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This sheds light on the "NYT opinion: No (rich) child left behind" thread. The elites will of course try to boost the careers of their children, but some of the success of their children will result from the high IQ's they inherited from their parents.

I can agree that this is true. To what extent the effect is one versus the other is not at all clear, however.

If it is mostly the former, then that is a problem (societally). Given rising wage disparity, it's a very real concern, however, that such a thing is becoming more and more true... or at least that it is the case that relatively few children of the lower 2/3rds of the SES can seem competitive with the children of the top 1% of it. Not because of innate cognitive differences (which would be fine, if true) but because of a lack of opportunity and measuring methods that are only proxies for high cognitive ability.

That is, if EVERYONE were IQ tested using the same unimpeachable tool-- one which could not be "coached" or "studied for" and which ACTUALLY reflected whatever it is that we can consider truly "high cognitive potential" and not some imperfect proxy of that elusive trait-- THEN we could make these kinds of comparisons and know precisely the contribution of other factors.

But we definitely do not have that situation; not even remotely.


Schrödinger's cat walks into a bar. And doesn't.