Boys who live with books ‘earn more as adults’ • Hacker News Board

Re: Boys who live with books ‘earn more as adults’

#31

Post by Frozenlock » Sun, May 29, 2016, 7:59 AM UTC

qb45 wrote: post #24

Frozenlock wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Are you implying here that curiosity and intellectual abilities are genetically inheritable ? Intelligence as we can measure it (IQ) is highly related to genetics (so you can say inheritable). IQ is correlated to 0.86 in case of twins raised in the same family, or 0.76 in twins raised appart. > If so, what stops eugenics from being morally indefensible ? Nothing! I myself have spinal muscular atrophy and know that m…

> You could also have eugenics designed to increase the number of 'quality' people. Say, for example, giving money to people with an IQ higher than 150 to make more children. Or those with amazing athletics skills, or amazing beauty... And have a world full of Aspergers and Schizos (correlated with IQ) or some giant mutants unable to survive the next asteroid strike. I hope you get the point - we have no idea what we…

Sure, but it's not like we can just sit on our hands and wait until we are 100% sure of what we could do; the welfare state is already selecting for us. And in my experience, most people are opposed to getting rid of the welfare state.

This means that the choice is not "eugenic or do nothing", it's "eugenic or dysgenic".

Re: Boys who live with books ‘earn more as adults’

#32

Post by vixen99 » Sun, May 29, 2016, 8:18 AM UTC

mianos wrote: post #2

This gets dug up once a year. Someone somewhere in the world gets their research funded looking into this. http://www.squawkpoint.com/2014/09/correlation-does-not-impl...

Your link describes a dumb study. I also doubt that for instance, dumping truck loads of unwanted library books in kids' houses would necessarily impact on their potential for being paid for their services in the future. A thoughtful choice of books provided by their parents would likely have a different outcome.

Re: Boys who live with books ‘earn more as adults’

#33

Post by qb45 » Sun, May 29, 2016, 8:30 AM UTC

Frozenlock wrote: post #31

qb45 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You could also have eugenics designed to increase the number of 'quality' people. Say, for example, giving money to people with an IQ higher than 150 to make more children. Or those with amazing athletics skills, or amazing beauty... And have a world full of Aspergers and Schizos (correlated with IQ) or some giant mutants unable to survive the next asteroid strike. I hope you get the point - we have no idea what we…

Sure, but it's not like we can just sit on our hands and wait until we are 100% sure of what we could do; the welfare state is already selecting for us. And in my experience, most people are opposed to getting rid of the welfare state. This means that the choice is not "eugenic or do nothing", it's "eugenic or dysgenic".

Welfare states seem to depopulate recently so if it's true that they produce "unfit" people, they are harming more themselves than anybody else.

Re: Boys who live with books ‘earn more as adults’

#34

Post by stdbrouw » Sun, May 29, 2016, 8:51 AM UTC

nikanj wrote: post #28

tokenadult wrote: post #4

I'm delighted that my three boys and one girl have grown up or are still growing up in a house full of books in English, Chinese, German, and other languages. Sure enough, my oldest son makes a fine income as a hacker--but wait, I grew up in a house full of books too, and I've NEVER made as much money as he already makes. A correlational study like this can't show us the path of causation, if any. Any behavior geneti…

Statistics never guarantee outcomes. Statisticly, men are taller than women, but still many are not.

That's not the point of tokenadult though. He's pointing out that if higher incomes and book reading are both caused by some third factor, encouraging more reading might not have the desired effect on income.

Re: Boys who live with books ‘earn more as adults’

#35

Post by barry-cotter » Sun, May 29, 2016, 9:00 AM UTC

chongli wrote: post #16

yeahbutbut wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could be a shelf full of $2 novels. Owning a few hundred books doesn't cost very much (thanks printing press), and only implies an interest in reading not in being of a high socioeconomic status.

