Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Genetic link between family SES and children's educational achievement

nature.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–56 of 56 posts

Re: Genetic link between family SES and children's educational achievement

#51

Post by wtbob »

peteretep wrote: post #50
wtbob wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A study shows a genetic basis for a difference - on average across the whole population - where blue people are 10% less intelligent and 10% more violent. > Are you justified in preferring to hire green people? No. Why the heck wouldn't you be justified in preferring to hire people who are, on average, more intelligent and less violent? > Are you justified in having greens-only policies? Of course not, that's not h…

> Why the heck wouldn't you be > justified in preferring to > hire people who are, on > average, more intelligent > and less violent? Because that knowledge tells you absolutely nothing about any given individual.

> Because that knowledge tells you absolutely nothing about any given individual.

You can't know the heart of any man: all you can do is make predictions about how he will behave under various circumstances, based on the observations you have made of his behaviour so far. To ignore an observation with strong statistical power because you don't like it is simply unscientific.

Re: Genetic link between family SES and children's educational achievement

#52

Post by peteretep »

wtbob wrote: post #51
peteretep wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why the heck wouldn't you be > justified in preferring to > hire people who are, on > average, more intelligent > and less violent? Because that knowledge tells you absolutely nothing about any given individual.

> Because that knowledge tells you absolutely nothing about any given individual. You can't know the heart of any man: all you can do is make predictions about how he will behave under various circumstances, based on the observations you have made of his behaviour so far. To ignore an observation with strong statistical power because you don't like it is simply unscientific.

    > based on the observations
    > you have made of his 
    > behaviour so far
That's what interviews and resumes are for. I would be interested to know how you would practically hire for race while not being hit by the halo effect for one race on one hand, and not missing strong candidates through racism on the other.

Re: Genetic link between family SES and children's educational achievement

#53

Post by peteretep »

wtbob wrote: post #46
peteretep wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the book is generally forbidden to be discussed in > "polite" company The problem with studies like this - and also ones that for example attempt to show race-linked differences in "positive factors" - is that they're pretty useless for anything other than the uneducated using as a blunt discrimination tool. Let's say you live in a society where there are blue and green people. A study shows a genetic basis for a d…

> A study shows a genetic basis for a difference - on average across the whole population - where blue people are 10% less intelligent and 10% more violent. > Are you justified in preferring to hire green people? No. Why the heck wouldn't you be justified in preferring to hire people who are, on average, more intelligent and less violent? > Are you justified in having greens-only policies? Of course not, that's not h…

    > What you're arguing for is
    > categories of 'forbidden
    > knowledge'
No, I'm expressly calling attempting to make useful decisions on individuals based on small differences in wider populations illogical and non-rational. It would not be difficult to model this mathematically.

Re: Genetic link between family SES and children's educational achievement

#54

Post by peteretep »

wtbob wrote: post #47
peteretep wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On what evidence can you say that more research > won't/can't help On what basis can you say it will ? These studies have known drawbacks in that they serve as a rallying point for all sorts of discrimination masquerading as high-minded discourse, and we're yet to see a benefit so far, so the burden of proof here is on you. At least part of the problem here is given two children / job-applicants / defendants / what…

> These studies have known drawbacks in that they serve as a rallying point for all sorts of discrimination masquerading as high-minded discourse, and we're yet to see a benefit so far, so the burden of proof here is on you. You're arguing for deliberate ignorance because reality is uncomfortable. > At least part of the problem here is given two children / job-applicants / defendants / whatever, who are absolutely id…

A 10% difference between the populations they're chosen from does not indicate a strong difference between them.

Re: Genetic link between family SES and children's educational achievement

#55

Post by caseysoftware »

peteretep wrote: post #14
caseysoftware wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Bell Curve (1994) talked about the intellectual stratification that is happening in society. The author and resulting research was called "racist" and has been shouted down time and time again but much of what you say is discussed in the book. He shows correlation between intelligence and [income, parent's socioeconomic status (SES), job security/unemployment, educational attainment, and tons of other things]. Th…

> the book is generally forbidden to be discussed in > "polite" company The problem with studies like this - and also ones that for example attempt to show race-linked differences in "positive factors" - is that they're pretty useless for anything other than the uneducated using as a blunt discrimination tool. Let's say you live in a society where there are blue and green people. A study shows a genetic basis for a d…

You should really read my whole comment instead of jumping on what you guess is in the book and what "study" you think the author performs.

As noted in my comment, the author looks exclusively at white people. More importantly, he looks at a variety of long term (aka multi-decade) studies from a variety of US sources and analyzes that data.

But if you want to keep arguing straw men, please feel free. I won't interrupt further.

Re: Genetic link between family SES and children's educational achievement

#56

Post by Snargorf »

nradov wrote: post #13
Snargorf wrote: post #2

My old hypothesis is that in a reasonably free society, families reach their "destination" socioeconomic status after 3 generations. Even if they immigrate as refugees on rusty boats, or lose everything in a holocaust or internment camps. Or, even if they win the lottery. After three generations, they hit their level, whether it's at the bottom or the top. And then they stay there. It's IQ, an absence of stimulation-…

Families are not genetically stable. There is very little inbreeding in Western societies, so a grandparent and grandchild may not be genetically close.

Families breed with other families similar to themselves.
Post reply on HN