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Surnames offer depressing clues to extent of social mobility over generations

economist.com

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Re: Surnames offer depressing clues to extent of social mobility over generations

#41

Post by guard-of-terra »

lepukowsky wrote: post #4

"Such competence is potentially heritable and is reinforced by the human tendency to mate with partners of similar traits and ability." I think this raises a very important question: How far are we willing to go to pursue equality in the modern age? It seems that -- generally -- there is an inevitable tendency of humans to mate with someone of similar "stature" or "capacity". Of course, like any generalization, there…

Well, nobody is happy with lawyers. Nobody is happy with how 'elite' run their countries. They're failing whatever they usurped for some time now, so yes, I can see us wanting some changes towards equality.

Re: Surnames offer depressing clues to extent of social mobility over generations

#42

Post by hrktb »

swombat wrote: post #17
hrktb wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main point of equality it to allow a brilliant child of a not so brilliant parents to bring as much value to society as he can. If a very bright kid is born in a farmer's family, we want he/she to become a top member of the society and work on the hard to solve problems, and not become a KFC store manager. Equality of chance and fluidity is as important to society as it is to individuals. Of course there is a pri…

> The main point of equality it to allow a brilliant child of a not so brilliant parents to bring as much value to society as he can. If a very bright kid is born in a farmer's family, we want he/she to become a top member of the society and work on the hard to solve problems, and not become a KFC store manager. As pointed out elsewhere, the problem with that is education. The school system provides a very poor excus…

I agree what is taught in school is very poor and lacking. I hope he current system is a least a gateway for most people: once you start understanding that you need more education, you can look for yourself how to get this education. Then comes to play libraries, grants, online resources etc. Not everyone has a chance to access all the resources he/she needs, but at least middle class and slighty lower classes should have a chance.

To be clear, there will always be a gap between child with clever/well educated parents and other childs, and I don't think we should lower the top level. I just think we need a eay to push people who might be stuck at the bottom level while they could go much higher.

Re: Surnames offer depressing clues to extent of social mobility over generations

#43

Post by saalweachter »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #33
philwelch wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which seems like the result of generations of selective pressure exerted by a culture that values education and critical thinking.

"Culture" is an empty explanation. The question is: were your odds of getting married and having children as a Medieval Ashkenazi Jew better if you were smarter? I'm descended from these people and I don't know.

Over that time period is it more likely to be selective pressure or a founder effect?

A founder effect doesn't require continuous selective pressure, it just requires a population with a small group of founders from whom the entire population is descended. For instance, a group that splits off from a larger group, or passes through a population bottleneck. In this situation a set of genes -- inherited from the founder who is the common ancestor of the entire population -- can very rapidly become dominant in a population, not because they are beneficial but because there are no alternatives.

So in other words, if there is an Ashakenzi 'smart gene' it may not be a matter of the selective pressures of the Jewish condition over the last few hundred years, it might just be a matter of descending from a single very smart person.

Re: Surnames offer depressing clues to extent of social mobility over generations

#44

Post by cLeEOGPw »

ckuehne wrote: post #20
swombat wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn't agree more on education. Putting a strong emphasis on educating your children to themselves be successful must surely be a strong success factor for them - and something they're likely to do in turn for their own children. Conversely, neglecting your children's education is also likely to be passed on, and also likely to have significant effect. By "education" I don't just mean what happens at school - most…

"This is perhaps more easily understood when you know that the Jewish culture places enormous focus on educating the next generation and on critical thinking" Or maybe it is even better understood in terms of genetic differences: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jewish_intelligence .

It isn't even proven that the difference is genetic. There should be a study where they take Jewish kids that are raised in non-jewish families and look for the difference, then they should take non-jewish kids who were raised in a jewish families as jews and look for difference, even then it would not prove. For better measure they should take identical twins both jewish and non-jewish where one of the twin is raised as a jew and other as not jew. Even then they should take into account which environment they were in during prenatal period, jewish or non-jewish. Since these strict requirements are unrealistic to ever be achieved I view those types of arguments as more speculations than anything else. It is not a secret that even many scientists often fail to understand statistical data correctly, and in these kind of studies in particular there may even be certain motivation to project data at a certain "angle" to look it more like you want it to look.

