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The effects of poverty on a child's IQ are at this point indisputable. (Duncan et al. 1998) Chronically inadequate diet in the early stages of development will

The effects of poverty on a child's IQ are at this point indisputable. (Duncan et al. 1998) Chronically inadequate diet in the early stages of development will disrupt brain development. Missing meals will impair functioning and learning on the day of. These kids see reduced access to health services and often all around inadequate parenting from overworked and stressed guardians. In ALL countries that have been studied, children with wealthy homes score higher on IQ tests than kids from poor homes (Case, Griffin, & Kelly; Keating & Hertzman, 1999). Also of interest is that in the US and developed countries in which the gap is widest, the differences in IQ is much larger than in countries with a smaller wealth gap. Some kids overcome this challenge. They are the "resilient children" and their ability usually came from a shielding of negative influence through quality parenting or guardianship. Be careful not to absorb the narrative of these achieving kids and dismiss the very real effects of low SES on children.

Moshe_Silnorin 11y ago
You are not accounting for the fact that IQ is heritable, one of the more obvious truths we're tempted to ignore. Pinker's The Blank Slate is a good book on the topic. At this point improving nutrition does not add much to IQ. Ours is a well fed nation. Soon, the cheapest means of raising IQ will be iterated embryo selection, later direct genetic modification. Iterated embryo selection could raise IQ by 80 points:http://www.nickbostrom.com/papers/embryo.pdf http://www.nickbostrom.com/papers/embryo.pdf I look forward to when Singapore makes it available to its citizens and ideologues here try to insist that vitamins will do the same.
- flycaliguy 11y ago
  Interesting point on heritability. I wonder though if poor populations are full of genetically assisted high IQs that are being suppressed through the effects of poverty. Improving nutrition among poor kids will do a lot to improve cognitive functioning. I'm not sure you can claim that "our's is a well fed nation" in a discussion of the effects of poverty. I've been involved in breakfast programs in high schools and the number of kids coming to school unfed is significant. There are poor kids in developed nations suffering the effects of malnutrition and it is impairing their development. Low energy, susceptibility to illness, infection and even physical growth delays. Low SES is a multifaceted attack on a kid's start in life and poor nutrition is just the jab to the gut.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- a8da6b0c91d 11y ago
  > Soon, the cheapest means of raising IQ will be iterated embryo selection, later direct genetic modification. So many people on the internet go on about the inevitability of genetic engineering for traits like intelligence. There's pretty much zero experimental evidence it's going to work as of yet. It's all statistical wankery. Find me one mouse experiment where they can repeatedly engineer a faster mouse or a smarter mouse from common mice. Oh, they can make its fur green (or whatever), but there's not even a hint anyone is close to manipulating complex aspects of phenotype any better than dog breeders.
  - Moshe_Silnorin 11y ago
    Genetic engineering is really hard. A huge amount of genes contribute to IQ. It's not possible now and it won't be until we can safely alter thousands of genes in an embryo. I don't see direct engineering in the near future. Iterated embryo selection (and just plain embryo selection) however, do seem likely in the next two decades.
    - a8da6b0c91d 11y ago
      There is zero experimental basis to assume embryo selection will work better than breeding for complex traits in the near future. It's a scifi idea that for some strange reason gets nerds excited.
      - barry-cotter 11y ago
        Who cares of it works better than being for complex traits? If it works as well as being for complex traits that's really great. Selective breeding can move a population mean about half a standard deviation per generation. That's not iterated embryo selection, just once. I would pay a lot of money to be guaranteed a child in the upper 50% of what is possible with me and my girlfriend's genes. If you want an illustration of the power of selective breeding contemplate the various breeds of dog. For a modern and well documented example see the domestication of the Silver Fox. It only took them six generations to domesticate them. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesticated_silver_fox http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesticated_silver_fox The least domesticated foxes, those that flee from experimenters or bite when stroked or handled, are assigned to Class III. Foxes in Class II let themselves be petted and handled but show no emotionally friendly response to experimenters. Foxes in Class I are friendly toward experimenters, wagging their tails and whining. In the sixth generation bred for tameness we had to add an even higher-scoring category. Members of Class IE, the "domesticated elite," are eager to establish human contact, whimpering to attract attention and sniffing and licking experimenters like dogs. They start displaying this kind of behavior before they are one month old. By the tenth generation, 18 percent of fox pups were elite; by the 20th, the figure had reached 35 percent. Today elite foxes make up 70 to 80 percent of our experimentally selected population.
