Comment by Moshe_Silnorin | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Moshe_Silnorin | Hacker News Reader

I think it's worth pointing out that education is a filtering mechanism, if a terribly inefficient one. After basic maths and literacy are learned, it imparts little on the average student. A collage degree is a proxy for a reasonable IQ and moderately high conscientiousness. Thinking of education as an inefficient filtering mechanism helps illustrate why our frenzy for more education is misguided. Certainly more efficient filtering mechanisms (like a test-based credentialism where instruction and assessment are separated) would be very useful but they will not increase the amount of people with the mental characteristics (high intelligence and conscientiousness) that are becoming increasingly valuable in the modern economy, nor will it decrease the portion that lack these things. Panning does not create gold.

I think a good assumption is this separation was and is a basicly unavoidable result of technology and economics, not any policy or set of policies. We wrestle not with flesh and blood:http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/03/07/we-wrestle-not-with-fle...

This sounds a lot like the "Just World" fallacy under the cover of genetics. At one point 99% of the population was illiterate and living in thatch huts, and no doubt members of the elite at that time also considered this to be an expression of natural order as well.

But as it turns out, almost all of those peasants were capable of learning to read, doing algebra, engaging in abstract reasoning, labor coordination, and operating some fairly complex machinery. Many of them were even capable of becoming software engineers. We know this, because pretty much all of us came from them, and if we can do it, they could've done it, given the proper environment. Someone advancing your argument 1000, 100, or even 50 years ago would've wrong, what makes your argument different?

Of course we shouldn't expect equal outcomes from all people, but to suggest that we've now reached such a level of access and fairness in society that everyone still at the bottom can't possibly be elevated any further seems... unintelligent.

You might enjoy reading A Farewell to Alms [1].

More importantly your two positions are not excludable. It is possible that the elite of the past were wrong and some segment of the population is incapable of being raised any higher. I personally doubt this is the case, but it has not been ruled out.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Farewell_to_Alms

Given the variance in intelligence I think there probably is an upper limit to how you can "raise" someone.

I also suspect that we are a long way off that, hell who knows what the future looks like, we could end up with neural implants that allow everyone to boost their intelligence/recall.

I'm not stupid but I know there is an upper bound on my intelligence that is lower than many other peoples, not everyone can be Einstein or Hawking.

The more interesting problem is how do we optimise for people reaching their maximum potential or if that is even necessary.

Yes it is pretty unlikely that everyone is right at their maximum potential. The bigger problem of course is that a large section of the population is not wanted even if they achieve the best they can.

At least it cannot be significantly elevated further with the current education system. We definitely need improvements here.

(We, as a species. The particular education system I went through scores much better than the US system in every benchmark, but it's still piss poor at actually imparting skills on pupils, instead of rewarding them for accidentally ending up with them for reasons nobody really understands. I don't think any system has properly figured that out yet.)

Thank you for stating this. I've believed it for a long time, and find it frustrating when others accept that those who are less fortunate or educated than them (or just generally disagree with their worldview) are always going to be that way and incapable of learning or change.

Thank you for saying this. It's too sad how far wide spread this incorrect idea is.

Note that employers aren't allowed to measure and discriminate on IQ, but they are allowed to look at which college a candidate went to. Colleges, on the other hand, are allowed to measure and discriminate based on SAT score, which is highly correlated with IQ.

And since college education is mostly a positional good (it helps you compete against people with worse education for limited jobs), there's a pretty fantastic charitable opportunity for an enterprising lawyer to start suing employers over requiring or looking at college degrees.

What? Employers can't test for intelligence?

Do you have a link that backs up your assertion that "employers aren't allowed to measure and discriminate on IQ".

Griggs v. Duke Power Co: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Co.

You could argue this is the principal cause of our horrifically wasteful college boom.

These tests are considered to be racially and culturally biased, so they are not suitable for employment decision making.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Co.

>The effect of this decision has been to eliminate aptitude tests from the hiring process. During the intervening years, the college diploma has become the "de facto" tool by HR departments to winnow the flood of applications. Many jobs today require a college diploma, while before Griggs the same job did not.