Re: Surnames offer depressing clues to extent of social mobility over generations

#45

Post by LekkoscPiwa »

ckuehne wrote: post #20
swombat wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn't agree more on education. Putting a strong emphasis on educating your children to themselves be successful must surely be a strong success factor for them - and something they're likely to do in turn for their own children. Conversely, neglecting your children's education is also likely to be passed on, and also likely to have significant effect. By "education" I don't just mean what happens at school - most…

"This is perhaps more easily understood when you know that the Jewish culture places enormous focus on educating the next generation and on critical thinking" Or maybe it is even better understood in terms of genetic differences: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jewish_intelligence .

Mental exercise: 1. Take the text replace Ashkenazi Jew with Arian 2. Trust me they (the nazis) had they scientists to proof exactly the same but with Arians.

And see how you kidnap "science" in the same of ideology. That's actually pretty ugly.

Re: Surnames offer depressing clues to extent of social mobility over generations

#47

Post by JoeAltmaier »

antocv wrote: post #22
varjag wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well this is highly anecdotal: none of my parents or grandparents were engineers, yet here I am. The lawyer practice is structured differently though: there's limited supply of positions at law firms where the money are, and without connected family the chance of fresh grad getting there is slim. Same with banking in Scandinavia: certain banks' departments annual retreats can feel more like family reunions.

Yea my dad a carpenter, mom cleaning lady, grandparents farmers without iron tools until their middle ages, myself saw a computer first time at age 14. Yet Im software engineer and siblings too have master degrees in medicine and philosophy. Heh. just another small anecdote.

Agree. I'n N'th generation dirt-farmer, so are my siblings. We're 5 computer professionals and one research nurse. All college-educated; all of our children are college-educated. Our upcoming generation will outstrip us all in achievement.

So if culture were the determinant factor, shouldn't all Iowa farm kids be economically rising? Yet few are; in our neighborhood the rest of our generation are working clerical, farm-services or trades. I guess that's upward too, farmer is pretty much the bottom.

However, the fact that nearly none of my generation took up farming has less to do with social mobility than it does with the changes in the farming landscape. All farms are corporate now; the family farm is largely a myth. It takes $1M+ to get into farming.

Maybe its observer bias; my family is certainly not typical. But who's is?

Re: Surnames offer depressing clues to extent of social mobility over generations

#48

Post by JoeAltmaier »

lepukowsky wrote: post #4

"Such competence is potentially heritable and is reinforced by the human tendency to mate with partners of similar traits and ability." I think this raises a very important question: How far are we willing to go to pursue equality in the modern age? It seems that -- generally -- there is an inevitable tendency of humans to mate with someone of similar "stature" or "capacity". Of course, like any generalization, there…

I don't see evidence of this supposed tendency at all. My brothers married women from India, the Philippines. I married a woman from Italy. Why? The exotic nature of 'foreign' women has been lauded in song and literature forever. This flies in the face of the 'tendency to mate with partners of similar traits and ability"

Re: Surnames offer depressing clues to extent of social mobility over generations

#49

Post by 6ren »

They don't seem to account for non-socioeconomic factors like genetics and nurturing.

I'm not saying aristocrats are a master race, just that if your ancestors won competitions, you may have inherited whatever genetic factors helped them. These might include abilities for collaboration, "reading" other people, intelligence... and perhaps competitiveness, controlled aggression and ruthlessness.

Nurture would include very basic care of infants (e.g. talking to them), and general ways of thinking and attitudes. It's easier to be "successful" if you reach your basic potential by having your developmental needs met. You'll tend to raise your children the same (partly because you've experienced it, partly through oral tradition passed on from grandparents).

NB: I'm not saying "social success" is necessarily a good thing, nor that the factors leading to it necessarily make a better world, just noting what explains the data. Of course, maybe this article is only measuring social mobility, and not claiming social position as complete causation.

Re: Surnames offer depressing clues to extent of social mobility over generations

#50

Post by Spooky23 »

ckuehne wrote: post #20
swombat wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn't agree more on education. Putting a strong emphasis on educating your children to themselves be successful must surely be a strong success factor for them - and something they're likely to do in turn for their own children. Conversely, neglecting your children's education is also likely to be passed on, and also likely to have significant effect. By "education" I don't just mean what happens at school - most…

"This is perhaps more easily understood when you know that the Jewish culture places enormous focus on educating the next generation and on critical thinking" Or maybe it is even better understood in terms of genetic differences: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jewish_intelligence .

I doubt it. Culture is key. Being in the right place at the right time, having a network of folks interested in your welfare, etc is key.

Think of it this way -- how many smart people from school or childhood do you know who didn't amount to much, despite the raw ability to achieve. Now think about your work life -- how many times have worked for or witnessed a blithering idiot in charge of thing at your job or a customers org?

Culture matters.

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