- vegedor 11y ago
  Are you saying, poor people would by default inherit subpar IQ? I don't think you are saying this. You are just missing the intention of the article by a long shot. Also I thought "tabula rasa" means the opposite, that IQ is pretty much a factor of environment.
- lamuerteflaca 11y ago
  Thankfully you are being downvoted. Reading between the lines you are arguing that poor people are simply genetically stupid. I counter that by saying that even though only a few can win a marathon most people with some training can finish it within a reasonable time. Getting a doctor degree is the exact same thing. Sure, there are a few geniuses but you need not be one to become a medical doctor. My point is that most people are intelligent enough. Hence most poverty is no because of the lack of it. Other issues are at play. Birth lottery is a strong one.
  - Moshe_Silnorin 11y ago
    IQ is heritable, to the extent intelligence increases one's human capital ( quite a bit) intelligent people will on average be richer than less intelligent people. This explains much of the differences in educational outcomes. I'm all for improving outcomes for poor children, but the solutions will need to be technological not environmental. I don't expect people to be able to separate the normative from the descriptive when it comes to their sacred issues, but the whole "education and nutrition is all that matters" approach is basically Lysenkoism. We are in this strange dynamic where our inability to perceive ugly truths cause us to perpetuate the outcomes we so bemoan, leading to an arms race of ineffective interventions and reflexive shunning of people who actually care about the real cause of the problem. It might be nice if everyone were equally intelligent, but that's an engineering goal not the state of things now.
  - peterfirefly 11y ago
    Unfortunately, you are not. It is evident that /some/ of the poverty is due to genetically caused low IQ. That is a completely factual and unideological statement. It is probably not the sole cause of poverty. Wouldn't it be nice to figure out what the actual causes are and how much they each contribute? Otherwise, the treatment would be more like blodletting and using perfume against miasmas than anything actually helpful.
mattchew 11y ago
It is worth distinguishing between first world poverty and third world poverty with statements like this. They're different things. I can easily believe third world poverty causes permanent IQ deficiencies. First world poverty, I'm sure there are cases, but I'd expect much less significantly. I'd like to hear more details. Especially with first world poverty, it is not enough to point to a bad outcome associated with poor people and call it an effect of poverty. If it is financially possible to give your kids proper nutrition, but you don't know how to do it, or you just don't care about doing it, it isn't poverty that is causing your kids to suffer. But you would still expect to see this more in poor families than well off ones.
- flycaliguy 11y ago
  But the poverty IS effecting the ability for these parents to feed their kids right, even if technically money isn't the limitation. I see where you are coming from, but my argument is that the effects of being poor are preventing these parents from the tools, time, education, patience... and so on to properly feed their kids. So yeah, it's direct and indirect. My main point is that poverty is creating an interconnected web of issues for kids. What might seem like a parent not caring about feeding their kids right might be connected to that parent living in an unsafe neighbourhood where a bus ride to the best food source is impractical compared to the corner store's junk food.
  - mattchew 11y ago
    > But the poverty IS effecting the ability for these parents to feed their kids right, even if technically money isn't the limitation. > my argument is that the effects of being poor are preventing these parents from the tools, time, education, patience This is assuming the conclusion all over again, one level further out. How do you know that the lack of education, patience, etc is caused by lack of money? > My main point is that poverty is creating an interconnected web of issues for kids. There is a web of issues, that much I agree with. Lots of outcomes are worse for poor people, and one bad result interacts with another. But the fact that it is an interconnected web means it is harder, not easier, to indisputably assign all those effects to a single cause.
  - 11y ago

