I read that article. While those studies are interesting, they are definitely limited and far from conclusive. For example, they didn't control for genetics as far as I can tell. It's entirely plausible that "rich" people are rich in the first place because, statistically speaking, innate intelligence lets them make better financial decisions even under duress.
While it's possible and interesting, I certainly wouldn't make policy recommendations or support charities based on that kind of evidence.
In the meantime, while independent parties come up with something more conclusive, let's try to affect known vectors for stunted childhood development like parental substance abuse, prenatal care, and malnourishment. And, again, these are real problems we should be doing something about anyway.
I don't think you can control for genetics, at least not directly. There is no intelligence genetic marker as far as I know which only leaves testing the IQ/intelligence of the whole family tree as the only option. However getting access to ancestors might not be feasible. On the other hand having a large pool of people is good enough since the distribution of intelligence is usually uniform and not restricted to things like class or parental income.
Here's one way to control for genetics - compare orphans who were adopted early (Pre 1yo) and then see what the correlation between their IQ and both the parents and adoptive parents IQ. (Or use income as a proxy for intelligence; it might be hard to get the dead parents to take an IQ test)
> I don't think you can control for genetics, at least not directly.
That's my point, really. My conclusion is that these studies are interesting, but the body of evidence isn't scientifically rigorous enough that it should affect policy decisions.
Are you seriously asserting poverty is not a known vector for stunted childhood development?
Do you realize there are millions of impoverished people in this country who can't afford to eat healthily? You are aware of the effect nutrition has on childhood development right? Do you realize there exist impoverished parts of this country which simply don't have access to fresh healthy food?
There's literally hundreds of ways poverty stunts childhood development...
If you actually read the thread, he's asserting the same thing you are asserting. What he's disputing is the idea that one of the chief reasons poverty is hard to get out of is that, once there, the mind is too fixated on survival for higher intellectual achievements.
Technically, I'm asserting that we don't have enough evidence to say one way or another and that we shouldn't let studies like these affect our decisions or worldviews yet.
I do know that I felt less intelligent when I was more worried about money, as though some fixed cognitive reserve were depleted by worrying about uncertain near-term survival, leaving fewer intellectual resources for long-term planning and development.
Same here. I think the same phenomenon is observable in middle class and below: a person's main concern becomes surviving, leaving less/little time for introspection and learning.
To be clear, I don't deny it's plausible. I deny that the science is convincing. With all due respect, the combination of a few anecdotes and a couple limited studies should not carry much weight.
While it's possible and interesting, I certainly wouldn't make policy recommendations or support charities based on that kind of evidence.
In the meantime, while independent parties come up with something more conclusive, let's try to affect known vectors for stunted childhood development like parental substance abuse, prenatal care, and malnourishment. And, again, these are real problems we should be doing something about anyway.