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Another component of this theory concerning g is that it's largely genetic, and immune to "intervention" AKA stability as you mentioned. See the classic "The Be
by nsoonhui 1y ago
Another component of this theory concerning g is that it's largely genetic, and immune to "intervention" AKA stability as you mentioned. See the classic "The Bell Curve" for a full exposition.
Which makes me wonder what's the point of all the intervention in the form of teaching/parenting styles and whatnot, if g factor is nature and immutable by large? What's the logic of the educators here?
- cedilla 1y ago"The Bell Curve" is, let's say, highly controversial and not a good introduction into the topic. Its claim that genetics are the main predictor of IQ, which was very weakly supported at the time, has been completely and undeniably refuted by science in the thirty years since it's publication.
- brabel 1y agoReally? If not genetics then what is it? Just random??
- smokel 1y agoIf it isn't nature, then it probably is nurture. Averaged over the entire population, that is indeed mostly random.
- mdp2021 1y agoPersonal development. It's a "subtle" skill. You train it (though maybe less directly than other skills).
- pona-a 1y agoEducation? Or more directly, socio-economics. The many of the subjects tested never had any experience with this kind of formal testing, had little to no education, and of course predictably failed on several abstract tasks. It might be that the very pattern of sitting down and intensely focusing on apparently meaningless problems isn't as innate as expected.
- A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 1y agoEh, I wish we could retire socioeconomics as a valid term. It can mean just about any factor and for it to be used it scientific publications and even normal discourse that goes beyond Facebook level discussion, feel a little counter-productive. What, exactly, did you mean though?
- pona-a 1y agoI thought I was being clear. Access to education, which is a function of wealth, race segregation, and/or cultural expectations, or in other words, economic + social factors. For example, if a family encourages their child to work from the earliest allowed age at the expense of schooling, that's a manifestation of both economic and social pressures.
- qayxc 1y agoThe brain has pretty high plasticity. A large host of factors contribute to the final outcome, from mental stimulation to training to overall health, stress (both physical and mental), and nutrition. It has been shown that IQ scores improve significantly just by taking them multiple times (training) [1]. They also vary if the tested person is sleep deprived, sick, or stressed. [1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7709590 https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7709590
- nialse 1y agoYou do have to consider that g is the amount of plasticity though, which is mainly genetic. A better way is to think of it is that genetics provides a potential capacity which may or may not be fulfilled. Training helps individuals to varying degrees.
- matthewdgreen 1y agoThat seems intuitive to me, but lots of other things in science seemed intuitive because I wanted to believe them. If the measured IQ difference in individuals can be overwhelmed by simple factors like “have I taken the test before”, we don’t really have a useful empirical measurement to say these things and we’re just stating our hopes and dreams.
- nialse 1y agoThe training effect in test-retest is dependent on g as well. It is intelligent to learn from past experiences. Measuring g is hard and taking shortcuts is tempting. A reasonable repeatable g factor test takes hours, and is too often replaced by a single test. There are ways around the test-retest issues but they are roads less travelled.
- thechao 1y agoMy high school was right across from a branch of a university (UHD) where the PhD candidates developed IQ tests. We (the HS students) could take them for extra credit. My favorite example was a block-arranging test (there was a set of blocks & some pictures). Anyways, they printed the blocks "symmetrically"; once I figured that out, making the picture was limited only by how quickly I could move. (The test normally had you looking at all sides of the cube, repeatedly.) My "IQ" was well over 200 on that test. The candidate said that it was going to set their lab back bag years.
- gus_massa 1y agoNutrition: just remove a few vitamins and watch the IQ drop like a stone. Even a "balanced" diet with 500kcal/day will be harmful. Education: in spite of the claims, a good education raise the IQ measurement. The test leak and school add similar tasks.
- nialse 1y agoCounter point: does not nutrition and education help some people more than others? That’s the g factor which is mainly genetic.
