-level work.
- kingkongrevenge 18y ago
  I've seen the claim that "The Deerslayer" sold so many copies in the 1840s that most American households must have had a copy. The idea of the majority of Americans even attempting to read a book like that now is just ridiculous.
  - dgordon 18y ago
    I don't know about The Deerslayer, but The Last of the Mohicans (about which you could say the same) sold millions of copies, so it would not surprise me.
aswanson 18y ago
I would suspect that above a certain threshold, intelligence would have a damping effect on one's earning potential, i.e., leading to the pursuit of a doctorate in physics instead of a medical, law, business career. Or even plumbing.
- bd 18y ago
  Not necessarily. See for example D.E. Shaw, J.H. Simons, N. Myhrvold.
  - aswanson 18y ago
    Of course not, there are always extreme outliers. But if you do a median net worth survey of the professions mentioned above versus that of of scientists, mathematicians, and engineers, the results are indisputable. Very high intelligence careers have a poor comparative financial ROI, on average.
    - bd 18y ago
      You are right. But to play devil's advocate: what if very high intelligence individuals are not more likely to do science, mathematics or engineering? For a very rough approximation: if I remember well, SAT averages for Harvard/Yale/Princeton (more likely to be doctor/lawyer/executive) are very similar to (or even higher than?) scores for MIT/Caltech/Stanford (more likely to be scientist/engineer). So, could it be that it's not the high intelligence by itself that has said dampening effect on one's earning potential, but it's more about interests of the individual?
      - aswanson 18y ago
        Possible, but it doesn't sit right with me intuitively. And since I don't care enough about the issue to spend time collecting data to refute your premise, we have to leave it at that. :)
anthonyrubin 18y ago
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XxmWTI4zWM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XxmWTI4zWM

29 points by bootload 18y ago

Thesis of the book (article is a book review): "it’s almost impossible to raise academic ability, to turn the below-average into even the slightly less below-average. It’s only “educational romanticism” that makes us think we can." I disagree in principle, although I don't have a lot of exposure to the science/data concerned here. What is pretty clear to me is that currently, the United States as a whole is not culturally geared to hold education, science, etc as important and/or "sexy". Consider the ratio of how many people watch Reality TV compared to Mythbusters and the like.

antiform 18y ago
Unless Tom Murray has significantly changed his opinion in the last few months, I think this is a major oversimplification, if not obfuscation, of his argument. I mean, half the article is devoted to a "Mr. Fish," who as far as I can tell, is just another commentator that has nothing to do with the book. The reviewer clearly dislikes this book (as well as "The Bell Curve"), and I can't help but be put off by the disjointed organization of the article. For instance, I think this review misses a point of Murray's that I consider important. In an article I read by Murray in the American last month [http://www.american.com/archive/2008/september-october-magazine/are-too-many-people-going-to-college http://www.american.com/archive/2008/september-october-magaz...], his idea seems to be that core knowledge, the kind of things that we as a culture need to know, like basic American history, geography, cultural literacy, science, etc, should be taught at a much earlier age, in the K-8 curriculum, and not wait until college. He said that the average student needs to know much more about the above fields than they know now, and so it should be taught earlier, so that most people don't need a four-year college education in order to have the core knowledge necessary in a modern society.
- jimbokun 18y ago
  From the article: "The more people who go to college, the more stigmatizing the failure to complete college becomes." I think Mr. Murray needs to lighten up a little. One way in which American culture excels over many others, is in our embrace of failure. If you want to try to go to college, and end up failing, so what? Do something else. You're still in your early 20s. Certainly, there is the issue of going into heavy debt in a failed attempt at a college education. But that is different from people thinking less of you for having tried something and failed. People reading Hacker News should empathize with this sentiment more than most, I think.

alecco 18y ago

Disgusting as usual. Yet another reputed scholar going out of his field and posing a controversial set of ideas with mostly anecdotal justification. In particular, IQ is a very old and limited measure of cognitive ability with many controversies about culture bias. For example it doesn't reflect long term goal focus, a more important ability for success.

