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Why The Pentagon run the best schools and the safest nuclear program

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Re: Why The Pentagon run the best schools and the safest nuclear program

#81

Post by s1artibartfast »

culll_kuprey wrote: post #63
somenameforme wrote: post #9

This seems like a clear selection bias. One of the reasons, and probably the main one, that public schools are awful is because a very small number of highly disruptive kids can completely ruin the education of an entire class of other kids. Public schools generally have no way to get rid of these children and their parents also generally don't care. These are also of course the kids that are going to score abysmally…

> in these households are going to have minimum of IQ that's higher than the normal minimum since that's a prerequisite for enlistment. Is it? I know they’re a lot more selective than historically, but I was under the impression that a low 30-something asvab score qualifies you for at least infantryman. Is that really above average IQ?

If you take any distribution and cut off the bottom X percent, the new average will be higher. I think this is the point they are making.

Simply excluding the mentally handicapped or dysfunctional drug addict parents would have an effect

Re: Why The Pentagon run the best schools and the safest nuclear program

#83

Post by ottah »

somenameforme wrote: post #9

This seems like a clear selection bias. One of the reasons, and probably the main one, that public schools are awful is because a very small number of highly disruptive kids can completely ruin the education of an entire class of other kids. Public schools generally have no way to get rid of these children and their parents also generally don't care. These are also of course the kids that are going to score abysmally…

I'm a former military brat, and went to DOD schools from 1990 to 1998. My school had a mix of Air Force, Navy, Army and NATO kids. Here's what I remember.

* Almost every parent had college education.

* Classrooms generally were small, with around 20ish kids per class.

* Facilities were very well maintained and funded. Nothing was ever really broken, or stayed broken for long. Nothing looked worn, equipment was generally kept up to date. We had our own bowling alley, swimming pool, theater, lecture halls, music building, indoor basketball courts and two soccer fields, one baseball diamond.

* There weren't really any kids with parents struggling financially. Parents were involved with the school on open days.

* There were some problem kids, but everyone moved so often, it didn't matter.

* If a kid ever did something bad enough the parent would get in trouble. One family I knew had to move back the US after the kid said a racial slur.

* You didn't make any lasting friends, because again, everyone moves frequently.

Basically, short answer, you went to the same school as the officer's kids, so the schools were nice for everyone. Moral of the story, send your kids to schools in affluent neighborhoods.

Re: Why The Pentagon run the best schools and the safest nuclear program

#84

Post by culll_kuprey »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #81
culll_kuprey wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in these households are going to have minimum of IQ that's higher than the normal minimum since that's a prerequisite for enlistment. Is it? I know they’re a lot more selective than historically, but I was under the impression that a low 30-something asvab score qualifies you for at least infantryman. Is that really above average IQ?

If you take any distribution and cut off the bottom X percent, the new average will be higher. I think this is the point they are making. Simply excluding the mentally handicapped or dysfunctional drug addict parents would have an effect

While I’ll grant you the mentally handicap. I promise you there are many in the military with dysfunctional drug addicted parents.

Re: Why The Pentagon run the best schools and the safest nuclear program

#85

Post by s1artibartfast »

culll_kuprey wrote: post #84
s1artibartfast wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you take any distribution and cut off the bottom X percent, the new average will be higher. I think this is the point they are making. Simply excluding the mentally handicapped or dysfunctional drug addict parents would have an effect

While I’ll grant you the mentally handicap. I promise you there are many in the military with dysfunctional drug addicted parents.

yes, but we are talking about the children of active military families. There are fewer dysfunctional crackheads and whatnot in the active service than general population.

Re: Why The Pentagon run the best schools and the safest nuclear program

#86

Post by tptacek »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #78
tptacek wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, just so we're clear that heritability isn't genetic determinism; it's a correlation statistic. All sorts of things are heritable that are absolutely not fixed by genetics. And there are things fixed by genes that aren't meaningfully heritable!

Of course it's not determinism but it is statistically causal. The point is the distribution of the student body is going to be different in a pretty significant way.

"Statistically causal"?

Re: Why The Pentagon run the best schools and the safest nuclear program

#87

Post by Dylan16807 »

tptacek wrote: post #86
Dylan16807 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it's not determinism but it is statistically causal. The point is the distribution of the student body is going to be different in a pretty significant way.

"Statistically causal"?

You said correlation, I said "causal" because it's going from parent to child.

"statistically" meaning any individual child could have any IQ, and genes are only one factor out of many, but when you measure the entire group the graph of IQs is going to look different.

A comparison would be like, filtering IVF in 50 couples based on X/Y chromosomes and measuring height. That filter doesn't decide how tall a child will be, but it does shift the average. The filter would cause a height change, on a statistical basis.

Re: Why The Pentagon run the best schools and the safest nuclear program

#88

Post by tptacek »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #87
tptacek wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Statistically causal"?

You said correlation, I said "causal" because it's going from parent to child. "statistically" meaning any individual child could have any IQ, and genes are only one factor out of many, but when you measure the entire group the graph of IQs is going to look different. A comparison would be like, filtering IVF in 50 couples based on X/Y chromosomes and measuring height. That filter doesn't decide how tall a child will…

This is all very fuzzy. "Heritability", of the sort that we have numbers from peer-reviewed articles on, means something specific, and that specific meaning is not genetically causal.

Re: Why The Pentagon run the best schools and the safest nuclear program

#89

Post by Dylan16807 »

tptacek wrote: post #88
Dylan16807 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You said correlation, I said "causal" because it's going from parent to child. "statistically" meaning any individual child could have any IQ, and genes are only one factor out of many, but when you measure the entire group the graph of IQs is going to look different. A comparison would be like, filtering IVF in 50 couples based on X/Y chromosomes and measuring height. That filter doesn't decide how tall a child will…

This is all very fuzzy. "Heritability", of the sort that we have numbers from peer-reviewed articles on, means something specific, and that specific meaning is not genetically causal.

That wiki page lists a lot of evidence that a meaningful chunk is genetically causal. Is there a strong reason for me to think otherwise? Even the pessimistic numbers from gene mapping that are cited are .1-.2

Re: Why The Pentagon run the best schools and the safest nuclear program

#90

Post by tptacek »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #89
tptacek wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is all very fuzzy. "Heritability", of the sort that we have numbers from peer-reviewed articles on, means something specific, and that specific meaning is not genetically causal.

That wiki page lists a lot of evidence that a meaningful chunk is genetically causal. Is there a strong reason for me to think otherwise? Even the pessimistic numbers from gene mapping that are cited are .1-.2

I mean, start with the fact that it's a correlation statistic and not a causal statistic and just work your way back from that. Heritability --- of the kind with a research literature cite record --- is simply the ratio of phenotypical variation to genetic variation. The number of fingers on your hand is not, in that statistic, highly heritable.

I don't think there's a Wikipedia cite that's going to get you over that speed bump in your argument.

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