Poemranker [Replying] Thu Nov 21 22:55:24 PST 2024

Replying to a comment on:

Bri's Room (not done) (Free verse) by Sunshine Conkey

A little girl named Bri had an awful lot of stuff she saved and saved it but it wasn't enough. She put it in a closet and stacked it on the floor But even when her room was filled She wanted more and more. One day while playing She wanted her special pen to draw her favorite doll. But after looking everywhere, she couldn't find them at all.

zodiac

13-Dec-05/9:41 AM

Perhaps I've made it sound like I'm saying financial good fortune is the only cause of intelligence, or only people from well-off backgrounds are intelligent, or no poor people are. I'm saying none of these things.

It is, however, easily proveable that
(1) on average, people from wealthier backgrounds score higher IQs than people from poorer backgrounds,
(2) education has a direct influence on IQ scores, even though IQ is supposed to test some natural intelligence separate from mere learned information or skills.

That's not a particularly pleasant (or even useful) thing to say. But it's true.

I see no basis for saying bad fortune causes intelligence. I've lived among all kinds of poor, middle-class, and upper-class people, and not seen any extra intelligence on the parts of poorer peoples. From personal experience I can tell you the only thing keeping 90% of Arabs alive right now is stubborn adherence to traditional ways of doing things - ways modern Arabs have no intelligence, or understanding, about. Anyway, I've seen the studies. The differences continue right across the board.

I think we can agree we're not talking about KNOWLEDGE (ie, long division, or the elusive capital of North Dakota); we're talking about intelligence, which *should* be (and mostly is) a measure of problem-solving, critical-thinking, and pattern-finding abilities, among other things distinct from knowledge. These shouldn't be affected by standardized education, but they are. Wealthier people have greater access to education; ergo, higher IQ on average.

Comfort is the greatest promoter of innovation. Otherwise, how is America (and, specifically, moderately well-off America) the leader in every kind of innovation, while NO poor country or culture has innovated anything of note since fire? Yes, America has more resources and opener social norms pushing for innovation, but how did America get those resources and norms. Mostly by innovation. On another track, I bet you'd be hard-pressed to name 5 political, artistic, or technological innovators who weren't from well-off backgrounds, if not well-off at the time of their innovations.

I don't have the figures with me, but if I were forced to guess (at gunpoint, natch,) I'd say the statistical difference between various income levels' IQs is greater than the difference across genetic lines. Otherwise, how do you explain that America (ie, the most diverse genetic pool ever) is more intelligent by every measure than, say, Japan (ie, a more-or-less homogenous group proven to be genetically inclined toward intelligence)?

I don't agree with any of the rest of your comment, for reasons which should be obvious. Making a point with Ayn Rand? That's shaky. Very shaky.

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