antiform 18y ago
To play Devil's advocate here, isn't your personal thesis that "long term goal focus" is important for success also based on anecdotal evidence? Or do you have a study that you would like to reference? I don't know too much about education or psychology or any related field, and I'd be very interested in looking at any material that you might have.
- kolya3 18y ago
  Dr. Banfield at Harvard University wrote a book in the 70's based on his study of this question ("The Unheavenly City"). His main finding is that long term success is tied to "long term goal focus".
- alecco 18y ago
  I read that on neuroscience blogs and peer-reviewed papers, they were doing fMRI based tests on subjects and their life achievements (but, as usual, telling them they were testing something else.) I can't find it right now as "long-term goal" is just too broad for a search (on Google Scholar.) It is very likely in one of the Encephalon entries, but there are about 52 of those with 10 to 20 references each, and spread out over dozens of blogs (they each turn in a different neuroscience blog.) Even if you don't find it, you'll sure find very interesting research in an easy to read form (well, [interesting] at least for me.) Related but not what I had in mind at that moment: http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/09/18/060918fa_fact?currentPage=all http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/09/18/060918fa_fact?cu... I don't know much about anything. My back-in-time kind of dream is to make my (younger) self pick neuroscience (well, that or protein biochemistry.)
Prrometheus 18y ago

lux 18y ago

My personal experience from myself and everyone I've seen, is that there are very few true geniuses (much less than 20% of the population), and that the major differentiators are luck and effort. You're lucky to be born into a family that turns you on to reading and learning, or even to be born in a country where you have the freedom and equality of opportunity to try for your dreams. But you also make your own luck, in that those who put in the effort make things happen. I don't know any really smart or accomplished people who would say that it was just their intellectual superiority that got them to where they are. Rather, they are usually eager to cite luck first, and in reality it was their effort that got them places. Myself, I know I'm lucky as hell, but I do put in a lot of effort too, not just in my chosen field but also reading everything I can. My hope is the effort in combination with a little luck will pay off big :) This guy has some interesting points, and there is a degree of truth in it, but he's way too absolute in citing a single determinant factor of success, and his idea of additional systemized testing is ridiculous. There are differences in intelligence levels, but through effort they even out in practice in most cases. And as if his tests could ever be completely without bias, or even perfected enough to accurately determine true intelligence vs acquired knowledge.

chaostheory 18y ago

Murray is an old school ivory tower academic who is out of date. From my understanding I feel that his theories rely too much on standardized tests, which many other studies over the years have shown that the only thing they really predict is how well someone does in academia; not beyond it

IsaacSchlueter 18y ago

Anything that can be expressed in terms of inputs and outputs, can, conceivably, be codified into a computer program. Given enough time, the hardware time required to run any program shrinks to nil. I foresee a future where a computer scans you, and prints out your ideal career. Then a beautiful one-eyed woman puts a chip in your hand that permanently locks you into that career. The motto: "You gotta do what you gotta do." I'm off. Gotta deliver a pizza to I. C. Wiener.

dgordon 18y ago
The funny thing is, that played absolutely no role in the rest of Futurama, at least as far as I can remember.
- IsaacSchlueter 18y ago
  In season 3, episode 32, "The Cryonic Woman," Fry and Leela trade career chips. He thaws his ex from the 20th century, and she delivers pizzas.