- gus_massa 1y ago>>> They then hypothesized a general factor, “g,” to explain this pattern. >> what's the point of all the intervention in the form of teaching/parenting styles and whatnot, if g factor is nature and immutable by large? What's the logic of the educators here? > does not nutrition and education help some people more than others? That’s the g factor which is mainly genetic. Yes, if you ignore or compensate everithing else, it's mainly genetic.
- nialse 1y agoThat is correct. The null hypothesis tested is: if you compensate for everything the result is the same for everyone, given that genetics have no effects on g. Hence, the null hypothesis is rejected. Thus, mainly genetic factors underlie the g factor.
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- hemabe 1y agoIQ is largely genetic, even if some people claim otherwise. The evidence for this is now overwhelming: even when different ethnic groups grow up in very similar conditions in the same country, the PISA (which correlates r=0.9 with IQ) scores measured vary greatly. For example, among second-generation children in Germany, there are significant differences in PISA scores. Polish children achieve similar or even better scores than German children. Turkish children, on the other hand, remain at the same poor level that their parents (the first generation of immigrants) achieved in the tests. Twin studies and studies of adopted children also leave no doubt that there is a very strong genetic component that determines IQ. Even Wikipedia assumes that heritability can be as high as 80%. Links https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ https://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article174706968/OECD-Studie-So-schwer-haben-es-Migranten-an-deutschen-Schulen.html https://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article174706968/OECD-Studie-...
- aredox 1y agoAnd it doesn't occur to you the parents may help their kids during their studies? You never went to your father of mother to ask them to explain a concept you struggled with in class? Now imagine your parents didn't get an education and couldn't help you. Where would you be now?
- flir 1y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect
- froh 1y agoespecially Germany is a very poor example for this claim as school performance (PISA) in this country correlates with the parents academic background more than anything. if your parents aren't educated you can be intelligent AF and still will fail the German school system while you can be dumb as a brick but still make Abitur if your parents drill you through. in Germany. and Welt is a media source with a right conservative agenda pushing the genetics narrative.
- robwwilliams 1y ago
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- flir 1y agoConsider genetics as a ceiling. An upper bound. Take the same child, give it an "ideal" upbringing or an abusive upbringing. You're going to get different IQ scores out of the adult. I believe you can see this in the Flynn Effect.
- robwwilliams 1y agoThe simple answer that is usually right: “A god-awful complex mixture of genetic variation, stochastic variation during development, and innumerable environmental influences, all interacting in a big recursive hairball.” I hope that satisfies everyone ;-)
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- nialse 1y agoDo note that The Bell Curve is not considered controversial in general. The part about race and genetics is. Also genes being the sole predictor of IQ is not an accurate description of the book’s premise.
- breakyerself 1y agoNo the whole book is controversial. It's a political argument for dismantling the welfare state disguised as a review of science. They laundered a bunch of work by racial eugenicists along with a bunch of other junk science methodology. https://youtu.be/UBc7qBS1Ujo?si=bzVMwGU4XjPrk4sr https://youtu.be/UBc7qBS1Ujo?si=bzVMwGU4XjPrk4sr
- nialse 1y agoI hear you are invested in this line of thought, and that is okay. I just don’t agree with the analysis, and not with the labeling.
- breakyerself 1y agoIt doesn't rely on work by Eugenicists?
- nialse 1y agoFortunately, science does not rely on the character of its purveyors but on the quality of the evidence.
- breakyerself 1y agoThe quality of the evidence wasn't any better than the character of the purveyors. You're an apologist for bullshit.
- machomaster 1y agoCalling something "controversial" is a total non-argument. The book's science about IQ is solid. In actuality, the content of the book was simply a collection of mainstream scientific consensus ideas at that time, without specific controversial add-ons. It's only after the book was published, the book unexpectedly was attacked by proto-woke people.
- alphazard 1y agoThis is misleading. Anyone who wants to learn about IQ should Google it. It's the most replicated finding in psychology, and any questions you have about twins or groups with similar or different genes have probably been investigated. There is a lot of noise online in the form of commentary about IQ, so it's important to look at actual data if you are skeptical/curious.
