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Comment by jacobgreenleaf | Hacker News Reader

Actually the primary correlate of SAT scores is not intelligence but wealth.

I suspect the actual correlation is not with wealth (i.e. giving money so somebody with low SAT scores would not actually improve their scores - unless he would have enough money to bribe whoever is overseeing the test of course ;) but with some things that correlate with wealth.

It sounds like you heard "causation" when parent said correlation. Correlation is observed in past samples; what you describe is a mechanism for trying to disprove causation, but it won't remove any correlation from the past samples, and it probably won't remove the correlation with historical wealth of the family etc.

Parent said "primary correlate". Primary implies some special-ness, that is not like the others.

I do not see any way "historical wealth" could directly - without intervening variables - influence one's SAT scores. Of course, having affluent parents may mean certain value given to quality education, certain amount of care and access to development tools and so on - but then those should be primary factors considered, not wealth per se.

Money buys access to tutors and training materials. It buys access to free time for practicing for your SAT. It also buys opportunity to repeatedly retake the SAT until you get a grade you like.

...but none of that makes much difference:

"Does test preparation help improve student performance on the SAT and ACT? For students that have taken the test before and would like to boost their scores, coaching seems to help, but by a rather small amount. After controlling for group differences, the average coaching boost on the math section of the SAT is 14 to 15 points. The boost is smaller on the verbal section of the test, just 6 to 8 points. The combined effect of coaching on the SAT for the NELS sample is about 20 points."

http://nepc.colorado.edu/files/Briggs_Theeffectofadmissionst...

OR, those people are wealthy because they have a high IQ, and are likely to give birth to children with a high IQ.

I would bet that's far more likely.

Except that being poor taxes intelligence:

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-08-29/national/41584...

So in fact, it is more likely that people from wealthy backgrounds are able to better utilize their intelligence, and thus retain their wealth and status, whereas people from poor backgrounds are at a disadvantage when it comes to escaping their position in life.

Whereas the wealthy are more advantaged to "escape?" Where do they escape to?

Did you read more than half of one sentence that I wrote? The poor are at a disadvantage when it comes to escaping their position in life; if you need this spelled out for you, the poor are disadvantaged when it comes to making decisions about saving money that could help them improve their financial situation. Wealthy people are better able to make rational decisions about their money, which helps in retaining wealth.

Maybe you should actually read the article I linked to, if it would help you understand what I wrote.

If you are hiring for start up, you do not care why they are dumb. Potentially you can save money by hiring non traditional candidates and paying them less, but any advantage you get this way will be short lived. Unfortunately diamonds in a rough are rare and finding them cost more than their value.

I was originally replying to a comment that claimed that people became wealthy because of their intelligence. My point does not have much to do with the issue of startup hiring (admittedly making the thread a bit off-topic for the article).

I understand the position very well, and I think most people with common sense do. Of course it's harder to become wealthy than it is to achieve other positions in life.

I just think it's a stupid use of "disadvantaged." It implies someone else has an advantage, in to quote you, "escaping their position in life." It's like saying a bad baseball player is at a disadvantage when trying to become a good baseball player. It almost doesn't make any sense.

Same goes with the idea that poor people are disadvantaged about making decisions wrt money. Of course they are, or they quite likely wouldn't be poor any longer. To use baseball again, or any skill really, the experts of course have advantages in deciding the best course of action, and typically have more ways to achieve it.

What I've gleaned here is that you consider poor people to be novices at the skill of acquiring wealth. I agree. For some reason people seem to think it's far different from rookies in other skills, because acquiring wealth is perceived by most to be a vital part of success, happiness, health, etc.

I think the number of dumb but rich people in American politics dis proves your thesis.

Maybe they aren't as dumb - at least in the area that made them rich - as it seems. I can imagine someone bing smart in the university hall and dumb on the street, or vice versa.

Depressingly many people confuse someone making decisions they disagree with or don't understand and someone being "dumb".

oh really if the US had a system like we have in the UK the house of commons would have eaten quite a few high profile US polticians (including some presdents) alive.

Id love to see Paxman interview sarah palin or Ted Cruz for example.

Aren't intelligence and wealth correlated with each other, and both are correlated with SAT and IQ tests? I thought the explanation for the mysterious "g-factor" in intelligence that IQ is supposed to measure isn't that it exists in and of itself, but that a number of measurable outcomes (income, wealth, test scores, GPA, job prestige, etc.) are all positively correlated, and then that correlation is called g.

We need to define some terms. Education != intelligence. The IQ tests are silly and heavily judged as nonsense. These tests are focused on math mostly, but math alone is hardly the only area that matters. However, in this context, math matters, because in many ways it is correlated to programming.

I'd guess that there exists a causal relationship between "intelligence" as measured by standardized tests and the sum of dollars poured into someones education.

The causal relationship is with "success", i.e. exam results and college acceptance rather than "intelligence" per se.

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