"Poverty decreases IQ" studies are contentious and not well replicated. Why does it keep getting repeated in 2018?
This Princeton article is from 2013 and talking about the paper, "Poverty Impedes Cognitive Function". Here is some December 2013 commentary doubting the paper:
> Mani et al. (Research Articles, 30 August, p. 976) presented laboratory experiments that aimed to show that poverty-related worries impede cognitive functioning. A reanalysis without dichotomization of income fails to corroborate their findings and highlights spurious interactions between income and experimental manipulation due to ceiling effects caused by short and easy tests. This suggests that effects of financial worries are not limited to the poor.
What do you mean? Why shouldn’t it be discussed? Criticism of methodology doesn’t necessarily mean the conclusions are wrong or not worth exploring or validating. One critique doesn’t disprove the hypothesis, and it’s certainly possible the critique is flawed as well. It only took a second to Google Mani’s rebuttal to the critique: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/342/6163/1169.5
> "Poverty decreases IQ" studies are contentious and not well replicated. Why does it keep getting repeated in 2018?
The reason might be common sense. The evolution of the human brain was possible for a great part because humans started to cook their food. Poverty reduces nutritional intake. Therefore the studies make sense. This means that (imho) somebody should prove the opposite to make this completely logical meme go away.
This isn't just wrong, it's fundamentally wrong. The burden is on those who wish to forward a positive claim. The meme won't go away because it nicely confirms a popular and comforting narrative.
What we're talking about here isn't "a popular and comforting narrative," it's a description of a plausible model involving mechanisms that are at least partially understood.
Once you're at that point, whether a challenge to that model or the model itself constitutes a claim that bears the greater burden of proof isn't as clear as it might be for any arbitrary claim.
Analogy: somebody claims that gravity is 10% stronger in New York City. The popular and comforting meme is that gravity works just normally in NYC. Who needs to prove anything?
This Princeton article is from 2013 and talking about the paper, "Poverty Impedes Cognitive Function". Here is some December 2013 commentary doubting the paper:
> Mani et al. (Research Articles, 30 August, p. 976) presented laboratory experiments that aimed to show that poverty-related worries impede cognitive functioning. A reanalysis without dichotomization of income fails to corroborate their findings and highlights spurious interactions between income and experimental manipulation due to ceiling effects caused by short and easy tests. This suggests that effects of financial worries are not limited to the poor.
Comment on "Poverty Impedes Cognitive Function". Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259207757_Comment_o...