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Comment by lynx23 | Hacker News Reader

This study seems like wishful thinking science. Personal experience is very much to the contrary. I actually dont know anyone who was made particularily intelligent by their school. All the intelligent examples I know already came with a head start.

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Speak to some older immigrants who grew up in a rural area of some poor country where schooling just wasn't a thing.

There's so many basic concepts they just don't grasp, and even when explained they still don't seem to understand.

That's not to say they're incapable of anything (if anything, their well-honed gut instincts outperform some modern disembodied intellectuals), there's just huge holes in the types of formal thinking that show up on IQ tests.

I dont have to speak to "imigrants who grew up in poor countries", we have enough simple people in rural areas who never developed any kind of critical thinking, still, they all went through the same school system. After all, we have mandatory schooling since roughly 150 years.

Schooling has been shown to improve all kinds of intelligence way before this study, many times.

What this study is showing is that genes and wealth don't boost nor nerf this effect, specifically on the 3rd to 5th grades.

They make it very explicit that this result shouldn't be generalized outside of this context. You folks are reading too much on it.

>You folks are reading too much on it.

Or perhaps just not grokking what this means:

"What this study is showing is that genes and wealth don't boost nor nerf this effect, specifically on the 3rd to 5th grades."

You're comparing two situation with different wealth. In the first example, wealth used for schooling could have been better used. In the second example, wealth needs to be produced first.

So, this peer reviewed analysis of real data is wishful thinking science compared to your anecdotal observations? I might suggest you rethink your stance based on new information.

It's also interesting, how if school didn't play a factor, putting your kid into a under-performing inner city school wouldn't matter (or conversely, elite private schools wouldn't either)

Do you remember Popeye? Do I have to say more? How long did it take to uncover that spinage does actually not have super-powers? Peer reviewed, dont make me laugh.

If everyone gained a fixed amount of intelligence from school (or even a similar fraction of their initial intelligence) then the order of these students wouldn't change on an IQ ranking. The brightest would still be the brightest. So both your experience and the result of the study could conceivably be true at the same time.

You knew all the smart people you now know since they were kids? And you yourself was a smart kid that could accurately judge intelligence even at a young age? That's all quite impressive especially since most humans have memories that are not at all accurate and we can remember things that never happened.

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