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Inconvenient Truths
As George Will points out in his book, The Conservative Sensibility:
America’s poverty problem is not one of material scarcities but of abundant bad behavior. Data demonstrate that there are three simple behavioral rules for avoiding poverty: finish high school, produce no child before marrying or before age twenty. Only 8 percent of families who conform to all three rules are poor; 79 percent of those who do not conform are poor.
None of this is particularly new; we’ve all heard and read the numbers before. Yet, in today’s world, to breathe these empirical truths is “racist”; it’s “blaming the victims.” Victims of what? Of failed progressive policies that dumb down education at the behest of teachers’ unions that send huge donations to progressive politicians? Of failed progressive welfare policies that reward young women for producing babies outside of marriage? Of failed progressive employment policies that penalize companies for hiring low-skilled workers? Of failed progressive housing policies that make low-income housing scarce?
No, of course not. Again, to even suggest such truths is racist. The only politically correct “truth” is that “systemic racism,” not behavior, causes poverty and inequality. The only politically correct solution, then, is to spend scarce resources that have alternative uses to fight systemic racism while continuing to spend scarce resources on progressive policies that create and sustain poverty; that is, on policies that create the inequality progressives claim is the result of systemic racism.
Published in General
Dr. Lorentz is no closed slater just as Thomas Sowell is no blank slater. This article from Quillette I think describes his beliefs.
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Continuation
The evidence that I have read reaffirms Plomin’s work. I’ve never yet heard of any good counterargument that is based on empirical evidence.
Moreover, Plomin’s work follows Arthur Brooks to a T.
Arthur Brooks, who has studied happiness with a monomania, has constantly suggested that 50-60% of someone’s happiness level is genetic. Almost every study of I.Q. and nearly every other trait suggests this ratio. As fraternal twin studies show, there are huge differences in outcome based on someones genetic characteristics. Monozygotic twins that were raised by completely different families show remarkable similarities.
Genetics matter immensely. Of course, being malnourished or abused also matters. But constantly over decades worth of data, (that even many of the researchers don’t like at all) suggest that genetic differences cannot be overcome.
These two videos with Jordan Peterson do a pretty good of summing up the data and why it’s so important to understand.
Linda Gottfredson also does a great job of discussing the flaws with Thomas Sowell’s reference to the I.Q.s of biracial black and German children. In essence, the black-Americans who had children in Germany with the same I.Q. levels as those of regular American white children were not an accurate sampling of the black-American genome in reference to I.Q. There used to be a nice youtube video of this but it was taken down.
Science is complicated.
For the very last time, no. I acknowledged the effect of environment numerous times, even giving specific examples of its importance and specifically addressing your instances (e,g., North Korea) and explaining how they differ from weaker interventions. I also gave an example of a weaker intervention (Head Start) which is a proven failure.
Your response to this reasoning and evidence? Crickets.
Furthermore it is clear that you, and others on this thread, are woefully ignorant of a large body of research and knowledge accumulated over decades of careful study. One can lead a horse to water…
The case against Head Start is not dispositive. What the studies show is that the program has benefits, but that the benefits are short-lived. Once the children leave the program and go into public school systems, any “head start” they’ve gained is dissipated within a year or two. It could be that Head Start simply doesn’t work, or it could be that public schools are so bad and so soul-crushing that they overwhelm any gains, or it could be that the “black culture” of bullying people who “act white” overwhelms any gains.
Your North Korea “evidence” was little more than conjecture that the North Korean government applied dysgenic policies.
Moreover, you basically ignore the evidence that I presented showing that black culture changed very radically in a very short time – one or two decades at most. You don’t even bother to respond to the idea that paying women to have children outside of wedlock might increase the number of fatherless children – presumably because that would be “blank-slate co-religionist” thinking.
I don’t think I’m obsessed with race. But the conversation made multiple references to Koreans so I thought that race was at issue at least in part; and the race issue is being pushed hard, and is the basis of saturating conversations these days.
But I’m glad to hear that you are talking about all races in one, or no races at all, when discussing the socio-economically deprived and their intellectual potentials.
It seems to me that there are four determinants to happiness and other intellect or psychological characteristics.
Genetics, which are relatively stable and inherited.
Epi-genetics, which are more variable and are inherited.
Early stimulation, upbringing and culture.
And that God says that He visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.
I don’t buy this. There are too many studies showing that children from single-parent homes are far more likely to drop out of school, use drugs, end up in prison, and commit suicide than are children from intact families. How does Plomin account for this?
Keep in mind that it isn’t an either or proposition. 50% of every outcome is genetic. That leaves half of outcomes to the environment. It does not seem unreasonable to suggest that children of single parent households come from a genetic stock that is more susceptible to crime and criminality.
I still want to the disciples of Thomas Sowell to hash out the genetic studies with the charter school studies. There does seem to be a disparity in two data-centric approaches to viewing the world.
There are some studies that may serve the purpose. The New York City charter schools accept applicants on the basis of a lottery. Even after being picked, however, the parents have to jump through a lot of hoops (attend meetings, agree to monitor their kids’ work, agree to show up to meetings, etc.). So, the parents have to be motivated. The studies followed children who made it into the charter schools and the children who were entered in the lottery but weren’t selected. They found that both sets of children did better than their peers, though the ones that made it into the charter schools did better. So, that suggests that the charter schools really do a better job.
Now, here’s the tricky part. Can we assume that at least some of the children who were entered in the lottery have low IQs? If so, then charter schools work. I vaguely remember a podcast (City Block?) with the founder of the charter schools, and I think she said that they do have special needs kids.
Is there anyone who’d like to counter the proposition that:
about two thirds, say 40 to 80%, of the variation of intelligence across the population of the western world is attributable with high confidence to genetic inheritance.
Steven Pinker, in his book, How the Mind Works, has a chapter called Family Values which discusses child development and personalities.
Variations in personality
The biggest influence that parents have on their children is at the moment of conception.
Judith Harris has amassed evidence that children everywhere are socialized by their peer group, not by their parents.
Sounds like a good argument for private schools where peer groups can be controlled to some degree.
Peer groups in school but also outside school: neighbors, sports, boy/girl scouts, church, summer camp, etc.