Comments on: IQ → Academic Achievement

By: Philip Dick, Preschool and Schrödinger’s Cat | educationrealist

Philip Dick, Preschool and Schrödinger’s Cat | educationrealist — Tue, 03 Apr 2018 05:20:42 +0000

[…] IQs were not. Preschoolers with high vocabularies are just reflecting their superior education. But here’s a nice overview of three recent studies that specifically test whether education drives cognitive ability or the other way around. All […]

By: Philip Dick, Preschool and Schrödinger’s Cat | educationrealist

Philip Dick, Preschool and Schrödinger’s Cat | educationrealist — Sat, 06 Apr 2013 03:35:04 +0000

[...] IQs were not. Preschoolers with high vocabularies are just reflecting their superior education. But here’s a nice overview of three recent studies that specifically test whether education drives cognitive ability or the other way around. All [...]

By: The Real Richard Sharpe

The Real Richard Sharpe — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 17:49:51 +0000

Alex, yeah, I did not post the Gardner stuff seriously, and I expect that most efforts to emeliorate learning difficulties will be genetic in nature.

By: Alex B.

Alex B. — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 16:38:10 +0000

Kevin: It is posted.

Richard:

Gardner writes:

The same means of early detection can so easily be put to malevolent purposes. First of all, we won't just determine deficits that can be addressed, but also ones that cannot be addressed. Second, we run the risk of stigmatizing children from birth?"Oh, you are destined to be illiterate," or "you'll never be likeable, because of your social deficits." Moreover, we will be likely soon to turn not just to deficits, but to efforts to produce the perfect child?to enhance perfectly adequate capacities through genetic, neural, or pharmacological interventions. Not only does this seem to go against human nature and fate as we have known it; it will also privilege further those who are already privileged.

Gag. He is setting up this straw argument of people who want perfect children and will stop at nothing to get them. Oooo. Maybe they will turn out to be the next Batman villain, because in real life I have never seen these people. I have met parents who want the best for their, but to make up a group of uber diabolical parents who want perfect children is ridiculous as there is no such thing as a perfect genotype. Success of one's attributes is very dependent on the environment. What is successful in the Congo is not in, say, Cambridge , MA. Moreover, even in Cambridge, there are a whole host of traits that are successful, so how would one choose? I wish people would stop making not-so-subtle references to Nazism every time genetics/intelligence, etc. are mentioned. Stalin was all for "equality of the masses," and we know how well that experiment worked.

copelch:

I agree. It amazes me that Burt did much of his work in Education, and it was well received. Now, his ideas are looked upon with horror in Colleges of Education. I think a good chunk can be changed by changing the structure of the academic faculty. Not that everyone has to toe the London School line, but having an arena of open dialog and an environment where contradictory hypothesis are allowed to be voiced and (gasp!) tested would be a great step forward.

By: The Real Richard Sharpe

The Real Richard Sharpe — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 16:20:03 +0000

Let’s see. If we allow that g is causative in relation to educability, then we should probably also allow that g has some causal relationship to success in life (see, for example, Gottfredson) … which in turn means that maybe the lack of the same levels of achievement by certain groups is not (all) due to pervasive discrimination …

That might be a tough sell.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 08:44:48 +0000

Could someone post Dreary’s study to the documents section of the forum? It sounds like an interesting read.

By: The Real Richard Sharpe

The Real Richard Sharpe — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 15:27:32 +0000

Early Detection of Learning Disabilities or Difficulties

From Howard Gardner ...

By: copelch

copelch — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 14:46:07 +0000

Alex,

Fascinating material. Yet basically psychometricians have been trying to hammer home the message that education is determined by educability and not vice versa ever since ... the era of Cyril Burt and the London School.

The question is: will the message EVER reach the mass media and the educated public in general?

How many goddam meta-analyses and 50-year mass longitudinal studies and monozygotic twin studies will be needed before the egalitarians concede defeat?

The staying power of ideology never fails to amaze.

Cathal Copeland

By: Munango-Keewati

Munango-Keewati — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 09:43:33 +0000

Let’s see: Kids sit side by side in the same classrooms getting the same instruction from the same teacher(s), but some have higher achievement than others. Since everyone must be born absolutely equal, the difference can’t be related to innate ability (intelligence, IQ). That would be unfair. Prize logic.

By: Dr James Thompson

Dr James Thompson — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 07:57:33 +0000

Once again Ian Deary has got excellent population data and combined it with other data sets to produce clear results. His work is really taking on the concept of intelligence in terms of real life utility, and when his health and longevity studies are eventually completed we shall have a strong case for g being a fitness indicator of the highest order.

By: bioIgnoramus

bioIgnoramus — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 07:33:35 +0000

Good point, OK. It’ll differ between the sexes too, I suspect, unless it happens to be a pre-puberty age.

By: Omer K

Omer K — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 05:37:33 +0000

And I wonder how much of that “threshold age effect” is due to different rates to maturity among the races.
AKA will the threshold age be different or more predictive at different ages for monoracial and multiracial societies?

By: bioIgnoramus

bioIgnoramus — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 04:21:47 +0000

Gor blimey, Guv, who’d a doubted it? More seriously, I wonder if there is a “threshold age” at which g dramatically improves as a predictor of performance-five-years-hence? Age 8? Age 16? Age 22? Age 25? Presumably the old literature would give a pretty good idea.