dagblog - Comments for "Why Stay in College?"

Well, IIRC Murray and

M Pearlstein — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 04:02:23 +0000

In reply to There are blogs about higher

Well, IIRC Murray and Hernstein suggested that adoption and twin studies showed that intelligence had a heredibility of .60. That is indeed what many large studies have shown.

More recently Ian Deary lead the following study:

"It has been getting clearer and clearer that any genetic contribution to traits on which people differ – like height and weight – comes about from large numbers of gene differences, each with very small effects," said Prof Ian Deary of the University of Edinburgh, who led the research on intelligence. "We thought that was one possibility for cognitive ability differences, and our results are compatible with that."

To test his idea, researchers looked at more than half a million locations in the genetic code of 3,511 unrelated adults. Each of these sites is where people are known to have single-letter variations in their DNA, called single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). These variations were correlated with the individuals' performance in two types of psychometric tests that are established in assessing intelligence: one test measuring recalled knowledge (via vocabulary) and the second measuring problem-solving skills.

They found that 40% of the variation in knowledge (called "crystallised intelligence" by the researchers) and 51% of the variation in problem-solving skills ("fluid-type intelligence") between individuals could be accounted for by the differences in DNA. The results are published on Tuesday in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.

Previous work on the environmental and genetic contributions to cognitive ability has been based on comparing intelligence in identical and non-identical twins, or studying it in people who were adopted. In the study led by Deary, the conclusions were gleaned from direct testing of people's DNA. "It is the first to show biologically and unequivocally that human intelligence is highly polygenic [involving lots of genes] and that purely genetic (SNP) information can be used to predict intelligence," Deary wrote in the journal paper."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/aug/09/genetic-differences-intelligence

There are blogs about higher

Pat — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 19:09:00 +0000

In reply to Why Stay in College?

There are blogs about higher education everywhere, whether they be for or against aiming for a college degree. Check out this article about some of the best blogs out there: [link deleted]

What was it Zonker from

brewmn — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 13:21:21 +0000

In reply to Of the 317K waiters with

What was it Zonker from Doonesbury said about being a sophomore in college? Those were the best seven years of my life?

I did see that review, but I

Donal — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 10:17:24 +0000

In reply to Have any of the people you

I did see that review, but I want to see the film before I blog on it again.

Have any of the people you

brewmn — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 04:13:40 +0000

In reply to Why Stay in College?

Have any of the people you cited actually been to college themselves? I mean, the curriculum isn't that hard, and lots of people I wouldn't normally consider supremely intelligent do just fine.

I guess I'm trying to say that the hoi polloi the Murrays and Vedders want to deny a college education to are generally a lot smarter than these pseudo-academics give them credit for being.

And, if you want to read a fantastic takedown of Waiting for Superman, read Diane Ravitch's essay in the current New York Review of Books. I wanted to blog it here, but time just does not permit. I would like to tattoo the main points of her essay on the foreheads of the politicians and bureaucrats currently deciding the future of American education.

I have had to listen to my

trkingmomoe — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 23:17:46 +0000

In reply to Why Stay in College?

I have had to listen to my in-laws comment for years on how my education didn't benifit me. Maybe I didn't collect a lot of expensive toys, but I have had an interesting life.

My grandkids start in school ahead because of the time I spend with them exposing them to the world I know about. Children who start to school from under privilage families are behind in vocabulary and not ready to read. If these kid's parents had a good education would not be behind like that even if their families income is low. It improves the quality of life.

I think the first 2 years of college should be free public schools like high school.

It's not the education that

cmaukonen — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 21:57:14 +0000

In reply to Why Stay in College?

It's not the education that is out of whack, it's what it is being sold as. A ticket to a High Pay Check and a Better Life. Which ain't necessarily so any more. I firmly believe in education for it's own sake. To understand the world and the people in it. To be able to make intelligent decisions and to appreciate the finer things around us.

Unfortunately the use of higher education as some guarantee of future wealth has caused it to also fail at the other things as well.

Thank you for this post and

EmmaZahn — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 17:47:44 +0000

In reply to Why Stay in College?

Thank you for this post and the links. They will fit in nicely with my growing collection of evidence against the absolutely insane society in which we live.

Does anyone know exactly when the primary function of colleges and universities became credentialing for jobs anyway? Wouldn't that best be left to trade schools or apprentice and intern programs?

And why does everyone have to have a job anyway? Does anyone else ever wonder if maybe everyone would be better off if some people did not work at all or at least not work in their current field, especially in important and prestigious fields like science or even government.

We have way too many people doing things they should not be doing all because we believe everyone has to have a job they can call their own instead of just sharing necessary work and pursuing other interests in the greatly expanded leisure increases in productivity and our current surplus of workers offers us.

/vent

Of the 317K waiters with

Michael Maiello — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 17:23:23 +0000

In reply to Why Stay in College?

Of the 317K waiters with degrees, how many are "career" waiters and how many are putting themselves through grad school, biding their time, or pursuing some kind of non-standard pursuit. My friends were all theatre types and we did tend to be overqualified for our jobs much of the time, right after we graduated. being overqualified for your job doesn't mean you have too many qualifications.

Also, of course, college isn't about jobs. Or, it isn't just about jobs. To one degree or another it's about functioning in society at a higher level. It's about learning how to think, how to question and how to talk about all this heady stuff and even how to get other people interested in it. Or it's about learning how to do a job. But it's not just one.

It's also part of our extended adolescence in America. We could argue about whether or not that's a good thing but I rather enjoyed mine.