bootload 18y ago

"... This is the same Charles Murray who was co-author of the even more controversial 1994 book “The Bell Curve,” which argued not only that I.Q. was genetically determined but that it amounted to destiny ..." The sad thing is, this statement is sometimes true (but not as much as Murry would suggest). When I was young, down the street lived a big kid, Kenny was his name. He was never really allowed out like the other kids. But I do remember when I visited his house once he had the largest box of cars I'd ever seen. I remember asking my mum if he could come out to my house some time and possibly bring some toys. Only to be promptly told no. Why? Well he's different and has trouble learning and goes to a special school. But why? Surely he could take a book and learn as much as he wanted? No was the reply... Never. I remember balling my eyes out hearing this as I couldn't understand why he couldn't just pick a book up and learn as I was at school. Of course this didn't stop Kenny playing Basketball for Australia or numerous other achievements. The reason why Murray is wrong is this is an extreme. Not everyone has the intellectual disability that crippled Kenny's ability to learn and therefore if they want to learn new things all the stops should be pulled out if they show the inclination. The ability to learn is a form of emancipation. "... the others are incapable of doing college-level work — and those who do should study a curriculum heavy on the great books, so they can become moral and ethical mandarins and wisely run the country for the rest of us. ..." China has this sort of approach and I'll give you an example of the kind of screwed up problems it can cause. Australia has a large quantity of super fine Merino wool. It's the material that all the best suits are woven from and has some unique properties that make it ideal for high-end garments. But it's expensive. So the Chinese decided that investment was one way to go ~ http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2006/s1664831.htm http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2006/s1664831.htm So they invested some money in an existing Merino Sheep-Station with the intention of growing the wool then shipping the clipped wool to China thus saving money. From clip to yarn would be all Chinese. But running a farm tested their approach to tackling things - their bias for groups of "elites" who are primarily tertiary educated instructing a greater mass of ill-educated. Running a farm is difficult anywhere. Not having any local expertise or understanding of the local conditions as well as a group of people that could be trained or seek training on the latest techniques but could also put this training into practice turned out to be fatal. The farm failed. The highly educated couldn't translate their theory into practice. The lesser educated couldn't be show how. What was missing was the broad spectrum of skills and intelligence, something what we class as tradesman or technicians. We severely underestimate the quality and expertise of our tradespeople and technicians.

bd 18y ago

What you can't say http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html http://www.paulgraham.com/resay.html http://www.paulgraham.com/resay.html

sdurkin 18y ago

We ought to equip all students with the basic level of education necessary to know about The Choice (work hard or clean toilets), and let them buy, beg, borrow, or steal the rest.

MaysonL 18y ago

Peter Drucker had a telling piece of (anecdotal, but telling nonetheless) evidence on the subject. After World War II, a large proportion of students at Columbia were returned veterans, thanks to the GI Bill. Most of them would not have been considered, or considered themselves, candidates for college before the war. None of them were on academic probation. Motivation and application are much more important than any hypothesized "native ability". "How do I get to Carnegie Hall?" Practice.

akkartik 18y ago

Another study: teacher motivation is the key differentiator in a school's results. http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/sugata_mitra_shows_how_kids_teach_themselves.html http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/sugata_mitra_shows_how_ki...

markessien 18y ago

It's easy for those who live in ivory towers to write books justifying how they deserve to live in ivory tower. I would be much more intruiged in somebody writing a book explaining how he should actually be a plumber. One of my college professors always starts a new session by telling the story of how he bacame a professor. He started off by learning how to be an electrician, because that's all everyone around him was doing. This is in a 3-tier schooling system. After doing that for a while, an instructor encouraged him to go for a somewhat higher learning to become a technician. He did, and there again, he decided on a whim to try out for the university. He got in, and was encouraged to get a PHD. He got it, and some years later, was made a professor. It would have been real easy for him to have stayed an electrician. Maybe he could have met a girl and needed to pay bills. Maybe he would have felt he was too old. He had the intellectual ability, but the tiered system could have forced him into a path where he would never have been able to contribute what he has to everyone who passed through him.

cperciva 18y ago
I would be much more intruiged in somebody writing a book explaining how he should actually be a plumber. You'll never find a well-written book which honestly claims that its author should be a plumber. Why? For the same reason as you'll never find a well-written book which honestly claims that its author is illiterate: If you're able to write well, you're overqualified to be a plumber.
- marvin 18y ago
  That argument only proves half of the statement; you can still not be sure that anyone wants to write a book about how they should be a plumber
  - hugh 18y ago
    An adopted relative of mine is a plumber -- he works hard, runs his own business, does useful things, and probably makes a lot more money than I do with my PhD. Ask him why he "deserves" to be a plumber and he'll give you a confused look: he deserves to be a plumber because he worked hard during his apprenticeship and learned how to fix drains well. Being a plumber is a pretty good life: given the choice between being a plumber with his own business and a mid-level Bachelor's-wielding drone in some random company, I'd choose plumber any day. Sure, a plumber has to deal with some pretty unpleasant substances, but then again so does a surgeon.

