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aresant

Ahhhh freakonomics, meaninglessness-mass-market-pseudo-data-into-linkbait at its finest!

Their read is that "Smarter" kids = Math and Science test scores.

Is that how you measure "smart"?

- What about musically smart?

- What about non-linear thinking (classic entrepreneur trait)?

- What about decision making capabilities?

Freakonmics is link-bait data drivel that, due to its mass appeal, is dangerously influential.

It gets under my skin because you'll often see Freakonomics data repeated as "truth" in the media or in casual conversation.

Truth is not their product.

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So in other words, it is not responsible to ever use the word "smart" in a headline?

The first paragraph of the article is in conflict with the headline:

"The positive effects were seen only in older siblings, not in younger ones."

So the headline is false.

Your "kids" won't be smarter.

But maybe the older one will be.

Then the rest of the article just fills space.

It's linkbait, which is my expectation with anything from Freakonomics.

My problem is that their headlines are disseminated as gospel and repeated verbatim thousands or millions of times, until that headline becomes a truth.

And winds up in a parenting book.

And causes somebody to make a decision based on false data.

Maybe I have too active an imagination, but this just gets under my skin.

Your imagination is just fine. My mind went there too! This is just an entertainment fluff piece. I think I'm spending too much time on HN as I'm starting to feel like a lot of crap is getting on the front page. Who can I blame but the people who submit and then up vote it. So if that's who is to blame then maybe HN is getting diluted. or maybe I'm becoming elitist? Or I'd better get off here for a but and find something to do :)

So to update the headline to your (very reasonable) criteria:

"Study: Oldest children test scores higher when 2+ years older"

It may be more responsible to use more exact terms like "academic performance" or "test scores" in headlines.

Personally, I find all of the focus on doing things to make one's children "smart" to be kind of creepy.

I don't find it creepy at all. Some people can obsess and that's not cool. My family always placed a high importance on intelligence. Not grades or test scores but real intelligence and thirst for knowledge. So when I'm ready to make some kids I really want them to be smart and I know I'll end up putting a lot of effort into making sure they are more intelligent than I am and then everyone else as much as I can without hurting the kid or giving him a complex.

There is a difference between what your family did and the deluge of plastic toys that play 8 bars of Mozart with the promise of making your children smarter.

Go shopping for infant toys sometime, you will see what I mean.

It seems that there should be a correlation between scores and what people consider as smart. People identify smart easily, just as they identify dumb. Someone must have done the statistics.

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