Owning books is not the hard part, it's reading them. Reading a novel takes a lot of time and is a singularly self-centered leisure activity. People lower on the SES spectrum generally lack for leisure time. Heck, the image of a person lounging with a book has a very strong cultural link to (non-working class) status.

The average American watches three hours of TV a day. They are not lacking for free time to read books if they wanted to.

http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/average-american-watch...

Re: Boys who live with books ‘earn more as adults’

#36

Post by tsmffh » Sun, May 29, 2016, 9:09 AM UTC

andrepd wrote: post #15

ryandrake wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention the heritability of economic status. Rich families have rich kids that grow up to be rich adults. News at 11.

Thus is the right answer, not "inheritability of intelligence". Economic status propagates through generations much more directly than any genetic quality like intelligence (which isn't even a quality commanded to a significant degree by genetics)

> (which isn't even a quality commanded to a significant degree by genetics)

Evidence?

Re: Boys who live with books ‘earn more as adults’

#37

Post by chongli » Sun, May 29, 2016, 9:14 AM UTC

barry-cotter wrote: post #35

chongli wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Owning books is not the hard part, it's reading them. Reading a novel takes a lot of time and is a singularly self-centered leisure activity. People lower on the SES spectrum generally lack for leisure time. Heck, the image of a person lounging with a book has a very strong cultural link to (non-working class) status.

The average American watches three hours of TV a day. They are not lacking for free time to read books if they wanted to. http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/average-american-watch...

My main argument is that reading books is the hard part. Leisure time is an example I gave of a contributing factor. There are other contributing factors, such as cultural ones, which I alluded to.

Beyond that, though, it's not merely the case of an individual having time to read. A parent who does not read to their child is raising a child to be less literate or even illiterate.

Re: Boys who live with books ‘earn more as adults’

#38

Post by pliny » Sun, May 29, 2016, 9:17 AM UTC

eicossa wrote: post #14

> perhaps they gained genes from their parents that prompt both collecting books and pursuing more lucrative occupations Are you implying here that curiosity and intellectual abilities are genetically inheritable ? If so, what stops eugenics from being morally indefensible ?

This is an instance of the fallacy

A implies B

I don't like B

therefore (not A)

Re: Boys who live with books ‘earn more as adults’

#39

Post by lpolovets » Sun, May 29, 2016, 9:22 AM UTC

gaius wrote: post #30

lpolovets wrote: post #23

I found the results of the study very interesting, but I wonder why it was limited to boys. That seems kind of arbitrary. Why not all children?

If the same study was just girls, would you also object? The truth is that boys are falling behind academically, I think most normal people would agree that in a well designed educational system, gender would not factor in outcome.

It was less an objection than an honest question -- and I'd still have the same question if the study was just girls. One reason for the question is that I'd actually be curious to know if there's a difference in earning power based on gender (or income or other common variables).

Re: Boys who live with books ‘earn more as adults’

#40

Post by barry-cotter » Sun, May 29, 2016, 9:22 AM UTC

ars wrote: post #22

andrepd wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thus is the right answer, not "inheritability of intelligence". Economic status propagates through generations much more directly than any genetic quality like intelligence (which isn't even a quality commanded to a significant degree by genetics)

> Economic status propagates through generations much more directly Economic status only lasts on average 3 generations. > genetic quality like intelligence (which isn't even a quality commanded to a significant degree by genetics) Actually quite the opposite. Intelligence is almost entirely genetic. The reason you think economic status propagates is actually that intelligence propagates, and intelligence is strongly…

> Economic status only lasts on average 3 generations.

Gregory Clark's work "The Som Also Rises", "A Farewell to Alms" and his various articles suggest the heritability of socioeconomic status is around 0.7 and is uniform across all human societies he and his team have studied. The upper class maintain their social status if not their wealth.

The same surnames that were over represented among Qing dynasty mandarins are over represented among upper level PRC officials. One in five Swedish prime ministers have had surnames indicative of noble ancestry when holders of said surnames are ~1% of the population.