Silicon Valley used to work around this with those infamous "Microsoft brainteaser" questions about how many manhole covers fit into a school bus or whatever. A lot of those questions were taken directly from a set of quiz books written by Jim Fixx. He was was a MENSA guy (high IQ society), and also more-or-less responsible for popularizing jogging in the US.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Fixx

How come employers still use aptitude tests then? It is apparently still legal.

Employers can, in fact, test for intelligence, and a number do (police departments excluding applicants who score too high on such tests -- and the cases validating the legality of that policy -- have been a subject of wide note.)

To the extent such test have racially disparate impact, there is a significant burden in showing that the test is a valid measure of ability to do the job for which it is used as part of the hiring process, but that burden is not impossible to meet.

Regarding "too high IQ for policemen" I've just found a case from 2000. Very interesting. Is there anything more recent?

http://www.aele.org/apa/jordan-newlondon.html

The NFL uses the Wonderlic test which is an IQ test.

IQ tests are most definitely legal.

Note that employers aren't allowed to measure and discriminate on IQ, but they are allowed to look at which college a candidate went to.

Your statement is factually incorrect, but surely honestly made (as I used to have the same misimpression of the law in the United States). You received a bunch of replies (as subreplies) on the point of companies using college graduation as a proxy for IQ. I am trained as a lawyer. Even after I was in law practice, I still had the (mistaken) belief that the holding of the Duke Power case was as you say here (and several subreplies say below). But that is NOT the correct holding of the Duke Power case. In fact, the case held that educational requirements (in the case, those were high school diploma requirements) are just as legally suspect as IQ tests not validated for that job in that workplace if the diploma requirements have disparate impact on different racial groups applying for jobs in that workplace. On the other hand, either an IQ test or a diploma requirement can pass legal scrutiny if it can be shown to be related to bona fide job requirements.

I have a FAQ on the topic[1], which is one of my most popular Hacker News comments ever.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4613543

There's a distinction between what is legally permitted versus what you will get sued over. IQ tests will generally get you sued in the US. Diploma checks generally won't. Neither is legal if it has a disparate impact against minorities (unless you can demonstrate a bona-fide occupational requirement).

What I'm advocating is suing people until the perception that preferring college graduates is legally safe is gone.

Education alone does tend to make people better neighbours.

There is true value in education, but unfortunately the only market demand is for people who are intelligent, conscientious and educated in certain fields. Hit all three and you are in demand otherwise a life of dead end jobs awaits you.

Education is a proxy for IQ and conscientiousness. People with these characteristics (and importantly the wealth this provides) tend to make better neighbours. Zuck dropped out of college, yet I very much doubt he'd be a terrible neighbour, nor would a neighbourhood full of Harvard dropouts be bad.

The scuttlebutt around the neighborhood is actually that Zuck is a bit of a jackass, neighbor-wise.

http://sfist.com/2016/01/13/zuckerberg_neighbor_wages_campai...

Most of the problems seem to be externalities of his fame and wealth. Say Facebook didn't work out and he got a job at Google, I doubt he would be considered a bad neighbour.

>nor would a neighbourhood full of Harvard dropouts be bad.

I think that surveying Alston or Cambridge might not lead to this conclusion.

Yes education correlates quite tightly with intelligence and conscientiousness, but just raising education levels on their own makes for better neighbours. Education is a good thing for all - the problem is we don’t have the jobs to go with all this education.

But more panning in more places finds more gold does it not?

Maybe I misunderstood your point. Stories like that of Jaime Escalante suggest that there's a huge number of undiscovered talent and/or that better teaching makes more talent.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaime_Escalante

That's impressive, but seems more like filtering. Taking the top 15 students in a high school and teaching them calculus doesn't prove that one can make people more intelligent through education, as 15 out of thousands is a huge filter - though still helping those kids was very nobel. As for the higher numbers later in his career, you have to imagine that with his fame intelligent students from other districts were likely filtered to his school. I also don't see a pass rate for the later years.

I've investigated many of the claims that one can teach intelligence. From Dual-N-Back to Head Start, they have all proven to have negligible effects on future outcomes and no effect on measured G. I think there are also pretty solid theoretical reasons to think that "learning how to learn" is not possible, as intelligence is that capacity that enables you to learn, you are strictly limited by your intelligence even when learning how to learn.

There is also increasing evidence in the literature that the theorized transfer effect (that learning one skill increases your capacity to learn other unrelated skills) does not exist.

