This topic is interesting but the article is not good. It has no data and instead is just talking about data, without giving any sort of baseline. This paper [1

This topic is interesting but the article is not good. It has no data and instead is just talking about data, without giving any sort of baseline. This paper [1] seems more relevant, but is only from 2016. The results seem surprisingly weak. Of the quartile that scored an average of 700 on their SAT math (at a time when the cap was 800) at age 13, only 10% went on to end up in the top 5% of earners. Add to that the context that the population since 1968 (when they were tested) has increased by about 65% (thus increasing the raw number of people in the top 5%) without necessarily increasing the number of academic outliers by a proportional amount. It would be interesting to see IQ results and contrast them accordingly. There's a well known quirk with IQ. Childhood IQ levels are heavily influenced by environment, but adult IQ levels are predominately hereditary - privileges or disadvantages in childhood notwithstanding. Though that's definitely not an argument against the paper's overall premise - that we should work to foster and advance excellence so much as possible. [1] - https://cdn.vanderbilt.edu/vu-my/wp-content/uploads/sites/826/2013/01/14084618/Article-NATURE-2016.pdf https://cdn.vanderbilt.edu/vu-my/wp-content/uploads/sites/82...