midnight Target: Myth: Social intervention cannot raise IQ. So let's hope someone conducts a representative study covering pre-birth through maturity.
I see clear contradictions with the results in this article.
How come intelligence differences in whites do not "fade" - intelligence at 6 years old is the best predictor of intelligence at 18 - but the "Head Start" results disappear?
Nobody argues that it is possible to remove negative effects of malnutrition - bringing abilities to the genetically-determined level. Above that - not much success to show.
Other results cited there - I can take a guess about few wholes those studies might have had. I may be wrong but without seing the conditions of the study I do not know. I will try to look up the originals.
Example:
Socioeconomic status change and IQ of adopted children.
...lower or upper class biological parents who had been adopted by lower or upper class homes It would be hard for me to believe that the sample babies were truly randomly assigned to parents.
Wouldn't upper class parents try select the best available babies? Like from a poor misguided girl who might not be ready to start a family, but healthy, good looking, apparently smart and not abusing drugs, alcohol, etc.?
Poor people have problem with adoption approval. They take what they can - even if they realised implications of the poor choice.
Wealthy know their adoption will always be approved. They can pick and chose. How many IQ points bias would selection by smart wealthy adoptive parents introduce?
How would a poor family grab a hold of a baby from an upper class household? France is an
extremely egalitarian society. children of wildly varyiing backgrounds get much closer educational environment that in US. So to make a large difference, the lower class should be really, really low. I am surprised there were so many so bad households that were allowed to adopt babies.
Was there something wrong with the babies to explain upper class parent's willingness to part with them?
Oh, yeah:
A few qualifications about the study bear mentioning: the sample size was very small (38 children), and it is unknown exactly how rich or poor the parents were, or what their IQs were. - just 38 children in the study. Unknown parents IQ? Isn't it likely that biological parents from the upper households who have unwanted babies are very likely to be of low intelligence. In fact low-intelligence better that social status predicts if you end up with an unwanted baby.
How about this:
"The problem, obviously, is that no one knows how to equalize environments upward on so grand a scale, particularly since so much of what goes on in the nurturing of children is associated with the personality and behavior of the parent, not material wealth." (17)
This is a truly remarkable statement. First of all, it's a political and economic argument, not a biological one. It abandons their original claim that social intervention cannot raise IQs, and now argues that we do not possess the political will or economic ability to do so. That's an outright lie. The (17) statement claims that the personality and behavior of the parent are most important, not wealth.
The artcle's claim "First of all, it's a political and economic argument, not a biological one." seems completely incoherent. How do you equalise upwards parent's personality?
How do you politically or economically change parent's behavior? Their love of children, interests, reading books to the kids?
They just plugged usuall socialist slogan for redistribution of wealth without even seeing if it applies.
Smart people have smart children. Smart people also tend to be wealthier - but even if you make them poor, they will still have smarter children. Wealth (outside of starvation) is not a biggest factor.
Anyway, thanks for reference. I will look it up time permitting.
miko