These are not conclusions that I relish; I advocate them because I think they're true. Better a bitter truth than a sweet fiction.

>There is also increasing evidence in the literature that the theorized transfer effect (that learning one skill increases your capacity to learn other unrelated skills) does not exist.

Interesting. Presuming that such a "transfer effect" is hypothesized to work the same way as transfer learning (in statistical learning, machine learning, cognitive science, etc.), this would be one of the first times mathematical models have predicted a cognitive capability should be commonplace that human beings failed to actually exhibit.

Your argument is hardly related to what he presented. Intelligence is almost defined by your innate ability to learn, not by your actual acquired skills and abilities or knowledge. His example showed you can make a group of motivated students very skilled and knowledgeable in calculus. He wasn't raising their IQ.

However, I'm pretty sure I could find studies pointing to a raise in whatever intelligence metric for those with a college education (specially mathematics or physics heavy) versus a control group that went on to menial jobs.

Actually I'll just post the first few Google hits (only glanced by they severely contradict your claims):

1) http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/39/5/1362.full

Causal relation between education and intelligence metrics observed

2) http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1465-7295.2010....

Correlation between education attainment and IQ

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Moreover, there's the even more glaring correlation (and causal relationship) between success and higher educational attainment, specially in technical fields, where obviously you need a lot of hard to learn knowledge, skills and general ability to learn (that is, I also dispute your claim that education has no effect on ability to learn). I can ellaborate and dig more if someone is interested/skeptical.

"Education is a proxy for IQ and conscientiousness."

Tell that to over 30% of my gifted class who weren't able to attend college (at least not until much later in life).

Education is generally a proxy for wealth, a certain type of culture, and supportive parents, in my experience.

I didn't say it is a perfect proxy. It provides some evidence. Modern credentialism is so awful that even a terrible idea like tattooing people's IQs on their foreheads would probably work much better and be much cheaper.

What you are describing is the signaling model of education (, which I agree with).[1]

[1] http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2011/11/the_magic_of_ed....

I worked a programming job for a law firm. I earned an associate's degree because I could not afford a four year degree. I majored in data processing with the programming option. When I applied for the job only an associates was required and it was 1997. After the Dotcom bubble burst in 1999-2000 HR decided to rewrite job descriptions. So they had me rewrite the job description for my position. I wrote that it needed an associates, and experience in programming etc. HR took it and changed one thing, a bachelors instead of an associates. I suddenly was no longer qualified for the job I held.

I was forced to work extra hours for no extra pay because I was salaried. I was under a lot of stress and assigned other people's projects until I was overwhelmed with them. I worked in St. Louis MO and my wife didn't want me to relocate and be in a different state so my job search was limited and nobody was hiring.

From the stress I developed a mental illness in 2001 and became disabled on short term disability. When I returned from short term disability I was fired for having a panic attack at work. They lost my doctor's notes that excused me and used them against me.

I tried another job in 2002 they used me to get their project to the next level, migrating from Excel to SQL Server for their database and optimizing the code. After the project was done, I was fired.

I ended up on disability in 2003, I went back to college to earn a bachelors but I was never medically cleared to go back to work.

I am 47 now, and I feel like my career is over. I had offers to work in the west coast but I could not relocate because of my wife not wanting me to leave out of state. I'm sure the working environment is different in SV and west coast companies.

But if other white men of a middle age had the stress that I had when working, I can see them developing a mental illness or turning to drug use. I never turned to drug use, but I had problems sleeping and waking up due to the stress.

I had friends who didn't go to college but learned programming by experience, they were expert programmers but lost their jobs because they didn't have college degrees and ended up working in retail jobs to make ends meet like Sam's Club.

I've known people with college degrees that didn't know what they were doing and I mentored them at work to get them started in programming. It is possible to earn a degree and still have problems doing the job they are hired for. For example programming classes teach how to write short programs that are very small, but writing larger more complex programs and how to debug them is not taught. That takes experience in the real world.

U need to branch out and prove what you are saying is true -- and u don't need to relocate... That is the strength of being a uber hacking sw "man of foo" that you are. If you are right, then your true value is an order of magnitude more than your employer is willing to pay. "Good!" -- prove it!!! Go to stack exchange and up your rep. Market yourself and go grab another job... But in all cases, (and respectfully) stop with the whining already.

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