<p>@tokenadult: What timing. I got Flynn's book fairly recently but it sits unread for now next to The G Factor. This thread's gonna bump that book up in my queue.</p>
<p>I read some overlooked links regarding IQ changes in childhood, and stand corrected. </p>
<p>Even if IQ averages and or SDs differ between "races" and gender--and much was asserted about the latter too, well, so what? </p>
<p>It's not like we should go, OMG, and proceed to revoke rights, end H1Bs (oh wait...or increase them?), send women back to the kitchen, and sell our country to China or Israel... With so much unknown about human cognition and mental abilities of all sorts, an IQ exclusive view of mental worth is too narrow.</p>
<p>To kick this tangent back to secantville, maybe this recession coupled with "information age" changes will stimulate new thoughts regarding education. Ahh nevermind.</p>
<p>
[quote]
It's a collection of genes which identifies someone as coming from a certain geographic ancestry.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Which collection? </p>
<p>I have cited reading material already that responds to these misconceptions. </p>
<p>I am puzzled, by the way, by the bad degree of thread hijacking here, both as to posts that are nonresponsive to the topic of the thread (yeah, I know, the bane of online discussion in general) and as to the number of posts by persons who evidently aren't parents. The thread-opening post had a title, and it was in a particular forum. What's so difficult to understand about that?</p>
[/quote]
Ummm, how exactly do you think we are able to take blood samples and determine race (or PC placeholding word)?!?!?!? </p>
<p>
[quote]
I have cited reading material already that responds to these misconceptions.
[/quote]
What misconception? That there is no such thing as common genes (patterns of genes, really) within a family structure (however large)?</p>
<p>
[quote]
I am puzzled, by the way, by the bad degree of thread hijacking here, both as to posts that are nonresponsive to the topic of the thread (yeah, I know, the bane of online discussion in general) and as to the number of posts by persons who evidently aren't parents. The thread-opening post had a title, and it was in a particular forum. What's so difficult to understand about that?
[/quote]
This forum is exclusive to parents only? Time to start kicking people out of the discussion!</p>
<p>
[quote]
Ummm, how exactly do you think we are able to take blood samples and determine race (or PC placeholding word)?!?!?!?
[/quote]
The short answer is that we aren't.</p>
<p>There are certainly companies which advertise such services, but their results aren't reflective of some underlying racial truth. There's no way, given the extreme admixture of human populations, to look at someone's DNA and write a detailed history of his or her ancestry. We're not really different enough at a genetic level. It's all palm-reading.</p>
<p>on the distinction between genes that don't do anything to a phenotype (and thus may be very useful for tracing lineages, but completely without consequence for observable characteristics of the organism) and genes that influence the phenotype and thus are subject to selection pressure. Sean Carroll is an experienced biologist and a very clear writer who can help some of the readers of this thread understand this issue better. </p>
<p>Noting for the record that molliebatmit is a biology graduate of MIT and currently a graduate student in biology at Harvard and thus someone who has relevant training and experience, I'll agree with her factual statement that one cannot give an individual a blood test to determine race. That fallacy is refuted also in </p>
<p>which, if I remember correctly, I previously cited to the thread. </p>
<p>That factual issue responded to, I'll now put on my volunteer forum moderator hat. I'll here announce that anyone and everyone is welcome to comment on the policy proposal made in the New York Times article linked to from the first post and how that might influence a parents' decisions about college education for their own children. From now on, posts not closely related to the thread topic run the risk of being moved off into new separate threads or of being deleted entirely. Thanks for your thoughtful participation. </p>
<p>After edit: </p>
<p>I was on the website of an eminent author on data presentation and found this link to an article by a paleontologist who understands statistics well: </p>
<p>I think Obamas ideas seem more geared towards higher education. I thought he wanted to give 4k a year to all students willing to do 2 years of national service, like Teach for America, etc. Am I that off?</p>
<p>
[quote]
But in no way are uc's and ivy leagues going to be looked upon the same as state schools.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>UCs are state schools. But this is an interesting comment. If many students seek college degrees, at what point do college degrees become largely useless credentials? (Hint: how valued are high school diplomas these days?)</p>
