
Poverty changes your brain to make you less intelligent, study suggests (2016) - joeyespo
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/poverty-intelligence-aging-brain-low-income-inequality-a7333506.html
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shishy
Read the PDF (thankfully it's free!), just want to share an important tidbit
in case people just read the title or don't fully dig in...

> Although the findings suggested that the possibility of reverse causation is
> less likely, it is important to note that reverse causation cannot be ruled
> out completely, given the data in hand. The findings are likely a mix of the
> effects of economic hardship on cognition and reverse causation (i.e.,
> cognition influencing trajectories of economic hardship).

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AlexDragusin
If true, that is a vicious circle as less intelligence means less able to fix
the reason you are in the said situation in the first place and so on.

On a theoretical level, the universal basic income should help with this but
it failed in this case here:
[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/finland-
univ...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/finland-universal-
basic-income-trial-unemployment-experiment-trial-a8769621.html)

~~~
nitePhyyre
How did you come up with that conclusion??

"However, they did report being happier and healthier than the control group.

'The basic income recipients of the test group reported better wellbeing in
every way in comparison with the comparison group.'"

~~~
AlexDragusin
> it did not appear to spur the recipients on to seek work more > But when
> compared to a control group who were not receiving the basic income, the
> test subjects given the money, were not significantly more likely to have
> got back into employment.

I don't think the UBI was meant as a way to make people not want to look for
better ways but to allow one to do it without the pressure of the basic
expenses and bills piling up, that's how I see it. In the context of poverty
and intelligence it would _appear_ as this approach might not produce the
intended results and I think that would be more related to how we're
evolutionary wired to be lazy, there are advantages to that when it comes
energy expenditure etc [0]

[0]
[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00283...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0028393218303981)

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czl
Being poor is mentally taxing. Which bill is more urgent? will I be evicted?
will my kids have food next week? Your IQ test performance suffers if your
head is filled with such worries. Drive your family in a car on a twisty
narrow mountain side road and try to complete an IQ test in the allowed time
at the same time -- would your IQ test performance suffer? Mine certainly
would.

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deogeo
Intelligence testing only gives meaningful results when it is convenient, and
promptly stops working when it isn't:
[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/iq-tests-are-
fund...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/iq-tests-are-
fundamentally-flawed-and-using-them-alone-to-measure-intelligence-is-a-
fallacy-study-8425911.html)

~~~
solveit
I have things to say, but instead, I will quote Gwern on the IQ wars and be
done with it. Mostly because I know more than you but less than Gwern.

> If, like most people, you’ve only read a few papers or books on it, your
> opinion (whatever that is) is worthless and you probably don’t even realize
> how worthless your opinion is, how far you are from actually grasping the
> subtleties involved and having a command of all the studies and criticisms
> of said studies. I exempt myself from this only inasmuch as I have realized
> how little I still know after all my reading.

~~~
deogeo
> your opinion

My 'opinion' is nothing more than a copy of the current consensus, found in
mainstream peer-reviewed articles. And it does not require an expert to notice
journalists apply a double standard on if and how to report results.

Speaking of, why not apply that Gwern quote to the Independent as well? Or
even the study itself? I'm sure it's jam packed of subtleties to grasp and
criticisms to make.