- robwwilliams 1y agoNot sure what you mean precisely. Yes lots if work in IQ, but that does not mean there is a grand consensus. I am a geneticist who studies cognitive function. The single most common misunderstanding about estimates of heritability is that a high heritability implies full genetic causation without potential malleability. That is total wrong. Heritability is always measured in the context of Environment X. If you change to Environment Y or Z then the heritability will often change greatly.
- cakealert 1y agoUnfortunately most of the malleability is non-systematic (can't be engineered by a third party). Which means it's caused by the nonlinear dynamics between the genes and environment.
- hirvi74 1y agoAs a geneticist who studies cognitive function, if you get a moment, do you mind reading this blog [1] and stating if you think it's factually correct or not? My genes are too poor, and thus, my IQ is likely too low for me to be certain I can trust my own opinions on the matter. [1] http://bactra.org/weblog/520.html http://bactra.org/weblog/520.html
- EnPissant 1y ago> Heritability is always measured in the context of Environment X. If you change to Environment Y or Z then the heritability will often change greatly. That's not a very meaningful statement. If you took two twins and severely malnourished one of them it would not be useful to say: "See! IQ is mostly environmental!". You have to assume some kind of baseline environment that nearly everyone will share, and that can be full-filled just by the virtue of growing up in a country like America. Otherwise, you are just concerning yourself with insignificant outliers. Here is a twin study that places the heritability at ~80%: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/twin-research-and-human-genetics/article/wilson-effect-the-increase-in-heritability-of-iq-with-age/FF406CC4CF286D78AF72C9E7EF9B5E3F https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/twin-research-and-hu...
- hemabe 1y agoAnd yet, in the US, the first start-ups are offering the possibility of testing embryos for their IQ. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/oct/18/us-startup-charging-couples-to-screen-embryos-for-iq https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/oct/18/us-startup-c...
- breakyerself 1y agoSo if a start up makes a claim it must be real? Theranos investors would like a word.
- torginus 1y ago> they claimed selecting the “smartest” of 10 embryos would lead to an average IQ gain of more than six points Ethics aside this sounds like BS - how do you measure the IQ of someone against someone else who was never born?
- nradov 1y agoIt's at least mostly BS. Researchers have found certain genes which have a weak statistical correlation with high IQ but the mechanism of action is unknown. And it's not an additive thing: the interactions and relationships between individual genes must play some role but that has barely been studied at all. There's no guarantee that an embryo with those genes will grow up to be intelligent, or that they won't have other problems. But there's enough "dumb money" in Silicon Valley to provide a customer base of insecure suckers for these startups. https://www.wsj.com/us-news/silicon-valley-high-iq-children-764234f8?st=7D1Dp1&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink https://www.wsj.com/us-news/silicon-valley-high-iq-children-...
- whatshisface 1y agoOne of the dark comedies playing out in the world right now is that if random physical features are correlated with IQ testing due to co-heritability, users of IVF selection will be imprinting them on their own kids.
- Spooky23 1y ago
- BoingBoomTschak 1y agoHow much of that controversy is manufactured, though? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_IQ_Controversy,_the_Media_and_Public_Policy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_IQ_Controversy,_the_Media_... (if even Wikipedia can't drag this through the mud...)
- breakyerself 1y agoIt's well deserved. The bell curve isnt a good work of science.
- A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 1y agoIt is not controversial at all. It was deemed inappropriate due the amount of 'wrongthink' it causes. We can argue about what followed and whether its claims have been nullified, but given how much conversations started with it, I sincerely doubt the argument that it should not be the introduction is reasonable. In a sense, it is the source of the debate.
- holbrad 1y ago> has been completely and undeniably refuted by science in the thirty years since it's publication. This is literally the exact opposite.
- aredox 1y agoThis is exactly the case. The only thing IQ tests measure is the ability to score well at an IQ test. Just look at what MENSA has produced: buffoons.