<p>I think what we may see first is further segregation of "useful" and "useless" degree holders into career tracks. So, if you want a degree in, say history, then you don't get as good of opportunities as the chemistry major, regardless of the field.</p>
<p>"I think what we may see first is further segregation of "useful" and "useless" degree holders into career tracks. So, if you want a degree in, say history, then you don't get as good of opportunities as the chemistry major, regardless of the field."</p>
<p>I don't mind if my French Fries Fryer has a Bachelor's degree.</p>
<p>The people who fry french fries in my town are all fully grown adults who by their appearance and accents would seem to be first-generation immigrants from various countries. I don't know what level of education they all have for work that when I was younger was always done by teenagers still in high school.</p>
<p>A few problems with the french fry cook having a bachelors degree. First it is an economic liability to that hypothetical cook and an indication that our society is incapable of making good use of potential resources. Second, it's indicative that many programs within academe have become essentially parasitic and therefore serious reform of curriculum is needed. If four years and 30,000 some dollars are not enough to be instrumental in establishing someone is their chosen career something is seriously wrong within the training for that discipline. And since many who do have bachelors and even grad degrees are working in the lower echelons of the service industry, its clear they are not lazy, or unambitious. If they were they would not even bother to take such work.
Perhaps the issue of weaknesses in collegiate credibility and excessive costs are what Murray was attempting to obliquely address in his essay. </p>
<p>And finally one of the problems in regards to having french fry cooks with bachelors or even graduate degrees is that these conditions are potentially socially disruptive. First these conditions undermine the credibility of the concept that hard work can get you ahead and it also undermines the belief in the systems providing education. Essentially why bother with an education, or belief in upward mobility when the educated fry cook is in the same situation as his coworkers (who might be Beavis and Butthead). For example many of the fry cooks (or other service type work) in my community are people who have lost their status due to layoffs or other harbingers of a poor economy. Or they are middle or lower echelon professionals (such as schoolteachers) who simply are not paid enough in their primary job to support their families or pay costs such as that of their education or inflated mortgages. </p>
<p>Additionally having a fry cook with a bachelors is very indicative of a loss of status for the middle classes. In our society education is believed to be a method of elevating oneself to the middle classes, or preserving ones status within the middle classes. A mass of fry cooks with advanced educations is indicative of a systemic failure. And it could mean trouble, recently the BBC reported that the British economic/strategic think tanks believe there well be serious forms of rebellions amongst the middle classes if their declining status continues. And the British sources indicated this incipient rebellion could take place in the developed countries. Which obviously could at best be socially disruptive or at worst be socially destructive. What the British report alluded to, but did not outright state, was potential for revolution.</p>
<p>"But in no way are uc's and ivy leagues going to be looked upon the same as state schools...."</p>
<p>From a Californian poster, obviously.</p>
<p>UCLA and UC Berkeley are indeed nationally renowned universities. All those other myriad UC schools? As far as most non-Californians are concerned, they're just run of the mill state schools. It is amusing to me when Californians think that the rest of the country knows or cares about their state schools beyond UCLA and UC Berkeley.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Perhaps the issue of weaknesses in collegiate credibility and excessive costs are what Murray was attempting to obliquely address in his essay.
<p>Likely that was Murray's admirable intent to provoke discourse on the matter. </p>
<p>But perhaps the inclusion of the IQ elements was unnecessarily distracting or provocative on Murray's part. </p>
<p>Having an advanced degree he should have known that academics for have an almost congenital inability to discuss the IQ paradigm dispassionately. UFO's, sports teams, the stock market, religion, and even departmental affairs (those kind) can be brought up with less trouble than the IQ testing and assessment issue.</p>
<p>Too many people have degrees nowadays and it takes a great deal of effort for people with high intelligence to put themselves apart from the average.</p>
<p>nobody have dare to say anything regarding US president Barack OBAMA, I DONT WANT TO SAY ANY THINGS REGARDING Generation Drop Out OF OBAMA.
THANKS</p>