
Schooling in adolescence raises IQ scores (2011) [pdf] - lainon
http://www.pnas.org/content/109/2/425.full.pdf
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chipperyman573
Doesn't this just mean that IQ Scores don't measure what they're supposed to?
My understanding is that IQ scores measure how smart you COULD be, all things
considered. But if you can increase this with schooling, isn't it just how
smart you are right now?

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lainon
From my own experience, you're able to prepare for IQ-tests. I scored slightly
below average (below 90 actually) on the IQ-test I did with 7. Average (104)
on the one I did with 16. And actually made it in to Mensa with a result of
144 on the IQ-test I did aged 18. I was in a good mood the day I did that IQ-
test, and learned math, memory techniques etc. a few weeks before. So, IQ-
tests really aren't that reliable.

~~~
reitanqild
Around here those tests seems to be careful to avoid maths, memory etc and
only try to test your ability to recognize patterns or find missing solutions.

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gohrt
So you practice patterns to raise your score.

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reitanqild
No, not really. Never felt I had time.

I also think they try to introduce elements that makes it hard to prepare for
the test.

That said if someone has never taken one of these then getting used to how the
test works and doing a sample test could help them get a better score right
away.

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partycoder
IQ scores have to do with a lot of things. IQ can lower due to:

\- not meeting basic nutrition requirements during gestation and early life

\- not consuming enough iodine. iodine gets added to salt to ensure people
consume it.

\- exposure to lead and other toxic substances.

...and mental stimuli.

Some people (notably alt-right Twitter accounts), promote that idea that
certain races have significantly lower IQ, spreading maps of average IQ per
country. It is my duty to call out that as wrong. Having the aforementioned
factors in consideration quickly refutes that idea.

Some people point out that there are genetic markers associated with higher
IQ. To be honest, we haven't listed all of them yet. So I would stay quiet
before pointing out that certain population doesn't have certain SNP.

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gragas
>not consuming enough iodine. iodine gets added to salt to ensure people
consume it.

source?

Also, it's ridiculous to argue that genetics don't affect IQ. There are many
genetic disorders that impair cognitive skills.

~~~
tptacek
You just rebutted an argument he didn't make.

~~~
gragas
Woops, you're right.

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hkon
What really raises the score is practising on IQ test type of riddles and
questions.

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ivan_ah
It would be interesting to see some sample tests. From the data section: _The
measure of IQ used in the analysis was obtained from tests of cognitive
ability administered by the Norwegian military to all draft-eligible men at
approximately the age of 19 y as part of the universal military draft in
Norway. The data from these tests have been widely used and interpreted as IQ
scores for research purposes._

Also interesting, the historical summary of the "distributed" nature of the
Norway educational system: _The reform [...] required that all municipalities
provide their youths with an additional 2 y of standardized education in the
eighth and ninth grades. [...] The reform was introduced at the municipality
level, the lowest of three administrative levels in Norway, with the other two
levels being the national level, which has responsibility for higher
(tertiary) education, and the county level, which has responsibility for
secondary education. [...] Following the reform, the new type of middle school
was administered by the municipalities. Each separate municipality was able to
introduce the full compulsory schooling reform after local officials submitted
a reform plan to a national committee, provided national funds [...]_

It sounds like they used a bottom-up approach rather than a plan forced from
on top, which seems like a good thing.

This makes me want to learn more about how school systems / school boards
work. It seems to be a city-level organizational structure, but there are
provincial/state, and federal rules too. This is a lot of APIs: you pay
federal, provincial, municipal, and school taxes, and then some portion of
your taxes comes to the schools. Surely there's room for simplification...

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setra
IQ scores usually increase with education in youth but as an individual
becomes an adult the child age scores drop off.

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VladKovac
Guys before you take this too seriously, PNAS is a publication repeatedly
criticized by stats experts like Andrew Gelman. NHST techniques are bad, and
there are many papers showing almost zero effects of education.

Plus your prior on this should be pretty low given Turkheimer's 3 laws of
behavioural genetics. Especially since education is more like a shared
environment variable rather than a unique environment variable.

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tokenadult
You shouldn't invoke Turkheimer's three laws paper (which is a good paper) to
make a statement with which Turkheimer would disagree. Turkheimer certainly
agrees with the factual observation that formal education (which is part of
the environment not necessarily shared by siblings in the same family) can
raise IQ. You can look up a paper on which he is a co-author for more details.
(I correspond with Turkheimer from time to time, and know many of his co-
authors and colleagues.)

The link to the paper here is from Eric Turkheimer's faculty webpage at the
University of Virginia, which I visit often to read his latest publications.

[http://www.people.virginia.edu/~ent3c/papers2/Articles%20for...](http://www.people.virginia.edu/~ent3c/papers2/Articles%20for%20Online%20CV/Nisbett\(2012\)%20.pdf)

~~~
VladKovac
Turkheimer's laws are not the property of the man himself! I think it's pretty
safe to say there's no clear winner on what the effects of schooling is _on
the margin_ at least.

You're right to correct me on school being part of the nonshared environment
that's my mistake, you probably know more than me how complicated it is to
extract meaning from the nonshared environment. Also the temporary nature of
the improvements are very confusing. Thanks for the paper.

Here's a summary by SSC (not really an expert but worth reading):
[https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/05/19/teachers-much-more-
tha...](https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/05/19/teachers-much-more-than-you-
wanted-to-know/)

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pasquinelli
I'm curious why this was downvoted.

~~~
dang
Please don't change the subject to downvotes. It never works, which is why HN
has not one but two guidelines against it:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).
Also, as typically happens, that comment is no longer net-downvoted.

We detached this comment from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13180415](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13180415)
and marked it off-topic.

~~~
pasquinelli
But I wasn't complaining about being downvoted, nor was I inviting anyone to
downvote me. A comment not written by me was downvoted by someone who didn't
seem to be represented in the replies to it, and I really did want to know
why, out of actual curiosity.

~~~
dang
I appreciate the curiosity part, but it really is off topic.