Tichy 18y ago

Doesn't this call out for a modern version of "My Fair Lady"?

lutorm 18y ago

If it's "almost impossible to raise achievement", then the implication is that the "leaking pipeline" in higher ed, where minorities drop out at a proportionately higher rate at each step, reflects an inherent difference in aptitude between different races. It would also mean that Americans are inherently "dumber" (loosely speaking) than Europeans, since they on average score lower on tests of math and science. After all, nothing can be done to raise achievement, so it must be inherent. I don't believe that for a minute. I also think the statement is empirically false; It is perfectly possible to raise achievement, and I think it's much more probable that the difficulties doing so on a large scale are rooted in flawed educational practices and cultural/societal factors.

cperciva 18y ago

"The Bell Curve," [...] argued not only that I.Q. was genetically determined but that it amounted to destiny, predicting your job performance, your financial prospects, even how likely you were to commit a crime or become an unwed mother. Life sucks. Deal with it. The fact is, Charles Murray is correct: IQ does predict your job performance, financial prospects, likelihood of criminality, and probability of becoming an unwed mother. It predicts these in the same sense as whether of not someone has the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes is a predictor of whether they will die of breast cancer -- there are lots of factors, including dumb luck, but it's one of the largest. Can we do something about this? Absolutely: If someone carries the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes, we can recommend that they undergo routine breast cancer screening from an early age. If someone has a low IQ, we can pay special attention to them in school to make sure that they're not falling behind. What we decide to do is a matter of public policy. Some states provide free breast cancer screening to everybody; others provide free breast cancer screening to anyone with a family history of the disease; others don't provide free breast cancer screening at all. Similarly, some states "stream" children into classes with other children with similar IQs; some states put everybody into the same class but perform testing so that teachers know which students are more likely to need help; and some states just throw all the children together without making any attempt to distinguish the high IQs from the low IQs. Some people are born stupid. But pretending that we're all equal won't fix that. The first step towards dealing with it is to recognize that life sucks.

dgordon 18y ago

Your radical ideas about education have already occurred to Plato, Charles Murray. Considering that 230 years ago, one-fifth of a nation consisting of 20% slaves, 50% indentured servants, and unschooled farmers for most of the rest, bought Common Sense, which isn't exactly beach reading, I'm not too impressed with his claim that 80% of people are inherently incapable of college-level work.

kingkongrevenge 18y ago
I've seen the claim that "The Deerslayer" sold so many copies in the 1840s that most American households must have had a copy. The idea of the majority of Americans even attempting to read a book like that now is just ridiculous.
- dgordon 18y ago
  I don't know about The Deerslayer, but The Last of the Mohicans (about which you could say the same) sold millions of copies, so it would not surprise me.

aswanson 18y ago

I would suspect that above a certain threshold, intelligence would have a damping effect on one's earning potential, i.e., leading to the pursuit of a doctorate in physics instead of a medical, law, business career. Or even plumbing.

bd 18y ago
Not necessarily. See for example D.E. Shaw, J.H. Simons, N. Myhrvold.
- aswanson 18y ago
  Of course not, there are always extreme outliers. But if you do a median net worth survey of the professions mentioned above versus that of of scientists, mathematicians, and engineers, the results are indisputable. Very high intelligence careers have a poor comparative financial ROI, on average.
  - bd 18y ago
    You are right. But to play devil's advocate: what if very high intelligence individuals are not more likely to do science, mathematics or engineering? For a very rough approximation: if I remember well, SAT averages for Harvard/Yale/Princeton (more likely to be doctor/lawyer/executive) are very similar to (or even higher than?) scores for MIT/Caltech/Stanford (more likely to be scientist/engineer). So, could it be that it's not the high intelligence by itself that has said dampening effect on one's earning potential, but it's more about interests of the individual?
    - aswanson 18y ago
      Possible, but it doesn't sit right with me intuitively. And since I don't care enough about the issue to spend time collecting data to refute your premise, we have to leave it at that. :)

anthonyrubin 18y ago

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XxmWTI4zWM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XxmWTI4zWM