How about: "Kids who grow up in households full of gym/sports equipments, grow up to be muscular/athletic".
The quality of this research may indeed be poor, but the "tall pants" analogy seems disingenuous.
The quality of this research may indeed be poor, but the "tall pants" analogy seems disingenuous.
I'm finding it interesting to consider all three scenarios together. What is the similarly between your analogy and the book study that makes them sound right while the pants analogy sounds wrong? I contend that it is the aspect of growth through practice. My intuition is that these three scenarios exist on a spectrum with regards to how much affect practice has. It is clear that working out a lot results in more muscles, and it's clear that trying on tall pants a lot does not result in becoming tall. To me, it's also clear that reading a lot of books "exercises" some sort of book-reading "muscle". But it's less clear what the follow-on effects of exercising that muscle might be. It's also not clear whether growing up with either gym equipment or books around usually results in heavy use of those things!