Finding no link between IQ and wealth (rather than income) when controlling for educational attainment and type of work is not very meaningful, because IQ is a major determining factor of educational attainment and the type of work one does.
No. The finding is HIGHLY illuminating, because it shows that individuals with divergent IQs but similar SES backgrounds make the same amount. This shows that SES matters more than IQ. You're just ignoring this because it's inconvenient to your argument, and repeating an assumption you have been unable to support.
It's not like we needed a study, though, because this point is self-evident on this site. Raising high-IQ children is EXPENSIVE, and failure to provide certain interventions can set these children up for failure. For a family that can't afford the investments in time and resources...
I think that this confuses "raising a high-IQ child" with "grooming for material success."
It's
not necessarily "expensive" to enrich a PG child. Even living in a non-urban, fairly blue-collar environment, there are libraries, the internet, and homeschooling opportunities, open source resources, etc.
But it
is expensive to TigerParent. What
costs so much, ironically, are those things that appeal not solely to PG children and their parents, but the things which are also trappings of high SES: private music lessons, travel, competitions, golf/polo/fencing/rowing/horses, designer camps/classes, etc.
I'm not dismissing the value of those things. Well, maybe I
am arguing the
value of those things-- from a purely monetary standpoint, I mean. I'm not sure that they do deliver "value" but I see why they are appealing.
I'm just stating that they aren't as strictly
necessary as many of us have been conditioned to think.
For example: one
can spend thousands each year on just math enrichment/education for a PG 3rd grader. OR... one could spend about $25 USD for Singapore Math's Primary Mathematics (2 full years, even!) and a few hours a week of a parent's time, which is less (by far) than even most standard packages from American textbook producers, and is certainly better quality pedagogically speaking.
Is the larger expense "necessary?" I don't know the answer, but I do know that we chose the $25 route. Maybe we're just 'cheap' that way.
Oh, and
correlation fallacy is, I think, what is currently being hashed out here. That is, while many intelligent people CHOOSE high-dollar career tracks, that doesn't mean that those things
select for high intelligence or have features that particularly require it. Competition tends, ironically, to select not for HIGHEST intelligence, but for
optimal intelligence. This is why physicians tend to cluster around that optimal line.
Anecdote, that. But I have seen a LOT of pre-med, pre-vet, pre-nursing, and pre-pharmacy students. The successful ones tend to be in the upper
third cognitively, but beyond that, intelligence seems to lose its predictive power in light of other factors such as personal work ethic, motivation, and yes, SES. Kids who don't have to work a forty hour week seem to do better in those pre-med courses. Who knew, right?
