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Comment by rubyfan | Hacker News Reader

It's not immediately clear to me why those carrying out the study seem to interpret their results as justification for policy making and intervention. Serious question, is it not possible that we observe a cause and effect here? Ie. higher mental capacity leads to doing better in life?

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because in the brainwashed world of academia (and especially psychology) this is the more politically correct explanation, which is more likely to get published, get funding grants, get admiration from departmental peers, get media attention, avoid embarrassment for your self/your family/your department/your institution.

James Watson won a nobel prize for elucidating the structure of DNA and was still only 2 non-PC comments away from becoming a pariah.

>>>/pol/

Or maybe it is because there are many researchers who have actually studied the data and found that environmental factors play a large role. A summary of some of the research in this area:

http://futureofchildren.org/publications/journals/article/in...

I'm not disputing the role of environmental factors, I'm just questioning how the potential role of genetics has been diminished in this study without justification.

Also, from your link the only study with ability to isolate causation (the adopted korean study) found "23 percent of educational attainment is determined by environment, implying that up to 77 percent is determined by nature.".

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