Moshe_Silnorin 11y ago

You are not accounting for the fact that IQ is heritable, one of the more obvious truths we're tempted to ignore. Pinker's The Blank Slate is a good book on the topic. At this point improving nutrition does not add much to IQ. Ours is a well fed nation. Soon, the cheapest means of raising IQ will be iterated embryo selection, later direct genetic modification. Iterated embryo selection could raise IQ by 80 points:http://www.nickbostrom.com/papers/embryo.pdf http://www.nickbostrom.com/papers/embryo.pdf I look forward to when Singapore makes it available to its citizens and ideologues here try to insist that vitamins will do the same.

flycaliguy 11y ago
Interesting point on heritability. I wonder though if poor populations are full of genetically assisted high IQs that are being suppressed through the effects of poverty. Improving nutrition among poor kids will do a lot to improve cognitive functioning. I'm not sure you can claim that "our's is a well fed nation" in a discussion of the effects of poverty. I've been involved in breakfast programs in high schools and the number of kids coming to school unfed is significant. There are poor kids in developed nations suffering the effects of malnutrition and it is impairing their development. Low energy, susceptibility to illness, infection and even physical growth delays. Low SES is a multifaceted attack on a kid's start in life and poor nutrition is just the jab to the gut.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
a8da6b0c91d 11y ago
> Soon, the cheapest means of raising IQ will be iterated embryo selection, later direct genetic modification. So many people on the internet go on about the inevitability of genetic engineering for traits like intelligence. There's pretty much zero experimental evidence it's going to work as of yet. It's all statistical wankery. Find me one mouse experiment where they can repeatedly engineer a faster mouse or a smarter mouse from common mice. Oh, they can make its fur green (or whatever), but there's not even a hint anyone is close to manipulating complex aspects of phenotype any better than dog breeders.
- Moshe_Silnorin 11y ago
  Genetic engineering is really hard. A huge amount of genes contribute to IQ. It's not possible now and it won't be until we can safely alter thousands of genes in an embryo. I don't see direct engineering in the near future. Iterated embryo selection (and just plain embryo selection) however, do seem likely in the next two decades.
  - a8da6b0c91d 11y ago
    There is zero experimental basis to assume embryo selection will work better than breeding for complex traits in the near future. It's a scifi idea that for some strange reason gets nerds excited.
    - barry-cotter 11y ago
      Who cares of it works better than being for complex traits? If it works as well as being for complex traits that's really great. Selective breeding can move a population mean about half a standard deviation per generation. That's not iterated embryo selection, just once. I would pay a lot of money to be guaranteed a child in the upper 50% of what is possible with me and my girlfriend's genes. If you want an illustration of the power of selective breeding contemplate the various breeds of dog. For a modern and well documented example see the domestication of the Silver Fox. It only took them six generations to domesticate them. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesticated_silver_fox http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesticated_silver_fox The least domesticated foxes, those that flee from experimenters or bite when stroked or handled, are assigned to Class III. Foxes in Class II let themselves be petted and handled but show no emotionally friendly response to experimenters. Foxes in Class I are friendly toward experimenters, wagging their tails and whining. In the sixth generation bred for tameness we had to add an even higher-scoring category. Members of Class IE, the "domesticated elite," are eager to establish human contact, whimpering to attract attention and sniffing and licking experimenters like dogs. They start displaying this kind of behavior before they are one month old. By the tenth generation, 18 percent of fox pups were elite; by the 20th, the figure had reached 35 percent. Today elite foxes make up 70 to 80 percent of our experimentally selected population.
vegedor 11y ago
Are you saying, poor people would by default inherit subpar IQ? I don't think you are saying this. You are just missing the intention of the article by a long shot. Also I thought "tabula rasa" means the opposite, that IQ is pretty much a factor of environment.
lamuerteflaca 11y ago
Thankfully you are being downvoted. Reading between the lines you are arguing that poor people are simply genetically stupid. I counter that by saying that even though only a few can win a marathon most people with some training can finish it within a reasonable time. Getting a doctor degree is the exact same thing. Sure, there are a few geniuses but you need not be one to become a medical doctor. My point is that most people are intelligent enough. Hence most poverty is no because of the lack of it. Other issues are at play. Birth lottery is a strong one.
- Moshe_Silnorin 11y ago
  IQ is heritable, to the extent intelligence increases one's human capital ( quite a bit) intelligent people will on average be richer than less intelligent people. This explains much of the differences in educational outcomes. I'm all for improving outcomes for poor children, but the solutions will need to be technological not environmental. I don't expect people to be able to separate the normative from the descriptive when it comes to their sacred issues, but the whole "education and nutrition is all that matters" approach is basically Lysenkoism. We are in this strange dynamic where our inability to perceive ugly truths cause us to perpetuate the outcomes we so bemoan, leading to an arms race of ineffective interventions and reflexive shunning of people who actually care about the real cause of the problem. It might be nice if everyone were equally intelligent, but that's an engineering goal not the state of things now.
- peterfirefly 11y ago
  Unfortunately, you are not. It is evident that /some/ of the poverty is due to genetically caused low IQ. That is a completely factual and unideological statement. It is probably not the sole cause of poverty. Wouldn't it be nice to figure out what the actual causes are and how much they each contribute? Otherwise, the treatment would be more like blodletting and using perfume against miasmas than anything actually helpful.

mattchew 11y ago

It is worth distinguishing between first world poverty and third world poverty with statements like this. They're different things. I can easily believe third world poverty causes permanent IQ deficiencies. First world poverty, I'm sure there are cases, but I'd expect much less significantly. I'd like to hear more details. Especially with first world poverty, it is not enough to point to a bad outcome associated with poor people and call it an effect of poverty. If it is financially possible to give your kids proper nutrition, but you don't know how to do it, or you just don't care about doing it, it isn't poverty that is causing your kids to suffer. But you would still expect to see this more in poor families than well off ones.

flycaliguy 11y ago
But the poverty IS effecting the ability for these parents to feed their kids right, even if technically money isn't the limitation. I see where you are coming from, but my argument is that the effects of being poor are preventing these parents from the tools, time, education, patience... and so on to properly feed their kids. So yeah, it's direct and indirect. My main point is that poverty is creating an interconnected web of issues for kids. What might seem like a parent not caring about feeding their kids right might be connected to that parent living in an unsafe neighbourhood where a bus ride to the best food source is impractical compared to the corner store's junk food.
- mattchew 11y ago
  > But the poverty IS effecting the ability for these parents to feed their kids right, even if technically money isn't the limitation. > my argument is that the effects of being poor are preventing these parents from the tools, time, education, patience This is assuming the conclusion all over again, one level further out. How do you know that the lack of education, patience, etc is caused by lack of money? > My main point is that poverty is creating an interconnected web of issues for kids. There is a web of issues, that much I agree with. Lots of outcomes are worse for poor people, and one bad result interacts with another. But the fact that it is an interconnected web means it is harder, not easier, to indisputably assign all those effects to a single cause.
- 11y ago