On: Americans’ IQ scores are lower in some areas, higher in one

[dragonwriter]

> I don’t know whether it’s true but I’d bet money that parents net worth, avg income, or zip code are even better predictor of those outcomes.

IQ correlates with them after controlling for those factors (and parental wealth, at least, does too, controlling for the others and IQ). Not sure if the others explain anything not explained by parental wealth and IQ, but probably a little bit. (But, e.g., zip code will overlap a lot with both wealth and the non-wealth variation in IQ, the latter since geography will predict some environmental issues known to adversely impact IQ.)

[drewcoo → dragonwriter]

After controlling for what are probably the most important factors, there's a correlation in something. Is that even meaningful?

[dragonwriter → drewcoo]

> After controlling for what are probably the most important factors, there's a correlation in something. Is that even meaningful?

To the extent understanding the dynamics of the effect is “even meaningful”, yes, understanding the contributing factors other than the most important is likewise meaningful.