- fortran77 1y agoI've read the book. I says that aspects of IQ can be heritable, but doesn't ever say "genetics are the main predictor of IQ". Quoting direcly from the book: "It seems highly likely to us that both genes and the environment have something to do with IQ differences” and the book states that "the exact contribution of genes versus environment is unknown."
- lukan 1y agoAssuming the assumption it is true (which I doubt) - there obviously is still value in teaching knowledge, so making students know more and practical skills, not produce more intelligent students. You can have a IQ of over 200, but if no one ever showed you how a computer works or gives you a manual, you still won't be productive with it. But I very much believe, intelligence is improvable and also degradable, just ask some alcoholics for instance.
- pama 1y agoIQ of 200 (or higher) do not exist according to the original definitions of this metric. You need a population of 219 billion or higher to have a 95% chance that a sample exists with 6.66 standard deviations away from the mean (assuming mean of 100 and std of 15). Ofc the tests are of limited value and things can be gamed, but it would be silly to try and identify samples that have no chance of existing.
- 010101010101 1y ago“Is unlikely to exist” and “does not exist” are two very different statements, but it really doesn’t matter because GP’s point stands if you replace the exaggerated IQ with something reasonable like 160.
- pama 1y agoOK. The more precise statement is that when the test was created you would have had about 99.3% to 99.42% chance that such a sample did not exist if you were to test all the population this test was designed for (depending on population statistics of the time that are a bit unclear). To be clear, I do not endorse the validity of these tests or their interpretation at any level. Learning to be a lifelong learner can take almost anyone a really long way. The analogy to neural nets is that bigger nets dont always make a better model after a point and every human starts at a very priviledged/huge network capacity.
- csa 1y ago> IQ of 200 (or higher) do not exist according to the original definitions of this metric Just to expand in this point… Most IQ tests for adults lose a lot of precision over 130 (2sd), and they are extremely imprecise over 145 (3sd) — almost to the point that a scores over 145 should simply be labeled 145+. When I did a deep dive into the IQ test literature 20 years ago, the most reliable correlated predictors for 145+ were standardized tests like the GRE. That said, standardized tests like these have high specificity and (relatively) low sensitivity — that is, very few false positives and many false negatives.
- pbmonster 1y agoIsn't this argument directly countered by the fact that you can study for IQ tests and subsequently do better?
- kingkawn 1y agoYes but they need a bullshit gold star to make themselves feel special
- depressedpanda 1y agoIf a child is, e.g., two standard deviations below the norm, it is cruel to expect it to keep up with the pace of other students. Education can be better adapted to the child's needs.
- jdietrich 1y agoG is (largely) immutable, but knowledge and skills are not. The economy is not zero-sum and we all benefit from increasing the total amount of human capital. Unfortunately, thinking around education is dominated by people who wrongly believe that the economy is zero-sum.
- api 1y agoThroughout 99% of human history, the economy was mostly zero sum. If someone was rich it was because they stole it. If a group was wealthier it was because they stole it. By "stole it" I'm including theft of labor through slavery as well as the usual conquests and raiding. There was little to no innovation over time spans as long as thousands of years. Most of human culture and philosophy evolved during these periods and bakes in the idea that the pie is finite and that anyone with more of it has stolen it, because that was just an accurate picture of reality. A growing pie is a rare condition. It has happened a few times during periods of high civilization: Egypt, Greece, and Rome in the West and similar examples exist in lots of other places. A rapidly growing pie is entirely new. The modern world is an extreme historical aberration built on the scientific method, modern engineering methods, and the discovery of massive amounts of exploitable cheap energy in the form of first fossil fuels, then nuclear power, then (today) learning to exploit things like solar and wind energy at exponentially larger scales. Other innovations that have fed into this unique condition include synthetic fertilizers, antibiotics, vaccines, etc. Humans have never lived in an environment like this. Everything in our evolution and our accumulated culture is screaming that it's wrong -- that it will either collapse tomorrow (hence the perennial popularity of doomerism) or that it must be built on some kind of insanely massive crime because otherwise where is all this wealth coming from? That's because it's impossible. It cannot be. The idea that wealth can be created at this scale is just... not a thing that has ever existed until maybe 200 years ago max but really more like 80-100. Before that there was only subsistence and theft. Edit: I'm not arguing that there is no slavery or near-slavery or theft/conquest in the modern world. These things certainly still happen. I'm arguing that it is not the primary source of our massive wealth. Slavery and conquest have always been around and no society has ever been this wealthy or grown this fast. Not even close.
