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11 sats \ 15 replies \ @kepford 12 Dec \ on: 25% of Americans Can Barely Read (_The Economist_) BooksAndArticles
The government schools are terrible. It is my firm belief that the only reason some kids are so much more successful is their parents and social circle. The public schools system if you measure it by the money spent would in any other situation be considered an absolute failure. But, since it is run by the government to indoctrinate the masses against revolt or even serious reform of the government it is actually a success.
Parents are the biggest factor. It was a chapter in Freakonomics.
So many teachers today, especially the younger ones, are vocal left wing activists. They think their job or mission is to proselytize their students.
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Maybe but the indoctrination is worse today than 30 years ago
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Its different. It is more apparent and it has shifted dramatically for sure. But 30 years ago the left was pretty much where the Bush style right are today.
More to the point monopolies lead to may problems. One being inferior products. In the context of this post to me that is the key problem. Lack of competition.
I think conservatives fool themselves thinking you can reform a system that is designed to do what it is doing. It must be replaced.
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good point, reform is impossible
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Agreed about teachers dumbifying kids -- hashtag @Shugard
As for source of ability, you're still conflating social and generic environment; parents gave them both, so we can't know from that alone.
(Twin and adoption research help teasing that out)
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Genes are 50%. Home environment is 5 percent. Peer environment is 45%.
But for intelligence or IQ, the genetic component is at least half.
Twin separated at birth studies confirm this simple fact. The blank slaters refuse to acknowlege hereditary
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These are roughly the breakdowns I remember from Pinker's The Blank Slate... But that book was ~20 years ago. Still those exact numbers?
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why would those numbers change?
why would genes be less important today vs 20 years ago?
my source was Pinker's How the Mind Works which was first published in 1996
edit:
have you seen crime stats since 1960? no change in demographics
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what's the probability that the effect size of whatever-studies-included-in-2002-book got the exact correct dimensions of the universe? If I tried to find a meta study of twin-separation studies from the last 5-10 years, would I get identical breakdowns?
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The conclusions would be the same: genes are more important than environment.
How many more studies about genes vs environment do we need?
Its not like anything additional will be ground breaking
Conclusion: basketball players are tall because they are freaks of nature. Growing up in a tall environment is immaterial
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not at all what I'm saying.
Discovering a fixed distance, say to the moon or sun, or length of the U.S-Canadian border doesn't require any more studies; once we've found it, it's done; let's move on.
But estimates about ephemeral relationships in the socio-biological sphere don't have that property; we can get more precise figures with additional research (larger samples, better longevity, better stats); techniques can show different results; and more importantly, reality itself can shift.
Maybe it was 50:50 at some point, maybe it's 70:30 in the modern world (information, globalization blah-blah).
So I was asking a rather simple question since you seems to have strong views on this: using that as a proxy for having-looked-into-the-weeds, are those 50:45:5 still roughly the leading estimates for nature vs nurture question?
For those that wonder where I'm getting all this. This is far from the only resource but if you wanna really understand it just read The Case against Education.
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