this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2025
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"Superior" level (europe.pub)
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[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Yeah but I'm pretty sure the relative wealth/affluence of the neighborhood you grew up in is significantly more strongly correlated with overall life outcomes, and is also cross correlated with IQ itself, broadly, over many societies and locales.

Which would indicate that focusing on 'IQ' is a red herring, and to a significant degree becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy... not to mention gives rise to an ultimately false notion of a meritocratic society, when the reality is much, much closer to 'its who you know, not what you know', a nepotistic society.

[–] JasSmith@sh.itjust.works 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Yeah but I’m pretty sure the relative wealth/affluence of the neighborhood you grew up in is significantly more strongly correlated with overall life outcomes

That is, surprisingly, incorrect. A meta-analysis by Strenze (2007) showed that the predictive power of IQ is slightly stronger than that of parental socio-economic status (SES) (Table 1). Specifically, IQ measured before age 19 outdoes parental SES in predicting future educational attainment, occupational status, and income after age 29 (see “best studies” on Table 1). In other words, if you want to predict an adolescent’s success in adulthood along a given metric of success (e.g., income, educational attainment, or occupational status), it is more useful to know that adolescent’s IQ than to know the success of their parents along that same metric. In the conclusion of the analysis, Strenze (page 416) argues that this would be unexpected if the predictive power of IQ could be attributed primarily to its association with parental SES:

Despite the modest conclusion, these results are important because they falsify a claim often made by the critics of the “testing movement”: that the positive relationship between intelligence and success is just the effect of parental SES or academic performance influencing them both (see Bowles & Gintis, 1976; Fischer et al., 1996; McClelland, 1973). If the correlation between intelligence and success was a mere byproduct of the causal effect of parental SES or academic performance, then parental SES and academic performance should have outcompeted intelligence as predictors of success; but this was clearly not so. These results confirm that intelligence is an independent causal force among the determinants of success; in other words, the fact that intelligent people are successful is not completely explainable by the fact that intelligent people have wealthy parents and are doing better at school.*

The meta-analysis does find that parental SES also correlates significantly with the future outcomes of the child. However, because youth IQ and parental SES are correlated, it is possible that some unspecified portion of the predictive power of youth IQ is due to its correlation with parental SES (or vice-versa). To get a more precise estimate of the effects of youth IQ (independent of parental SES), we need to estimate the predictive power of IQ after controlling for parental SES.

Success is undoubtedly multi-factorial. Who you know is important. So is parental educational achievement, access to nutritional food, an absence of violence in the home, IQ, etc.

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4749462/

Here is a more recent meta-analysis from 2015 that concludes that the genetic additive effect on total outcomes is significant and distinct from the SES...

But only in the US.

In Europe, Australia, elsewhere, the genetic additive effect is statistically insignificant.

(IE, SES is the dominant factor)

This meta-analysis of published and unpublished data provided clear answers to our three questions.

First, studies from the United States supported a moderately sized Gene × SES interaction on intelligence and academic achievement (a′ = .074; Fig. 1).

Second, in studies conducted outside the United States (in Western Europe and Australia), the best estimate for Gene × SES magnitude was very slightly negative and not significantly different from zero.

Third, the difference in the estimated magnitude of the Gene × SES effect between the U.S. and the non-U.S. studies was itself significant.

...

Fig 1, Variance vs SES, in the US

(my own commentary: the wealthier you are in the US, the more of a complete crapshoot it is whether or not you are smart or stupid... because IQ doesn't matter for wealthy people.)

...

...the cross-national difference identified does not appear to be an epiphenomenon of cross-national differences in the age ranges examined or the particular intelligence or achievement outcomes measured.

...

Interestingly, as can be seen by comparing Figures 2 and S2, these Gene × Age trends closely parallel the U.S. Gene × SES effect. Genes account for considerably more variation in intelligence both at higher ages and in higher U.S. socioeconomic contexts.

Indeed, both phenomena may reflect a process of increased and accumulated effects of gene-environment transactions with the increased opportunity that comes with both social class and age (Tucker-Drob et al., 2013; Turkheimer & Horn, 2014).

...

Without conducting my own entire study...

My read on this is that the genetic component is much more significant in the US than in other places...

... because the US is significantly more economically stratified, nepotistic, and has a broken education system where rich idiots can get all the education they want, and skate by, but you basically have to be a diligent and lucky genius to escape poverty and the shit-tier education it has bestowed you with.

The noted tendency of age to also be correlated with SES and genetics in the US, is again, imo, explained by our vastly broken healthcare system just literally killing you if you are either poor, or stupid.

If I am not mistaken, we are uh, still trending downward on overall life expectancy, as compared to most other developed countries in this study sample set where life expectancy either was not badly affected by COVID, or was but has since rebounded.

...

But uh yeah, going back to this more recent study... looks like genes have a less meaningful impact than your SES in civilized areas of the world.

Here in the US, we only have downward class mobility, unless you are very, very clever, and continuously lucky, continuously reinvesting those gains from your cleverness into social and financial capital without making any 'bad investments', or ever having any sudden medical or financial disaster happen to you.

Kakistocracy: Rule by the least fit to govern, the worst qualified, the most unscrupulous.

...

Anyway, not to sound like I am directing my venom here at you, I do very much appreciate you bringing an actual comprehensive meta analysis and giving a very good and well reasoned read on it, with caveats. =D

[–] JasSmith@sh.itjust.works 1 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

My read on this is that the genetic component is much more significant in the US than in other places... because the US is significantly more economically stratified, nepotistic, and has a broken education system where rich idiots can get all the education they want, and skate by, but you basically have to be a diligent and lucky genius to escape poverty and the shit-tier education it has bestowed you with.

Thanks for the study. I will review in more detail. I don't agree with your conclusion here. Greater association between success and IQ, as we see in the U.S., would imply a higher degree of meritocracy. That is, more intelligent people are better able to break through class barriers due to their performance. This study implies that Europe is more hierarchically stratified, and that one's abilities are not enough to make any difference in success. To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if this were the case.

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 9 hours ago

The US is unarguably less meritocratic than the amalgamated EU by every possible metric.... unless your conception of a 'meritocracy' is 'you have to be a genius to even stand a chance at doing better than your parents, otherwise, all that matters is how much wealth you were born into.'

...

Class mobility is worse in the US.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/social-mobility-by-country

Less people can actually manage to do better than their parents in the US than the EU (broadly, or aggregated and then adjusted per capita).

Income inequality is worse.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient

The EU is thus less hierarchichal, stratified.

You are also not considering that the aggregated EU has better life expectancy, better levels of functional literacy and lower infant mortality than the US, ie, the 'shared environment' is at a higher baseline.

Not to mention the US's political systems have far, far more corruption by way of corporations and the wealthy being allowed to spend infinite money to lobby and advertise and propogandize for their preferred laws and policies.

Look up the Citizens United cass if you've never heard of if, or maybe observe the now regular, astounding and blatantly corrupt deals and grifts the current fascist regime does on a regular basis.

Or, if you prefer an academic source:

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B

Thats over a decade old now, its only gotten worse.

...

The conclusions you are reaching fly in the face of obvious, exceptionally well documented facts.

You are wrong.