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- matthewdgreen 1y agoIf IQ potential was 50% genetic, then the teaching would potentially raise your actual IQ by affecting the other 50% which is huge. IQs scores in populations and individuals change based on education, nutrition, etc. But even if we hypothesized a pretend world where “g” was magically 100% genetic, this (imaginary) measure is just potential. It is not true that an uneducated, untrained person will be able to perform tasks at the level of an educated, trained person. Also The Bell Curve was written by a political operative to promote ideological views, and is full of foundational errors.
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- clove 1y agoYou've made the mistake of thinking that if IQ were 50% genetic (it isn't - it's way more than that, but that's beside the point), then the remaining proportion is completely (non-shared) environmental. Researchers in this field actually break down the non-genetic component into four major components: 1. Shared environment 2. Non-shared environment 3. Error Shared environment accounts for so little variance that it might as well be ignored; while non-shared accounts for little more than error. Note that including error in the non-genetic component, just as you've done in your post above, you are viscerally downplaying the otherwise undeniably predictive link from genes to IQ. In other words, whatever number you give is automatically deflated due to the way a psychometric is measured. This has never been the source of debate. Back when I was going through grad school in intelligence, people didn't have to overthink how they presented the data. Intelligence was already a mature field, and we discussed the data openly. But in the past couple decades or so, a lot of people such as yourself popped up, attempting to craft irrelevant, statistically incorrect arguments against the results of certain well-established psychometrics that happen to not fit within whatever mental world your brand of politics ascribes. If you really cared about the data, you'd be discussing the numbers. But your interest in this previously niche topic isn't in understanding reality; it's in justifying your worldview, which is why you deny the established data, immediately present a caveat stating that the data doesn't matter in the first place, appeal to emotions, and finish it all off by claiming those who disagree with you have been brainwashed. None of those four arguments have any merit in a genuine discussion on this topic.
- tim333 1y agoEducation is to learn stuff, not increase your IQ.
- Consultant32452 1y agoI would argue the purpose of public education is directionally to attempt to level the playing field between people who start with a lot and people who start with a little. And in this regard, it is an absolute failure. People sometimes attribute public schooling to helping someone "escape poverty" or whatever, but I think it's mostly IQ and big 5 personality traits. And it's extremely unfortunate that both of those appear to be largely genetic. Here's a real brain bender. Let's assume it takes approximately average IQ to understand basic algebra, so approximately 100 IQ. Half of the population has less than that IQ. Squinting really hard and making things up, something like 40% of the population is intellectually incapable of understanding exponential growth and decay. So how can it be legal/ethical for them to sign a contract to get a credit card or a mortgage if they literally cannot understand it? That's just one example. Once you crack this egg open, it breaks a lot of things required for modern society to function.
- skappapab 1y ago> So how can it be legal/ethical for them to sign a contract to get a credit card or a mortgage if they literally cannot understand it? It’s not. Part of being fair and equitable is simply acknowledging we can’t hold everyone to the same standard. One day we’ll look at all this schooling, etc as the equivalent of trying to train people to grow taller. I’d argue you can’t be a good ruler if you don’t acknowledge these limitations of your citizens. I’d have to dig it up but there was a wealthy slave owner during reconstruction who basically expressed (via personal letter) his concern freed slaves would become a permanent underclass if held to the same expectations as the rest of society. Given the current state of things, it’s a fairly impressive prediction. I don’t say this to attract downvotes but from a genuine position of creating a society that is safe and plentiful for all. We need to create new systems and expectations (that will be disparate in their application and impact). And no, they don’t have to be explicitly “racist”. Refusing to acknowledge these limitations is akin to neglect and despite all the emotional signaling ultimately harmful and preventing real progress.
- terminalshort 1y agoThere is no logic. Some people are just born much smarter than others and there is nothing you can do about it if you aren't one of them. The implications of that fact are too much for most people to accept so we pretend that it isn't true.
- A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 1y agoThat is a very fatalist perspective. In HS, I was in a class with 3 kids, who were genuinely smarter than me ( not by a notch, mind; comparatively speaking I was just dumber ). I agree that pretending I was/am not dumb by comparison would not help, but suggesting 'nothing you can do about it' is not entirely accurate either. Frankly, the reason I slowly got less dumb is because of my exposure to them. There is something awe-inspiring about seeing a guy using cold logic to guide you through something and be 100% correct.
- terminalshort 1y agoI guess you could call it fatalist, but is it fatalist to say I was born to be 5'10" and there's not a damn thing in the world I can do to be 6'? Isn't it the same with intelligence? You may feel smarter now, but are you really? What, exactly, makes you fell like you are? Do you think that if you met those same people today they wouldn't still be significantly smarter than you?
- A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 1y agoI would argue that while similiar, they ( height and intelligence ) are not exactly the same. Brains have plastiticity to them, which allows some level of calibration and adjustment ( though seemingly mostly intended and used to overcome damage ) << You may feel smarter now, but are you really? Best I can tell you is that, looking back, I was definitely dumber:D To your point, that may be just experience talking. << What, exactly, makes you fell like you are? Now that is a good question. I think it is mostly reflection on what was and comparison to what is. << Do you think that if you met those same people today they wouldn't still be significantly smarter than you? Hard to say; life has a way of beating you on a consistent basis and, from what I understand, all 3 have kids, which bring their own challenges ( you certainly can't pursue what you want to pursue as easily ).
- breakyerself 1y agoIt's not genetic. The bell curve is garbage. It's a not a work of science. It's a work of political argumentation built on pretending to be science.
- regularization 1y ago> concerning g is that it's largely genetic, and immune to "intervention" AKA stability Biology seems to be the destination for smuggled in quasi-religious beliefs. Lysenkoism, creationism and in the case of a segment (or more?) of the western professional-managerial class, this kind of Bell Curveism. In the past people were satisfied with the divine apotheosis of people into a superior Brahmin class, or chosen people, or even in more modern times a Calvinistic elect, which this is an attempt to smuggle in as a secular, "scuentific" basis. If we were watching elementary particles smash together in an accelerator, the idea that a brain could be boiled down to a number and ranked in order, and said this be due to differential genes and such would be seen as absurd. Especially considering human behavioral modernity happen two to three thousand generations ago, if one knows a genetic time scale. For our version of biological Lysenkoism or creationism, this all goes out the window though. Speaking of Lysenkoism, it is akin to the Marxist idea of false consciousness - the people who believe such ideas can see the errors of Lysenkoism or creationism, but the crank idea tied to their particular system makes a lot of sense to them. I think of al-Andalus in Spain the 1450s, or the Battle of Vienna in 1683. Until a few centuries ago, Europe could barely keep itself free of Arab or Turk rule (and often didn't). Change back a few centuries and this would be about the genetic superiority of the Arab brain over the Caucasian. It's all quite silly.
- twodave 1y agoOne’s ceiling may be more or less stable, but there are many instances where individuals have certain underdeveloped cognitive skills (of which there are a litany), undergo training to develop those skills, and then afterwards go on to score (sometimes much) higher on IQ tests. Children with certain disabilities such at autism or FASD tend to see more dramatic differences. This isn’t to say they “became more intelligent,” but rather that the testing is unable to measure intelligence directly, rather relying on those certain cognitive skills as a proxy for intelligence.
- csa 1y ago> Which makes me wonder what's the point of all the intervention in the form of teaching/parenting styles and whatnot, if g factor is nature and immutable by large? What's the logic of the educators here? Many/most people (esp. young people) are not pushed to the limits of their capacity to learn. Quality interventions guide people closer to these limits.
- ok_computer 1y agoLower and median IQ people still benefit from literacy, numeracy, and art to function in society. The point of education systems isn’t to boost individuals’ dimensionally reduced 1D metrics but rather enrich their lives and contributions to society. There will always be distributions of abilities and means but that doesn’t justify neglecting the bulk of tax paying people.
- jacquesm 1y agoIt used to be that society worked just fine with people of all grades of smarts. But we're rapidly getting to the point that to be able to earn a living wage you need to be above average, especially if you are sole income provider for a while. AI is further steepening that S curve's mid-section.
- ok_computer 1y agoI think that has more to do with our willingness or ability to value labor in a highly abstracted overseas and automated economy. In addition, there has been a complete disconnect between $1USD purchasing power and generation ability based on capital scale. I don't know what financial crisis or tax policy or free trade agreement or visa program that stems from. I think that in the knowledge worker class, people tend to confuse their learned skills and inherited starting point to their innate abilities. Illusory superiority is best mocked in prairie home companion's Lake Woebegone, where "all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and the children are all above average" [0]. Give kids a stable home environment with loving supportive parents, three square meals a day, 9+ hours of sleep and opportunity to pursue their creative or sports interests and you'll have a class of highly functioning humans of different abilities. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Wobegon#The%20Lake%20Wobegon%20effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Wobegon#The%20Lake%20Wobe... It does feel like a squeeze just functioning in the current job, housing, and grocery market though. I cannot imagine the stress of being a sole provider. My point is to not conflate genetic superiority to the multitude of factors that go in to making a talented skillful worker, where I think nurture cannot be discounted.
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- robwwilliams 1y agoHuman IQ has been going up at a very fast rate for the last 100 years. Kids tested by the Army being enlisted for WW1 who had a mean score of 100(by definition) in 1917 now would have a mean score of lss than 80. Tons of interesting work on why IQ is shooting up, but it definitely is NOT genetics. This is known as the Flynn effect. Here is the wikipedia entry in case you want more details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect Video games like Civilization and Myst etc, probably add 5 to 10 IQ points to kids. My 9 year old knew all about Greek triremes. Me: What the heck is a trireme? Most if what people call “genetic effects” are actually “genetic-by-environment” interaction effects. Chane the environment and you change the APPARENT heritability. Good example is the genetics of substance use disorders which range from 30 to 60%—-but IF AND ONLY IF there are drugs around to which you are exposed in YOUR environment.? Same applies to good and bad schools.
- bena 1y agoDon’t confuse knowledge with intelligence. Knowing what a trireme isn’t a sign of intelligence, it’s trivia. Being able to figure out how to build a trireme is intelligence. And I don’t mean looking up instructions and doing, I mean being able to reconstruct the knowledge from baser principles. This is not to say you or your son aren’t intelligent, just that knowing about triremes isn’t a sign of it.
- robwwilliams 1y agoJust a funny story. Exposure to vocabulary is an important factor in learning to think.
- machomaster 1y agoHas nothing to do with IQ. Knowing fancy words can only fool some people to think that the speaker is smarter; but it won't influence the actual IQ.
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- conradev 1y agoIntelligence is not knowledge and it is not wisdom. You have to “learn” to get those. It’s much more akin to VO2 max in aerobic exercise, something like 70% genetic. It is still good for everyone to exercise even if it is harder or easier for some.
- moi2388 1y agoCrystallised vs fluid intelligence, and IQ tests mainly test the latter, whilst education focused on the first, as well as learning strategies and general problem solving strategies. Also, even if intelligence was 100% genetic, we could still in theory increase everybodies IQ equally with education and the previous statement still holds.
- LtWorf 1y agoAccording to a study, IQ of a group can increase of like 20 points if you motivate them by taking 2 hours of boring test by paying them :)
- guelo 1y agoThe Bell Curve is a classic in racist science and it accelerated the destruction of america's greatness which was always that we are a land of immigrants.
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